Our idea later evolved to focus on a 20 year old artist who would struggle with anxiety and imposter syndrome. I created the storyboards for our story thus far, trying my hardest to focus on the idea of being so consumed by your own anxiety that you fear nothing you do/create will live up to the standards you think others have of you. Another idea within the group was to record ourselves saying self-deprecating things which we think of ourselves sometimes, and other students within our course think as well. Each thought would be allocated its own colour, which would pulse around our character. Along with the manic sketchy lines we intended to include through our own mark making, this would cause a tunnel of overstimulation.

Mark-Making:

Storyboards:

I used Haley Williams from Paramore and Maeve Wiley from Sex Education as references for new character designs, as well as other y2k grunge images from Pinterest. One piece of feedback we received was to dress her in more relaxed clothing as she will have been inside for a lengthy period.

I used the controls of a Nintendo Gameboy as inspiration for her phone, whilst still having a touch screen inspired by the iPhone 5c.

I wanted to keep the idea of overstimulating surroundings which would trap our character in her “comfort zone.” I used Gwen’s apartment from Across the Spiderverse as a major inspiration for our studio/flat. I felt the bleeding colours would allow for us to create less of a room and more of a space that would mirror the mind of our character and her anxieties.

As our project developed, I created two internal concepts for Charli’s (our character) apartment, using two different colour palettes with the intent of creating a sense of peace by the end of the animation. I took inspiration from a concept Caity created, the Netflix film “Entergalactic”, and Leanna’s workshops to help with colour and lighting as they were two areas I struggled with the most. I also received feedback from Leanna on one of my concepts to improve my colour, lighting, and perspective. For the messy design, I had the opportunity to use a few of my own procreate brushes made during our mark-making trials.

Before:

Leana’s Feedback:

After:

For the animations, I took inspiration from the frame rate changes in Spiderverse as Miles becomes Spider-Man. Even as our story changed, I still wanted the frame rate of our animation to be linked with the emotions of our character. Whilst Charli is in a sense of calm, her movements will be much smoother, on 2s pre abstract, and 1s post abstract. Within the abstract world, as she becomes more and more anxious and fearful, her movements will become choppier, animating on 3s in the café and as she begins to walk down the city street, then evolving to 4s and possibly stripping her movements all the way down to blockout poses, showing as much emotion as possible in her most anxious moments.

Inspo:

I did an animation trial on 4s using the Azri rig early on. There were even fewer poses in a run cycle when animating on 4s than I first thought. This, in some ways, could speed up animation times throughout this part of the animation, but will also mean I will have to focus on conveying Charli’s emotions through even less movement which is something I would like to focus on in future trials.

As our animation changed, I created more finalised storyboards through the lens of an animator. We didn’t have a finished character design for the storyboards, but had a more finalised apartment layout. I kept the boards very basic as we had decided Adam would take my boards and update them. Adam wrote a script and included an abstract world with a café and a city Charli would navigate. I tried to visualise the new idea while adding in earlier elements we wanted to keep in our animation, such as, the overstimulating colours and self-deprecating words and voices.

For the previs, we decided our café was to be used as a slight mirror of Charli’s room, a place that is supposed to be her safe space but is only harming her. I took Caity’s apartment blockout and added chairs, tables, a till etc so it had a familiar feel. i also created several signage assets for the city shots in the previs.

I completed the previs based on the final storyboards and camera angles and various notes from Alec on timing, framing and ways to add intensity, specifically to the café scene and the abstract sequence. I added a sign to the café which read “you’re trapped”, prompting her to run out. A large inspiration for me was the animation “People Person.” I wanted to include similar camera framing and expressions/movements of their main character. My shots in the previs have a grey boarder, while Adam’s shots have either a black boarder or no boarder.

My Final Previs:

 

To animate a character walking forward, Rachel talked about starting with blockout poses and only adding in-betweens when the timing and spacing of the initial poses were finalised. The most helpful part for me was learning to count the number of frames one walk cycle takes and moving the main control at the same rate of the walk so you only needed to animate the steps walking in place.

I found expressions a little bit harder to convey. I attempted to create two different fearful expressions as I felt this would be most beneficial for our animation. Through Rachel’s feedback, I learned to add more tension in the hands to convey stress and anxiety, and to extend the body more to make my intended movement clearer.

I also learned how to pose hands to give a character more life by curling in all fingers, moving the index finger back slightly, and curling the pinkie in slightly more than the middle two, as this is the natural position human hands will fall to.