HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE PAINTER X

I have some possible comic book work on the horizon and have been experimenting with painter cross platforming with photoshop and it's been fun. The way I'm working is starting projects in photoshop (which I'm familiar with), blocking out colors, and then opening psd files in Painter and hopping between the two. What I love about Painter isn't so much the brushes, although the brushes in Painter are many and fantastic, rather it's the extended possibilities of manipulation and the palette for mixing up paints (taking me back to mixing up paints on a tile at art college).

I used a little bit of Painter in Grimmwood, but only for the canopy. I hope to use more.

GRIMMWOOD UPDATED

Now these blogs have labels, I am considering whether to shift all the stuff I have over on the Grimmwood blog (what little of it there is) to here, given how intermittently I work on that project. Anyway, here's 15 seconds of Grimmwood, just to show there's life in the old girl yet.

The wolves are what I call 'spider-weasels' due to the way they move. Their legs move like spider legs and their bodies slink like weasels.

No audio.

Here also are the full backgrounds from the segment ...
Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006-2007, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOOD TODAY...

Here's two stills from my own personal ongoing project, Grimmwood, for which there's a production blog if you're a patient sort of person as it doesn't get updated very often. I'll be posting these again over at the other blog with more details in a short while. Now blogger has introduced a labeling system, and given the infrequent posts over at the Grimmwood blog, I am considering migrating the content of that blog over to here ... still undecided.

It's been a busy week again (but that's a good thing, because it means that as soon as the work is done I can go back to comic books and Grimmwood). Also, production of the Peter Baynton project that I'm co-producing, which I've mentioned before, is nearing completion (and the film looks excellent).

We walk short-stepped but high of heart...

... Through honey-dew and flowers.

It's been a tremendously long time since I last posted on this plog, leaving promise of a trailer that was soon to arrive. Well, a tremendously long time in the real world, in production however, where time is relative to that of time in the kingdoms of faerie, it has been the blink of an eye. Fear not! I am not writing now to tell you that production has ceased. Far from it. I have been busy. I return now, now that things are slowly falling into place, though future posts may still be few and far between, production soldiers on.

I was almost good to go, back in September, when I decided to get some paid work in so as to tide me over whilst working on Grimmwood, but, I got so much work in I found myself with little-to-no time for the project. So, with what time I did have for the project I found myself going back to the drawing board (concerning backgrounds) and re-addressed where I was with that. And boy am I ever glad I did. I went back to address the character of the Grimmwood itself. Because the Grimmwood is not just a background. It's a living, breathing, environment, it's a character as much as Thomas Hardy's Egdon Heath was in Return of the Native. The Grimmwood is not just some outcrop of trees or knot of brambles. This is a place rich with history. And I felt that as I had it back then, last September, it just didn't have enough character. And so I immersed myself in early Victorian fairy art. Artists like Edward Dulac, John Anster Fitzgerald, Richard Dadd, Richard Doyle, Edward Robert Hughes, and John Everett Millais, artists who gave voice to the hedgerows and briar thorns and breath life into the deep dark woods. So the Grimmwood itself is somewhat different now to how it was before. It's alive.

Currently putting the work together so I can show a small teaser trailer of sorts, and then I'll be posting up the trailer along with artwork and various notes on how certain shots were achieved etc. When? Quite soon.

In the interim, day to day (or there abouts) work stuff is discussed over at the parent blog to this one, Strange Planet Stories which has details of work I've just completed among other things.

MOONLIGHTING

Teething. What a joy. A week's worth of restless nights so far for my son. I think he's pretty much through the worst of it this time round. I can't wait for them all to come through.

As a result, I decided to combine dad duty with a little late night work on the Grimmwood teaser that's coming soon (above you'll see a bit of design work for it). It's actually a sponge scanned in at high rez and then put through various filters in photoshop, grey scaled, and then wrapped around a sphere in Swift 3D, exported as a shockwave flash and imported directly into Flash, set against a star map background I made earlier, with added blue glow in Flash and a shadow to form the crescent. In Grimmwood the moon is going to be enormous, so this is one of several tests for it. I am getting happily addicted to making planets and moons now.

