When it came to the industry facing materials I had already already created mine in my previous degree. However I decided I could make a few amendments to my cv and showreel by adding in new information and changing up the design.
cvs Iv been inspired by –
I like that’s these cvs incorporate illustrations and gave interesting layouts.
I like my cv but I felt as though the design could be updated including some of the information on it. Some information I added was finishing the masters course and then also I added some of the programs I am able to use rather than what I had previously written in my older cv. For the design I did incorporate the same colours but I changed the composition of certain things and added in some other colours that matched the vibe.
OLD CV
NEW CV
I think the newer design is ore clear and easier to understand and read than the older design
BUSINESS CARD-
business cards I was inspired by –
Business card ideas-
I had many ideas of what I wanted my cards to potentially look like but in the end I settled for my cards to be tied to my cv aesthetically. I made sure to put my number and email along with where to find my portfolio. I preferred the simpler designs for the front of a business card as I think it’s more eye catching.
SHOWREEL
showreels I looked at for inspiration-
When it came to the showreel I added in some newer animations I have been working on in the more recent projects. I tried to add in equal amounts of unfinished sketchy animations and also fully rendered animations.I also added in a card at the end which included information on how to contact me.
I watched other peoples show reels and videos that inspired me so i could make my video better. I have included animations that I feel could showcase my skills in 2d animation, such as showing animations where characters are climbing or jumping and also lip sync animations, while a lot of the animations I have are only sketches, i do have a few finished animations that are fully coloured with backgrounds and i have put them in my showreel also.I tried to time the clips to be in time with the music.
i also included a title card at the beginning of my showreel as i saw in other showreel videos i had watched had them to advertise them selves better.
My showreel is entirely 2d focused because I’ll be aiming for 2d jobs.
old showreel
New showreel
PORTFOLIO
As for my portfolio I have an art station I created to upload my work to. I would like to create a website at some point as well to display my work in a more thoughtful and professional way.from the creation of my portfolio I have been adding newer work and deleting certain work that I feel no longer represents my skills.
When it comes to my process for animating I usually start by taking videos of myself as a reference if I can’t find any good references online. I then use the references to aid me when creating my animations. Some scenes in my animation are more simple than other scenes such as the scene of her hair blowing in the wind which didn’t require many references. For the animation where she is floating in the air I looked into clips of people sky diving, these videos didn’t really show the kind of move meant that I wanted for that scene but it was still helpful to look at. The same goes for the scene where she bursts out of her own chest,I looked at the chest bursting scene from alien but it wasn’t a very clear defence so I had to try my best to come up with hoe the animation would look.
Animation references found online-
The mirror animation scene was probably on of the more complicated shots as it needs to separate character bodies at different angles to synchronise at the same time.I simply took videos of myself in the mirror doing the actions I wanted to draw.
RENDERING
For rendering I looked back at the music video “Siames My Way” for my inspiration. I noted that the music videos environments and backgrounds where usually very dark , probably to set the tone but it also made the animated characters stand out more as they where highlighted by a bloom effect around them. The video and backgrounds also had a grain added to them which gave it an older feeling. I applied this when rendering out my animations so most of the scenes are set at night or evening since the sky and the stars are a big part of the trailers story. I then would make the characters colours match the tone of the scene and add a bloom effect around the character. I really liked how this look because it gave the animation that dream like look that I was trying to go for. I also went very thin on the line art for the style I was going for. I would layer a,Brent lighting on top of the characters and backgrounds to help the character blend in more with the scene and give it that vintage look.
This one still from the music video is a good example of the element of the rendering i really like and want to incorporate into my own rendering. The magenta tones and the grain along with the glow of the characters themselves.
editing and sound
When it came to editing everything together I tried to edit it in an interesting way to the music I chose , mostly having it in time with the music beats. I also used the camera a lot or draw the viewers attention to certain aspects of the scenes and to make it look more dynamic and interesting. As for the sound effects I used royalty free sound effects in some scenes and then some sounds effects from sailor moon , for example the sound the shooting star makes. The voices heard are from me putting my voice into an ai filter to make it sound like a different person. The dialog itself is really cheesy but I was trying to go for that magical girl fantasy adventure vibe. The Dialog is also star speaking.
