Audio Choose
I chose the third audio which is about “what do you have to eat to have a baby…”. When closed my eyes while listening to this audio, I thought about this communication can be animated between an adult and a children, which is a direct interpretation from the audio. However, after I listened to the audio for many times, I felt like the story happens between an evil protagonist and food characters. The evil protagonist asks the question mainly to show his intention to eat the carrot and bread. When listening to the audio for more times, I came up with the idea that I can design the storyline happening among an owl, a carrot, and a piece of bread. In this case, to separate the characters voice in the audio, I speeded up the part of bread from that of the bread, so that they can be sound differently from each other obviously.
To further expand and visualise this idea, I did a moodboard, exploring the place the conversation might take place such as at a fruit market or on a picnic blanket.
Character Sketch and Design
Initially, I did some sketches and brainstorming of the characters on paper with colour pencil. For the paper sketch, I mainly focused on the character feature of the animal and vegetable, but ignored the importance of shape language in character design. The owl character turned out to be cute and friendly, which don’t match his personality. Although some classmates said this may create a contrast between the character itself and the personality beneath him when having group critique, I think it is better to make the personality of characters clearer to the audiences as the time duration for the animation is very short. However, before I realise the problem, I already did the turn-around sheet for him. This could be a good chance for practice though. I think a problem for me is that I always unconsciously design the characters in a cute and friendly appearance as I’m always interested in this style of character design. However, I think I need to jump out from my comfort zone to make some break through and try new things before ending with a mature and personalised style. For this project, I want to challenge me to make more versions of characters before animating.
Character design 2nd version (owl)
Owl characteristic: fearless, double-dealing, sly…
This time, I started with the personalities of characters and applied shape languages to describe them. For the evil and aggressive character, the shape for him can be more triangular and sharp. Although it does not mean I should limited to this rules, I just want to try if this can give me a sparkle on my idea. So, I created this three designs first and think the first one is the best by integrating the round shape and an upside-down triangle to create a strong and fierce character. In order to add some sharpness, I designed the hair on his head to be pointed outward and sharp beak and claws.
After I drew the turn-around for him, I found out I’m still not satisfied with this design. This design still cannot fully showcase his personality as a fierce character in this animation.
Carrot: outgoing, friendly, “strong and brave” when facing danger or when being betrayed
Bread: timid, slippery, and self-centered
For the carrot and bread character, I want them to be more naive and cute compared to the owl as their sounds are more childish. As I wanted to make it clear that they are Carrot and Bread, I basically developed their appearances based on normal carrots and sliced bread. To add some features, I designed the leaves on the carrots to be her ear, so that the ear can help to show her emotions when animating. To make the bread more interesting, I first thought about use the shape of croissant or other kind of bread. However, I found out they are less interested than using ordinary sliced bread when I was doing sketches. To make the sliced bread distinctive, I gave him a sausage-shaped lip and a pried egg to be his belly. When I was drawing the side view, I applied a curve on his body to make him have a more dynamic line of action even when he is standing up straight.
In the character expression sheet, I linked the expression closely to the audio. For example, the owl is turning to be more aggressive, so that the expression sheet for him is basically with more angry and fierce expression. In the contrast, on the mood sheet for carrot and bread, the emotions are tend to be more scared and worried. This can be good reference for me when I do the animation in the next step.
Script 1
In the script, I wrote down the action and expression of character and also the possible camera angles in my mind. This helps to instruct a clearer idea when I create the storyboard in the next step. When writing the first script, I thought about if the carrot can appearing in the story in a group instead of one, the scene will be more dynamic. However, I decided to focus on only three characters later as the most important aspect of this project is about mouth shape when characters are talking. Too many characters will distract the attention from the talking one which will make the animation in a chaos.
Picnic background sketch
Before writing the second script and making the storyboard, I drew a background sketch to generate more ideas about the construction of different scenes and about the actions characters might have based on the environment. Although it is very sketchy, I think this helps to develop better ideas and make storyboard more easy to create as more imagination in mind is visualised.
Script 2
Storyboard draft 1
I followed my script to draw the first storyboard, showing the camera angles and key positions and actions of characters. The establishing shoot when the shadow comes in is a part I like. This is a good way to introduce a new character and also shows a contrast between light and shadow. In the third key frame in this storyboard, I want to show a lower angle camera shoot, so that the contrast between the body size of characters can be exaggerated, better showing their relationship.
Storyboard draft 2
In the second storyboard, I added more in-between actions and the interaction between characters to make it more completed. I found out in the 1st version, the camera angle for the carrot and bread when they are talking is boring and unchanged. To deal with this problem, I added in more variations. For example, in the frame when the camera first turns from the owl to the carrot and bread, I drew the owl’s back in the foreground while the carrot and bread is facing the camera in the middle of the scene. Then I applied a slight change of camera, showing only the carrot and bread, focusing on their facial expression.
