The Garden Gang - An unexpected Visitor

Well, here it is!! The Garden Gangs gates can officially be opened, after a little trouble yesterday putting files together and rearranging the garden, we are ready to show what we (Me and Faye) have created, sit back, relax, pull up one of those white plastic garden chairs and tune into The Garden Gang - An Unexpected Visitor!

"Ah, the farmers been growing signposts again...wait."

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This was amazing to do, I've really enjoyed making this, and voicing a character (rather then being a narrator), and making this has taught me a few things, I think I've nailed down my secondary skills now at least, and I feel confident about my animation ability. :3 of course I'll always be learning, its one of those things you cant just finalise and say "yes, I can do this, bam." There will always be something new. To the future!!

Fayes Blog: -=LINK=-

Here at the Garden Gaaa-aaaaang...

(No Adam, The Flower Temple is done now) Oh right. Well I'd better talk about The Garden Gang then!! :3

With The Flower Temple done and dusted, its time both me and Faye focused our efforts on The Garden Gang, and focussed we have!! We feel like we can finish this animation of pretty soon and after spooling through it over the next week ironing out the creases, it should be up and running like The Flower Temple. :3

"I'm strong to the finich cause I eats me spinach..."

"...I'm Chip the sailor potato!!"

But does Chip succeed in uprooting the weed? o: (rhyme) we shall see...

You can also like the Garden Gang on Facebook :3 if you like. 

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Olivia Yellow (Orange Adam, Orange)

Today has seen much progress, I finally managed to get the Mike Mushroom animation I lost re-animated again. Its taken longer due to random snow falling in March (ok...) But anyway, he's back now and he has another animation with him, introducing Olivia Orange!!

"No I don't have an itchy chin, I'm thinking!!"

This 1st animation is something I'm pretty happy with, though it's far from being finalised, the basics are there, and I even got to put in some secondary animation for her "hair" :3 (I do love secondries) anyway, here's a link to the piece.

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Now I did say "1st animation" earlier...so here's a 2nd one...

LINK

This came about rather confusingly, initially I wanted to make Olivia jump, but I instead made her rotate backwards, a few more spins (and some random ideas from others) and this was created, Olivia floating off into deep space worrying about a weed, Oh dear. :3

Things are growing ahead nicely...

Progress!! Nearly every single character is fully rigged, and its finally time I did some tests animating them!! I've started small :3 namely, Mike Mushroom. I'm pretty happy with this scene, something feels incorrect but I cant think what, maybe someone else will spot it :3. Have a Link.

LINK
(Sadly, my USB is on its last legs, I'll have to re-animate this tomorrow, all of it is lost. :/ )

On the grow...

More Garden Gang things!! A few more characters got put together today :3 I might like to get some tests done soon with them too see how they look moving about.

"Now he IS appealing"

I personally think they're looking great!! The character itself is drawn by Faye, then I take the outlines, colour them in and piece them together. This way we wern't both drawing characters and ending up with 2 different styles by the end. :3 I also dont get bored of rigging, there's a little bit of joy in seeing the parts move how they should (and sometimes how they shouldnt! :3 )  I'd say we're about halfway through the characters now. Looking forward to animating all this.

Its "growing" on me...

(Adam that was a horrible pun, go away) No!! I need to tell you about things to do with The Garden Gang!! Today we officially put our 1st character together!! Infact, Mike Mushroom, Gary Grape and Alex Apple are all set to go, and with characters on there way everythings looking a lot better, its exciting seeing characters finally put together and able to move after all the planning. :3

"Oh no!! A terrible accident has occurred!!"

"There's not mush room in here..."

 We also got some feedback about Gary Grape, it turns out that everyone (including me initially) thinks he's a pea. To rectify this I quickly changed his base colours to be less pea-like and more grape-like, and I think its worked. :3

"I'm so a-pea-ling!!"

"That looks grape!!"

 Also, we should be getting some voices for The Garden Gang on thursday, hopefully we can play around with getting some characters talking after that!! If you cant tell, I'm excited. :3

Gaaaaardnin'

I thought I'd draw up a few "pretty pictures" for The Garden Gang, just so I could see the layouts for certain scenes, concept art if you will. :3 anyway, these are what I came up with.

"Every garden has a miniature Gym, you just have to know where to look."

"Weed's a there!!"

Also, the story has changed slightly from the original. Running on feedback Faye got from Ed Hooks (and our own ideas.) We've moved the main aim of the story away from healthy eating (which kids of the age group we aimed for wouldn't really care about) and took it to gardening and general advice :3. We have a new animatic to go with this, which I shall provide a link for...now!!

LINK - Bonus points to Faye for uploading this. :3

Any pointers? A budding gardener yourself? Just plain hungry? :3 Drop me a comment.

Adam, more professional sign writer than last time (ish)

Update!! The previous sign was too creepy!! (which I agree with to be honest :3 ) But I can still use that style if I ever need a scary sign. So, in an effort to create a cuter sign I have came up with this!!

"Bzz Bzz Bzz Bzz..."

I think this is a much better look, much friendlier :3, and I'm so tempted to animate that bee!! I don't think its 100% finished but its getting there. Any pointers are welcome!!

Adam, Professional(ish) Sign writer

A quick mini-update on things Garden Gang related. We've sorted out posters and they should be dotted around the university somewhere (courtesy of Faye, thanks!) and I've spent a abit of time today making a sort of logo for The Garden Gang. I feel its far from finished but my ideas basically there. I wanted a badly painted sign, but for now it looks unrelated to The Garden Gang apart from the obvious writing. Hopefully I can discuss that on wednesday, for now, here's what I have so far.

"Be honest, you knew it'd be yellow"

Any pointers? Need more random signs? Give me a comment!! :3

But you're not a gardener Adam!!

New Semester, new projects, its almost like its a new year or something!! Anyway,  on with the next big thing, which for me and Faye is vegetables!! We're taking on a group of characters called "The Garden Gang", (which was a project to get kids eating healthier by Adsa in 1999) and making a little animation about life in the garden for them. :3 I'm really looking forward too it. Here are a few sketches I've done of some of the characters. (no I wont do captions for them all, I refuse, :3 )

Phew!! Well done for getting through them all, hopefully I can post up an animatic soon to go with this soon :3 until then, byes!!

LINK - Faye's Blog, as I'm doing this project with her, give it a look!!