Nelly Luckett : BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester

I started trying to model my pirate ship in Maya. In hindsight this wasn't the smartest plan as I hadn't nailed down the design or even drawn any orthographs for this, however I wanted to try and get an idea of how a cartoon ship would be built in Maya. Here are the screenshots from before I abandoned this modelling to create a fully realised design, and orthographs before attempting this modelling.

Below is my animatic. This has caused me a few issues, but here we go :) I also attempted to model a boat for the piece, but it was largely unsuccessful, so I decided to go back and make detailed orthographs before attempting to model this properly. https://eleanorl-caa.blogspot.com/2019/05/boat-tests-maya.html

I decided to do a number of 2D animation tests using after effects to try out my ideas for animation styles. This is the first one of a moving 2D layered sea. This is something I am very happy with the aesthetic of.

Following the feedback from our interim crit yesterday, I decided that I needed to redo part of my project schedule. Below is the revised schedule.

We have been asked to create a list of what we intend to present at the final premise crit. I have been thinking carefully about what I intend to present at the crit, both ideally and what I can realistically aim for. The list I have come up with is: A finalised animatic with composed sound track and voice over Character design bible  Production design bible 2D and 3D rough set models Pre Vis sections  Detailed environment reference photographs Concept art Maya tests Final script I haven’t got as far with Jet pack Jones as I would have liked. This is partially due to a number of sudden changes in my premise project, but also due to, if I’m honest, a bit of a head block on JPJ. The videos take me a lot longer than the actual length of the tutorials themselves.  However, as you can see above, I have allowed myself more than enough time to finish the tutorials before the deadline. I want to spend some time focusing on my premise project in or...

Below is my OGR presentation for premise. I haven't quite finished the write up of the voice over yet, but will upload this later this evening and update this post as well as posting it separately.

I decided that in order to make the designs for my characters more distinct and unique, I needed to have access to a large pool of reference imagery. There are some interesting fashion choices by little me in here, but it was the early 2000's, so please forgive the terrible colour clashes. Premise Character Reference by Eleanor 'Nelly' Luckett on Scribd

After visiting the John Ryan exhibition and workshop, I worked on elements I gained from the workshop and have been drawing multiples of characters from different backgrounds to work out my style. The two initial characters I focused on were Ellie (little me) and Mr De Courcey.

In starting out on the Captain Pugwash project, I decided the first key step was to understand how the Spirit of the animation is portrayed, and how to capture this. I also wanted to start identifying the aesthetic components. I started out by drawing existing assets in order to understand construction. I then began dissecting the characters and looking at specific facial features that are present within the existing assets.  I then began trying to construct myself as a small child in the style, however I don’t think they fit well into the aesthetic, so I decided to return to the existing assets to research more.  I redrew some characters as well as watching some of the animations that I could find online. I think this gave me a much better understanding, although not perfect, of how to construct the characters.  I then began to try to figure out how to create myself within the aesthetic world, from old photographs of me. A...

Today I received a lovely email from John Ryan's daughter giving me permission to use the assets in my project, and mentioning an exhibition and workshop that I can go to. I'm very excited to start this project and hopefully move forward to produce a fun and interesting film.

The day I met Captain Pugwash Many people have an inspiring story that lead them to animation. I think mine is one of the more topsy  turvy paths. Thinking back, my first experience of animation , outside of watching movies or TV, was a chance meeting with a truly incredible man, who created amazing adventures and wonderful worlds from his own garden shed. The gentleman I met was John Ryan, the creator of Captain Pugwash. I was about 5 years old. I was at a business meeting/party with my mum in a big fancy hotel. I remember feeling incredibly small and unimportant compared to all the tall, well dressed men. They were all drinking posh alcohol (I think it was port), and smoking large cigars. To me, from my tiny young point of view, they looked like giant mythical creatures of great knowledge. All of these creatures were bustling around, shaking hands and making booming, raucous chuckles. I felt very out of place but was also delighted by how busy and fine everything was. Cli...