I'M STILL STANDING!

Still plodding on with the novel whenever I can. Drastically behind on word count, however, quite pleased with what I've done so far and the story I've discovered as it were. The drastically behind bit is not due to not affording the time, rather the time being spent researching the story quite thoroughly, as it has rather a lot of background detail. But I may make up the numbers just yet. Never say never, after all.

Been working furiously during the daylight hours. Currently helping develop Biteneck Beatniks, working on Grimmwood (I have a still from the pre-viz on the trailer for a 3D animated sequence where the camera moves through the trees following what will be 2D animated characters, they're just markers at the moment for where they appear in the shot etc... being able to fly a camera around in 3D space is wonderfully liberating... like I say, it's very much pre-viz, but I'm happy to say the trailer and the film itself are coming along, albeit slowly, but hey...), and Animex (more 3D shenanigans there), and have been pitching for a commercials contract (can't say what for at the moment) and various other bits and bobs that have kept me out of trouble. Busy busy busy. All work and no play makes Jack ... no, no we won't go there so you can put that baseball bat down thank you very much, I'm just fine.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

THE HOUSE WHAT I BUILT.

There's an update over at the Grimmwood site. Go check it out.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

"Gather wood and I will light a fire ...

... so that you may not be cold."

Things are coming along. If all goes well then I should have a trailer (consisting of test footage) up in about two weeks from now).

Building Red House has proved a fun challenge. Having never worked in three dimensions before, it's been quite an experience and a huge amount of fun. These are a couple of test frames built in Swift 3D, exported into Flash.

I'm playing around with lenses here (and haven't quite achieved all I want to achieved with lightning, but I'm getting there). the building is based on an earlier design. The first image, the aerial shot, is an early mock up of the building, not quite complete. The second image is the completed model. I found that once I'd started building the house that I began to make various changes, notably with the shape of the main building's roof, and with the facade, changes which brought it to a better point of realisation. It's a great feeling to have such a dominant component in the film built and ready to pose in every shot by just dropping it in and angling the camera. Quite liberating to be working in three dimensions after all these years of working in two. There's a sense that this broadens the scope of what I'm aiming to achieve so I'm rather excited about the process. The wonderful thing about Swift is it intergrates the elements seemlessly into Flash because it's also speaking the same language. Vector.

It's also helped me determine a number of aesthetic factors. Notably the trees. A lot of the trees are going to be flat 2D elements, but there are a number of sequences in the film that require movement through trees. Characters will be leaping from branch to branch and the camera will be following them. The animated trees produced in Swift will have a silhoutte appearance about them but still move in three dimensional space. These will be off set in tone to the rest of the background for purposes of definition. This is just one element of what will make up the trees. The Grimmwood itself is as much an element as any of the characters. It will be one of the test elements that will appear in the trailer.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

NO REST FOR THE WICKED ...

Okay, been a while since I last posted. Just finished a string of commercials. Firstly for the previously mentioned Travelodge for Doner Cardwell Hawkins. If you follow the link to Picasso Pictures (a flash site) you'll see my name in a list of Directors, follow that little road to my work and you can watch the ad right there if you haven't seen it on TV (in the UK). I got to work with the immensely talented David Semple, so go check out his work. He was responsible for the look of the ad and is the illustrator for the campaign.

Just last week I wrapped on a string of Flybe commercials and am now putting together some test footage for Grimmwood. So, it's been one heck of a busy summer, which is good because that gives me a more time to focus on Grimmwood and certain comic book projects which I'll be talking about over the coming months.

Grimmwood is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

He lived the rest of his life a beggar ...

... which was perfectly just.

