WEEK 1: Research, ideas development, characters and design
The project began with a discussion amongst my assigned project partner Willow and me. We chose audio and analysed it for different interpretations and ideas for our animation.
We decided to use this audio in our project and after that, we spent our time compiling different ideas and approaches that we could use to tell a consistent visual narrative and overarching story.
Miro board: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lTbQzvY=/
Then we moved to character design and their development. I knew that I wanted quite contrasting and fantasy based characters, so we approached this task with distinctive body types in mind for the main duo of conversationalists.
- Elven type creature – tall, lanky, awkward and quite self-conscious. Can get passionate about topics they believe in but will listen to other peoples opinions attentively
- Dwarf statue – small, blunt short, but can find a solution for their ‘little’ problem. Doesn’t take the shit, hot-headed and will not take the trash on themselves.
- Dolphin – master of disguises. Can be seen in the tavern as a regular, but every time he looks different, puts on a different disguise. Either wanted a criminal or wanted a bachelor.
- Octopus – tavern’s keeper, bartender. Very chill, have seen many things in his rowdier days and now he knows how to deal with them. (Though the talk about loving how octopi feel in their mouth while they eating them is a terrifying visual for him).
Primary lineup – Urte Primary lineup – Willow
The main two characters are travellers who stumbled upon this sea/sailor preoccupied tavern not far from the harbour. And while sharing a drink, the guy traveller strikes an awkward (in the beginning) conversation about dolphins. The conversation quickly ignites too.
I want the characters to look a bit out of the picture, distinctive not only from each other but also from the environment they both stumbled in.
Character model sheet
Storyline: Two people talking about their stance on trust regarding dolphins and octopi. Action space – tavern, maybe based near the port, full of marine creatures and sailors too. It is a rundown tavern, not the best one in town, but functionally, with provided services.
Plot
The action starts with opening the doors of the tavern. There are patrons sitting around the tables, but they are few and in between. The camera pans through the space of the room. Near the wall sits a dolphin creature, with his back to the observer. In the foreground, the man with a fedora passes the lens.
After scaling the whole room focus is directed to the bar, where two people are having a conversation with their backs turned to the room. The tall, lanky elven creature is fidgeting in his seat. Next to him sits the burly dwarf woman. She looks bored drumming her fingers onto the table, waiting for her companion to organise his thoughts.
The elven starts talking about his distrust of the dolphins because they are too smart. Then the topic of octopi comes up. The dwarf slams her fist onto the table to emphasise her point of not trusting octopi because they are so smart that they can get out of the jar by themselves, which means they can do anything. While she is doing her rant, the guy is feeling very intimidated and trying to lean back a bit, not to be in the way of the crossfire of her proclamations.
Trying to change subjects, Elven mentions that he agrees with his companion’s thoughts, but adds that the only way that he doesn’t mind the octopi is when he is eating them. The bartender, who is an octopus, overhears that part. He becomes terrified and lovely but increasingly frantically he moves back into the staff room, trying to hide from the focus of the elven.
Then the conversation shifts back to the topic of dolphins. Why bar duo discussing it, behind them dolphin creature passes. At one angle it seems that he wears an eyepatch. But when he turns, he wears a second eye patch. He comes up to the poster cork board with his WANTED poster on it and draws a moustache on the page.
WEEK 2: Storyboard, notes planning and creation of the animatic.
The week started with Willow and me logging in together and making notes and generating ideas for the storyboard. We talked over the most effective camera placements, transitions and a few of the multiplane shots that we wanted to do. We settled on using the multiplane camera for shot 2 and shot 13. It will help to establish space and lead the viewer’s eye to the focus of the shot.
So far into this project, we didn’t experience much of the struggle or shortage of ideas. We collaborated through the shared screen while working on the storyboard, and every few days we would call each other to check in and help or discuss the difficulties we faced or ideas we developed independently.
I was the one to draw our storyboard draft. I sketched it out messily, not to waste time, but to communicate an initial idea and camera placement in the shot.
After the storyboard was done and the timing of the shots was set how we both envisioned it, it came the time to start working on making the animatic – keying all the poses for the characters. But before moving with it any further, we worked on making some notes for the poses or expressions to help us to keep ideas consistent and help lead us while working.
