iSHARPENmyLENG

behind the scenes?

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:03:44 +0100

Just a couple of things we filmed along the way, should really edit it all together.

Making music

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:46:05 +0100

Thought i’d drop this here with the rest of my creative pursuits. A track made using a Iphone and a acoustic guitar. Stereo panning n stuff so headphones are best?

Storytelling with digital media. Fascinating insight into how...

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 15:17:00 +0100

Storytelling with digital media. Fascinating insight into how our brains are rewiring themselves in response to design.

Final film

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 10:53:00 +0100

So here’s the Animatic + the final footage and a process video showing the reiterations.

Apologies for the seemingly never ending increase in volume.

Concept art

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 18:05:41 +0100

Here’s a few paint-ups. Experimenting with colour and texture.

Scene 2: Storyboards and Animatic

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 17:14:29 +0100

Hey there! I saw you started following me so naturally I had to check out your tumblr. Do you study illustration at UWE?? I tried to get on that course but they didn't want me! So I do Games Technology there instead, which I think suits me a lot better! Anyway your stuff looks cool!

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:02:42 +0100

I do! and i also saw that you were at U.w.e and was going to ask about that too! although i’m currently in the middle of trying to understand this Tumblr malarky. Incidently your Tumblr looks amazing, how the hell did you manage that? How is the Games Technology course? I just switched to animation so i could get a better skillset for the entertainment industry, but i’d heard that the Games courses can be a little un-specific?

Work in progress

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:36:00 +0100

A few days ago i decided i’d do a quick paint up of the character sketches i did. So far i can’t figure out how to align the image on Tumblr properly, what canvas size to make it long but not tiny or how to finish painting the bloody bastard.

Final stretch

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:43:00 +0100

A week till the end of production and finally hitting what feels like a comfortable pace. it’s strange; i know i’m capable of more but i don’t know how to push through . I think it may be practice. As an experiment i logged every time i got distracted and for how long. and to my surprise i would instinctually every 15 minutes leave flash and open Google Chrome. Usually to watch an inane video. I refuse to get angry about it, i can’t just up and change instantly it dosn’t work like that. So perhaps i have to work towards it, or perhaps it’s anxety with the process.

When i recorded this data the project i’d been working on was the buffalo scene were they notice the lion. It was the first multi character scene i’d done and i found it challenging. I made alot of mistakes. Mainly i’d mixed up my pipeline too much. i keyframed haphazardly and polished some scenes early for no reason. in the end the cleanup was too much, it wasn’t clean up it was a fresh draw. (although ofcourse the prior drawings greatly helped in my understanding of the pose).

So i know i can do alot better, i can see my mistakes and i’m working through them. I’m really enjoying producing. my only worry is that my pace is slow but i suspect like many things that’ll improve with time.

Production is a challenge, it forces me to draw. i like that. i have to draw and it has to be at a continous standard. i don’t want to make overly simplified work. i feel that if i did i may aswell forget about the illustration history. I’m also really enjoying learning new software. it takes me back to my childhood when i’d ignore schoolwork to read about software and technology, despite not actually owning a computer.

Concept cat.

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:47:00 +0000

Some concept art for the style of waking Kitty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieN9sakzhOI&feature=fvwre

Production fails

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 05:00:00 +0000

march 03

Well this should’ve been the first weeek of production, but i’ve done no work. feel gutted, dissapointed and frustrated. keep thinking is this a permanent thing. am i gonna fall flat on my face now? I guess im afraid of embarrasment. People were more impressed by my pre production than anything i’ve ever produced before, so if i fail now it’ll be tragic for my self esteem. perhaps anyway. It dawns on me perhaps this is how it always is, i’m a very good planner, perhaps i should become a producer. when it actually comes to getting down and dirty im sadly not the best. My plan to fix it is to draw out the key frames in rough today and tomorow for a few shots then i can go in and play around with them.

I’m being a little hard on myself i have tried working, although not particularly hard or particularly succesfully. I don’t know were t ostart, or that’s what im telling myself. I have this deep nagging feeling that i really do know deep inside and that this ignorance is fake. i don’t know why, maybe it’s self defence maybe it’s lazy ness? or maybe i generally don’’t know how to animate. i’m really out on the open sea now, i’m far away from my comfort zone’s its pretty exciting terrortory. If i can pull this off i’ll be a boss. i’ll have glided into somthing completely new and come out on top. in a field were most people fall flat i’ll have succeeded. like a boss playa motha fucka hehehe.

