Scene 2 Storyboards and Update

Caravan: Scene 2 Forest EXT

To think Caravan, at one point, was just a fleeting idea in my head, let alone a couple of pages worth of storyboards in my sketchbook. Now, it's a fully rough-animated film, halfway on its way towards life in technicolor. I was thoroughly entertained to find this scan of one of my pages of boards filed away in a very random location on my computer, and thought I'd share. Mia meets Kelsey, from scene 2 of the film.

At the moment, I'm one week into the two week break I have has scheduled for rest and re-compiling of thoughts/sanity/personal health, fresh after Graduation from CCS. At the end of those two weeks, I'll pick right back where I left off with the film, smack in the middle of clean-up and coloring process. I look forward to that. Until then, I'll stick with my gardening, camping, freelance and personal art projects, a couple of which you can follow over at my art blog, if you'd like.

Also, because I love it so, here's one of the latest tunes fueling my Caravan inspiration: "White Summer/Black Mountain Side" by Led Zeppelin. I can just imagine the entire convoy trekking up a country back-road to this somewhere, pitching camp one late summer evening... little miss Mia in tow, of course. Love it.

	Led Zeppelin - White Summer/Black Mountain Side .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

See you in a week, Caravan!
♥Mel

Roadside Rest - Final

After the Tale: Roadside Rest

I'm absolutely thrilled with how this image came out! It was a blast to work on, and I'm looking forward to creating more Caravan-themed artwork along this vein soon. A lovely print of "Roadside Rest" along with the original line artwork from my sketchbook have been framed and matted in a lovely composition, and will be available for sale at the 2010 Student Exhibition at the College for Creative Studies on May 14th.

Cheers,
♥Mel

Roadside Rest (Flat Colors)

I've gotten a little attached to the lineless vector-like flat colors for this image (Which I've given the impromptu title of 'Roadside Rest') So I thought I'd share. I'm really enjoying the pallet to the image so far - it continues the fall colors at the end of the Caravan short, as it's within probably two weeks of that point in the story, but the tones will be slightly cooler and slightly calmer than the intense tones seen in those mid-day scenes - this scene will take place at dusk.

On to textures! :D

♥Mel

"Mel-Style" Caravan

Kelsey, Mia and the fuzzies (Hoobler the mutt and Icklefitz the cat) resting beneath the shade of a young oak in one of the first campsites the Travelers inhabit after the events taking place in the film.

One of the more interesting aspects of working on Caravan has been the fact that I, from the start, chose to design the characters in a far more graphical, simplified, "cartoony" manner then I typically draw when designing characters of a more illustrative basis. Keeping the characters more graphical in appearance certainly has aided in allowing me to animate faster, in the end (especially where clean up is concerned!) so the decision ended up being a smart move. However, it has also very frequently left me craving drawing the cast more in my regular day-to-day style of drawing - after all, my usual style is how I actually see the characters in my head, not the simplified style you see in the final film. Strange, perhaps, I know, but that's just the long and short of it.

For fun, here and there when I find the time and am able, I thought I'd start drawing the whole film's cast in my usual more comic-style of drawing. There are hints of the film's graphic 'toon style throughout the character designs, but at the same time, I think the differences are evident, and both fun and interesting to see (Check my original character line-up sheets for easy comparison.)

I'll be coloring the image above throughout the night, and if I get the chance, will throw up some process work from it here and there. :)

♥Mel

A Juxtaposition of Homes

The Talberts'
Inside the Talbert home. Shot 075.

The Kavenaughs
Inside the Kavenaughs's RV home. Shot 079.

Animation, onward!
♥Mel

The Closing Shot

I'm officially (and finally!) done with all of Caravan's backgrounds. I, accordingly, completed the film's final tilt shot last, and love the results, so I thought I'd share. For those curious, the shot will pan up into a parchment paper background for credits, hence the gradient fade up top there. Hooray for completed backgrounds!

♥Mel

Colors of Fall ♥

The peak of Caravan's story also provides its peak in color - it takes place in the fall, my favorite season visually. I've got 7 fall backgrounds completed so far - here are two of them.

♥Mel

Peaking Tension Through Light

Background layouts from a moment of fright for Mia and Kelsey - and my attempt to portray that through background color rendering alone, particularly through the sudden spike of intense lighting from the more saturated, darker shots prior to this. I'll post two of those in a moment as well.

♥Mel

Change of Seasons

There is a small change of seasons montage about 2/3rds of the way through Caravan, to show that Mia becomes a part of the Traveler family over the course of the summer. It's three shots, three layout drawings - most of the transition will be handled and animated in After Effects by Niles, including the appearance of trees "blooming" to life from spring to summer. While there are only three layout drawings, I had to digitally painting doubles of each drawing (all of which are now complete) to accompany the fade between the seasons. Above is an example of this - the encampment, from summer to fall.

