Showreel 2009 by H.M.Remi

This is the Showreel for my degree, showing my favourite works that I did in these three years ^^
Enjoy!

Major Animation - "The Battle Song of IronBird Chronicles"

Finally got it done!!!
Here is the synosis:
"IronBird" is a fantasy adventure story happened in a world where magic and science live with each. By exploring the growth of Animia, a 15 year old girl who dreamed of becoming the top IronBird pilot of the world, the animation will go through many themes , friendship, love and death, war and justices and questions the co-existence of nature and science.
This is the final major project of my degree. It's all done digitally in Photoshop, AfterEffects, and Illustrator.
Hope you enjoy!!

IronBird Character Prints 03 - Mirror for Lost Memory

Ok! This is the third piece of the Character Prints Collection.

Losing her memory, Animia lost her identity as well. She is now wearing the other country's army uniform.

This magical water which lights come through the centre of the ripples, from bottom to the top, is reflecting Animia's true self, but she, herself cannot see it. Audience, you are the one knowing this!

Will she meet her friends on the battle fields? Will she find back her memory? Or will she fight with them till die?..... I will not tell here, of course, please wait for the animation ~~~~

Enjoy again!

software: Photoshop CS4

IronBird Character Prints 02 - Dance of Sparks

Yeah~~~~ this is the second illustration for the character prints collection XD

It is entitled as "Dance of Spark" because there are sparks "dancing" both in the background which are the fire balls from the sky and the magic ball in the foreground.

This illustration is another concept art to show how the IB's works - magical~~~

Used a lot of time testing how to make the magic ball look powerful and dynamic, now it still work (hopefully ^^)

Enjoy enjoy enjoy~~~

Software: Photoshop CS4

[Illustration] IronBird - "Fighter under the Light of Hope"

I just realized that I just put this post in the draft bin without publishing it for more than a year, stupid me!!!

So here presents Animia, the protagonist of  "The Battle Song of IronBird Chronicles", a story that I wrote for my final year project at Monash (it's in 2009, oh my...how come I forgot to publish it)

This illustration has won Aniwow 2009 The 4th China (Beijing) International Student Animation Festival

You can see the other two illustrations of Animia under the illustration section in this blog, the relevant animation and showreel is also available :)

So basically, it is a mixture of adventure and war story filled with friendship, growth of teens tricks and love. It is a story that lives in world composed of both supernatural power and mechinical science.

Animia is a 15 year girl. Her unique color match of her eyes and white (white hair and red eyes) is a hidden message of the story. This color match also traps her into the national conspiracy and put her life in risks. So how can she and her dearest friends in the squad save her and the world? It will be a "battle of the white swans and the black raves" 

Hope you like it :)

[The original plot of the post 2 years ago]
This is another concept art for "IronBird".
A new design for the plot suit ^^
Animia's determined eyes are just so cool >w
"I am the one to end this fight!" said Animia.
Done in photoshop cs4.
Enjoy ^^

[Illustration] IronBird - promo poster 01

This is Animia from "IronBird" illustrated in the army school suit. Although there is a new design of the suit, anyway I would like to let it be the first promo poster for my animaiton piece which will be done this October ^^

To learn more about the story of IronBird (my self-directed, animated narrative) and watch the animatic of the intro animation, please refer to the previous post.

Cheers!!

[Animation] IronBird - Intro animation (animatic)

IronBird is the story that I wrote as an animation series program for TV with about 50 episode.

Plot of the story:

This story took place in a world which magic and science co-exists with each other. The magic in this world is the ability of people to sense the flow of the air particles (AF -air factors) and control them to do many kinds of things , such as light up fire in the air and fly!!!

And IronBird is the flying machine invented according to this magical power by a prince and a princess from two nations which are next to each other.

IronBird helped to imrpove two nations' economy and people's lives. It one of the triggers of the war.

The war lasted for 30 years. Our story starts 20 years after the wars ended. Animia, our protagonist was a 15-year-old girl whose dream is to be the top IB pilot of the world. She trained herself hard on flying skills and finally got the entry to the Nation Army school and trained as a pilot solider.

