Budget

I recently did my budget too. After researching and working out the costs of all of the staff and the office space and equipment that I would need I found the price to be quite cheap. From talking to Jud, I found out that the studio for Bob the Builder took around £3 million to set up. Which is much more expensive than mine.

Here is the research I did into the pricing for the studio, including the office, the computers and all of the required equipment and software.

And came out with a total of £68032.10 for just the studio costs.

When I factor in the staff at a cost of £537012 the total comes to £605044.10 over a 12 month period.

Here are the spreadsheets I made up with all of the information in them.

Book Printing

I had done a little research into book printing a short while ago and come across lulu.com and blurb.co.uk

However after doing some more in depth research yesterday, and enquiring into turn around times and prices, it would be risky printing now as it might not arrive in time for the deadline. Also the prices are a little out of my budget.

Roxy leant me one of her books on printing and binding, it shows you how to make your on cover for it in one section. This is something I am considering as it is a hard back and will save me a lot of time and money. And since I have now decided to print at the print shop next to the SU, I'll have to make the cover myself as they don't do hard back covering.

Here is the book (picture stolen from Roxy's Blog)

Office Space

So it's the 1st of December now and I have almost finished my Futures work! Just need to get things checked over to make sure its all up to standard and I haven't missed anything. Then sort all of my work into an acceptable order and get it printed.

I have done some research into office spaces and I have to say it took longer than I thought. Especially to find office spacing with the prices available. Also after viewing images of the office spaces I realised I needed around 1500 to 2000 square feet of space. I found one that is perfect and not a bad price.






I chose the ground floor space as it is the size I require and at £27,622.50 a year it's a bargain!

The 24 hour access would also be a bonus in case things run late and people are required to work late.

Styling Mother Nature

As the title suggests, this blog is going to be all about the style I'm going for.  My main influences have been The Smurfs, Fairly Odd Parents and Louie.  I like the simplicity and strong bold colours they all use and I plan to include this in my designs. I also like the general style of Louie, it has messy lines and an organic feel to it.  I also like the big heads and little bodies of Fairly Odd Parents, again something that I definitely think I want to include in my designs!


Here are some reference images;  


Louie

Fairly Odd Parents

The Smurfs

Now to get some designs of my own done and ready for finalising soon...time's a tickin'!

Style

In terms of style research I had a very clear idea in my head of how it would look, and I have to say I hit the nail on the head with my designs.  I am really pleased with them and think that the style definitely suits the ideas behind the series and what I had in my head...which doesn't happen often!


I took my main style inspiration from some shows I remember watching when I was younger, the Mr Bean animated series, Ed, Edd and Eddy and Samurai jack

With the heavy outline to the character and subtler lines inside for the features and any clothing etc. the image appears to have more depth, containing more detail in the foreground than the background.

These guys were my main inspiration for 2 of my characters.

I like the style of Samurai Jack because it is simple yet effective.  There is little to no shadowing for the most part but still work really well on a definite 2D level.

Some modern day style inspiration came from the League Of Super Evil, The characters are all so different and quirky...that's what I attempted to achieve with mine.

I also stumbled across this blog whilst trying to find some style research. It's a great little blog by someone in a similar situation to me, here are some of her images that inspired my chosen style.

I'll post all of my character designs with development and bios by the end of tomorrow!

Long Time Coming

So yes this blog has been up and running for a few months now but I haven't started work until recently, due to my 3 minute project. Anyhoo I thought I should probably get started with only a few weeks to go and all!

I already have my 3 ideas for this project as I came up with them as I was working on my other project.  So it's just a case of doing some research into the categorised age groups, researching shows that are out now and the storylines within them, getting some examples of shows that have inspired my ideas and designs, looking at some styles I want to emulate, finalising all of my synopsises and getting down to some character development and final designs...not much when it's written down...

I began my research by looking into the categorised age groups that animated series fit into these days. These are 2-4yrs, 4-8yrs, 8-12yrs, 12-16yrs and 16yrs+

2-4

This category is solely aimed at preschoolers, with shows that tend to be very short and don’t always make sense.  This is down to the children’s attention span and inability to understand more complex story lines. They very often contain songs and some actions that the child can mimic to aid learning and communication. Helping to teach young kids very basic things in the early stages of their life; like colours, shapes and numbers, in saying this some don’t have much to teach at all, but are just fun for the child to watch. When I was younger a lot of this was done in the process of stop frame and hand drawn animation, for example Postman Pat, but now there is a much wider spectrum of styles as technology has advanced and become more accessible. The likes of Fireman Sam have been updated and is now made in CG, whereas Postman Pat has been so successful as it is there has been no need to change anything.

A lot of current TV shows for preschoolers are mainly comprised of animal characters, some examples of current TV shows for this age group are, Louie, Pingu and Small Potatoes. A show like Pingu has been so successful due to it not having any dialogue or particularly strong storylines, it’s just something the child can enjoy.

4-8

This age group has a longer attention span and as a result the shows can be up to and around 20-30 minutes in duration. They often help in teaching young children morals within the story lines of the animations, with a lot of rights and wrongs thrown in there as well. This is evident in animated shows such as Arthur, Horrid Henry and Scooby Doo.

They also start to become more genre-targeted; male-targeted shows tend to contain a lot of action, for example Ben 10, League of Super Evil or Spiderman. With female-targeted shows, such as Totally Spies, Dora the Explorer or Strawberry Shortcake, having stronger story lines.

The characters in this are much more developed than in the previous age group, they have stronger backgrounds and purpose within the animations. The predominant style in this age group is definitely 2D, unlike shows for preschoolers where they use a variety of styles.

8-12

There is some cross over with this age group and the last one with regards to styles and characters. This is evident with shows like Ben 10 and Totally Spies.  They have a much broader audience range, allowing them to appeal to more kids. With similar styles yet stronger characters I found this age group is more gender-based or targeted with the likes of

The predominant style for this age group is definitely 2D, unlike the shows for preschoolers, which use a wide variety of styles and methods. I feel this is due to the sheer volume in which these shows are produced and the number of shows in each series. It is a lot faster to create a show in 2D than it is to create something in CG or to use Stop Frame animation. This is probably one of the contributing factors to their success. The fact that they have the ability to produce new shows quickly and are able to carry a continuous storyline throughout the whole series, keeping their audience entertained.

12-16

It is becoming more acceptable for the top end of this age group to merge with the likes of shows aimed at adults, for example South Park, Family Guy and Adult Swim. There can be little to distinguish between the two, as nowadays it seems to be more based on opinion and what parents will allow their children to watch. 

16+

This is where the shows start to become a little ridiculous, and 90% are based around humour. At this age and above there is very little you can learn from a cartoon, so I think it’s just about the shows being edgy and hoping you enjoy yourself. With shows like South Park getting more a more controversial, appearing to be trying to get themselves banned. Or Family Guy, which, having watched almost all of them myself, seems to have lost it’s way over the last few seasons and doesn’t really have a specific focus.  The shows are getting more and more ridiculous and have no real purpose or story to them. However they do maintain a great relationship with all of the characters. Or Adult Swim, which is just an almost incomprehensive show in its entirety.