Fun fun fun
So, last night was lovely. Laura and I went out to see some poetry readings done by some friends of hers over at Rachel's cafe. Afterwards we went to the Irish Lion for some pints of Bulmers and dinner. We finished up the evening by heading home and snuggling in front of Deadwood. It was a really lovely date, which we try to have once a month. I love our dates.
Speaking of Deadwood, our last disc of season one should arrive early in the week which means that we're going to start getting the Discworld movies next! Hooray!
And speaking of Discworld... I've decided to start a little project. What I'm planning to do is start animating Terry Pratchett's beloved books through Lego in a stop-motion format. The more planning I do, the more I realize that this is going to be a huge undertaking, but it only excites me more.
Firstly, I got the idea from reading the books to Laura, whose favorite part is the voices I do for each character. I really want to keep the books in their entirity, which means keeping the narrator's voice intact, which is a huge part of the books themselves. This means that since I'm going to be doing an entire book at a time, it's going to take a lot of planning: storyboards, set designs, etc. As far as the set designs go, I have two resources there. A) I created my own "Lego graph paper" where each square on the paper is the size of a single Lego brick, so I can draw out some set designs for streets (such as Ankh Morpork) or castles (such as Lancre castle). B) I've found a handy tool from Lego's website. They have a program where you can design something in Legos (either a vehicle or building, yadda yadda) in 3-D and when you're done, you can then order what you've made from Lego's website. In addition, the program even makes your own set of instructions for you, so when you get all the pieces, you know how to put them together to make what you deseigned on the program!
Secondly, since this is going to involve Legos as the medium, it's going to take a lot of Legos to accomplish. Now while I've had some offers from some people to borrow their old Legos, I'm really going to need my own to do this because A) some pieces of Lego I'm going to need to alter by painting them to make them look exactly like I want and B) I'd hate to mix up their Legos with my own eventual Legos and have a mess of sorting them out on my hands. Luckily, after looking through the interwebs, I've found that there are tons of bulk Legos for cheap available through Ebay and on Lego.com you can actually order them by the brick!
Thirdly, I'm going to need stuff to record all this with. This means I A) need to get a hold of a camera that can not only do stop-motion animation, but can easily be connected to a computer for editing, synching with audio, etc., B) need to acquire everything I need in terms of lighting... I don't want this to look like some amateur school project. And C) I'm going to need sound equipment so that I can provide the voices for all this.
As far as Which book to do first, I've settled on Wyrd Sisters. In my heart of hearts, I want to do the whole Sam Vimes story arc, but even one of the Sam Vimes' books is a bit ambitious to start off with (because Ankh Morpork is going to be a bitch to do in Legos). No, I think Wyrd Sisters would be a good choice to start off with. It only has a couple scenes in Ankh Morpork (which are only in streets and the occasional tavern, which could be used later for other projects) and the rest is in Lancre being either in the woods, fields, mountains, etc. or in Lancre castle, which should be easy enough.
This project is going to be unlike anything I've done before. I've never made art visually before, and while this project excites me, it also terrifys me on a very deep level. But you know what, I have the feeling that no matter how tough it gets, it's also going to be pretty fun too.
P.S.- I really haven't kept up on the latest Lego themes that they've released the past few years... I've found my model for the Trolls, only requiring a gray coat of paint or too, and also the foundation for the Night Watch... needing a few alterations.
Speaking of Deadwood, our last disc of season one should arrive early in the week which means that we're going to start getting the Discworld movies next! Hooray!
And speaking of Discworld... I've decided to start a little project. What I'm planning to do is start animating Terry Pratchett's beloved books through Lego in a stop-motion format. The more planning I do, the more I realize that this is going to be a huge undertaking, but it only excites me more.
Firstly, I got the idea from reading the books to Laura, whose favorite part is the voices I do for each character. I really want to keep the books in their entirity, which means keeping the narrator's voice intact, which is a huge part of the books themselves. This means that since I'm going to be doing an entire book at a time, it's going to take a lot of planning: storyboards, set designs, etc. As far as the set designs go, I have two resources there. A) I created my own "Lego graph paper" where each square on the paper is the size of a single Lego brick, so I can draw out some set designs for streets (such as Ankh Morpork) or castles (such as Lancre castle). B) I've found a handy tool from Lego's website. They have a program where you can design something in Legos (either a vehicle or building, yadda yadda) in 3-D and when you're done, you can then order what you've made from Lego's website. In addition, the program even makes your own set of instructions for you, so when you get all the pieces, you know how to put them together to make what you deseigned on the program!
Secondly, since this is going to involve Legos as the medium, it's going to take a lot of Legos to accomplish. Now while I've had some offers from some people to borrow their old Legos, I'm really going to need my own to do this because A) some pieces of Lego I'm going to need to alter by painting them to make them look exactly like I want and B) I'd hate to mix up their Legos with my own eventual Legos and have a mess of sorting them out on my hands. Luckily, after looking through the interwebs, I've found that there are tons of bulk Legos for cheap available through Ebay and on Lego.com you can actually order them by the brick!
Thirdly, I'm going to need stuff to record all this with. This means I A) need to get a hold of a camera that can not only do stop-motion animation, but can easily be connected to a computer for editing, synching with audio, etc., B) need to acquire everything I need in terms of lighting... I don't want this to look like some amateur school project. And C) I'm going to need sound equipment so that I can provide the voices for all this.
As far as Which book to do first, I've settled on Wyrd Sisters. In my heart of hearts, I want to do the whole Sam Vimes story arc, but even one of the Sam Vimes' books is a bit ambitious to start off with (because Ankh Morpork is going to be a bitch to do in Legos). No, I think Wyrd Sisters would be a good choice to start off with. It only has a couple scenes in Ankh Morpork (which are only in streets and the occasional tavern, which could be used later for other projects) and the rest is in Lancre being either in the woods, fields, mountains, etc. or in Lancre castle, which should be easy enough.
This project is going to be unlike anything I've done before. I've never made art visually before, and while this project excites me, it also terrifys me on a very deep level. But you know what, I have the feeling that no matter how tough it gets, it's also going to be pretty fun too.
P.S.- I really haven't kept up on the latest Lego themes that they've released the past few years... I've found my model for the Trolls, only requiring a gray coat of paint or too, and also the foundation for the Night Watch... needing a few alterations.