sound effects used-
backgrounds-
As previously stated I wanted the backgrounds to be dark and set at either night time or during the evening. To have the backgrounds be consistent I used mostly blues, purples and reds for most of them. I purposefully wanted certain backgrounds to look a little more sinister like in the scene where she floats a way the sky becomes more red. This was to add more mystery to the trailer and the scene itself. In the backgrounds I wanted there to be lots of call backs to the night sky with the stars and moon. There is always a grain present on all the backgrounds.I feel like not only does the graininess give the backgrounds that older animation feeling but it also makes the backgrounds look a bit more detailed in other wise empty spaces.I didn’t include some of the backgrounds used in the animation because a few of them where simply just coloured backgrounds with lighting and grain applied.
Scraped backgrounds-
scrapped these backgrounds as they didn’t fit the vibe I wanted to go for the animation.
unfinished animations-
There were a few animations I want able to have rendered and finished before the deadline , however I would like to have them finished to add to my portfolio after submission. These scenes include a quick Montage scene showcasing the other characters and their personalities. Also a scene where she is climbing up the stairs and is looking around inquisitively, then she reaches the top and has a shocked reaction. I thought this scene would make the trailer seem more interesting and make the viewer question what was happening in that scene for the hypothetical “show”.
Removed-
this animation was taken out of the video as I feel like it doesn’t match the rest of the animation ,the quality of the animations and rendering itself is very low and looks a bit awkward.
All finished animation processes
HUG
For the hugging animation I used a reference of myself I took. I definitely think I could redo this animation again and improve on it but I think it works overall for its intended use to add more context to the relation ship between these two characters in the short trailer. I decided to place them in Naomi’s bedroom I had previously designed in the pitch bible.
CHEST BURST
I tried to use references I found online for this animation but when they didn’t give me quite what I was looking for I opted again to use references of myself. It was hard because it would take more imagination to create a scene like thsi but I think it ended up coming out the way it was intended to look. I think this scene is one of the animations in the trailer that would make the viewer question what exactly was happening and bring more curiosity. I ended up applying a simple background to this one since the main focus was the action happening.
Shocked reaction –
For this one I once again used a reference of myself. I like how this animation came out and I wanted her to look very expressive in these scene since in the clip right after this one it’s revealed she is being confronted by a giant Orc form the fantasy real she has been transported to.another simple background has been used for this scene.This was also the first scene I tested the full rendering in and I liked the result so kept applying it to every other animation.
Ear twitch
A very simple scene shown after her transformation sequence just to show the fact that her form itself has changed into a fantasy elf and that she is no longer human to peak interest in the trailer.
Floating away-
this was definitely one of the more complicated scenes to create as it had the character moving in a lot of ways that where not natural to how people normal move since she is twisting and turning while floating up into the air. For this I looked at sky diving references and anything I could find of people floating or flailing. Overall I’m happy with thsi animation and I think it works well in the trailer and adds more interest to the concept.
lip sync-
I really enjoyed animating this scene as I enjoy lip syncing. For this scene I wanted to showcase more subtle movements like when her smile grows slightly at the end of the animation. I used a video reference of myself lip syncing to the audio I had created.This scene comes directly after the shooting star scene crashes on earth to hint that she is the cause of the star. I also added in a camera movement to the scene because I felt as though the camera movement made it feel as though the viewer was looking out of Naomi’s eyes and seeing star speak right in front of them.
shocked eye-
for this animation I applied squash and stretch to emphasis the characters shock at what they are seeing (the character being Naomi). In the first version of the animation I had not included the shooting star being reflected in her eye until I got feed back from a tutor advising me to add it in to make the scene make more sense. I also wanted her eyes to shine at the sight of what she sees to show excitement and awe. I like how this animation turned out.
Mirror-
This was one of the more complicated scenes I animated and once again I used video references of myself to create this.I think the angle I have animated the right side character is slightly off but I felt as though that angle would make the animation a little more readable. I like how this animation came out and I tried to add movement in that would show her unsure emotions of what she is looking at in the mirror before coming to an acceptance. The background is simple and is just the character in a dark room in front of a mirror. I added shininess to the mirror to differentiate the reflection from the real body more easily.
catching star-
The animation for this was once again made by using references of myself imitating catching a star. The background is one of the more complicated backgrounds that i put her in to show where she is in the scene.
hand reaching out-
this scene was is simply showing Star putting her hand out for Naomi offering her friendship. I used a reference if my own hand reaching out and then applied the rending style Iv been using throughout the animation. Another simple colour background but the middle is highlighted specifically so it will highlight the hand reaching out.
