On Hiatus

You may have noticed the complete lack of updates! Since finishing my studies at University, Poy has been put on hold for the time being. Meanwhile, here's a poster I made for the film at my end of year exhibition (though it was only viewable in an unfinished form).

After Effects

Recently I learnt how to use 3D layers in After Effects. This will allow me to put some depth into shots by layering artwork in 3D space and moving a camera through them.

Here's a test render of the technique:



This is a work in progress of the opening shot to my film, which involves a camera travelling through the city:

Colour Studies 2

Here are some more colour studies for shots in my film. Although the backgrounds will follow a similar painterly feel, the characters will be animated in flash and have a much cleaner look to them.

Character Sheets

Here are the final character sheets I submitted for my preproduction portfolio.



If you compare them with the early character drawings I was doing during the Summer last year you can see how far along the character has developed since.

Colour Studies

Here are a couple of colour studies I've done for the film. I'm not too great with colour so it would be great to get some feedback to help me out.

Concept Art 2

Here's some more concept art. I'm trying to improve my work on environments but I'm having a bit of a hard time as I feel I'm not very good with colour.

Poy Poy Poy Poy

An odd bit of concept work that I started and never finished - it's just Poy 4 times with herself. I guess the idea was to try a bit of interaction and characterisation. The inspiration came from this amazing picture by this super mega artist. Perhaps I will colour it at some point!

Watercolours

I thought it would be nice to try out some watercolour concepts for the film. Unfortunately I'm useless at painting but these are my first attempts regardless:

I've been considering using watercolours to create some of the backgrounds in the film..perhaps this would be easier replicated using some Photoshop techniques. ANYWAY, I'm sure I'll try my hand at this again soon, it was nice to colour something on paper for a change.

Concept Art

These 2 images were made to try and visualise how Poy's home and the flying fish would look. The strange architecture was greatly influenced by that seen in Masaaki Yuasa's Kaiba, a sort of organic sci fi looking world.


The fish flying over the town is to be a very important visual aspect of my film, technically I am uncertain as to how I will pull it off yet.

During August I took a trip to Tenerife with my family - I spent a lot of time there trying to develop my story and drawing pictures for Poy in my sketchbook. The architecture on the island helped to formulate some sort of feel for Poy's town in my head. These are some of the drawings I produced whilst I was away.

Developing Poy

Here are some of the first sketches I did of Poy, whilst coming to the end of Clouds' production.

The idea of this girl and a world inhabited with flying fish was already in place, however I was without any ideas for a story. Once Clouds had been completed, my attention was drawn towards pitching an idea for my final year film which would appear on the Clouds section of my site under "coming soon".This involved drawing a set of thumbnail storyboards and led to a basic plot structure which has remained fairly intact from the initial idea.

The story for my animation focuses on a girl who is trying to retrieve the soul of her dead Mother, which has the form of a flying fish (amongst many other flying fish in the sky). In my initial storyboards the connection between the girl and the fish was left pretty ambiguous and had a very silly ending in which the girl ended up being eaten by it, being spat out the other end and turning into one herself. Since then the plot went through several changes.

This is the original storyboard for my film pitch:

Initial Concept

The idea for "Poy" began with a drawing I did whilst Clouds was still in production. It depicts a red girl with an odd hat and a top with "poy" written on it. "Poy" is simply "boh" mirrored upside down, boh being a sort of trademark/logo I often use in drawings. It may have also been influenced by the Boredoms song of the same name.

The idea formed a series of sketches involving giant fish flying in the sky alongside this character, giving an initial basis for some sort of narrative. Knowing I would be producing an animated film in my final year at Uni I decided to develop it as my chosen idea.

At the time I was watching an animated series directed by Masaaki Yuasa, "Kaiba", which has been a massive influence on me. I found the style of the architecture/backgrounds and themes very inspiring - it led me to want to create an animation that could somehow affect an audience on an emotional level. The theme I went for when coming up with initial ideas for Poy was "coping with loss".