This isn’t animation related but i like to have a record i think, it’s nice to sit write and think about life. I’m completley out of money just as i feel healthier than i’ve ever felt. i beat dan w cycling to my house the other day, not that impressive but when i overtook him it was up a steep hill, he was shocked to say the least hehehehe. i also ran up a steep hill. thighs of steel. the thing is i feel powerfull and have excess energy to spend. i suspect it’s because i’ve changed my breakfast. i’ll ive done is avoid cereals or gluten in my breakfast for the past 3 weeks. my energy levels have gone through the roof, i don’t particularly eat pasta or sandwhiches so it gives me a slow carb diet more or less. now comes the ineresting part. i have absolutely no money. i can’t buy new food, or if i do and when i do it’ll have to be very very smart decisions. it’s got to be able to keep me fueled, that’s alot of calories right there, cycling and being big. but i also won’t go back to white carbs. again another scary point, do i not get in controll, let myself fall back onto whaever i can find, invetiably bread flour and rice. feel like shit, run out of money fail animation get fat and lazy go back to shit life of everyone else having fun? or do i turn this into the motivating tipping point. having to make smart decisions makes me pull it together. no more sweats busses excessive alcohol. i gotta live tight. i have the knowledge to make smart decisions so this should be quite easy, i just have to pull it together and get motivated.

the other issue is were do i find money, im .pretty sure i’m owed a bursury which could help cover a few weeks, my mum has a hundread that will take the bills going out. but if i can’t get that bursuary im fucked, and the bursury dosn’t cover rent and next months bills. the only logical solution is to make money from art. i don’t have time to do anything else, i’m working at uni most days, and if i wasn’ producing somthing that developedd my skills i’d feel guilty. i should go do market research. but i worry i don’t have the time to make this work. maybe if i talk to karl and say look can you see if my things sell i’ll give you a cut?

so three big things, animation food and money. although there not that big, i definately can deal with them. so many people have, they can’t all be better than me. and im farily sure i’m cleverer than some of them.

Baby steps

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 11:36:00 +0000

This is the most advanced piece i’ve made yet.

It came at a point of utter frustration. I’d been working for days trying to figure out this walking malarky to no avail. Then i broke, and decided to just animate, no more over thinking, no more planning and definitely no more logic. Just drawing.

Following are the hilariously bad attempts that lead to my demise!

Bleh, maybe if i try putting the legs in differnt colours…

Half cat half moomin. Anyway, perhaps if i tried being more arty and less scientific.

It was here i realised white lines on black were sexy as hell.

Production begins!

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:41:00 +0000

Feburary 23rd

Just completed the assesed pitch. I feel like it went very well it’s been the first time ive ever hit a deadline and not stayed up ridiculously early producing work. i stayed up preparing my presentation, but i didn’t actually have to produce work. It’s a novel feeling not having to cover my tracks. it raises the question is it the differnce in course or a differnce in me thats brought me to this point. although i have done what i needed to do i do still have alot that i want to re-do./ i drastically want to go back and polish a few of the scenes, redo some shot’s or add more set up shots to the third scene. otherwise i’m feeling confident to go into production.

My big concern now is sound design. do i write the song now or after. if i write it now, it’ll tell me (in my head) to slightly tweak the scenes, to get the mood perfect. which is the right thing to do. but.. but if i never finish all the scenes, then i have to re edit the film. if i re edit the film then that means knew music which leads to a slightly differnt final edit. so.. my choices are, don’t write the music now go in blind, and react to the material available by post production. or prepare now set up a big dream but perhaps have it deflate on me when i realise it’s unachievable. pro’s and cons bwhaha.

So here are my first ever animations! This was the first you can see i didn’t really get the...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:11:00 +0000

So here are my first ever animations! This was the first you can see i didn’t really get the whole process and just drew keyframes.

This was the first you can see i didn’t really get the whole process, i just drew keyframes.