There she would meet her three teammates. From strangers, to friends and from friends, they became the most-trusted- partners after missions, adventures and challenges.

However, after the light of happiness, Animia didn't know that she was already put into the centre of a trape!

"A wounded swan will transform into a crow."

The finish OP animation will be released in October this year, see you then ^^

[Animation] IronBird - Animia test animation

This is the test animation of Animia, the protagonist of IronBird, showing her fighting action.

This test is done frame by frame in pencil drawing then timing time in AffterEffects.
As same as I said before in old posts, frame by frame animation is just sooooo fun!!!!

[Animation] Sk8er Boi animated mtv (PV)

After showing all the characters in illustration, I would like to present you the animation piece.

H.M.Remi's Animated Sk8er Boi MTV (PV) is a self direction project of one of my subjects. Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi has been my beloved song since I was in junior high. Yet, back then I didn't wholely understand the lyrics (English is not my first language) and the meaning behind the story (was too young~~~). However, I like the rhythm and the story I hardly understood in the song. Therefore, I have been hoping to visulize this story story through animation for a long long time!!! The thing was that I didn't have the skill......

But now, I have the skill and I can do it!! Yeah!!! I am really a dream executant XD!!!!! I researched on youtube and discovered that there have been already many people animated the story which made me feel a bit frustrated for a moment (I wanted to be originally and the first one to do that!!) But I understood that if I let this chance go, I may not have another to make this dream which last for 7 years come true. So, in order to make it more original, I decided to apply the traditional Chinese painting style as the style of my piece and give the characters new personalities which would be more Asian (I target this MTV to be broadcasted in Asia, e.g. Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, China and South-east Asia).

To understand the Sk8er Boi's characters more, please refer to the former posts. Hope you enjoy it ^^

[Illustration] Sk8er Boi animated mtv - Rock n Roll Girl

Wooo! This is the time for the first-person of the story, Rock n Roll Girl!!

I cannot say this character is the protagonist becuase Sk8er Boi is actually depicting more the past of Skater Boy and Ballet Girl. Rock Girl (shorten her name ^^) acts like a narrator of the story, yet a subjective one ^^

In my imagination, she is a confident girl and the singer of the band with Skater Boi. She always do her best for getting the things that she wants, therefore sometime, she seems a little bit aggressive.

Um~~~ really want to animate the whole story !!!

[Illustration] Sk8er Boi animated mtv - 3 Naughty Friends

These are the "naughty" friends of Ballet Girl. As the song depicted, they are the people who laughed at Skater Boy's baggy clothes and "persuade" Ballet Girl not to fall in love with him....

So the villains of the story...?? I am not sure about this. It was bad for them set value of a person by his clothes, however, perhaps they were just doing so for Ballet Girl as her friend, getting away the person that is not good for her....

Anyway, people's personalities and actions are complicated. For my version of the Sk8er Boi story, I hope to make this group of friends to be more humane, not just pure villains.

So I name them as "Naughty friends", but not "Evil friends" ^^

[Illustration] Sk8er Boi animated mtv - Ballet Girl

The second character of Sk8er Boi animation MTV~~ Ballet Girl.
She is a character with a arrogant yet not confident enough personality, she could be affected by peers and acted opposite to her true heart... poor character actually....

Anyway, to express her character, a beatibul and arrogant ballet dancer, I came out with this finally ^^

Just love her ballet dress!!!!!

The graphics was sketched by hands on paper then painted in Painter.

[Illustration] Sk8er Boi animated mtv - Skater Boy

The popular boy in this musical story, Skater Boy.
A boy with baggy clothes who loved playing skating board and guitar, became a famous Rock star at the end.
His clothes are no more baggy now, but you have already been late, Ballet Girl~~~
I used bamboo as the background to imply that the Skater Boy in my animated version has a sincere personality ^^

[Illustration] Sk8er Boi animated mtv - More than friends

"We are more than just friends!!"

If you know this song, "Sk8er Boi", you will uderstand this illustration ^^

More than friends - the heart shape formed by the plants implying that they are actually lovers~~~

[Illustration] Sk8er Boi animated mtv - Guitar player

This is one of the scene in the animated Sk8er Boi MTV.

