Character Moodboard/ Inspiration

I decided to look up cute little plant type characters to get inspiration for our character. I imagine our character being thin or quite round. Rounder shapes are typically more on the cute side than sharp lines and edges. A character I thought of straight away is bellsprout from Pokemon. It's capable of a lot and it's movements are quite interesting.

References
http://pokemonqrcode.com/bellsprout
http://pokemonqrcode.com/oddish
http://pokemonqrcode.com/bulbasaur
http://zestydoesthings.deviantart.com/art/Marvin-the-Mandrake-320045677
http://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=1251271
http://c-louds.deviantart.com/art/radish-384453661
http://www.zazzle.co.nz/cute+radish+gifts
http://www.otakustudy.com/video-game/2012/07/nis-america-release-character-profiles-for-legasista/
http://rewatchingpokemon.tumblr.com/post/101634160380/dealing-with-anon-hate-like
http://iliketoothpaste.tumblr.com/post/56358190533

Concepts

Over the last few days, I've been working on character concepts & an environment concept for Team Sprout. I feel like the environment concept that I've done doesn't convey a side scroller look at all. Also this is what the end of a level is most likely to look like. This is due to the level starting off quite dead and as the character progresses, the environment slowly comes back to live. This is due to the character planting seeds and restoring the environment.

For character designs, I started off by using simple shapes and chucking leaves on top (middle & bottom rows) These designs are pre boring.
I then came across this image & thought 'Why don't I add NZ native plants to the characters??'
I drew some Koru & Pohutukawa flowers onto characters. I like these concepts the best! They were fun to draw as well.

Reference
http://probertson.tumblr.com/post/125576347404/succulent-boys
http://www.studynewzealand.eu/archive/1354917493/New-Zealand-Christmas-Tree
http://gonewzealand.about.com/od/NewZealandTravel/tp/Cheap-New-Zealand-Tips-For-Cheap-Travel-In-New-Zealand.htm

History

On Friday, we got given the task to show history ?? type thing. We had the option to do an animation or draw a still image. I went with a still image as I didn't have my tablet with me on the day and my idea worked better with a drawing....at least I think it did.
Our tutor showed us this funky mind blowing cube that apparently was spinning. It looked more like a cube eating itself over and over...
SO I thought of an old 'car' and a more modern car being connected in a box. When I showed others this image, they thought the more modern car was pulling the older car due to the 'strings'...it looked better in my head.

Origins of Dreams and breaking them down.

I need to understand more about dreams before I dive into more ideas. This blog post contains research and text from Strephon Kaplan William's 'The DreamWork Manual' A step by step introduction to working with dreams.
So I now know a few things about nightmares, but I've missed the obvious questions.
What is a dream? Where do they originate? How do we understand them?

What is a dream?
-A dream is a manifestation of images & sometimes sounds which show common & uncommon interrelations.
-A dream is a mirror reflecting some aspect of life or the unconscious.
-A dream is a call to living more fully than can be lived just at the conscious level.
-A dream is the creation of night.
To start of with a dream, we have the remembered dream which is filtered by some ego process- 'Remembering Ego' which brings the dream into the waking state, but already begins to change → As dreams are unclear - the consciousness tries to piece it together to make sense of it, even in a way that wasn't dreamt. →→→→→Distorting the dream to the conscious ego's will. Partially when a dream is worked with, it will reveal things the ego does not particularly want to face.

"The outer world is no less perceived through assumptions than the inner world is perceived through assumptions". Objectifying unconscious assumptions through the process of consciousness.
It can be important to know what stimulates dreams. Whether it's through past experiences or what the dreamer hopes for the future.

For objectifying a dream (Breaking the dream down in it's concrete form).
-What are the major symbols & what are the relations between symbols?
-What issues, conflicts & unresolved situations are in the dream?
-What are the positive symbols etc in the dream?
-Does it relate to other dreams?
→ Objectifying a dream would also benefit to breaking down a nightmare.


Types of Dreams
-Nightmares/ Anxiety Dreams
-Great Dreams →Reflect on major experiences
-Ordinary Dreams →The every day kind of dream loaded with inner & outer life issues
-Skunk Dreams → Dream in which we do something bizarre that we do not do in public outer life.
-Confirming Dreams → Mirrors something significantly, a new step we have taken in our lives
-Predictive Dreams → Either future events or help cause them to happen
-Psychic Dreams → Involve spontaneous perceptions across time & space which could not be based on outer knowledge.
-Lucid Dreams → Describe the dream state in which the dream ego experiences itself as exerting will power & free choice
-Waking Dreams → Are outer life experiences which are viewed & worked with also as symbolic, or non-literal, experiences.

Group Work! SPROUTS

For the interactive paper, we formed groups to create a game for the remainder of the year. I formed a group with Taylor, Mikayla, Joanne & Tea & we are caller TEAM SPROUTS :D

Yesterday we brainstormed ideas and rather than having separate ideas, we choose the idea of sprouts right off the bat. This is because we found some sprout hair clips and they're pre cute & we wanted to make a cute game. From there we had loads of ideas regarding sprouts and the environment. 