It's been too long since I last posted, but a great deal has been happening. I was looking at possible funding from certain sources but decided against it for various reasons (one being that the project is too far beyond certain stages to suit certain aspects of a certain funder's remit). So that's eaten up a great deal of time (none wasted however as I learned a considerable amount in the process). The quest goes on, but I shall not let it halt production, it just means that by and large this production is funded by the commercial work I do. I'm just finishing a small hand full of commercials for Picasso Pictures which should pay the rent a while and allow me to continue with Grimmwood. However, if there are any rich Kings or golden egg laying geese out there, do call.

Secondly, a learning curve has kept me occupied. I recently acquired Swift 3D, which, as stated in one of my initial posts on this here blessed production blog, was of the software packages mentioned. Various camera shots and backgrounds will incorporate 3D assisted elements. As I'm used to working in 2D rather than 3D, this has meant I've spent quite a bit of time sitting through tutorials in what spare time I've had (whilst not earning keep). I must thank a friend at this point, Colin Fawcett, who, when I explained my dilema of thinking in three dimensions suggested I get my head around modelling by downloading Google's free "Sketchup" and practice on there first. And that worked a treat, so, many thanks Colin. It's a remarkable programme and takes about three or four steps to learn to use. I highly recommend it for getting ones noggin around the third dimension.

Production shall resume shortly. In the meantime, above you will see the final model for Red.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

"When you're only one of the things in his dream ...

... you know very well you're not real."

So, I finally have a cut of the animatic I'm happy with. And I've done more chopping than a woodcutter. Lots of stuff had to go so that all the good stuff could stay. But those things gone from the film aren't gone from the Grimmwood forever.

I had at one point several "Grimm" cameos. But those cameos had to go in favor of not spending time setting up scenes that I didn't really need and giving all that time instead to Red and the wolves who's story this is.

The three Doctor's where once my kid sister's favorite story. I suppose, in part, that this is where the Grimmwood came from. You see, my little sister's ten years younger than me and I used to read bedtime stories to her. The story goes that there were once three surgeons who took their boasts regarding their medical capabilities just a little too far. They proposed to remove some vital part of their anatomy only to replace it the following morning aided by a miracle salve. Good old 'miracle' salves! One plucked out his eyes, one cut off his arm and one took out his heart.

Later that night, whilst the doctor's slept a maid at the inn (and her boyfriend), famished after a days work, ate all these vital bits and bobs ... as you do when you're home late from the pub, you'll eat anything right? I dare say they even covered the morbid morsels with marmite, just to give it that extra something. Anyway, realizing her mistake - oops, silly maid - she replaced those vital organs with a severed thief's hand, cat's eyes and a pig's heart and much hillarity ensues thereafter. It ends with a compensation payout you wouldn't believe. Pretty gross story. But, my sister LOVED it!!!

It didn't stop there. Oh no. My sister wanted more. But there were no more tales of the three surgeons in the "bumper book of wildly inappropriate stories for children" that I was reading from so what was I to do but make them up?!?! Night after night I told stories about how the three doctors went on many disgusting adventures where limb after limb got lopped off or mangled. It was a journey of hideous mutilation. But.... my sister LOVED it!!!

Add to this, she wasn't satisfied if she thought I was making it up so I had to pretend I was actually reading from the "bumper book of wildly inappropriate stories for children".

So, who what where and when now? Well, in the Grimmwood film they appeared as field surgeons for the red hoods and are somewhat mechanically enhanced (well, it was a considerable payout after all). A steampunk element thrown into the mix. But it didn't sit well in the film so I plucked it out, as I'm certain anyone of the doctors would have done given half the chance. They'll be back one day... just not in this story from the Grimmwood.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

More Monstrosities

One of many character designs for the Grimmwood film I'm making. Taken from a scene that's since been cut from the film but I thought I'd stick him up on this blog incase he never made another appearance.

Been away on pre-production and development meetings. One for the tv show Frankenstein's Cat and the other for a commercial I'm making over the next four weeks (can't say at this stage what the commercial is). All good stuff. It was raining and warm in London. Most uncomfortable.