I was not sure how much of the information we have to put in our notes, but after discussing the main keyframes with Willow, we settled on making few key poses in the notes to lead actions and emphasise important audio parts.
Until this moment, we worked with the shared screen, I was the one to make the editions on the shared file for the project. But after the notes were done, we distributed shots between both of us to work on keyframing.
To help the proportions and perspective stay consistent, I spend some time modelling the interior in Blender and rendered images that would be used as a visual guide for backgrounds.
While working on the keyframing, in front of my mind was the goal to make the body language of the character well readable and expressive. I made notes to emphasise certain parts in the audio or certain character trait to lead to a clear character portrayal.
I worked as messily as possible to not get too held up onto one frame or shot, I knew my weakness while working (I get too attached to one drawing and then I waste unnecessary time on it), so I used a possible method to work more efficiently.
Overall this week the work was still more planning and in the discussion stage. We collaborated on each other’s ideas of character body language and portrayal, ideas for props and background elements. I got lucky to work with Willow, who has a similar project approach as me, and we are working together well. I am really enjoying the process so far. The stages of productions are clear and led by footage Joe gave us and collaborating on this project lets me not only learn more about the process, but learn to work in a team, or in this case – pear.
WEEK 3: Animation, Lineart, Backgrounds and Lip-Synch
Week 3 was the busiest one so far. It was the week for us to add breakdowns and in-betweens, do a lineart and on top of that Lip-Synch. I also wanted to finish the Background linearts for convenience.
I spent the whole day working on animation. It was a demanding process, forcing me to concentrate on the character and try to develop his own characterised body language. The eyes were probably the most enjoyable part to animate. Because the elven character has wide eyes, and it is the centre of his face, they are the main focus and I wanted to portray them as clearly as possible.
I discovered that after accustomed to the new interface and program, TVpaint is such a good program to work on. So far I haven’t had any struggles with it, not minding the initial getting used to it.
As I mentioned, I worked on the backgrounds too to give the tavern more life, personalise it more. I put great care into adding background props but also making it not so crowded for it to feel suffocating. I see it as being a success. I worked them out in Photoshop and later imported them into TVpaint.
After the initial animation was done I moved on onto lineart. To be fair, lineart is more of a no-brainer task, but still demands high concentration and focus on the task at hand to make it consistent and as smooth as possible.
For me, the best part was facial expressions. Because initially, I dod lineart without the mouth, the only way to know a character’s feelings is through his body language and facial expressions.
The last task for this week – Lip-Synch. After doing a phonetic breakdown, the Lip-Synch was one of the quicker parts that were completed in a few hours. By using a custom brush panel in TVpaint, redrawing mouth shapes were quicker and more efficient. Although I that few shots where I animated the mouth manually, because of the head movements of the character in the scene.
WEEK 4: Colour palettes and Colouring
We started our production week by working on colour palettes for shots. Background came first. We knew that we wanted an underwater/sea type of mood. The tavern is near the ocean, harbour, where creatures like octopi and dolphins are common patrons of the inn.
We went with duller colours, greens, blues, greys. The background is not the main point of the animation, we wanted them not to clash with the main action aka conversation
For the characters, we decided to make them travellers from farther regions, to be unusual in this space. The dwarf in from farther fire/vulcanic regions, warmer climates, who travelled to more oceanic regions to see more of the coast. Elf in more from the woods and rich natural diversity regions.
WEEK 5: Sound design and Final touches
We had to submit the progress of the project on Monday. And Willow and I were pretty confident that we will manage to finish it fully. What was left for us to do were to put all of the shorts together in the master and then do sound design and foley.
But the day before submission for crit, Willow let me know that her TVpaint file which she worked on got corrupted and she needs to redo all progress she made – colouring and lip-synch. Although we encountered this glitch and we weren’t sure if she will be able to finish it, I put it on myself to do sound design.
I didn’t have time to create or record the unique foley myself, so I used sampled sound libraries from youtube. I added tavern ambient and crowd sounds, some glass dings and bottle clicking.