Taking inspiration from character sheets i'd seen previously I attempted to place my character in basic positions, to which I added colour and very basic shading. To which I felt the shading could be better, so I researched into this further.
I found a video online talking about digital painting, in this case the perfect shading. From the arrow marks I made previously I added a darker shade to where I felt they would be.
If you think about dark and light, they're really not subtle on objects/characters. You can really tell where the light is coming from, I do think this turned out pretty well. The shading is quite effective, although I must consider whether it take too much away from the simple design I'm trying to show.
Just to keep myself in order and to keep this blog on track, this is what I will need to place my storyboard on.
12 panels that I plan to do very quick drawings on, on photoshop. From my original rough drawings.
There are many rules when it comes to composing a story board, those of which I was unfamiliar to. But I have learnt. The basic units of visual storytelling in film are:
The single image >> shot >> sequences >> acts
You must think about what you want to portray to the audience, so you need to think about what order you want your frames to be in. Maybe what effect you're trying to portray with them.
Composition
STAGING - You must think about where in the scene you want your character.
RULE OF THIRDS - It's normally the aim not to get the character dead set in the middle of the frame, as it makes it less interesting for the viewer. You can divide your frame into three horizontal/ vertical lines and use them as a guideline.
DIRECT THE EYE - Using features of the frame as perspective lines you can lead the audiences eyes to the centre of interest.
I decided to research further some character sheets to get a good idea of what mine can look like, I notice that some are simply done with line work. But I like the idea of having mine in colour. I feel like it will bring him to life.
I produced another quick animatic on photoshop, this time the pictures were more deatiled and I added a few more scenes to hopfully bring the story together. I timed it so most of the frames were 2 seconds each, apart from the frame with the guy holding the cake in the kitchen. In my opinion the signifier, we start to understand why he feels the way he does.
In animation, a character sheet, also known as a character board, character study or simply a study, is a document used to help the animators understand the appearance, poses, and gestures of an animated character.
I went through I few character sheets until I found one which I liked, this one belonging to the beloved characters Tweety and Sylvester. In this model sheet you're just getting a good idea of the characters physically from different angles rather than different emotions. However I think I will end up using some emotions to show variety. As then it will show more of a character sheet than 'model sheet'
I did this with my character iteration that I had at the time that I was happy with, I showed the front, 3/4 front, 3/4 back, side and back. It gives the audience a good idea of what the whole character looks like from all angles. And importantly I can progress in developing him further,I can pick out bits about him I want to improve in more detail and I can start to figure out how to start animating him.
I used photo shop and tablet to add colour to my character for my character sheet, It's just very basic, but I'm already pretty happy with the colours. I would play with colours a little more, add tone. And possibly take away the black outline. I feel like his colour/shape holds itself enough.
The background was originally an off colour, I didn't think about his before I started painting, as a result the colours are slightly off. Which isn't too bad, editing was a little tricky.
I continued trying to develop the appearance of my egg design, really focusing on the face (eyes) at this point, I wanted to try and get his emotions across as much as possible with his eyes as that's his focus point and I have no dialogue within my animation.
I decided to keep my egg design as simple as possible, and to have all of his emotions portrayed through his eyes. Eggs are very simple but they're used to makes very complicated things, they're incredibly useful, I wanted to portray through my character that he's very simple, but has complicated emotions. Which his eyes will portray. I also had the idea of him cracking through the scene, to possibly show him feeling broken (emotionally) but showing it physically.
I got this idea from Gromit in Wallace and Gromit, he had no dialogue but was incredibly expressive though his eyes/eyebrows and it's incredibly powerful. Much like my characters emotions.
Just a quick video of one of my favourtie scenes in animation ever, Wallace and Gromit in the wrong trousers. In this scene Gromit shows so much emotion without really trying, and I think that's brilliant.
I have extended my original 12 frame story board, I did this to create an anamatic that would be roughly 30 seconds.
This is a very rough first draft of my anamatic, some of the frames are in the wrong place/haven't been included that I will do. Since I've made this I've made a few changes. Each frame is roughly 2 seconds each, except from one 5 second frame of the windowsill. I did this to create extra suspense, he's just jumped out of a window. The audience in theory wants to know what's just happened to him. It's just over 30 seconds, which isn't too bad. But I would like to compact this down to 30.
A story board is defined as 'a graphic organiser in the form of illustrations or images in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualising a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence.'
We had a lecture on 'storyboards' and the correct way to produce one, it was from this that we came up with our own narratives and as a result rough storyboards that would help us in our development of characters.
(An example of a story board from Disney's Alice in Wonderland)
Step by step you can see roughly what is happening, it's a simple and cheap way to get organised so you don't have to waste footage when filming. Especially in stop motion. This is what we had to do for our own characters, by thinking of a narrative and showing it through images.
They had to be 12 shots, all within the time fram of 30 seconds. However we could produce more frames for the anamatic that we intend to make.
Concentrating on my egg character, I roughly attempted to make my own, It involves my character who has just been used to make lots of cakes. But soon realises that's all he can do now. As a result he gets upset and attempts to fix himself with pills and plasters, when he realises he can't fix himself in this life. But he can help those in the next. To which he jumps in to a pile of compost.
After researching into different shaped egg shells I started to sketch what I wanted my character to look like.
These are very rough. I decided to get an egg and sketch it, I added shading, I will have to experiment more with the idea of shading, as I feel when it comes to animating it. It will end up being that much harder.
As we have to make a biped character (2 legs) I wanted to make his legs out of what he is (ie using the yolk within him to leak out the sides to help him walk.) Instead of adding human legs on him. This is just because I feel like that's been done before, it will hopefully make the character more interesting to look when when he moves. I will carry on this idea for now.
I looked at a few facial ideas for my egg character, I was surprised to not find too many well known animated ones. But here were a few of my favourites, (TOP LEFT) Togepi from pokemon, who has a very kawaii face, (TOP RIGHT) iloveegg.com is somthing i've loved since I was young, also very kawaii with their simple faces still showing a range of emotions. (BOTTOM LEFT) Humpty Dumpty from Puss in boots, he seems to have a hyper realistic face. Being able to portray a array of complicated emotions. And finally (BOTTOM RIGHT) Egg Fu, appearing in many DC comics, with a robotic feel.
And this, party for research and partly for fun, Weebl and Bob are two eggs in a web series that love pie. They move by just rolling around, they're never static. Just constantly moving back and forth.
I decided to reasearch ideas for my puppet idea (losing it's soul and learning to walk), my initial idea was to create a very simple looking puppet with a simple face. When looking around I found victorian dolls (which is my comfort zone) and wanted to carry on with this idea. However I realised I shouldn't keep to my comfort zone and branch out. So I decided to concentrate on my egg idea.
I found an artist called 'Paul Klee', who in my opinion created outrageous puppet designs. Often only recognisable as humans. I felt inspired by this, I love the weird and wonderful.
Just an example of some of his work, but I felt like this idea although fairly original wasn't where I wanted to go.
After a crit session I decided that maybe I shouldn't make up an object like a backpack with everything a child could want in it, but use an ordinary object that reminds me of my dad. I.e a circuit board or soldering iron, I attempted to draw them, but I was excited about them. my mind wondered and my pencil decided to draw.
I started to think more about the reason why my object would be moving, and felt that this was important for my character design AND narrative. It went from a window walking trying not to break itself, a puppet who lost their hand (soul) and learns to walk alone. And an egg that want to repair itself, Ideas I wanted to develop.