Been travelling on trains alot this week so I've managed to finish "Infinite Crisis". Currently reading all those issues of '52' that have been collecting up. Plenty of work for the eye to do. Superman is great again (as is Batman 1 year later and Aquaman), having lost his powers. It's all exciting stuff.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

He marched them up to the top of the hill ...

... and he marched them down again.

Well, the animatic is almost there. I thought I'd drop by and mention a word or two about war and pace (deliberate misspelling) and post a doodle from the pages of the Red Book.

From what you will have seen so far it's probably quite evident that there's a fair degree of fighting that goes on in this film. Fight choreography can sometimes dictate a rhythm that effects scenes where there is no fighting. The film features stick fighting and that again suggests certain fight disciplines which have poise and grace. This is all useful stuff when it comes to pacing the film. But it also takes a LOT of forward planning. So a large chunk of my time on this animatic has been spent getting the balance between war and peace correct. I'm not an animation director anymore, I'm a diplomat.

I have also been temp scoring the animatic which helps tremendously. The music acts as a metronome to the action and that helps in getting that all important balance right.

A word with regard to imovies (which I've resorted to using, so add that to the software list); brilliant. Haven't used it before as a rough editing tool, but it's been a tremendous help. Usually I make commercials that run at roughly 20 - 30 seconds a piece and that can all be done on the timeline in Flash. So using imovie for 10 + minutes of footage really is a relief. I can see everything I'm doing and I can cross platform over into Garageband for the score and run off DVD copies of the animatic so I can show it to other people for feedback. Great stuff.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

And in the depths of the deep dark wood ...

... there was a house.

The animatic's coming along well. In the meantime, this is Red House, where Red Hood resides. This is just a color model of the main building (along with a tree to emphasise contrast). This serves as a guide for when I take my scenes from the animatic and work them up into layouts/backgrounds. I have a basic floor plan of where everything is inside, which also helps when setting up shots.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

Four and twenty blackbirds ...

...baked in a pie.

I've started putting a rough animatic together from all the thumbnail boards I've made. It's like sculpting clay at this stage, seeing what takes form. I love this part of the process. It's messy, it's unforgiving, it's a glimpse of my goal. I have afforded myself the luxury of getting to a first cut of the animatic by the end of this week and then taking a break from it (the break being the luxury part ... I have a week off next week for good behaviour).

There's more design work to be done (nothing is final till it's in the shot), so I'll be doing that while I procrastinate.

Here's an early concept illustration. I initially saw these capes like little kites flitting through the trees...

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes...

... she shall have music wherever she goes.

Red Hood has been through numerous changes. The earlier post was almost there. The image attached here, which includes some past incarnations, is the conclusion. She's a little taller now and there's the additional detail on her robes (the weaving leafy vine pattern).

In a very earlier draft, the cloak wasn't all enveloping as it is now, it hung by a clasp from her shoulder and you could see the outfit she wore beneath but I came to slowly realise that the concealing cloak actually was befitting her battle scarred and jaded character. Something ceremonious about it.

As today was a bank holiday, I didn't do much work (just a little this morning while my son took a nap). My family and I set out to Clumber Park this afternoon where I took more photographs of trees and rooftops (some of which I'll include in later posts). We've had a great weekend. It's been pouring with rain, but everywhere we've driven to has been sunny and warm. Just as we got in the car to leave Clumber, hail stones started falling. It had been bright and sunny just moments before. One of those lucky weekends I guess.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

In a hole in the ground ...

... there lived a Hobbit.

I remembered this morning the Ice Houses of Rufford Park in Nottinghamshire and thought they would suit Grimmwood (just as background detail, tucked away in a panning shot), so I grabbed my camera and took my son with me and set off in the car. Ice houses were introduced into Britain in 1660. They were basically an early refrigerator and were often situated near lakes. When I first saw it a few years ago when we first visited the park, I thought it looked like a Hobbit prison.

We were there for a couple of hours (my son fell to sleep in his push chair, bless him) and I managed to get about seventy shots in all.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

All the King's horses...

