Hi friends,

overall, my short is coming along good. The preproduction is practically done.

The animatic is almost final. The animatic is a ”rough form of the movie”, made by putting the scanned storyboards in a kind of slideshow. This way you can start working with the timing of each shot and can start adding sound to it. It’s also when the movie is really taking shape and starting to tell it’s own story. Example of Pixar’s The Incredibles HERE.

Even though my script of the story was ”final” before going into the animatic, during the making of the animatic storylines changed almost every day. Things turned out not to be as clear as i hoped. Or there was simply too little happening, or at other moments, too much happening.

I’ll tell you this, it ain’t easy. I find  it hard to deal with the uncertainty of every step. One day you really really really think that you hit the bull’s eye (storytelling wise). The next day you show it to someone and they completely can’t read the story.. (Which is totally my fault, not the viewer’s fault. It’s my job to make it clear and readable.)

But I guess that’s all part of the adventure and the beauty of filmmaking. Sometimes it feels like you’re in the middle of the desert with no water in sight. That sucks. But it sure is awesome when you hit the sweet spot and find an oasis..

So after the 8 story versions of the film,  I have reached animatic version 7.3 … And I think this really really really is IT!    ;-)

A little teaser: a piece of concept art i made, to visualise the mouse’s view of the petshop that he is in.

And here’s me working on the animatic. Snickers (the rascal next to my screen) always keeps me company while working.. =)

Happy holidays everybody!!

Wouter

Hellew visitors,

just wanted to keep you guys up to date. I started storyboarding  my animated short (= drawing and organising all the cameraviews of the movie). The script is almost final, or so it feels.

Don’t let the calmness of this picture deceive you in thinking i find this all fun and play.. =)

Dear friends, meet Snickers.

As most of you guys already know: this mouse is the little hero in my upcoming animated short, due june 2010.

This is an early animation test to see if the rig (=kind of the skeleton of the 3D model) is working ok and to explore his personality.

Next up: texturing this rascal. (This is the reference.)

Here are a couple of older animated shorts I made at the Media & Design Academie in Genk, Belgium. Dating from 2006-2008.

Thought it was about time I’d share them here with you.. Enjoy.

Production has started.

3D model of Snickers is made. Ready for it’s first check-up with the studioguys. Especially to check if it’s all clean for rigging and texturing. (Done in 3Ds Max.)

And the second piece is the (last) concept art I made, to visualise the textures on Snickers. (Painted in Photoshop.)

Hey guys,

here’s the sketchdump I promised a long time ago. These are mostly done in Brussels, Leuven and on the train.

So my year of internships at the animationstudios Walking The Dog and Sinematik (see also here and here) in Brussels are done. It was an awesome experience. So very valuable to me, in many many ways. I’ve met amazingly talented people, all with great personalities. They’ve all learned me so many things, not only about animation. A huge thank you to all those people that have taken me under their wings this last year.

At the same time I’m moving back home (to Genk), from my student-room (in Leuven). I had a great time over there as well, especially with all my friends of the student-house. It was good for me to learn to live by myself. I feel more mature now, but still with a fair dose of childness. ;)

I’ve got july and august off, before my last year of animation at school starts, in september. But I’ll be starting production for my animated short as soon as my new computer arrives. I’m planning on going full throttle with the 3D production starting 1st of august. The movie is due june 2010. The script is written and almost final. Almost all of the designs of the characters and backgrounds are done as well. Time to give birth to this baby!

Here are some (cellphone) pictures taken in studio Sinematik, on my birthday, 17th of june, when I turned 23. I got some pies and arrived extra-early to decorate the studio for an old-school birthday-party. :) I couldn’t find party-hats, so I just made a crown myself. They even gave me 3 beautiful french comic-books! Trop chouette. An awesome ending of an incredible year.

And this might just be the most pathetic birthday-picture ever! Haha, I love it. There were about 20 folks over there, they’re all standing behind the camera.

Macro photos from my macroperiod, last year. Taken with an old Nikkormat FT3.

A photo i took from the projection of one of my more experimental animations, made begin 2008. Dealing with the theme ”the grail”. The drops are 3D, the background is video i manipulated. I’m not too fond of the whole thing, but i do like this image itself.

Here’s the sculpture I made of my short’s main character: Snickers the Mouse.

As you may (or may not) know, my short is the story of a mouse, Snickers, in a petshop. The little guy has got one big problem: because of his huge ears he has a hard time fitting in with the other mice . Will he be able to find a mousebuddy? Maybe one of those humans could help him out…

This sculpture is made out of ‘Super Sculpey’, a kind of professional synthetic clay I bought via eBay. It’s pretty soft and very manageable. It can be baked as well, to make it all rigid and finalise the model. Though, due to the size of my sculpture, I can’t fit him in an oridinary oven.. I’ve read that you can also bake it by using a hairdryer. I tried that and it worked fairly good.

Before adding the Sculpey clay, i made a complete skeleton out of metal wire, attached to the foot, the base. Different thicknesses of metal wire were used. His spine for instance is very very thick, the wire going through his ears is the thinnest. I’m glad I took the time to make a solid structure before adding the clay. Otherwise I would have tons of issues later on.

It’s pretty funny to see the early plasticine models i made, a couple of months ago. Here. They are pretty much falling apart. Haha. And you can tell I didn’t really know yet what i wanted. But it was very good to make these, to flesh out what I already had imagined in my head. They are all part of my search. And you just can’t get things right, from the first try. Just work hard and keep trying.

Next step: 3D modelisation of this baby.