♥Mel

Night Backgrounds Complete

I just completed the 5 remaining night backgrounds for the film! Above is my favorite of the group. Up next? The three backgrounds involved in the spring to fall seasonal transition.

♥Mel

OMG TREES! (Part 2)

Here's 4 of the 5 backgrounds I completed today - and the last of this section of similar tree backgrounds, thank goodness! The next lot I will be doing are all of the night-time shots, as well as the three involved in the spring-to-fall seasonal transition. Keep an eye out, they'll be done and up soon as well!

Shot 012

Shots 013 and 015

Shot 017

Shots 016 and 018

♥Mel

Caravan Fall09 Semester Progress

I have my end-of-the-semester review of my film's progress tomorrow afternoon, and as per usual with any student review, I've cobbled together a quick reel of a healthy portion of the work I've done throughout the semester (although this is hardly all of it - I could only fit in so much!) It's a little difficult to make out some of the rough animation in such a tiny dimension, I do apologize for that. Hopefully, however, it gets the point across well enough - The film's truckin' right along!

Put together in about 3 hours, throughout today, amidst my Maya and Sound Design classes.

Caravan Fall09 Semester Progress Reel

♥Mel

OMG TREES! (Part 1)

Here's 5 of 6 backgrounds I colored via Livestream the other night - only just now had the time to post them! (Ah, finals.) These cover shots 004, and 006-011, of Mia discovering in and consequently following Kelsey through the woods. I have, for a long while, imagined diffused oddly stage-spotlight esque lighting for these shots, in hopes of giving them a slightly dream-like, surreal quality, while still being fairly solidified in the reality that is established in the film as a whole.

Epic thanks to Kat for her help in flat-coloring some of these!


♥Mel

5 New, Completed Backgrounds

Here are some of the latest completed backgrounds for Caravan. I've also completed 4 simple textured wash backgrounds, though those are hardly interesting without characters in them as accompaniment!





Cheers,
Mel

Whew! The Doozie!

EDIT: Oh, the perils of saving and uploading files in the wee hours of the morning, on absolutely minimal sleep. It just dawned on me that two of my lighting/shadow layers were invisible on the file I uploaded earlier. So, here's the proper image, complete with lighting on the river, and shading on Nana's pop-up camper in the middle of the scene there. I have also left up the improper upload for comparison, and to giggle at what a silly tit I am when tired.

Shot 019 - the establishing shot of the Caravan.

The "Oops" Upload, by comparison:

I knew, out of all my backgrounds, this one would be the most consuming to color, so I decided to get its final render out of the way up front. Not only and I pleased with the result, I can rest assured that, compared to this doozie, the rest of the final background renders will be a piece of cake!

More again soon,
Mel

Shot 034 completed background

Took my sweet time on this today, as I needed something that would really let me decompress a bit before finals get here. Really enjoyed coloring this layout as a whole. From here on out, I'll probably be bouncing all over the film in terms of which backgrounds I color. Hmm... I wonder which I'll do next.

Cheers,
-Mel

First Completed Backgrounds!

Well, I managed to complete color renders on three backgrounds in downtime during one four-hour work shift today: A good sign for productivity on these to come! Here's my first three fully completed backgrounds for Caravan The top of of which has flat colors was posted here, for the curious)

Shots 031, 031 &032

I've mentioned previously my affinity for musical inspiration throughout the creative process. Two days ago, I discovered yet another lovely track from the August Rush soundtrack (Never seen the film, hence the delayed discovery) that has so many textural similarities to how I want Caravan to feel visually, it, frankly makes me rather giddy. So, I had to share.

• Dueling Guitars from the August Rush Soundtrack
  

More again soon,
Mel

Mia At Peace

I'm working on character layouts at the moment - here's a particularly cute one from today. One of the last shots of the film, Mia finally finds her peace.

-Mel

Gypsy Camp Environment Background

The establishing shot of the Kavenaugh's back-woods encampment is undoubtedly one of the most important - and busy! - pan shots in the film. It is the shot that most clearly defines the humble, well-lived and well-loved campsite, as well as establishing the film's 1970's time period in terms of aesthetics. Here are both the lineart and initial flat colors t the background of that shot. At this point, I've all of my background layouts drawn, over half flat colored, apart from being a quarter of the way into rough animation. Caravan is certainly coming along! More again soon.

-Mel

Posies for Hoobler

Mia & Hoobs.

-Mel