...and all the King's men.

Here is an example of the color process. I've scanned in a drawing of a Dragoon who is set to appear in Grimmwood. I imported the scanned image into Flash and got to work constructing self-trace or self-color lines (which in old money would be called a 'clean-up') using the pen tools from the toolbar. Self-trace or self-color is where the line color is the same as that of the fill. So, in effect, I use supposed shadows to highlight definition (as and when it suits) and little else. Note the shadow on the glove and the shadow of the trousers beneath; these will bleed into one another, there's nothing to set them apart. But as it will eventually be animated, movement will help define the glove being separate from the trousers. The shade of the jacket also helps with the definition.

So, I try to barely use any lines at all. I fill where fills are needed and then add brushed details (such as eyebrows, eyes and lips, and thrills on shoulder decorations etc). Fingers often require the most definition.

I have also been working on some of the finer details of the world of Grimmwood. Notably a crest which can been seen adorning the walls of Red Hood's house. Initially I had the wolf's head pointed to the left (forward). But when out driving the other day I pulled up behind a Vauxhall at some lights and noticed that the eagle (or whatever it is) on the Vauxhall logo was seemingly looking over its shoulder. It then occurred to me that it'd make more sense to have the wolf in my crest looking over its shoulder, as though it were biting its own tail as some comment of its stupidity over its ferocity. Well, that's the general idea, so, here it is. Here you'll note also a leaf design which is quite common in many of the patterns and designs associated with Red Hood.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

If you go down to the woods today ...

... you're sure for a big surprise.

Looking forward to tomorrow (technically speaking, later today, but after I've slept). If the rain holds off then I've got a day of woodland photography ahead of me. I want to give the trees I've drawn some texture so I'm going to go hunting for reference material. No excuse not to, considering as I live in Nottinghamshire.

Here's a piece from some of the design work I've been doing today. Click on the image for a larger view.

I am also including three pages of thumbnails from The Red Book. It's part of a rough storyboard for the film and covers only the opening segment (part of which is going to serve a section of the trailer I'll be putting together). My thumbnails are very shorthand and I often find people can't read them. But that's okay because at this point it doesn't matter that nobody else understands them. The important thing is that I understand them, and for the most part I do.

Thumbnail boarding is a lot of fun. It's the cheapest part of the production and so long as you can understand the shorthand, it's quickest way to see the film before anyone else does. I often film thumbnails just to get a feel for the pace of a film. At storyboard stage I'll post a comparrison between thumbnails and boards so you can see how storyboards make sense of all the crazy talk.

May add some photographs from my woodland expedition later tomorrow (technically today) to this post ... but that largely depends on the weather. Good old British weather. Ya gotta love it.

Update: Managed to get out and do a fair bit of reference hunting today!

Didn't need to travel far (walking distance from my house). The rain held off after all and the sunlight coming through the leafy canopy really was quite something. Added bonus: I managed to find some gorgeous ornate rooftops; inspiration for some of the buildings that appear in Grimmwood.

As background artists go, one of my favourites is Maurice Noble. I've always loved his work on Snow White. Such attention to detail. Truly astounding and deeply evocative. So, with Snow White in mind, I went out today with a mission; to find interesting natural shapes. Twisted branches jutting out at angles, tree trunks shrouded in leaves, knotted roots bursting through the undergrowth. The woods gave all these up in abundance. So I have plenty to work with now. In all, a good day and the sun's still shining.

Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

Films, & Comics, & Blogs - Oh my!

I'm currently making a film, for which there's a production diary. Click on the image above to visit the site (or on the link in the links list).

Meanwhile, on the comics front; waiting for confirmation from Judge Dredd Megazine as to which issue my six page story "Monsters" will be appearing in. As and when I do hear back, I'll post images from it here, including sketches and such. The Megazine is featuring a small press spot each month, showcasing new artists and writers, which is all exciting stuff. The current issue, 245, features the rather excellent work of Dave Hitchcock.