We decided to make the game fully natural, with nothing man made. As the game must have a humanoid main character, our hero will be a humanoid type plant/ sprout kinda guy. We also want our character to be gender-less. Jo wrote down all our ideas and compiled them together. 

Our general idea is that a lil sprout dude needs to replant the forest to save his kind. He will collect seeds and water to help them grow and fight off pests such as snails and slugs. As we had a looooot of ideas, I'm not entirely sure with which idea we're going with just yet, but that's the jist of our game to be :)

After our brainstorm sesh, we each went off to make a moodboard, draw up a few character concepts and environment concepts. The moodboard I've created is more closely linked to the colours and style I imagine the game. The designs in this moodboard are simple,. but very beautiful. We want to make our game purely 2D, so we can focus on the story and making our game very appealing. 2D is also our strong point and we feel like it will be better portrayed in 2D rather than 3D.
I will most likely get the character and environment done in the weekend. I've started an environment in my book, but will most likely take it into paint tool sai to brush it up more :)

Our theme is fantasy, so we are able to change up the environment - with out of this world kind of designs. Ivan Laliashvili shows interesting fantasy environment concepts. The trees almost look like they have natural carvings on the bark. I think it'd be quite neat if we implemented this idea by having natural Maori carvings on the trees to better link it to being a NZ game.

References
http://tyvik.deviantart.com/art/Environment-Concept-349531184
http://domen-art.deviantart.com/art/Flora-and-Scene-Designes-545349113
http://domen-art.deviantart.com/art/Morpho-Goons-Environment-568620774
http://domen-art.deviantart.com/art/Underworld-sidescroller-concept-art-495617010
http://domen-art.deviantart.com/art/Concept-art-for-2D-sidescroller-495616936
http://pyroxene.deviantart.com/art/Sagramore-MMO-background-gfx-1-256612930|
http://fgfactory.deviantart.com/art/Environments-627483972
http://jurgitaart.deviantart.com/art/2D-environment-520575262

Ivan Laliashvili
http://ivanlaliashvili.deviantart.com/art/Loading-animation-1-399846010
http://ivanlaliashvili.deviantart.com/art/Magic-Kingdom-382158219

Dreams & Nightmares

Humans are unable to see thoughts, memories, dreams & perceptions.
I thought having a look into dreams/nightmares would be quite neat.

It's not much, but it's another step forward!
Just as I dove into psychology, a website called medicalnewstoday.com mentioned how we are unable to physically see mental processes such as thoughts, memories, dreams and perceptions. I instantly thought how neat it would be to look more into dreams and nightmares.

To me, dreaming is still a fuzzy thing. I barely have clear dreams that I can remember, but only fragments. When it comes to nightmares I remember them quite well. Recurring dreams also came into play. I had this one nightmare that would recur a few times, but small things about that nightmare would change. So it would still be scary each time as my unconscious mind wouldn't know what to expect with each change as it recurred.

Recurring dreams may be your mind’s way of telling you something. Do you have the same nightmare over and over again? Loewenberg suggests looking for underlying messages in recurring dreams so that you can rid yourself of them.

Recurring nightmares
-Repetition of an item
-Slight changes with each recurrence
-Links to experiences e.g. attack, accident, traumatic event
-Associates with fear, anxiety & distress.
-Nightmares occur more with children than adults

Notes
-Lucid Dreaming → Having control of a dream.
-Apon awakening our thoughts see our dreams as something bizarre
-First dream of the night = 5mins long. Last dream of the night = 45mins - 1hr

IDEA
A boy is at sea in a boat during the day searching for something. It changes to night time and there is a lighthouse. The lighthouse's light loops around which signifys the first nightmare. Each loop of the light represents the recurred nightmare. Something about the scene, be the lighthouse or environment would change.
The significance of this is that the little boy is scared of the dark- being the dark itself or what lurks in the dark like monsters 'monsters under the bed or in the closet'
I would take into consideration the length of dreams - the first dream is 5mins long and the last is nearly an hour long. Taking this into the animation and translating it into 1minute long, the dream part of the boy at sea in daylight would last 10secs, while the rest is a nightmare, being 50seconds. Yay for ratios.

This is just an idea, but I feel like it needs more properties of nightmares/ dreams within it. I've only just touched on nightmares, so I need to look deeper to better incorporate it into animation.

My tutor suggested looking at Carl Jung & Sir Sigmund Freud as well as surrealism to get a better understanding and hopefully more ideas!

references
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/nightmares-in-adults#1
http://www.clinicaladvisor.com/web-exclusives/determining-the-cause-of-recurring-nightmares/article/224569/
http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/9-things-about-dreams?page=3

Taylor's Memory

On Monday we got given a small brief by one of our peers to do a one second animation of said peer's favourite childhood memory. Taylor and I paired up and her memory is of her sister, cousin and herself dressing up as Teen Titan characters. The would go to their Nana's house and film themselves and watch them. I animated them watching their own footage whilst the smell of their Nana's cooking wafted into the room.