working on the background and thinking forward

I met with Tom Sito the other day to talk about how to start doing the animation in terms of organizing my shots. Being at Duck also has really helped me get a feel for how to organize all of my shots. My initial plan was to get all of the rough animation done by the end of the summer, however, I'm not sure if that's possible.

After Tom, I met Dominic to talk about plans for creating the 3D background. I sent him a floor plan, schematic, and my visual development piece. He said that we could probably finish the entire background by the end of the summer, which would be fantastic because then I don't have to worry about it as much. I'm providing all of the textures and he is putting it together.

I definitely want to finish the background by the end of the summer, so I guess my plans for finishing the rough animation by the end of the summer is out. Besides, it will be easier to layout shots once I have the background setup. I would like to get in a little bit of animation however, because I'm itching to start it. I want to at least do the easy closeup shots.

Goals for the Summer
1. Finish the 3D background and work with Dom
2. Rough animation of close up shots
3. Edit animatic (There are some parts i still want to change)

Here's the schematic I sent to Dominic

I tried making the store more like art books/toy store. Kind of like Giant Robot and Neotype (in Chinatown), or Stuart Ng. It makes more sense since I'm putting my own artwork on all of the books. It looks more complicated than it actually is, because most of it are books. This drawing isn't perfect, but it reads well enough for now.

I drew a few sketches of my characters that I'll post one fine day when I am not lazy. I updated my character designs too, so I can post those later.

I think one of the hardest parts about this process for me is communication. I have both a bg designer and a composer (currently unknown) to communicate what i want.