#fanatical creatures

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grufflo

Julia Donaldson, writer

I used to write short plays for schools. In 1994, I was asked by a publisher if I could come up with something based on a folk story. I unearthed this tale about a girl who goes for a walk in a forest and meets a tiger who threatens to eat her. Thinking quickly, she says: "I'm the queen of the forest: if you eat me, everyone else will take revenge on you." It's a lesson in how to harness a greater power than your own. I decided to turn the girl into a mouse and add some more predators – and at that point I thought: "This has the makings of a good picture book."

 I quickly realised that using a tiger would be a problem; I had to invent a predator who wouldn't really have been in the wood. It was then that I came up with the "Silly old fox, doesn't he know/ There's no such thing as a …" couplet. "Gruffalo" just fitted the rhyme.

  I submitted the story to the publisher, and they sat on it for a year. I started to think it would never see the light, but one day my husband said: "Look, it's so good. Why don't you just send it to Axel?" So I did, although I hardly knew him; he'd illustrated my first book, but I'd only met him once or twice. Within a week I got a letter from Alison Green, Macmillan's picture book editor, saying he'd shown it to them and they were desperate to publish it.

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It wasn't all plain sailing; Alison phoned me at one point to ask: "Do you envisage these animals wearing clothes?" Axel's first sketches had the mouse in a checked shirt and the fox in a frock coat, which was almost OK – but the snake in a bow tie was a definite problem. The Gruffalo took a couple of attempts. I still have some original sketches: in one he's very upright and ogreish, in another he's on all fours and looks like a wild boar. I'd originally imagined him as a bit more colourful and weird – but he's absolutely right the way Axel drew him.

 Axel Scheffler, illustrator

As soon as I passed the text on to the publisher, she saw the potential. A text generally goes through some editing, but The Gruffalo went into print exactly as Julia had written it.

 In my first sketches, the animals wore German fairytale clothes: the mouse had a Bavarian hat and lederhosen. But it was right that they ended up without clothes. My original Gruffalo was scarier, with smaller eyes and bigger teeth and claws. The fox was tougher. I'm not very good at drawing foxes – look at mine next to a real fox and you'll see the difference. I hope I got away with it.

 I also found the backdrop a struggle: I used to send a daily fax to German illustrator friends complaining about my troubles. I went into a forest near Hamburg and took some pictures for inspiration. Looking at it now, the forest is too light and bright: if I did it today, I'd make it far murkier.

 It wasn't an overnight success: it built slowly, through word-of-mouth from librarians and teachers – a bit like Harry Potter. It's not my favourite book of all those I've illustrated, but I don't mind that people identify me with The Gruffalo. He's a good character. It's fine.

This is an article that I found that I am where the character designer for the Gruffalo talk about why they made the Gruffalo the way needed and how they care about the Gruffalo story as the way my character is designed around the Gruffalo I thought it was key that his information is actually in my work as he does pay a really key factor in my character design and I think that the fact that it being based off a old tale and it being based of characters and and have the humeral of being a really old children's book a does I had that certain quality to the piece for me and designing my beast kind of off the Gruffalo had the effect ofCome put this in because a lot of character. But like my character is a mix of different things so he kind of represents like things that represent me guessing my childhood because the Gruffalo was one of my favourite books growing up as a child dragons I always love so thus representation trackable the purple is my favourite colour reason why his clothes are purple and Lions are one of my favourite cats so it all kind of links into everything and it kinda shows what I like as a person but also different areas of my life.

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lion tails

The tail serves a key purpose for the big cat. The lion is the only member of the cat family with a tufted tail, which is used to communicate to other members of the pride. Messages vary from directional commands to flirtatious signals. I've chosen to look at tales just because I want my character to have a towel on him and I kind of that wanted to cut lines tells because he does have a cat features about him in line is really dominant animal in the kingdom so I want to see why this the significance of them having a tale. This

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cats

So I decided to look at cats because they have like an interesting feature towards my character as I believe that the Gruffalo does have some cat qualities about him so of these claws and fighting going or forced says the reason why I've decided to look into cats just to get a better understanding of how cats move to walk so I know how I want my character to be .

