Project Proposal

With the foundations of the project firmly in place, here is the formal document of our project proposal.

The Wolves Within Project Proposal

Character Fixes

Friday we have discussed designs and if they work from the side and front views , for the wolves. Also, it was clear that the previous soul design was to distinctive where a more general design would suggest easier identification with it.





The wolf’s nose wasn’t following design language of the body that was changed. Also, in the front view, had various issues with legs, width, and head. Hopefully overall, now it is working much better. However, front view often tends to look strange, cause we are missing back legs and all.

 

For the good one, only little changes in leg positioning ( so it doesn’t feel like falling over) and tail proportions.

Concept Shrine Environment #02

Second concept piece of the shrine.






To further suggest the transition into more man made influences as we arrive at the forefront of the human spirit, the environment is now more reflective of Native American influences with totem like elements. This also helps to distinguish the final confrontation with more significance.

Soul Representation Concept

Discussions lead to development of soul representation concept. This one combines ideas from three other dolls. Also, in Leo's concept I noticed he'd draw it white so I gave it a go and this prooved  to diminish the sinister qualities  "soul " designs  had before.

 

It was guided, as always, by the reference sheet of native american dolls

Wolves Orthograph Views

I've used basic orthograph views to resolve the design further and make any changes after discussions with Leo and Justin Wyatt. Also, I should be thanking Justin, Andriana and Dom for their feedback, when I stopped seeing designs objectively. So, hopefully character fronts are as interesting as the concepts themselves. If these will be 'approved', I'll move to fully resolve them ( back views, 3/4 view for the good wolf, and details) and move to modeling stage.

The bad wolf.

tied with black matter his shield-like body moves lucely, by parts separating and coming together as he moves. When solving his front and side designs, bulky, sharp and mean qualities were kept as he represents Anger, hate, and greed.

The good wolf.

Changes to this one were in legs, referring back to dogs anatomy. It should be expressing that he is peace, hope and serenity.

Concept Shrine Environment #01

Concept piece of the shrine environment which holds the human spirit that the wolves seek to control. The presence of the wolves agitate the flames evoking the spiritual nature of the environment as the ruins resonate from within.







Rather than literal representations of Native American structures, I opted for more abtract/suggestive representations of rock-like material. However, this may need to be further resolved to suggest a more significant shift to a man-made environment. After some discussion with Jolanta, we have some fresh ideas to try at this key environment.

Some initial designs of the shrine


References

Soul Designs

I quite like the one which is formed of floaty cloth. It keeps the idea of using a doll to represent the soul but pushes it at the same time to suggest a less obvious nature of it. I see it working quite charmingly with the light stream idea

Title Design

With preproduction reaching its ends we still needed to design a title. The developed character and environment designs were suggesting the approach . Sharp silhouette goes with flowy shape within it. 

Next, possibly we’ll need a base sheet to present whatever information .

 

 

These are some  experiments  for the blog banner:

Good Wolf Concept #02

Another concept piece for the good wolf and his effect on the environment.







Moving away from the initial idea that the wolf brings life to the environment with elements such as plants and trees, the environment is now more consistent with the evil wolf with neutral rock type cliffs. Where the evil wolf brings chaos to the environment, the presence of the good wolf allows the rocks to form back into whole forms awakening the Native American markings in the process. In this way, the logic and design is also more consistent with the setting of inner space with other worldly elements.

Feedback + Thoughts

Some general notes and thoughts for reference after feedback from today's tutorials.

Good wolf
Design and visuals is fine but legs/weight needs tweaking as the wolf feels a little off balanced. Additionally, the face had right quality in one of previous drawings which may have been lost in the later design (could be the lines/contours in the face). It could simply be a matter of toning things back a little to more standard wolf anatomy, but keeping current visual design.

I made some quick changes to the earlier design to see if the wolf feels more balanced. Hopefully, it retains its quality of the good wolf while not feeling too generic, especially once combined with the later visuals.

Evil wolf
Design is fine. The inside of the wolf between the segments is a black void type substance, perhaps a heavy smoke type effect which can further emit from the wolf as he runs.

Environment

• Environment and visuals will reflect the metaphor of beginning in the depths of inner space before becoming closer to consciousness and reality of the human spirit. This will be reflected with abstract elements throughout the environment, that eventually lead to elements that suggest of being man made with Native American influences, particularly at the end with the culmination of the 'shrine' that holds the human spirit.
  
• Colour of lights and elements can change as each wolf passes, can perhaps be done in Maya with scripts that independently change the colour as the wolf passes.
• Movement of elements in the environment can be triggered as the wolves pass, and perhaps change in type of movement depending on which wolf passes eg. Evil wolf more sharp (violent?) movements in the environment that pulls away from the landscape, where the good wolf affects the environment with calmer movements, perhaps showing the abstract rocks and elements forming back together as a whole.

Character Fix

Tuesday was a day of feedback on wolf Characters. After discussion with Leo and Phil, I also talked to Justin Wyatt. In short, it was obvious designs needed some problem solving and revisiting.

 For the good one things seemed to go over the top:  decorativeness  and saturated in complimentary colours  were obfuscating the shapes. I've added some mass to his neck and change the 'face make-up' .A little nice touch, suggested by Leo, was to get rid of eye pupils.

In contrast , the bad wolf , presented other set of problems. Mainly regarding shapes of the back  part of the body and how it would work in animation. He was looking stiff as a statue figure. The challange was to figure out how he'd work. So I've come up with this idea, which was kind of evident in the design already, that the bad wolf is tied with an anti-matter/black matter which is holding him in place. So when he moves parts come together and distance away.

I added tail ( finally :D ) and fixed the spine line.

I came across this truly useful video when understanding wolf movement:

Will  sure be used again

Wolf Terrain Suggestion

I thought to give it a go and create a suggestion of environment to express more clearly what kind of thought I have about it. I find it quite hard to describe it in words.

It is presented in flat view so we see the transitioning from the bad wolf 's affected  environment to the good ones. Also, keeping in mind it is a race from unconscious to conscious , I was imagining the environment would correspondingly  build from 'nothingness' to a fully crowded space.
This concept is also testing the idea for the environment to be quite desaturated in colour. Lighting would be quite colourful: Green (blues, violets) for the bad wolf , golden (whites, oranges) for the good one.

Good Wolf Concept #01

Initial concepts for the good wolf. In contrast to the evil wolf, the later restores life to the surroundings with light and colour.





Looking back at the piece, the current setting of a forest now feels distracting and perhaps underwhelming to the idea of inner space that the wolves are racing through. Needless to say, I will be experimenting with some more concepts to resolve this one.

The Black and White Wolves

Last week I have chosen two wolves for each, bad and good one. For the bad one there was a debate, both seemed to have their own strengths.

Therefore I tried to compromise the design and came up with this third wolf. I believe it is nicely encompassing ideas of both of the previous wolves.

Friday , we both with Leo have discussed the visual development and approach for character resolution in terms of colour and texture .  So these are close to resolved character designs for both of the wolves .

 

The dark one was developing quickly and soon I realized it will be quite a challenge to make the good one‘s design as interesting. The idea to make it purely white with only accents of other colours soon proved to be insufficient. Because his also less saturated in shapes in regard to the bad one, so it seemed like he would loose  0:2 if shapes and colour don’t  come across as “complicated” as the bad ones. 

These designs doo capture how I’ve imagined them to look like. However at this stage I’m still ready to change/redo designs if our further discussions would ask to do so.