Wing movements

As I have have had to change my original plan of using a traditional chinese dragon I have opted to use a western one. This won't really change my layout but different research is needed. as such I'm looking at bats and birds to help grasp the motions that would be involved.

I feel the texture of the bat wings mimic that of what a dragons would be like over feathers, so seeing that in motion helps me to understand how the skin moves differently to feathers.

These three videos are all to help with the actual motion of the flight. Since birds, like dragons, aren't locked to the wings in the same way a bat is, it helps for the motion of the movement itself. 

3D dragon model

I have found a textured 3D dragon for maya. Unfortunately it's not in the traditional Chinese dragon which the only ones I've found are untextured. I will be using this new one I've found as such I will be researching the wing movements of bats and birds not snakes and alligators as o previously thought.

http://www.3dcadbrowser.com/download.aspx?3dmodel=94244

Mountains

These are a couple of mountains I intend to use for my piece to create the landscape. They will be stitched together in a  way where they don't look like they're from separate places. I will look into how to make a scene like than on photoshop.

Proposal

My project will be a dragon flying round a mountainous region following the curves of the landscape. It will be a traditional Chinese dragon to help accentuate the curves and movement of the creature and help give motion. It will then fly past a person who will then give chase to the dragon following it as best as they can until it flies off. I want this piece to really emphasise the movement of flying and as such I'm going to heavily focus on that. as such I don't think my piece will be very long but I hope for quality over quantity. I am going to get a ready made dragon for my piece since I do not feel like I could make one myself.

I'm going to construct my own background using photoshop and images to create the landscape how I want it to be. I will be using green screen to put myself in as the person following the dragon I want to show climbing up the mountain but this may be difficult. I really want to try this knowing it may well be out of my league for now but I'd like to try it. Otherwise I will just put myself walking or following the dragons movements as it flies past, until it eventually flies off into the clouds.I feel like the mountains will make or break this piece as I need enough of them to fly around but not cluttered enough for it to seem unnatural. I have also never tried doing anything like stitching my own background together before so I will need to research how.

I plan to have a variety of shots but most of them will be long to incorporate the dragon and show it as much as possible. It will also help to have the dragon twist around the mountains. I want the shots to give the dragon a sense of scale that's why I'm having a person in the piece I want it to be like the ones we imagine, where they are huge and regal creatures. The low angle shots with a person in will really show that so I'm making sure to have at least one of these awe inspiring shots in. I really want to keep the feeling of motion throughout the piece as such I will have the camera follow or even mimic the dragons movements. I feel the shots used are going to be the the key to showing true motion of the dragon. Which I am trying to emphasise as best I can in this piece.

I'm going to be looking at snakes for movement reference as I feel they would give off the best reference for the serpent like dragon, but it may also be worth looking at crocodiles in water for another style of movement to look at. I will try and find these creatures and look at them 1st hand but as this may be troublesome I may have to resort to internet videos.I want to focus on getting a believable movement put together to help bring the dragon to life.

Initial Idea

I want to do a scene of a chinese dragon flying through a mountain scape. I will use photoshop to create the background and have the dragon fly round the landscape. Initially I wanted to use Maya to do the dragon but after thinking about it I want to focus more on 2D as I feel using Maya would make me spread myself to thin and this way I can focus on what I want to.

This is where I got the initial idea from but I want to expand upon what is shown here though looking back on it I do like the idea of a character running atop a dragon instead of side by side.

Chinese dragons tend to be very serpent like I feel that the flow of motion that would bring to the animation would make it interesting to watch as it could follow the flow of the landscape. It could seem almost like it's traversing instead of flying which I think would be quite interesting

Character Animation Idea

My initial Idea was to have Will chase a mugger but it became to much of an action scene and didn't really show off the character other than him being a hero which is brought across by how he looks. As seen below.

So I went back, I came up with the idea of him helping an old lady across the road. The idea is Will sees an old lady next to the road and jumps in to help her across by picking her up and carrying her across, maybe dodging some cars. When he puts her down on the other side he says 'no need to thank me.' The old lady then hits him with her purse and says 'I didn't want to be this side.' Will then looks a little defeated and walks off.

Character Turn Around

This is Will's turn around sheet I had light lines going across to keep everything the same proportion as best I could. I never really imagined my character from behind so that was a new thing for me to wrap my head around to see how it would look to do such a thing.