Pre-Production

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Researching Existing products

This is the first set of research I conducted. I wanted to research into different processes and techniques people use when creating an animation or storyboards/key frames.

I started with researching with YouTube, finding different videos that follow different creators processes.

I found that many creators used the same process of;

Script writing
Storyboards
Animating
Voice acting/Sound Design
Editing

Using this process, I planned out my own work following the same basic steps.

The main videos I looked at seemed to bend these steps a little, going into further detail with parts such as character design, background and lighting.

I learnt from this research how important a character design is and that you need to know what kind of inspirations you have for the character. The character needs to feel like they fit into the world you have created within the script writing process. My characters are very simple in design but still with enough fun details to keep them interesting and nice to look at. I plan to make the backgrounds for my animation in a similar way (if not even more simplified than my characters) to make sure they fit into the same universe easily.

My Role within This Project

During my preparation for University, I had to do a lot of research when finding out if Animation truly was the career path I wanted to pursue within higher education. In my research, I found the different roles and skills I would learn during University including things I was very interested in learning more about in a focused study such as:

Character Design
2D and stop motion Animation
Visual storytelling
Animation Analysis

From my research, I focused in on my choice of 2D animation and decided to take up the role of director and lead animator within my Project. Lead animators would often times be the ones head of time management for the rest of the team, and so I can focus on developing my time management as well as working around deadlines and learning how to be flexible within a project in case there are mishaps that would result in things needing to be done in a new order or time frame.

The Final Script

This is the script for my project (Written in collaboration with fellow student Tyler Kendrick.) Here I layed out the finalised layout of events for my animation as if it was a movie script in order to ensure I had the right vibe and feel for my Animation; wanting it to be interesting, fun and interesting.

Unlike the previous projects I have done which involved me animating, I have usually had music or voice acting that inspired the final product. However, as I wanted to focus on the background art and animation itself, I have chosen not to include any voice acting in this project. This not only saves me a lot of time to spend animating and illustrating, but it shows my skills in showcasing character personality without audio.

Inspiration for my Project

These are the three main inspirations for my project as a whole. Back when I first came up with the concept for my game, I was heavily influenced by my love for the game Cookie Run: OvenBreak

Cookie Run is a Korean-based game (run by the company Devsisters) where you play as an arrangement of sentient cookies, each with fun and unique designs, in a 2D platformer running game. As Cookie Run is a mobile game in a similar art style to the one I wanted to use for my game, it became a very big inspiration and was the reason I wanted to turn my game Sour Punch, into a mobile game with an animated trailer similar to the promo animations Devsisters release when announcing new characters and features. The main inspiration were the characters: Lemon, Lime and Orange cookie as they are very bright and colourful with their fun and unique designs that inspired my own.

A big inspiration to my art style and animation style comes from animated music videos for Vocaloid songs such as ‘Death should not have taken thee’ and ‘Party X Party’ which have always been what I imagine good game animations should encompass. The animations aren’t too complex as it is meant to accompany the music and so I will mimic this style within my animation as I only have limited tome to create the resources for my animation. As my games overall style mimics that of an RPG, I will use elements found in both of these videos in my final product to sell the vibe of a group out on an adventure! Taking inspiration for the back and forth between the characters in these animations in order to help me show character and personality within my own characters.