Animatic
Moodboard – inspiration for the background
As I already decided to draw a picnic on the grass as the background environment for the animation, I did a moodboard on the style and colour palette of it.
Concept art
I did concept art for the background to have an overall idea of what can I do and improve in the next step. When doing the concept art, I confirmed several stylistic ideas for my background painting: 1. Using mostly warm colour such as red and pink for the picnic blanket and objects on it, while blue and green for the grass or other smaller parts on the blanket. 2. Drawing the background with hand-drawn brush strokes and apply watercolour paper texture onto it. 3. The outline of the background objects should be in a lighter colour instead of pure black or other dark colour. (making the characters more distinct from the background)
Background Design
I designed the picnic blanket and the forest the picnic is taking place.
Character design final version (owl)
sly, smooth talker, sometimes aggressive, emotional, and capacious
Then, I went back to character design again as I was still not satisfied with the owl. This time, I simplified the shape of his head and reduced the use of short lines for the feathers, better for animating. Compared to the previous design, this one have sharper shapes and outlines as a whole. Also, I drew the wings longer than the ones before, which make the owl stronger. With bigger hands, I can add more actions on his hands when he is talking, making the character’s personality more vivid.
Renewed Audio
Transcript
When showing my work to the tutor, Mariana helped me to find out the correct audio at the end is “You’ve gotta have bread everyday” instead of “You can’t have bread everyday”. In this case, I also need to correct the storyboard as the characters actions should be exchanged between carrot and bread. This big mistake warned me to keep showing my work to others when making projects as they sometimes can help me to find mistakes that I am not paying attention to and giving me feedback and critical thinking based on other perspective and mindset.
Storyboard v.3
In this storyboard, I corrected the audio mistake and added more interesting actions of characters, such as running bread behind the talking carrot and the body language of owl when he is talking. I added the frames when the bread is running behind the carrot to show his fears and emotional state of nearly crazy. Adding this running action, I think it can bring the animation with more vitality and exaggerates the emotions of characters. However, When I put all of this into the animatic, I found out the total time exceed the requirement. To solve this problem, I decided to end the story at the point when the carrot showing her sudden scared facial expression. This also make the ending open to the audience as they can imagine what will the owl do to the poor carrot and bread.
Animatic v.2
X-sheets and Mouth Shape Sheets
This is my first time to do x-sheet and mouth shape sheets. But it is interesting that we need to match the mouth shape to the sound. The most difficult part for me is to draw different mouth shape that match the characters’ appearance, especially when I was doing the mouth shape sheet for the owl. It is difficult to apply the mouth shape to the owl as the beak has different structure from normal mouth. Also some pronunciation that needs the help of teeth should be changed for the beak. Although I have done the sheet, I still need to test if it works in animation and make appropriate adjustments.
Background Colour Value Ideas
In this two pictures, I tested on how different value and proportion of colour palette shape the atmosphere of the environment and mood. From the left one, it has higher value than the right one. Also, the colour palette for the left one includes red, blue and yellow which almost equal to each other in proportion. For the right image, I increased the proportion of red and reduced that of yellow and blue to find a more harmonious state.
I did the left image at first(below). However, after adding the characters in and critique with tutor, I adjust the perspective in this image by rotating the trees to follow the same perspective as the owl. My weakness for drawing background is always about perspective, so I usually don’t involve perspectives in my background, making the background in a decorated and plain way. However, to challenge myself, I applied perspective in most of the background this time. I also want to show different perspective from various camera shots. For example, bird-view and two side-views of the blanket.
Background with characters
I put the characters onto the background to see if they can fit in and stand out at the same time. I tried both the purple and the red owl in and decided to use the red one. The reason is that when he is talking in front of the forest, his body is totally standing out from the green forest background as red and green are complimentary colour. Also, when the camera turns to shoot the carrot and bread, the red owl fits into the red blanket, which will not distract the attention from the talking characters: carrot and bread. I will apply the same texture to the characters and the background. So, even if the characters are more saturated in colour than the background and have black outlines that distinct from the background outline, they can still integrate with each other harmoniously.
I redrew the background gain as when I put the characters into the background, I found out some perspective problems of them. The decorative lines on the blanket is a good indicator of the perspective. So at this time, I considered more and put more effort in drawing the right perspective of the background. I realised it is important to think about the vanishing point that everything merge together. Also, for the forest background, I create more obvious contrast between light and shadow, which helps to make perspectives in depth.
Key Frames
The main part of animation