The cat is a small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and often referred to as the domestic cat to distinguish it from wild members of the family The cat is either a house cat, kept as a pet, or a feral cat, freely ranging and avoiding human contact.A house cat is valued by humans for companionship and for its ability to hunt rodents. About 60 cat breeds are recognized by various cat registries.

 Cats are similar in anatomy to the other felid species, with a strong flexible body, quick reflexes, sharp teeth and retractable claws adapted to killing small prey. They are predators who are most active at dawn. Cats can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by mice and other small animals. Compared to humans, they see better in the dark (they see in near total darkness) and have a better sense of smell, but poorer colour vision. Cats, despite being solitary hunters, are a social species. Cat communication includes the use of vocalizations including mewing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling and grunting as well as cat-specific body language. Cats also communicate by secreting and perceiving pheromones.

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last 2 weeks of uni

While these last two weeks have been the most stressful ones ever purely because it's like handing day and everyone can do work and stuff like that but I didn't think I'd be this not I'm not stressed out but I'm not like intense but it's been a really good two weeks in terms of the fact I've learned that I need to maybe Pat manage my time better. So for the beast of the I can feed it during the Easter break so I just spent the first day back I did the 3D turnaround for him so he now and fully turns around and it came out pretty good I was really proud of it and and it was really clear and the overall turnout of it I was really proud of because it just shows like how if you put your hard work and you pub a concentrate on something and you make it your goal to complete it it will turn up for the better and it did so I was really proud of it. For my show reel I found it quite interesting but not hard that it is interesting task of trying to go back and find work I guess China's see and where I've been over the last year and how much my work is changed and how much I've grown as an animator at high can do basic walk cycle and I can get a character to fully move in motion and briefings to life and to me that is really showing change of growth fund has been really proud like to be to be an animator and just to show my progress may be really happy and my Cheryl went pretty well and managed to amounts to 11 seeing  And the overall effect of it came out across pretty good and it stands out really well so I'm really happy with the overall effect of my show reel .

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Easter Holidays

And the Easter holidays has been filled with a lot of doing work and a lot of research and a lot of designing and processing in a lot of exploring my skills to a whole new different level. For media rolls I actually managed to all my research my presentation and now are starting to put it all on the side so that I can then put it all together and be able to do my presentation and perform my piece I for like my research has gone really well because I looked into different areas such as illustration as well as animation plus being able to find my own designer and person that I've looked into has been quite interesting in terms of the way that I didn't realise how in-depth you have to go with character design and different levels you can actually take the process and how it can come across as being really in-depth and detailed. For the beast it has come a long way I've actually managed to finish it a has been very painful China design near costume it painted it all the other things about it because it I didn't realise how much detail is necessary in trying to produce an actual puppet life thought it of it on the scale is where you just do it you design it and they go it's done but you have to actually take in so many other things into consideration in terms of like the fabric like you can't use to fabric away to calm me if you can't use fabric alleged can keep breaking you can't use certain things you can't do certain things were puppet you have to take into consideration the masses of your puppet because you won't be able to to stand but you will make sure it has enough detail when it and I found that because obviously my character had wings has wings and him and I had to really think about how I wanted to design and detail his wings because I couldn't make them heavy so I wanted them to have wires in between them like each like part of it because I wanted to add that detail in terms of like I wanted to add each individual scale which I was then gonna cut out and stitched by hand however when weighing up it was actually makes the backend to hit piece in the front and can support it because I made the henhouse copy that does add quite a bit of weight so I've had to then think about how would reposition it so then I ended up making the wings out of fabric and the head in a way so that it didn't fall over and it just now stands up and same the other things but has really opened my eyes to actually see the painful this will not necessarily paperless but the the depth of detail and the silly things you have to think about when designing a puppet and actually building it and what materials you use because each part and each one of them plays an important part of how the overall effect and design of the puppets actually going to turn out. In terms of my lips think I managed that you do my lip sync and do the mouthpieces and be able to make my animation move the headpieces everything so it turned out pretty well however it and due to an issue that having at the moment I'm not able to add in detail to my piece because it just doesn't work out and it basically falls apart and I can't add in detail to the animation because I my hands are very shaky so the piece and succumb not really scribbling which I don't really want so I am I have decided that I am I just left it I got the basic outlines of pencilling and my mouthpieces move and he does turn but I'm not gonna do any further development on it just because I cannot get to details that levels I want to get to but in the brief it says that you can do is have the rough outcast which I do have even though I wanted to really develop it and push it to a whole new level I'm not able to but when I get better I hope I will be able to further develop my skills once again on doing 2D.