Do you think that the ink-drops background looks like a face of a character from a Japanese comic XD!!! Hints: an annoying 5-year-old boy~~~

Haaaaahaaaaa!!!!

[Illustration] Sk8er Boi Title scencs

These are the designs of the beginning and end scenes of my beloved song, "Sk8er Boi" by Avril Lavigne.

I animated this song with again, traditional Chinese painting style with manga style characters.

The graphics are done in Painter Essential 3 ~~~

[Animation] "WEN"

Finally, it's here now~~~

"WEN" is a frame by frame animation. As my own pc died before I went into the animation process, I had to draw all the frames by hands (I don't remember how many papers I have used). Then, borrowed my friend's computer to paint the frames in photoshop so that the clouds still look like what I planned them to be. Thank you! My friend!!

And then after painting, is to put them into the right timming with the music in affectEffects.

Special effects were added in this stage as well~~~ Enjoy~~

[Illustration] "WEN" Concept Art part03

Although "Wen" is an abstract piece, there is a minimal, so-called storyline in it ^^

As there are two kinds of clouds in "Wen" , fire and water, they are acting on their own in the beginning, but at the end, they will meet each other and form a dragon pattern!!

All the illustrations that I have shown so -far, were either hand-drawing and painted in photoshop or were all done in photoshop with wacom tablet~~~~ love my tablet so much~~

Next will be the it---- the animation ^^

[Illustration] "WEN" Concept Art part02

OK! Here is the second part of "WEN"'s concept art. These are the water clouds~~~

Not just using bluish colors but the highights are in yellow. In fact, this color scheme was inspired by the Old Japanese pattern on the kimono ^^

I also want to have a kimono with the pattern above XD!!!!!

Right!! Concept art is not only for showing how the characters or how the designs look, it can also imply how they movement as well~~~

I am not an expert of concept art, but this is what I learnt from this project after drawing these conceptual illustrations ^^

Enjoy!! Part 03 is coming~~~

[Illustration] "WEN" Concept Art part01

To make the animaion tests I showed you before, is to create some concept arts first.

"Wen" is the animation I did for projection art purpose. My idea is to apply tradition Chinese painting style to animate the clouds, and create a space where people can be embraced by two kinds of coulds, fire and water ^^

"Wen" is a Chinese word means the pattern and the colors of clouds. You can see the Chinese character below as part of the design of the logo of the animation.

[Animation] "WEN" test animations01-04

Heeee...... I will tell you what they for later~~~ (unless you have read the posts above ^^)

These are frame by frame animation tests. Frame by frame animation is just BRAVO!!!!!

[Animation] 3D lips animation

My first try of animating a 3D character to talk last year.

It was so enjoying to making it talk, just like I was giving live to her!!!

The character is downloaded from a 3D animation education website: http://www.highend3d.com

Go and have a look there if you are also interested in 3D animating, there are many tutorials and also forum to sharing animating experiences. ^^

[Exhibition] Class Mini Exhibition 2009

photo: Venus Tse

"Fetus" is the theme of this exhibition. To hold this exhibiton, I think is like a rehearsal for us to create the big exhibition at the end of this year, our Graduation Exhibition!!!

Rather than showing our animaiton pieces, our task was to design the space with projections. Having just 1 week to set it up, it was really a unforgettable memory!!

The following is the animation I did as part of the screenig in the space, of course it is related to the theme~~~ I named it "Truth of Frogs" ^^

[Animation] Puppeteer

This is embarrassing to watch back xD!!!!

This is my first animation done in afterEffects and the first time I really used photoshop to paint in spring this year........

Look at the creepy photoshop line and colors I did!!!! ROAR!!!!!
I was so concfident about it when I just finished it, but now......

Anyway, human have to face their own past!!! I must be brave to face it!

ANYWAY!!! I still love the story and the message it evokes.

Puppeteer is a story about how the remaining humans live after the world ended because of the fatal pollutions human made.

What or who is the PUPPETEER? Can you get it in the animation? ^^

[Flash] Big Band Educational Site

This is a interface design for educational purpose.

And the theme that I chose is Big Band. Don't you think jazz is just cool!!!

