Monster close up

Yay artwork

Facial blend shapes

Help! I need a alternate way to craft facial expressions! I cannot use blend shapes it seems, as My characters are already skinned, rigged and weighted. Let this be a lesson to all you noob animators out there.
Make your facial blend shapes BEFORE you rig your character! Now I'm either completely fucked, or I'll have to use whole body blend shapes. So it's either character animation without facial expressions, OR facial expressions without body movement.

night sky

Dvd Cover art

Interior Shack, Sheppard thinks...

First pass, a bit floaty. Made the mistake of smoothing and relaxing the facial mesh, now I get horrible deformities whenever the Sheppard moves his head. I've tried masking the problem by using the Sheppard's hands to hide his horribly deformed face, as well as reduce head movements. Also thought about lighting the scene very dimly to hide any unsightly features, but so many 'short cuts' are making the scene close to unworkable, so I'll probably have to do it again.
Seems like every teacher I've had will constantly goad me to re-do things. If a character is slightly off, remodel it. Rig has some restrictions? re-rig. Not quite sure if they know the dead line, but i do.
Tis the trouble with working around perfectionists, but you cannot blame them, as their knowledge is something we must feed upon.

This is first pass. I may as well call this an advanced character block. SIGH

Animatic version 5

Squeezed in some more gags, lets hope I can do the same for the final.

Brooding Sheppard

Sheep throw first pass

ZOMG

Well time is running out, and there are still mountains of work ahead of me. I'm trying to source as many people as I can to help me out with the project.

Talking to editors, publicists, producers, voice actors, sound engineers, Foley artists, animators, technical directors, teachers and fellow students.
trying to pool every resource I can get my hands on.

But still, that urge to squeeze in more story is nagging away at me, late at night, whispering.

I've made a rough edit of the duration of the clip, which is looking dangerously long at the moment. The quality is piss poor, but i needed to nut it out so I can give my muso friends the vibe I'm after.

I wanted to squeeze in more gags to break up the tension, I wanted to build the tension into a climax but at the moment it's looking like an all out tragedy.

Few and far between

This hideous rendition made the Monster's blindness quite obvious and extreme, with festering wounds around his eye sockets. I decided to go for a more cartoony approach concerning his design, as this 'wounded sheepeater' might be a tad too scary for the wee little children, or the sensitive eyes of judges when selecting which films to place into festivals.

Early 3d concept art

The early sheep in his most simplest form. With tiny stubs for ears, he required minimal animation, and was only built for limited animation. I didn't give him pupils, as I wanted to remove his 'window to the soul' to make it easier for the audience to accept his death.

Digital Art

The Sheppard was consumed by the enormous amount of work ahead of him. He wished upon a demon, whom said "Take this slave. He is a beast, and will do the work of a hundred men. But be warned, if there is no more work left to do, this beast will devour you."

Interior occulsion pass

Buisness card logo

Sheep animation First pass

Occlusion pass

Day to Night

Within a short film, showing that time has passed requires a degree of cleverness. A change of clothes, sudden growth of facial hair, or simply a clock. I chose a day night transition, as I think the sight is aesthetically pleasing to the human eye. The blending of colors in the sky, and the change of lighting upon the earth is fundamentally... nice. Requires a lot of work, so like a true animator I hand balled the bulk of the task to Jay C. James, a freelance artist with a love for nangs.

Buisness card side project

Freelance animators have to pay the bills somehow. Here's a business card logo I'm currently working on for a client.

Early 3d concept art

Early 3d layout

More early 3d concept art!

Press Kit write up

Religious undertones are often found in Marcus’ work, where in concepts found in biblical scriptures are played upon, never specifically stated, but hinted at. “I never saw the bible as being concrete dogma, but rather a collection of books which simply dealt with every facet of human existence, from shagging your first lover, to being depressed.”
Marcus’ characters are usually crafted out of opposing forces. The Sheppard must be both tender and strong. He must utilize traits central to the female, as well as the male. Character’s like reluctant prophets, cowardly fighters, sympathetic monsters, all of these creatures with opposing personality traits fascinated me. They build tension all on their own, because tension and contradiction are inherent within them, breeding obstacles both within the mind and the characters’ world, as well as any other who would dare cross their path.

On a side note, 'starry Sky' has been completed by freelance artist Jay C James.

Creepy

Me

Just so you know.

playaround with claymation

Irrelevant!

More early concept art

Cloak and hat required way to much animation, so in the end it was scratched.

early concept art

Early concept art I dug up. Scratched due to 'Sheppard' looking a little like the grim reaper. Monster was too large and clunky to be effective in 3d space.

Render Still of the snare load

The Sheep eating Monster

Should be pretty obvious that he's blind now.

Monster hands

Render shot of the monster's hand.

Working run cycle

30 frame run cycle, still needs a lot of work.

Mile stone almost complete

Sheep scene almost complete with some in between tidy ups to go.

Dvd Menu

Working dvd Menu, and working title.

Playblast

Opening scene play blast. Rough character blocking and a few keys. Need to tidy up the timing at a later stage.

New playblast

zoom out scene, reveals the monsters hand.