Jan 13 - May 05, 2025
Ruge Li
The first major challenge I encountered was how to animate the little character in a way that conveys the quirkiness and playfulness that represent creativity.
By the end of Semester One, my biggest achievement was settling on the logic and structure of the film. My animatic changed significantly compared to the initial idea of searching for inspiration. That being said, it still lacks detail in terms of specific movement design for the animation.
I began with Scene 040, where the little character is first introduced to the audience. Here is a video that illustrates the tortuous process from animatic to final animation.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lqRFOrnHYbGTO5lyRfcshMVd2hupuwNo/view?usp=drive_link
Thanks to Alan’s advice that the character can be more free form instead of naturalistic and him pushing me to make the shots more dynamic, I am really happy with how this sequence turned out. Below is a general iterations from rough to coloured animation.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kz6XMvacn9kYeMfRAzH5vuk5_7V11Z_F/view?usp=sharing
Once scene 040 was done, more ideas came to me as how the character can possibly move around for later shots. The rule is basically there is no rule. I like to stretch the character for in-between to bring out the bouncy, squashy feeling.
I really enjoy animating in this style for a real human being could never move like this, which not only sets a strong contrast with the live action part in my film and also fulfils my aspiration that animation has much more possibilities than live action. After all if a real human being can do a similar movement than why bother animation?