In the site, you will be brough through the history of Big Band to its evolution in an interacitve way.

If you like the movie "Swing Girls" or "Ore Ska band", you must go and have a look at this site and understand their sources ^^

The link will be uploaded later ~~

[Flash] Ripple Controller

What I should call it?......

When I finish it, I didn't really name it because I just used the title on the brief hand-out, "abstract interactive animation".

My concept is to make water ripple to be the animation element, so let me name it as...umm.... Ripple Controller~~~ ^^

There are 3 ways to transform the animated ripple columns, colors, alpha channel and size.

I will upload the link to this game later ^^

[Flash] On My Way to School (interative narrative)

"On My Way to School" is actually an intractice comic that we were are to make.
To create a story, I rather make it un-interative becuase I am not a game person at all, haaaaa ^^ Again, I enjoy to design the story and character more than the game itself~~~
Anyway, to play this please visit http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/467387

[3D] Chess Design again

Arha~~~ you may say that I must love chesses as this is a design for a chess set again ;)

Yea, I love it, and I like pepople who can play chess well, but in fact I suck at playing chess... =.=........ arhaaaaa!!!!!

Anyway, chess is just beautibul, no matter is the Western set or the Chinese set or the GO chess.........

This is a 3D design I did in the beginning of my 3D studies whihc is I think 2 years ago....

Want to take more 3D class, but all the 3D classes that I want to take are cancelled. WHY!!!!!?????? Anyway........ I can do it myself *m* !!!!!

[Animation] This is Joy-HongKong (motion graphic)

I missssssss Hong Kong so much!!!!!

This is another motion graphic exercise, hope you like it~~~~ Hope you will like Hong Kong as well ^^

[Animation] Die for Oil Sucker (motion graphic)

Actually, this is a piece of motion graphic rather than an animation, anyway, just let me put this into the animation category in this blog~~

Basically, I am not a person who like making ironic art for politic....

Anyway, again this was a class exercise, sooo, you can't say no to your tutor about the project , right? ^^

So here you are, using motion graphic to visualize Jello Biafra's Die for Oil Suck soundtrack. The part that I had in this piece is just a part of his whole piece. If you are interested about his protest about the politics in the US, just goggle it, you will find a lot of his info.

All the symbols in the motion graphic are designed by me with illustrator and photoshop, then I animated them in aftterEffects ^^

[Flash] Finding Toilet (game)

"Finding Toilet" is the fash game that I did last year for a programming class with the the IT students. The part of the programming process is fine, but as an design student, designing the platform and character is much more more MORE fun!!!!!

Finding Toilet is suposed to be a hang-man game as the brief written. However, I don't like hanging people up just because they don't know how to spell the word XD!!!

Therefore, I decided to make it a game with narrative and cuite characters (this is more encouraging as I set my target audience primary school students)

The storyline is about a boy who loves eating so much that one day he ate too much and his stomach just................ Arha, an adventure to find the toilet!!! It is exciting, right? XD

The following is the character expression setting, just loving his extreme faces XD

The one below is the second character design, however, it was not used in the game. Honestly, I like the one above more ^^

And the one below are the object designs for the environment in the game.

[Design] My design is on a book !!??

This is an old design I did for the typograhy class in 2007. Almost forgot it.....

But this year, in the open day of my uni, accidently (it's really an incredible accident), I flipped a book on the display table and than the first page that I see this:
"What!? Why is it here" I said. Then I turned over and see this:

"Oooorrrr~~~ I remember!"

It is the collection of the diploma student's typographic designs. The book was so expensive that I didn't buy........ I should have bought one.....anyway ^^

The page on the left hand side (the 2nd photo) was part of the design, but for now I just find out the one on the right (the 1st img), ummm....... I will look up my dvd library, it should be in one of those disc ^^

It is good to meet my old work in my final year of my degree ^^ Good memories of both the past and the present!!

[Illustration] Daydreaming

Lollipop girl daydreaming in the mid of a day......