I thought i’d been a little too ambitious for my first steps, so a step back.

So, at least with this one it flows right? It’s not just a jerky series of images, but it was still difficult to get right, this was the first point time i realised; their are no shortcuts in animation.

So onto this

And from that to this!

So there we go. so much to learn, so little time.

Pre-production

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Feburary 14th.

where to start. i’m well and truly stuck in. and im loving it the couse makes me want to go back to illustration and yell the emperor is naked. the structure of animation suits me so much more, you have so much to do, so much to juggle. it’s havok and that’s the way i like it. illustration by comparrison is sitting in a arm chair in my dressing gown and postulating over the happenstance situations life pushes onto those poor folk. my major worry right now though is that there isn’t enough postulating. i’m not thinking about story, i’m not considerng movement (well at least i’m not directly instructed to) there’s no push to make work that means somthing. illustration tells me my work needs to be me, say somthing thats not been heard before, and animation tell’s me to just get on with it.

the sad truth is that ive created more work in these past 2 weeks than ive ever created in whole illustration project. i’ve learnt moreand i’ve had that cold sweat and tense sensation above the knee’s when i feel out of my depth. then of course you figure it out and thats when you know you’ve learnt somthing. i’m working hard because the work is hard. illustration i found myself pegging the work as easy, i know this isn’t true, but i also don’t think that my projects needed to take up months, they needed hours, day’s at the most. i want to go back. i want to re-do them applying the structure. it’s the pre-production production post production structure that’s helping me. thinking time doing time and then lots more doing time eneded by a little more thinking time. the barrier are what i need. thinking and doing are two entirely differnt and compatiable like oil on water pursuits. they can be done but one influences the other, they are not the same. at least that’s how it feels.

it’s been great to also finally get a chance to actually sit and paint. i’ve never atually had to paint in illustration, and i’ve always ducked it, or i suppose,deep inside felt slightly ashamed that i want to paint concept art somtimes. but i love it. i love solving the problem, i love trying the colours and i alove the hiddieous mistakes that show up. it makes me wonder if i could take this back to illustration. i want to learn about movment and acting, i want to learn how to rig light and model. but i also want to learn german and welding. the feeling right now at the end of the day. i just feel full and satisfied. it’s been far too long since i’ve felt this challanged and inturn this accomplished.

i stress a little right now about my animatic. i feel like i havnt played enough with the shots, it feels like instinct on paper. i know that if i re thumb it 20 times i’ll discover the little details that’ll mak it great. but when do i do this, do i do it after the rough is finished, do i do it before i paint them quickly and roughly in pencil. i suppose then makes more sense, but i’m stressed for time and if i do reinvestigate and find out my shots are crap then thats another two days of painting. i suppose i just have to bite the bullet and keep working.

New beginnings

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:37:00 +0000

Starting the animation module has raised interesting questions. questions about the nature of animation, timing rhythm of movment and character. it’s made me think about compositional utilisation of pattern. timing and humour. and espeially story telling. i know a story about a boy born with a golden screw in his belly button.

what’s interesting me is plot devices that mirror the explicit elements of the story. an interesting one is in the book what a wise man fears. the protagonist travels to a far away kingdom with strange customs. the courtisans send a ring to request a meeting, the rings are either silver copper or gold. some times they will request the ring back, sometimes they leave it with the recipent. copper suggests you believe the recipient is below you, silver an equal and gold a better. as the story goes on the protagonists collection grows and changes from copper to silver. it tells a seperate story of his social standing, we never meet or hear much of his exploits but yet we know that his social standing is changing. how can i apply the principle to visual development. a previous idea i’ve had is to have a character change the medium he’s drawn in as he adopts the views of other characters. the ma animation that showed two chatacters existing in mirror’d worlds. the device was a split in the screen.

i’m also massively intrested in sound design, i often find music choices in animation and film dissapointing. aswell in my personal experience i’ve found that when i write music imagery follows in my head, i lack the competance to compose too footage i think, soo it’ll be exciting to see how i cover the gaps

