Ed had previously advised me to pick a few of the characters I liked and work with those... looking back over my drawings most of them were just slight variations on the same animal. At the time I wasn't sure that would work too well so I picked some of my favourites (namely the hyena, the elephant, the mammoth and the bear) and tried to come up with a couple more just to pad things out a bit. I got a bit stuck, though — I played with the idea of a pretty pissed off flamingo that I quite liked (might keep him) and then I ended up drawing my chinchilla.
I then half got the idea that, being a personal ident, perhaps I could base some of the characters off some of my pets back home — namely an ancient chinchilla and two stupid cats. I thought it would be funny as the cats are so wildly different in body structure — one's old and fat and angry, the other is this scrawny little insect-looking thing with massive eyes that's terrified of absolutely everything. I'd thought it could be an opportunity to really go mad with some insane run cycles, but again, looking back on it now... I don't think they really "fit" the idea at all... cats and chinchillas? They hardly fit the other more wild animals I've got going on. Bah.
I nterms of storyboards I'm still struggling. I'm just not picturing the idea properly, I don't think — I sort of have an image in my head but I don't know if it's really strong enough. I kinda toyed with the opening shot just having a big ball being tossed on-screen, then a huge rampage of approaching footsteps and this huge crowd of animals stampedes across the screen. The smoke kicked up by the animals forms the name, then the hyena trots back across the screen looking pleased with itself as the smoke disperses. The animals then rampage back across the screen in pursuit.
On the bottom it's the same idea, just with one really slow character lagging behind.
... eh. Yeah, it's not working. There's no real payoff I don't think. Plus as Ed said smoke is really hard to do. Again he suggested to me the idea that maybe it's like a lion King monolith-type thing with these HUGE stone letters that's my name, which I'd initially avoided because it seemed too arrogant! However I do think that would be more of a payoff, or a bit more striking than some silly wispy smoke.
In terms of visual style I'd initially imagined keeping something quite sketchy, trying to keep some sense of volume and energy which I seem to lose once I start 'refining' any of my drawings. I was struggling, though, and again my lack of colour sense comes through...
Just struggling to work out some colour palettes. I'm really not sure what sort of "feel" to go for — I think that, just generally, these might be too bold and bright and cheerful. Maybe something more muted.
When it came to the actual animation side for these guys I'd half thought I'd be able to build up the rigs using photoshop images and puppet pins with null objects; it's definitely feasible to do, given some of the experimentation I've been doing, but my hesitation is that it wouldn't really be what the brief is looking for. Ed mentioned that After Effects works far more with stronger and more graphical shapes; the bear and elephant he said, in particular. Trouble is I'm really not great at that sort of thing, it would seem — I'm certainly not looking for anything hand drawn in terms of animation, which I think may have been the impression Ed was getting. I'm certainly not hoping for boiling lines or anything like that. Just to keep the outlines over the characters mayhaps.... I dunno, I'm worrying again. What on earth am I trying to do with myself?
I dunno. They're horrible. I especially hate that bear. What the hell was I thinking? YELLOW? And a pink mammoth? Good god...
I kind of liked the opportunity to do something quite papery and sketchy and scribbly so I half played around with the characters being literal ripped up bits of paper with the outlines on the top. I kind of liked it but I think it's more a hand drawn thing than After Effects... again, looks as if I was totally missing the point, but I was really just playing around.
The little paper cutout bear I kind of like. That's almost got the same charm to it with some nice textures and could feasibly be animated in After Effects, but the danger is it looks from the surface as if it would be stiff and lifeless. I'd easily be able to distort the character's limbs to give them flexibility but eh. I don't know so much that it would work.
I don't even know what I'm typing anymore.
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