I also managed to do another iteration of my mystery box piece however and it didn't go very well and I just did not like it and nothing about it because I had to use pins rather than using the magnets due to reasons and I felt like it wasn't the same and I can add the same characterisation into my piece because the armatures are proportioned and everything was so outthink that you just couldn't I can work the puppet the way I wanted it to and I don't have enough space and the lighting was in writing and so many other things that were wrong with the piece however I'm really proud of the iteration I did for the second time so I am just an estimate that piece even though I would love to have got the chance to be able to have done another iteration make the piece better I feel like now I just I just can't and I for like next time when I do have this situation again rather than wait till like another situation where is it holidays of the advanced Chinese the labs and staff are trying do it straight after so therefore I can always get my another iteration in.

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weekly summary 3rd-7th April

As been the last week of uni before Easter it has been a stressful one because I had to go away due to family reasons and then coming back again throwback continue to be stressful and but I am I for like a been able to catch up and go along with all my work and have a clear understanding of what have to do over Easter and then what they see after handing on 10 May. For my show reel project I'm excited about because I get to use a different software such as that which is premiere pro and explore a way of how to make a good show reel as an industry is what used to be able to explore someone else's work and show off what someone else got has got in terms of the skill. For the lip syncing when it's good be interesting because I can interesting to look at myself and look at how I actually talk having an iPhone 10 and I can actually use a they have little faces which you can use and they actually use do the part the talking for you and so I will try and see how that looks is the piece also want to look into myself actually talking and saying each of the words I've got to say and seeing how my face reacts to it and seeing how the communication of everything comes across and develops. For my fantastical beasts I've got more of an understanding of the proportions joint movements et cetera as I've started to make my puppet and trying to move along and actually bring him to life it's going to be an interesting one but difficult but I feel like it's going to be worth it in the end because the overall piece is gonna look really good for the idea that I have in mind so I'm thinking of using fabric and wiring and school PE for the head and and seen how that goes.

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Development of beast

So my piece has come a long way as I have got a better understanding of his silverware and the way I want to use him and soon I'll be starting to excrete him as a puppet which should be fine because I will get understanding of him I've started with the wiring of him as an actual full character and I found it quite weird in a way because when having small in China conveyed into big you gotta take swing of things into consideration such as the ways can remove all the fingers or like the joints and all this type of thing so in that respect it is different but more enjoyable and understanding of where I want the character to be at the end result.

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Weekly summary 18th March -24th March

This week has been an interesting one as I've gone through loads of different levels of research projects creating and a whole bunch of other things. For my fantastical beasts I have got understanding of my character what I want him to look like and decide to design his silhouette form which is going to be burnt so we can then take them afterwards it has made me more aware of anatomy of the body because you have to take into consideration the proportions the weight of it how I want to stand look et cetera but also being able to see how the character is gonna come across and perform as an individual if I was to actually make him move and come to life. For my media rolls I've got understanding how the presentation should look but also how to connect someone in the industry on a professional level and this will help in terms of my research how my team want to get across our ideas and have a better understanding for the next week we are going to do more research and before we break up for Easter one all come together and get a final overview of what we are doing for Easter as I've come up with the idea and my team agree with this that we should create an online PowerPoint so that we can all edit the presentation while we are on holiday so when we come back when all stressed out trying to figure out how to fix and prepare a presentation. The second time I tried to do my nematic it has not worked out very well purely because I felt like I was in the right headspace and try do I found very difficult because things just weren't working out very well so I have decided I will try and do the animatic again to see if I can get across my nematic better and more useful.