DANIEL NEWTON

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:27:13 +0000

Statment

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:00:37 +0000

For the presentation my group and I covered self initiated ‘authorial’ illustration.Looking at the different ways people turned there creative pursuits into money,looking at how the internet is washing away the old consumerist ideas truly excited me. It feel’s like there’s never been so much opertunity to create and share our work without any higher authority directing steering or compromising the project. I also found it fascinating looking at people’s business models,the impression that comes across is that industrys have been turned on their heads. Small productions are thriving, being able to adapt and experiment with innovative new ideas. The past two years have made it clear that I want to work in a team, I enjoy the responsibility of having other people depend on me of having responsability. in the summer I did a little extraing for a t.v show. The atmosphere on set was exhillerating. Everyone was working together to meet deadlines and keep the operation running smoothly. I know from past experiences that whenever I’m in a team I enjoy going beyond expectations and throwing myself into the project. But on my own I struggle to find the same motivation. I’ve also found a deep respect for editorial illustration. Whatever state humanities in we’ll always turn to satire to make sense of a situation. Whether it be pulling a face and imitating or creating elaborate allegorys with a million subtle messages woven within, satire will always be present.

The obvious conclusion is that I’d struggle with illustration freelance. Keeping myself motivated in the downtime and pushing myself on project’s I don’t feel a connection with are things I consistently struggle with. I’ve also become dissalusioned with the business model, it seems to me that control of your life is almost entirely out of your hands. It seems that being chosen by the mysterious and all powerful art directors requires the sacrifice of a goat. However indie development seems right up my proverbial street. Working in a small team, pulling together and contributing everything to see a project through sounds like something I could enjoy. The culture and technology of the internet intrigues me and is something my life is entwined with. So My plan is as follows. Learn as many skills as I can. Find people I enjoy working with, and who I feel have a similar ‘voice’. I’ve chosen the animation module, I want to learn more hard skills and find more team projects to be involved in. Though I know that finding them is unlikely and if I can’t I’ll have to settle with making my own oppertunitys.

Yelling abut the coming costa apocalypse, the gentrification of...

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:53:00 +0000

Yelling abut the coming costa apocalypse, the gentrification of everything everywhere forever isnt going to win this war. Costa is better at yelling than you are, they can do it louder longer and bigger. you’ll never stand in their way for long. the fact is if your wife’s cheating, it’s not just because she’s an ungreatfull whore, it’s because your a shit fuck too. and arn’t we really just having sex with each other when we buy shit? But i think were in a strong position, if you’ve ever walked people down the road then you know how they instantly fall in love. while costa and tesco will high five over our backs, glouster road gently lays us down, whispers sweet nothings and makes beautifull love to us (untill the weekend atleast, then it’s on). So to finally stretch this crass metaphor as far as it’ll go. What needs to happen is the breeding of the glouster road culture. The artists and business need to combine, need to try experiment fail and succeed. This isn’t about coffee or bread, this is about culture. It’s about building a better stronger unique culture, a culture that’s ours. Costa can never compete, we have somthing they can’t buy, authenticity.

The what's & why's

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Ok! so here’s a few links that are required for the assesment

Research blog: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/authorial-illustration

With the research blog we aim’d to make it as easy to use as possible. We said post a link and summerise the relevant infomation, theres no need to go into great detail as we can read it ourselves if we deem it relevant off of your summerisation!

And so now why isharpenmyleng? i chose i sharpen my leng for a personal blog because i wanted this blog to be a very specific blog. It’s targeted at reaching a specific type of person. it’s aim is to give a specific type of experience. The downside is perhaps that it will alienate some people but i’m not too worried. my art is hosted on http://danielnewton.carbonmade.com/ aswell. Better suited for cold sending and professional presentation and as Seth Godwin often says, to create a real tribe it has to specificaly welcome some and those have to know it rejects others. So the name and aim is targeted at kind of street culture. knowing exactly who is impossible and i worry any preconcieved notions would act as much as a hinderance as a advantage. altering my tone of voice leading me to making false assumptions and other faux pas. Tumblr because it has a prebuilt audience. People here know the deal, you share what you like, you reply and you get involved. perfect for building a good fan base. I’ve embedded google analytics so i can see who visits and where there being linked from. and i’m keeping search optimisation in mind. i plan on getting this blog into the top ten search results for glouster road artist art glouster costa etc.