I actually managed to complete a lot of things this week so hooo boy! Prepare yourself for a long post ahead. Don't say I didn't warn you...
Early Character Explorations
I'm going to backtrack to the very beginning, long before the semester had even begun. During the holidays, before I had thought about what I wanted my product or story to be, I decided that I wanted to animate a fairy character for my TVC. Fairies have always been something that I loved and I knew that choosing a fairy would make this final project so much more enjoyable for me.
Character designs can be flexible enough to bend them to what I need when I've actually figured out my story so I started drawing the different designs that I could use. I tried to make them more diverse so they could fit different tones and settings and categorised them into three groups:
Firstly, we have "Historical". It is quite a broad category and it spans many time periods and cultures but I found that all of them had a more elegant feel.
Next, we have "Vintage" which in this case refers to the style of the 20th century. I found these designs to be much more spunky and vivacious, perfect for fun vibes.
Finally, we have "Nature". These designs come from the more recognised idea of fairies being part of nature. I based them off plants and insects which made them look more organic.
Character Sketches
I really liked the moth design from my early explorations and I decided to expand on her by trying out different hairstyles and clothes - including one hairstyle that was a flower that could bloom based on emotions.
Although I really liked the different moth designs, for my last one, she had these space buns and this bathing suit style clothing and she just didn't seem to fit the calm demeanour of a moth. Thus, I added some stripes onto her suit and changed her wings and voila - there was a bee. And it fits her so well!
Once I had figured out that the tone of my tvc would be more fun and comedic, I knew my little bee was perfect for it!
Design Exploration
Of course, that wasn't the end of my character design journey (especially since this was all before I had even figured out my product). When I decided that I wanted my product to stick to her upper chest and grow along her back, I knew I had to remove the fuzz around her neck as well as make the suit backless to make space for the product to work.
I got some feedback that the stripes might make her blend into the forest-y background due to the textures so I tried out different designs. I chose e. as the stripes were big enough to stand out while still making it obvious that she was a bee.
I also tried out different wing designs. I knew I had to animate them so I kept them simple. I went with c. since I thought the geometric shapes were more unique and interesting, and it would make a nice path for the dew to follow.
And here is the final design!
With this final design, I referenced a lot of Golden Age Disney especially Peter Pan (1953)'s Tinker Bell, Bambi (1942), Fantasia (1940)'s fairies. I also took inspiration from the original Barbie Doll (1959)'s bathing suit for her clothing style.
I like how even though she came from the "Nature" category from my early explorations, I still managed to add a lot of "Vintage" elements to her design - almost like it was coming full circle.
Colours
Now onto my favourite - colours! I knew I wanted her to have dark skin and that her clothes had to be yellow with dark stripes since she's a bee but even with these limitations, there was still a lot I could explore.
But just laying out the different colour schemes wasn't enough.
I am planning to do a lineless style for my animation so the colours have to very clearly stand out from the background. Luckily, I already had a rough colour script for my background so I placed them against it to see.
I found that although the light coloured clothes and hair contrasted with the dark skin very nicely, they ended up blending into the light warm green background.
a. had a mid-tone throughout but this made her stand out the best from the background. The reddish skin-tone also contrasted really well with the green background due to them being complementary colours. Thus, I chose a.
Now I had my final design and colour scheme, which means I could do the turntable with my final character design.
That may be the end of my Character Design journey but that does not mean the end of this post (sorry to disappoint).
I fixed my animatic and completed my ident animation this week too so here's the update for them.
Animatic
I applied all the changes I mentioned last week and then some.
My lecturer gave me some feedback on my first scene being too abrupt so I made it longer and I also had the camera pan sideways, close-up as the fairy flies in. This means that the audience will not see the spiderweb until much later.
Also, now that the fairy twirls and flies away after escaping from the web, she has to fly back to blow a raspberry at the torn web, making her seem extra petty. Perfect.
Final Ident
I also managed to complete the final ident animation. I made the dew glow in after effects and used a word animation technique that Alan taught me. I had to forgo a tagline since I couldn't come up with anything I found good enough. Besides, my logo animation was already 9 seconds and I didn't have that much time left.
And that's all for this week
I'm actually pretty proud of myself for finishing so much and being able to check off so many things off my list. It was a really productive week but next week's post probably wont be as long. Don't get used to this length :")
See you next week!
21 February 2021