WIP: Farahilde Run Cycle

Sorry for being rather inactive, as I have mentioned I was sick. I'm feeling a bit better now but still coughing...urrghhh. Anyway, here's the latest animated scene I did. This will be the shot where Farahilde rescues Zion and both of them run through the hallways. I will re-do the shot where Farahilde steps out of the cell soon.

Lined animation:

Coloured version, with added frames for smoothness:

A Bit More of My WIP

Here's the shot where Farahilde escapes out of her cell and makes her way to the exit. There are these blank spaces in the shots because these are all panels in a comic. I will show you how the shots will transition in the next blog.

Side Project

So I don't have anything of my main University project to post today; I've been sick for the past few days and I couldn't work on it. But I do have a side project of my own that I have been working on during the weekends. As most of you may know now, I really like comics and making comics; so this personal project is an original short comic that I made. These are some finished pages and work in progress.

WIP, (top to bottom) Cover art, page 1, page 2, page 3.

Completed, (top to bottom) Cover art, page 1, page 2, page 3.

 

Trial and Error

When I was animating the shot of Farahilde opening the door, I deviated from the animatic a bit. Instead of having just the door slide open, I decided to animate her pulling the door open.

But then as I thought about this action carefully, I decided that a person who is locked up for a while will not know how much strength to exert while opening the cell door. In the above animation, it seems as if she knew she had to use quite a lot of strength to open the cell. While I do like the action and the background in the shot above, it does not make much sense. It also does not connect well with the next shot where Farahilde pokes her head out to look out for guards. The animation ends at an odd place and for continuity's sake I would have to add more frames to it.

So in the end I still abide to the animatic. Where the door simply slides open and it is assumed that Farahilde opened the door. It is lazy I admit, but it still connects to the next shot better makes more logical sense.

Again when I was animating the shot where Farahilde pokes her head out of the cell to examine the hallway, and this was the initial animation.

They're only rough sketches, but after seeing how it plays out, I decided that a person who is trying to be stealthy will not poke their head out so much and then turn to see the other side of the hallway. The black lines at frame one are supposed to indicate where the cell door is. I acted out this scene myself, pretending to be the character. And this is what I did, instead of looking both ways at once, I poked my head just a bit in order to see one side of the way, quickly pull back; then I poked my head out again to see the other side. I felt like this made more sense in the action.

Final result:

Guards Concept Designs

Some initial sketches I did for the prison guards.

Fat guard and skinny guard.

Weapon designs. I used a lot of steampunk guns for reference.

 

Environment Concept Designs

I decided to post some of my concept art today...They're not very impressive but I like to draw. As you can see I'm going for a rather claustrophobic feel, and the style is quite loose, too.

My Sore Hand

It takes about a whole day for me to finish one shot of animation. And in this scene I got lazy and skipped the reference filming. The product is my main character doing a shuffle while running away... Oh well, I'm too tired to fix it now...It'll have to do... It's so bad... But my hand hurts so much...

How I Make My Animations

Here is a step by step of my approach to each scene in my animation.

I like to work chronologically. Therefore I always have my storyboard and animatic with me when I begin to animate. Once I have a clear idea of what I need to do for this particular scene, I get my camera and do some reference filming. References are very important. Whether as an artist or animator, I always have reference.

A screenshots of reference footage for the scene where Farahilde pulls open the cell door:

 I do all the actions myself so I can get a feel of where all the weight transfers, pressure and tension in the body are. After that, I then plan out really roughly of what happens in each frame on paper. Sorry for the bad photo quality, I did it in a rush for documentation's sake.

After that, I use Photoshop to draw the background and also sketch out the rough outlines of each key frame. This is the pencil test. I use different colours for each frame so I can differentiate between each frame. It is also at this step where I decide to add more frames to the animation, or delete ones I think are redundant.

When I am happy with the overall animation, I line each frame with a small hard round brush.

Then I colour each frame. I am aware of adding overlapping action for the hair, and also adding blinks for the character. The sliding of the door is synced with Farahilde's movements here. I make sure the timing is correct.

Lastly, I render the animation out in .mov file. And it's done!

Why Animation?

A question that all the animation students need to answer is: why is your project an animation? In other words, why does this need to be in an animated medium? Why not live action?

There are a few reasons why I chose to make an animation for this project. First of all, it would be difficult to create a prison environment in live action. The setting consists of cell doors, corridors, stairs and tunnels. In addition, the props would be a problem since my props are not any traditional weapons that one can find. I designed my own props and for them to be in an live action short, I would have to either make them physically, or somehow key them in. By that, an animation is much easier. There is also a fighting scene in my animation. As most people know, it is a rather tiring process to make a live action fight sequence look real and convincing. I would need very good actors, and there would be a risk of an accident happening. There are lots of running, climbing and other rigorous actions in this project. To film these in live action would be another problem. Tracking would be very difficult, especially tight spaces like a prison. These problems can be eliminated with animation. But I need lots of reference and careful planning.

New Story for University Project

So after realizing my mistakes on the previous story, I have sort of came up with a new one. The ideas and settings are basically still the same, but I made changes to Zion's character.

Zion will no longer be an accomplice of the organization. He will be another captive. Zion is the son of another powerful man, like Farahilde, is being kept there for his own protection under an alias. When Farahilde passes his cell, he calls out to her for help. And she helps him out of his cell. In contrast to Farahilde's strong, independent personality, Zion is timid and fearful. During their escape, they come to a large tunnel which is too high for neither of them to reach. Being the compassionate and selfless person, Farahilde boosts Zion up first. But as she reaches up for him to pull her up, guards show up in pursuit. Zion trembles and abandons Farahilde in fear. Angered by his cowardice, Farahilde is able to defeat the guards and use their bodies as a foothold and climb to the tunnel. She also takes one of the guards gun. As she approaches the exit, she sees Zion hopelessly banging on the exit door. He finally slides to the ground in despair. He hears Farahilde's gun click, as he looks up she shoots in his direction. But she does not shoot him, instead she shoots the door lock and thus the door can be opened. Farahilde walks to him, grabs his collar and glares at him. He looks back at her terrified. Farahilde's expression then softens and she lets him go. She opens the door and exits with Zion scurrying behind her.

Themes: A girl can be her own hero
             When you give you don't always receive something in return
             It's an every man for himself world. Or, in this case, every girl for herself.

So... I think this story makes a bit more sense. The turning point would be when Zion leaves Farahilde. But I don't think the protagonist changes in anyway throughout the story. This will need to brought to the lecturer discussed in depth. Personally, I quite like it. The protagonist is shown to be compassionate, brave and also forgiving. Maybe I should have her punch Zion in the face as pay back?

Anyway, concepts for Zion and Farahilde's designs. Sorry for the bad quality, I used my phone camera.

 Zion:

Farahilde: