Things done this week:
Things to fix (Sumomo model):
Things to finish:
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Feedback from Animatic V05
Based on the feedback I scrapped the little peach and did some new brainstorming for the winning peach-- I'm likely to go with one of the flatter ones (I'll be going with the bottom left one for now until I get more feedback) to contrast against the other one, plus I can kind of imagine how it would move (kind of like a hula-hoop spinning against the ground). As for the faces, I took a look at some wrestlers as suggested.
Below are the images I referenced, as well as images from the references suggested by my peers. I'll be posting the new animatic in a separate post! Feedback from Animatic V04
Plus, revamped character sheet! The big peach is now just "Momo"
Admittedly environment has been a struggle for me. A few of the problems I had were (1) sumo areas already looked quite like doll displays so I wasn't sure how to transform it more, (2) I was struggling to figure out how to translate the ukiyo-e style to 3D, and (3) modelling a crowd and animating would mean imminent death. Luckily, we had lecture on Monday about Japanese aesthetics, which helped me realize a few things and fix these issues: (1) Rather than attempting to bring ukiyo-e into 3D I can just use it as is and flatten the appearance of the 3D elements overall. Thus, instead of having an actual crowd, I could turn the arena into a set of screens (reference to doll displays and Japanese architecture) in which the environment itself becomes a single character-- the crowd would become the texture of the 3D screens while the way the screens moved would reflect the atmosphere of the crowd. This way it doesn't even matter if the crowd in the texture is animated or not (though I do want to animate some reactions like jumping up and down and change in expression). This solves both the issues surrounding environment design and the number of background characters! (2) I should have looked at the philosophy behind Japanese aesthetics in the first place instead of just focusing on appearance a.k.a I'm a fool. Pattern resources for later: http://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/japanese https://www.vecteezy.com/free-vector/japanese-pattern Additionl reference: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f1/43/13/f14313e4e32ad1426b35d7d75fa556e3.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a6/a6/e7/a6a6e7d85a3b424464697895f5c1754b.jpg Something I'll definitely be referencing in terms of staging and storytelling style is the 2006 anime series Mononoke. Style-wise, although it's 2D, it does use elements such as linear perspective and creates incredible depth, but still retains its tradition of flatness Watching all those videos really did end up helping a lot-- I think I managed to make the flow of the shots a little better! Below is animatic number 3! Some notes:
January 25th's critique required me to do some research on cinematography to improve my shots. I wasn't sure where to start as sumo isn't exactly a common sport in films so I ended up looking at examples from films about other contact ring sports such as boxing and mma. I also found sumo documentaries and the Every Frame a Painting video on Jackie Chan's action comedy techniques to be particularly helpful. Below is essentially a copy-paste of my notes, many of which seem nonsensical: Fat Bastard – Sumo Wrestling
CREED: Adonis Creed vs. 'Pretty' Ricky Conlan Jackie Chan - How to Do Action Comedy
All About Sumo: the Real Truth 1:13 – Ryogoku kokugikan 7:44 – pan across cheering crowd looking out/(up?) at wrestlers make them appear very grandiose 8:20 – shot of sumo ring for reference 8:27 – pull out birds eye of ring!! Nice!! 9:17 – the house thing lights the ring! I still don’t know what it is!! 9:25 – Some traditional paintings that could be good for visual ref 18:54 – samurai stables are...literally just apartments movies are full of lies they sleep in a row of futons with fluffy cute pink blankets 21:26 – how sumo wrestlers charge
Also more sumo videos to help my with choreographing movement: Sumo -Kyushu Basho 2016 Day 10, November 22nd -大相撲九州場所 2016年 10日目 3:06 – Chiyoootori vs Ikioi Particularly stalling moment at 3:21 4:11 – gyoji actually starts with fan raised then lowers as match starts
Great belt-grabbing reference Sumo Wrestling - Fukuoka / Japan @ November 2015 Sumo sumo A friend also informed me during critiques that spectators would throw their futons towards the ring at the end of a great bout to show how much they liked it, which I had no idea about. Who would've thought! Some things to note:
In all honesty it was pretty difficult to find any information about sumo stadiums in general as the only important parts about it appeared to be the ring that the fights take place in, called the dohyo. I ended up focusing more on images after wasting a lot of time searching for information (though I did manage to finally find out what that tiny house in the middle of the arenas are-- they're meant to represent a shrine! The dohyo is purified with salt before each bout so that makes a lot of sense. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto_origins_of_sumo http://www.japanballtickets.com/japan_sumo_arenas.html Below are some of the images that I collected! I tried to look for Hinamatsuri set-ups that were a little different from the usual red cloth step displays, and most of the sumo images are of Ryougoku Sumo Hall as most, if not all, the images when I searched were of that stadium: Some notes:
Reference sheet for our final main character! However I just noticed I mixed up Japanese plum and Japanese apricot (loquat) so he has the shape of a plum but colour of a loquat so I may have to edit him later. I also did a little bit of extra research to make sure I could give him a coloured mawashi-- higher ranking rikishi are the only ones that can wear them coloured, and the ones used in competition are called shimekomi. They're traditionally required to be dark blue or purple, but apparently this doesn't matter too much so they can come in a variety of different colours. Sources: http://ozumou.com/e/archives/44 https://www.quora.com/What-do-sumo-wrestlers-wear-in-matches I also started modelling the gyoji- I wanted to have him done along with the two wrestlers but the model turned out to be a lot more detailed than I realized so it's still in progress. The goal is next week plus (hopefully) animation test! A screencap of the progress: |
AuthorNice to meet you! I'm Kristine. Currently a third year student studying animation at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Archives
September 2017
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