I mentioned that I would post pieces from older projects as I.G.G. moves along. This is a short section from the 30 minute video Bugworld. It examines the world of ... Yes bugs. This short piece incorporates stop-motion animation, puppetry, motion graphics and Flash animation.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
The Best Alien Baby Name Book I've Ever Read
In creating this cast of characters for Intergalactic Gung-Ho Gurus I found that alien names aren't that easy to come up with. Inevitably you end up having the same names (or at least very similar ones) that you've heard used in other stories, cartoons or movies. What to do?
I have found that I like boundaries. With school projects I enjoyed tight parameters on what I could and could not do, what materials I could use and what I was trying to accomplish. It seemed these boundaries worked to squeeze the creative juices better. So for this, I set my own boundaries.
Looking through different books on my shelf I found The Word Museum by Jeffrey Kacirk. It is full of defunct English words that have great combinations of offbeat definitions and amazingly meaty sounds. For instance Brizzle sounds like burnt and sizzle and it's definition means about that. Eureka! This would be my parameters. All the alien names would come from this book.
So far, almost everyone of them has (You'll see two characters very soon that came from another idea). It was a lot of fun going through this book and finding the coolest words. The definitions of these words sometimes helped me to define a characteristic or physical trait of the character.
So if you are looking to name a new born alien, then I would highly recommend giving this book a once over.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Introducing the Characters - Madam Thrunch
She's the ultimate source of fear for Thunderstone. When I put her in the script I knew she had to be terrifying in a funny way. Yes, she's a bit of a spoof on the Emperor from Star Wars.
I played around with a variety of ideas. At first the cute yet evil bunny character under a dark cloak seemed appealing, but then I got a few gag ideas that work better with a frog-like alien.
These are the designs that started emerging.
I went further and decided to try a take off on the walking hologram projector from the Phantom Menace. The one in the movie walked on spider-like legs. I figured I'd give mine frog legs. This will make it kind of comical to watch. I'm not sure if I'd do it in Flash or Stop-mo.
She has to have an imposing throne. A hint of Toadstool here.
This is the sketch I'm going to use to start the puppet with.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)