The Final Animation

Here are the final animation for my project:

The Conclusion

During this semester, I have used Adobe After Effect and Metaio as my software to produce the animation especially Adobe After Effect. Both software is quite new for me as I just learned during this semester. However maybe is my deep interest of After Effect, I can catch up quite fast by watching the tutorial online. As for Metaio, it really surprise me when I first time using it. During the production of animation for this assignment, it really give me a headache when comes to character design, decide on which software to use for animate the character. But I glad that I've made the right choice of using After Effect. Even though the animation take me around two sleepless night for me to finish, but I having fun with it and I realize that I have improvement in my skill for After Effect. 

The pros while developing the animation are I'm able to finish it on time and I able to know more about After Effect on what they can do more. The cons here are my first time using Adobe After Effect to animate the full animation for 30 seconds really take me quite a long time.

My strength here are able to finish the animation on time, and the determination of finishing the animation.

My threats when producing this assignment are time management as I have a part time job to do at the same time, I also have to complete other assignment as well.

What I have gain while producing the animation is I've improve my skill in Adobe After Effect and know more about the process of making an animation is not easy.

My weaknesses are time management (as describe above) and laziness. Sometimes I get quite lazy and just want to rest for the whole day doing nothing.

Animation Tracing for Little Girl Skipping

After getting the animatics done, I then start on the animation of the little girl skipping. In my opinion, the whole animation, the challenging part will be the little girl skipping, licking the lollipop and the girl struggling part. I decide to work on the skipping part first, as this is the beginning of the story.

I start searching image of skipping cycle, so that I can trace on it. Finally, I have found one image which taken from deviantArt.

Once I have found the image, I then uses tablet to work on it, tracing them by using brush tool.

And here is the screen recording of the little girl skipping.

New Character Design for Little Girl and Stranger

After done with animatics, I try to figure out a way to animate the character in a much easier way. As I find it will be quite hard to animate base on a human figure size and I don't think I have sufficient time to finish the animation. Hence, I have come out with a new character design for both little girl and stranger, which the both of them will in chibi (small child)  form. Image 1 and 2 will be the example of original character and chibi form character.

Image 1: Original Character

Taken from: http://blog.opovo.com.br/bancadoanime/spin-de-magi-aventuras-de-simbad-ganha-ova/

Image 2: Chibi Form Character

Self-drawn

Then, I come out with the similar design for little girl and stranger.

 Normal human figure of little girl to Chibi form.

Normal human figure of stranger to Chibi form.

But after drawing it out, I just thought that the character design of stranger might not be suitable. As the animation suppose to give an impact on don't trust gentleman, but it turns out to be that the stranger became a kid and more cute.

I then ask for my friend's suggestion, and she suggest that just design the little girl into chibi form, whereas the stranger still remain the same normal human figure.

Animatics

After some comment from the lecturer, I have made some amendment to the animatics regarding the timing.

After the amendment and show it to lecturer, the lecturer said is good enough to continue with the production. However, it is impossible for me to complete the whole animation within 4 weeks, so he suggest me to do only the first 30 seconds of the animation, then the rest leave it as animatics.

Not Yet Perfect Animatics

Here is the animatics for the animation, it is not perfect yet, and I find it is about 57 second, I think is quite long for a short animation. After let lecturer have a look on the animatics, the lecturer comment that it is quite fast and doesn't bring out the dramatic part. So still have to improvise the animatics a little bit and make it slower.

Storyboard

Here are the storyboard for this short animation.

Storyboard and Animatics

After I have my character design done, I now will move on to storyboard and animatics. So, I do some research on storyboard and animatics.

First storyboard basically is a drawing of frames with description after the script was produced.
Picture 1 shows the example of storyboard.

Picture 1

Taken from: http://nimphaiwe.deviantart.com/art/CM-Storyboard-Scene-2-p1-254059642

After draw out the storyboard, then animatics is the nest step. Animatics is animated storyboard, it is sort of preview scenes of a production before it goes to shooting or animate. Picture 2 shows one of the screenshot of animatics.

Picture 2

Taken from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXMwpDVPaLE

Source taken from: http://www.aboutanimatics.com/

Character Development for Stranger

Here are some character development of the stranger.

This is the drawing of the stranger in front, side and back view. I'm planning to make him wearing a man's trench coat, and not showing his face by dragging the collar of the trench coat to cover his face. The reason why I planning to let him wear trench coat is because trench coat gives an impression of polite people that will let people let down their guard, but ended up to be bad people. I get the inspiration from a horror movie "Haunting in Connecticut", about one old lady say to the youngster "Never Trust a Gentleman".

Here are the drawing of the stranger with grin when the girl got snatch away. His face will have a tattoo to show the group that he were in.

More Character Development of Little Girl

After lock down to the little girl character, I then draw out the whole body of the little girl as a character development.

This is the first drawing of the little girl's whole body, but the chest of the little girl looks too broad as the shoulder is too broad.

 Finally after several try by rubbing off the mistake and my friend's help, I finally get to know how to draw a children's body. A children's body is not like an adult body, so they don't have much shape on the body such as the shoulder not so broad with a little bit slanting, and they don't have much waist compare to adult girl.

Here are some little girl's expression.

This is the drawing of little girl in 3/4 view, back view, side view and front view.

Character Development of Little Girl

Over the weekend, I have done some sketches on the little girl for character development.

 The little girl above looks more gentle compare to the previous one, is quite a cute little girl but it the expression too gentle; whereas the little girl below looks more to teenager due to the sharp chin she have, but I manage to find out another new hairstyle for the character.

 The girl above looks a little bit too chubby and it seems to me is quite matured; where the girl below the ponytail looks quite big, but I think among the sketches this is the most suitable.

The girl above not bad, but with her head are quite big which makes the hair looks less; whereas the girl below, the eyes are too small with the big face she have.

The girl in this sketch, the both cheek look unbalance.

Character Development

Here are some sketches for character development for stranger and little girl.

This is the character development of the stranger, but have not yet finalized. For the stranger, I'm not planning to show his face by using a hat or hoodie to cover up his face. As this is to not let the audience know who is he as he is the stranger, and stranger is someone that one's don't know.

This is the character development for little girl who's being kidnapped. I planning to have a double pony tail for this little girl, as this looks more cute and more toward children. But as I draw another girl a pony tail, I realize it also matches the look of a little girl. So, I should try more alternative for the hairstyle and the expression.

Storyboard

This is the rough storyboard about the flow of the story.

Here are the description of the storyboard:

1) A little girl is walking on a street alone.

2) Then she met a stranger. The stranger give her a candy.

3) She accept it and start licking the candy.

4) Suddenly there's one car came from behind and grab that girl into the car, and quickly drive away.

5) After seeing that little girl was being snatch away, the stranger then walks away. 

Presentation Slide

On 23/4/2014 Wednesday, we have a presentation about presenting what we wanted to do for our assignment.

Here are the presentation slides.