He dug the Ponte Vecchio.

But Roundabouts are even better:

We ate. I’m fat now. But it’s worth it. Please, once in your life, eat florentine steak. *slobber*

But feel free to avoid Florentine Tripe Sandwich.

As usual, the school hires an incredible space in Florence for the workshops. This is an elegant old city hall. I feel somewhat embarrased to admit that I came to the birthplace of the renaissance and taught people how to draw chickens, but this is the way of the world. I also taught story and character design;

…but it was mostly chickens.

Being the pros that they are, the guys at Nemo set up an exhibit of my doodles and printed up a book. A real treat.

I wore out the doodling hand signing prints and cards and was delighted when they asked for drawings of Apollo. The students are a great bunch.

Talking of which, a couple of the sculptors (and aardman fans) among them gave me some souvenirs. Natascia Ceccanti did the excellent Shaun and Pig (recognize the pig?)- more of her work here, and Simona Giudizio did that great timmy. See her stuff here.  My Daughter was thoroughly impressed. Of course, props to Aardman for their characters.

Thanks to my Italian friends. See you again…

j

Here’s an update on the animated Ipad book which goes by the title of Apollo, which is ticking along nicely in the chinks between day jobs and babies and things. I’m enjoying myself immensely. I may as well, cos it’s going to get gruelling and soul destroying shortly.

Got the color script sorted: (This is a chunk of it)

And have landed on an approach to the background paintings. I was playing with going all digital and painting them all in Photoshop which is fast and gives me more graphic results. But I love grungy paint too much. So I start off the paintings in acrylic monochrome, like this: The messier the better. I can play with it all in photoshop later.

Next, still in monchrome, tighten it all up a bit in photoshop.

Time to start slapping some color around, using multiply layers in PS. Kind of like adding watercolor washes over the top. This will darken things, so I’ll need to pull out the light spots and  contrast after. Looks horrible right now, but stay calm.

Next, using what we’ve got so far as a guide, painting with more opaque color on top, taking out excessive texture, tightening contrasting areas. Also adding a bit of foreground leaves. They are on a separate layer- I want to animate them later.

Next, give it more zing and lighting by painting in overlay layers on top,and  deeping the shadows with more multiply. This all aims to keep the original paintstrokes visible as much as possible. Done! It looks a bit empty. But then, it’s a background, and that’s ok.

Along with that, the animation is progressing. It’s a a steep curve for me, I only ever did stop frame, and not too much of that, before I began to board and then direct. So it’s great to try and finally wrap my head around this stuff. Long way to go. Here’s a shot break down:

this video from HeyUGuys of the work on Aardman’s Pirates should appeal. The sets and multitude of puppets on this movie really are special. It all reminds me how working on a stop motion shoot is the best way to make a living in animation. And this from a guy who is usually happy with a box of crayons. (I turn up somewhere there too, pitching storyboards)

I think this could work as the basis of a rather disturbing wallpaper. In the meantime, the hero of my ipad book is going through the character design phase…