City stuff

Just modelling the city, rendered some prog shots.

New king clothes design. To save time.

Height Charts again

K, redone height chart, with a 3D version as well. The maya scene for the 3D version is ... with me. And on anim 18 scratch, under the knightmouse folder.
Enjoy.

Height chart (rough)

Here's the height chart. On the far left is the girl mouse, then KM himself, the Eagle, and an average human height. The king, of course, would be somewhere in between the eagle and the human. He's pretty short.

Colour Strips

Colours for different areas, characters, buildings, settings, etc.

Model sheet - Knightmouse

Props and House

Another potential prop, I figure in his journeyings he wouldve encountered a wizard or two, which opens up a few more prop ideas. Not sure about the skull though, itd take up half his house. Speaking of which, this is kind of how I imagined his house to look, from what max was describing and my own imagination.


Also a floor plan, and a few shots from inside. Note the painting of father knightmouse, and the weapons scattered around the house. Dual level, so he has to climb up a ladder to get to his bed.

Props

Aaaand some props for knightmouses house.

Character Concepts 2

Trying out different body shapes.
And did up a rough 3D model.

Test Animations and Character Concepts

K, while I was trying to figure out a good aesthetic for the film, I was looking out our design for the king. He has large ears, beady eyes, and plenty of facial hair. So following that train of thought, I figured we could just make all the characters resemble mice, to an extent. That would then solve our problem of a unique design. Anyway, 5 designs here.
Also, a few animation tests in flash.

Dragon Concept

Firstly, a display of Knightmouses awesomeness:


And now, an update of where we stand. As of week 4, first storyboard complete, first animatic complete with a few scenes already edited and tightened, schedule and budget done, character concepts for knightmouse, the dragon, and ratcatchers complete, environment concepts for the buildings, and general time wasting complete. A successful month.
-LJ

Concepts

Meeting 1) Brainstorming

KNIGHTMOUSE

Brainstorm session ideas:
- Mouse has brought plague with him.
- He’s oblivious to the fact that this has happened.
- Give audience clues that it’s the plague but don’t let them know straight away. Eg, flags at half mast, he coughs a bit, arrives on ship, etc.
- Visuals get darker and grittier as story progresses. Colour palette changes from slightly happier colours in intro to darker, more brooding colours at end.
- Intro is bright, fast moving.
- Middle is more subdued colours.
- Ending is dark, overwhelming.
- If we have time throw in some sly references to other students’ flims.

INTRO MONTAGE:
- Reveals who he is. Brave hero mouse.
- Quick shots of him generally being heroic and brave.
- Helping old lady. (don’t know how to visualise this shot)
- Gets off a ship at dock by climbing along ropes holding ship to dock. Make it a brave tightrope walk. Plague clue???
- Smashing mouse trap to save girl mouse and gets kiss as reward. This can also be another clue that town is trying to kill rodents to stop plague. ???
- Quick shot of him sick/coughing. Plague clue???
- Shot of him slaying a dragon with his sword as per original script.
- Maybe some other shots of his heroic deeds.?????
- Sword out of stone
- Fighting puppets on a stage
-
MIDDLE SEQUENCE:
- Transition from image of dragon with sword in its belly, to jigsaw puzzle of same image and Knight Mouse just finishing with last piece of puzzle.
- Knight mouse at home, now bored after finishing puzzle.
- Goes for walk down street because he doesn’t want to waste time doing nothing and staying still.
- Paper sign floats overhead, shadow falls on him. Paper eventually lands on him. He crawls out from under paper.
- He reads sign but misinterprets it as a call to arms.
- He runs off towards castle and we see what the sign reads: “King Wants Rats! Help Needed”.


END SEQUENCE
- Mouse runs thru shut castle gate.
- Cut to him running towards throne in king’s throne room.
- King points him out as per script.
- Pan across all king’s helpers/rat catchers as they gather around. All serious except 2 guys who are playing “Mouse Trap” board game. ??????
- One guy quickly steps on mouse and squishes him.