Rhia Crouch's Blog

I have been testing out the different base colours that I can use for Moon's textures. I feel that number 4 is the best starting point for me as it fits in with the descirption of the character in the poem, with a few from the other designs here and there. Colour Test 1 Colour Test 1 Colour Test 1 Colour Test 2 Colour Test 2 Colour Test 2 Colour Test 3 Colour Test 3 Colour Test 3 Colour Test 4 Colour Test 4 Colour Test 4

I have been testing out what the colours for my characters should look like as this is something that I havn't set in stone yet. Being able to see the colours on the models has helped me work out what is working and what isn't Out of the 4 that I have done I feel that the 3rd design fits the design of the character as it is what I imagine the colours of a human Sun to look like. After I have worked out what the base colours are going to be, I will start to use this for the textures so that I'm not starting from scratch. Colour Test 1 Colour Test 1 Colour Test 1 Colour Test 2 Colour Test 2 Colour Test 2 Colour Test 3 Colour Test 3 Colour Test 3 Colour Test 4 Colour Test 4 Colour Test 4

Some of the pop-ups have been edited and redesigned so that their can be read better. This has made them look alot better and I feel that will make them moving around in the scene alot more interesting. Jack Frost Pop-up Travellers Pop-up

I've had to re-do some of the designs for the pop-ups one last time as they still seemed hard to read. The Can't Sleep pop-up has been changed to look like a clock and the Travellers pop-ups now looks like a compass. There is also the idea of maybe animating the pop-ups, as in making the hands of the clock hands going round. Part of me can see now this can work but another part of me thinks that the animation might be lossed when the pop-ups starts to move around. I also can't work out how I wound animate some of the designs, such as the Farmer pop-up. This might be something that I might have to do a small test for to see if the animation will work for these designs. Can't Sleep Pop-up Travellers Pop-up

I went back and remodeled some of the pop ups for my animation. This was to make them easier to read along with keeping in the with wooden cut out designs. I've also did some small edits to some of them that I didn't need to be completely rework. Corn pop-up Farmer pop-up Can't sleep pop-up Grass pop-up Lovers pop-up Sleep pop-up Travellers pop-up Wave pop-up

I've been rethinking the style of music that I would want to use in my animation. After I got some feedback on my first ideas I started to think about the time period that my characters, and their story, would have come from. This was something I found abit hard to do as I had only been looking at them as a wooden puppets that came from their own world. However, after listening to some examples that I had been given, I started to feel that medieval music could be a close fit. I started to feel that the music for my animation should give it an element of fantasy and mystery as if a spell has made the characters come to life.

I've been working on the rest of the pop-ups that will appear in my animation. As I was making then I was thinking about the feedback that I got for the first set that I had made and tried to implement it in designs, but I feel that some might need to be re-worked. Lovers Pop-up Sleep Pop-up Travellers Pop-up Wave Pop-up

I have been thinking about what type of music I would want to use in my animation. It has given me some trouble as when I have been running the animation through my head I haven't been able to hear anything clearly as to what it would sound like. I've tried to look around for some ideas but haven't found anything that has given me solid idea as to what could work. When I watching this clip it seems to be the closest to what I'd imagine my animation would sound like if I was watching it on a young children's show. The music fits with the actions and personalty of the characters along with helping to set the mood of the scene, e.g. using long drawn out drums to build up tension. This one is a lot gentler and also has the feeling of it being hopeful and inviting. I also feel that something like this might be good for the begining of the animation, but part of me feels that something like this might not fit the world of my animation, but the magical feel is so...

Corn pop-up Farmer pop-up Can't sleep pop-up Grass pop-up Have been working on some reworks for my pop-ups that will appear in my animation. The pop-ups are designed to illustrate parts of the characters dialog as I can't cut away to the different scenes. In the animation's world there will most of them will appear and move round the characters. Parts of the pop-ups will be see through so that they don't cover up the whole of the character as they move in front of them. This idea came from looking at wooden laser cut Christmas decorations. I might go back and tweak the designs a bit more when I have finished the other pop-ups, as there is still parts floating inside the hoops for some of them.

After getting some feedback on the world that my characters are going to inhabit I set about creating a mock up of what it might look like, along with getting an idea of how I would make it. The idea being that the characters would be located on one the rings with the pop-ups appearing and moving around them as if they were wooden clockwork toy boxes. One thing that I will need to think about is how the pop-ups are going to appear in the scene, they could come up from trap doors in the different parts of the stage but that doesn't help me with the problem of how they are going to move. As there could be the issue of them moving through the different parts of the stage when they are not meant to. In the center of the stage I have put a small dome that would act as the Earth. Stage concept #1 Stage concept #2 To create the backdrop for the animation the idea would be to have a texture background to help give the idea that the whole set is making while, really, it's s...

Character Rig Test from Rhia Crouch on Vimeo . This is a test for the rig that I am using for both of my characters in my animation. Both the characters have the same rig so I only did the test on one of them.