Current animation scenes

Once I had finished digitally painting all of the panels, I then began to animate each scene one by one, matching it up to my pre-recorded narration. These are the current scenes I have, my next task is to sew them all together to make the final motion graphic.

Character Illustration Ideas

For my character illustrations, I was originally going to produce just one illustration that shows the two siblings in the woodland environment with the weapon I designed, however, if I continue with the art book idea, I would like to complete multiple illustrations of the characters in different situations such as:
 Sister in Autumn in Foxes
 Brother in Spring with a Stag and Doe
Sister Hunting in the Tree Tops with her staff
Brother Hunting/fighting a wild boar with his tusk or antler weapons
The Siblings in their camp/home
The Siblings sitting by a fire.

I would create these illustrations to have some movement in them, like a short gif image, such as a flickering fire, or blowing wind.

Here are some initial sketches and designs, using deviant art stock images as reference and inspiration.

Easter Break Work

After talking to Nigel about my work, we discussed the idea that my motion graphic should include the two characters when they are older, as I have designed, rather than simply re-tell the story of Babes in the Woods with the two characters when they are younger, which do feel like completely different characters. At this point I had completed most of the line work for my motion graphic and felt that I should put the motion graphic on pause, focus a bit more on my concept art and work out what I wanted to achieve with this project. All this happened the day we broke up for the three week Easter Break which meant I was unable to discuss my plans further with any of the tutors, so I have spent the Easter holidays trying to finish up other work and complete other projects.

(Project x)

The first thing I went back to was my concept art, after discussing my previous designs, there were a few things I wanted to change, I was happy with my male design, and created this clothing sheet to show his under clothes, what he looks like if he was clean, so modellers can see clearly what he is wearing, and finally what he would like like overall, covered in mud and dirt.

When discussing my female design, Nigel felt the current short hair style looked too clean and nice, and felt my dread designs suited the situation better, this I agreed with and decided to incorporate this into her design. This hairstyle was more fun as well as I began to think of how she would find things that interest her and simply tie them into her matted hair. The only other change I made was her leather skirt, which was too bright before for a European forest. Again I showed he under clothes, and what she would like like after years of living in the forest, covered in mud and dirt.  

After I had completed this, I had to think about what I would create, if not the motion graphic. My initial idea was to make a fairytale like art book, which would tell the original story in text with a few illustrations, but continue to show the two children grown up, and tell short tales of what they have been up too, which would describe the way they look. An example of this would be when the brother had to fight off a wild hog for the first time,won, and now wears its tusk to honour the creature. Therefore, my next task was to create different assets the characters could wear that would each tell a short story explaining the characters lives since they were abandoned.

Brothers Wild Hog Tusk, used as a weapon and pin to hold his furs.

A stag antler the Brother took from a stag that fed the siblings for a week.

A carved belt buckle the sister found and gave to her brother as a gift on his 16th Birthday.

A pendant of the siblings parents is worn around the brothers neck as the only token they have of their past life.

A feather from a Jay Bird the sister befriended when they were young which she wears in one of her braids.

The sisters ears are pierced with Lynx cat fangs, in honour of a great Lynx that adopted the children when they were first left in the woods.

The left image is based on the idea that the sister will keep a piece of vertebrae from every small animal they must kill for food, in honour of their sacrifice, while the right image is a rosary skull bracelet the brother stole from some passers by as a gift to his sister, which she wears in her hair.

These two sketches were to gain an idea of how the girls mementos and findings would fit in her hair, and what different ways she might wear her hair.

Sister head turn around

Brother head turn around

Sister Character Sheet

Brother Character Sheet

Motion Graphic

Not being able to settle on a style, I decided to change my work flow and finish all the line drawings for each panel. This is what I am most confident at so it helped me feel more confident about the whole process.

In this scene I want to create the effect of movement showing the men drinking.

For this scene I want the hand to pan down from the top to show the idea of the uncle handing them the money as it appears in his hand.

In this scene I have drawn the hands and arms on separate layers so I can animate it to look like the hands are shaking.

I want to convey the idea that the children have been woken in the middle of the night to be taken away, so I will have the boy slowly blinking his eyes, adjusting to the light, and the little girl rubbing her eyes with her left hand rotating slightly.

I will continue to finish all the line work and then I will colour all the panels with a base colour, this way all of the panels will be in the same style.

Motion Graphic

Sticking to my work schedule, I soon moved onto creating my motion graphic once February was over. I spent the first week of March creating each panel but soon came to realise they were all in different styles and had little consistency.

Weapon Concept Art

Once I had designed my Characters, I wanted to create a weapon for them to use, both as a way of hunting and self defence, but also a tool.

Firs I started with some simple thumbnails, I knew I wanted to create some sort of staff so I kept in mind this shape.

I then developed these shapes into six developed designs, thinking about different uses each would have.

This sheet shows my thoughts behind the designs, I really liked the idea of the siblings having some kind of power that meant they could semi-control the forest and make things grow, such as making bark grow around a blade to make a weapon. 

I liked the Billhook design, but felt the third staff had a much more unique shape that would be more interesting to hold, so I worked on incorporating my previous designs onto this shape.

While creating these designs, someone observing my work thought they looked like bows, which I decided to develop into my final design. This gave the weapon three different attacks which is what I was looking for in a multipurpose, hand made weapon.

Final Character Designs