When you are bored and the weather is warm and sunny, plus if it is the mid of the holiday, you will draw something like this ^^

Done with color pencils in 3 hours ;)

[Video] Flow - experimental video

Flow is an experimental video art done with my two friends in class.
Through abstract graphics projection on the blinded girl turning around, we want to explore the meaning of love and death - both of them are like cycles and people are living in it, so cannot see them clearly from the inside......

To explain this need a proposal, so for the blog I will leave like this.

As this is an abstract piece, what you get is what you get ^^ Spirit of abstract art, haaaaaa XD

[Illustration] Girl 01 in painter

My first of the sofeware that I got, Painter Essential 3.

I know it is an old version, just got it with the new wacom template.

It was a little bit hard to control, but after get used to it, it is fun to paint with it.

Want to get a new version of painter, but after I got a job and earn some money ^^ hopefully

[Animation] Magical Partners (3D)

Magical Partners are the first 3D animation I did from modeling, rendering, building skeleton for it and then animate it, a lot of fun, just love animating bouncing objects XD
Enjoy!

[3D] Sculpture at Dawn

An other 3D practice done in the same time with the previous one.

The sculpture in the graphic is actually a sculpture that I did in the sculpture class. Model it in 3D was really another feeling of sculpting. (3D modeling is more fun honestly)

[3D] Chinese Tea set

Practice of 3D class~~

An old piece again from 2 years ago.

I have never seen any Chinese tea cup made of transparent glass in reality.... heeee..... anyway, it's pretty when they are in graphics, haaaaaa..........

[Fan Art] Detective Conan in color pencils

Detective Conan!!

yea, manga again~~~ You can tell I am a manga lover as well now^^

And again, my "photocopies hands" is working on Aoyama's original illustration!

It was done in 3 hours with color pencils 3 years ago.

[Design] Drink Package Design-Fruit Animals

These are done for fun during one semester break 2-3 years ago, because of being so boring and thirsty.

The idea is to design for the graphic of a paper box juice.

Linking up the color of different juices with the animals, and here they come:

• pink pig with strawberry
• purple bear with grape
• yellow baby chicken with orange
• green sleepy turtle with watermelon

It was just fun to draw them!! Also solve my thirsty problem. Hope u like them ^^

[Design] Global Alien desing for calendar

This---- recalls me a lot of memories.

The first group as a design student 3 years ago.

We were asked to design an "unusual" calendar as a group of 5. And we came up with an idea to make a cubic calendar with an alien character going throughout the world, wearing different traditional customs from different countries. Just love character designing!!

We should have taken photos of the product, arhaaa!
Anyway, these are the 10 one that I designed for 10 months. The other 2 was done by one of friends in the group. But already lost the layout now......We should have taken photos of the product! Too green as a design student back then. Teachers would not give you back the design .......

[Fan Art] "Hikaru no go" in water color

Again, for practicing water color painting, I "copy" art works with my "photocopier-hands" again Arhaaaaa!!!

This time, I chose the objects drawn in Otada's illustration book for "Hikaru no Go". I am also a big fan of it!! This is a story about a boy became an professional Go chess player with his tutor who is a spirit from a thousand years ago. Scary? not really because Sai, the spirit was really funny character!!

[Fan Art] Naruto in water color

Umm, the blog is a litter too plain at the moment, here are just, black, white and grey....

Sooo!! I decided to make it look more colorful!!

To do it, I would like to present you one of my favourite manga character, NARUTO!!! I am a big fan of this Ninjia story, please read it if you haven't becuase it is really a very meaningful and exciting story!!

This is a fan art of him. And perhaps you have seen this illustration before, because I was just imitating Masashi Kishimoto's illustration, just did it for my watercolor painting practice ^^

In fact, I am more familiar with color pencils, I started to learn painting with watercolor in 2005. But still I loved color pencils more, haha.

However, for now, 4 years later, digital painting is my favourite!! Wahaaaa XD

[Design] Pixar Exhibition Poster (3D version)

Wohooo! Here you are, the 3D version of the poster !!

"Where is the 3D thing? Where's the lamp?" you may ask ^^

The name "PIXAR" is the 3D object I did using Maya! As PIXAR is a 3D animation studio, I thought it would be more suitable to use 3D graphics to be the main element of the design, so I did this version and in fact, the tutor like this more as well which was good~~~