Star falling- FLASH WARNING ❗️
I enjoyed animating this scene because I got to make a stylised shooting star animation. A simple animation that loops in order to give the effect of the star falling. I added some chromatic aberration because stylistically I thought it worked for this type of animation and made it look more dreamy.
wind blowing-
this scene is mostly here to establish the character and where she is in relation to the story. Staring wistfully into the ocean. This scene also gives a more mysterious vibe to the overall trailer. The background is once again one of the more complicated backgrounds to establish where she is and the area she witnesses the star shooting from.
this scene was a still image I rendered out in the style of the rest of the animation and I just used the cameras to pan up to the orc to give the effect of Naomi looking up and seeing how huge this orc was in front of her.
(non of these scenes where animated or rendered in any specific order)
Final outcome
overall I am happy with my final outcome and I definitely learned a-lot form this project, i just wish I had been able to do the full 40 seconds as I had previously intended but I ended up not having enough time to render the final few scenes. I think I managed to achieve the overall vibe I was trying to go for and I’m quite happy with the rendering of the animation and also the way it is edited and put together in time with the music . I would probably focus more on just doing a few very detailed animations rather than a full trailer if I were to do this again.
When the project began I was slightly unsure on exactly what I wanted to do .I settled on creating an animated trailer based on my pitch bible with the same premise, I thought this would make the process quicker as I already had a story and characters planned out so it was more efficient since we only had a month to work on this project.I came to the conclusion that if I ended up not liking the trailer I could turn it into a sort of opening for this hypothetical program.
short recap form pitch bible-
Fairy Strange is about Naomi Sato, a Japanese American 18-year-old girl who struggles to make and keep friends due to her bad attitude. One day a shooting star falls from the sky towards the ocean and Naomi runs to the scene only to find that it wasn’t a star, but a magical fairy called Star Berry. Star Berry tells Naomi that she is the chosen one and takes her to a magical fantasy world called Twilania, where she defeats evil and at the same time learns about the value of relationships, friendship and how to be a better person.
The idea itself is inspired by many magical girl anime’s which usually involve a group of girls who have magical powers.
I looked at many examples of different trailers to see how they were edited and what really stuck out in them. Trailers often highlight the most important parts of the series or film you’re being advertised without spoiling the plot entirely so I tried to keep this in mind when it came to the story boarding process. I also looked at video edits where people take their favourite series and edit it in an appealing and satisfying way timed to the music .
I also looked at music videos , one music video I was very inspired by is “Siamès my way” . The rendering style I thought was perfect for the feeling I wanted to try and achieve in this project . It involved a lot of dark backgrounds with a vintage grain added to it and also a very glowy surreal effect. The character designs were also very proportionally correct but also simple and slightly resembled the anime artstyle but was still unique on its own. I wanted to try and replicate this.
EXAMPLES-
MUSIC VIDEO–
Story Boarding/Animatic-
I looked into a lot of different songs that had a dreamy vibe to them so it would match up with my concept, I ended up choosing this song because I thought it fit the best-
When it came to story boarding I struggled a bit as it’s not my strongest skill , I had episodes planned out in my pitch bible so I tried to take some basic premises from those episodes and incorporate short animated sequences to match them. I thought some important story beats where whenever the main character “Naomi “ gets propelled into the sky by the character “star” and is transported to another realm.
Other important story elements were whenever Naomi sees the shooting star in the sky .
I wanted to show Naomi whenever she enters the other realm so I incorporated scenes of her confronting the monsters from the other world and then also her transformation sequence .Normal magical girl transformation sequences usually involve them changing into their magical girl alter ego by changing outfits , but I wanted to make it a bit more interesting by having a visual representation of her becoming her new self by bursting out from her old body as her magical girl self . In hindsight this was a very difficult thing to animate and I might of changed it to be something slightly less complex .
I wanted to include more of this symbolism in the short trailer and since this is a portfolio project I wanted to challenge myself so I included a scene where she looks at her self in the mirror and is confused at first at the sight of her new self , but smiles because she likes what she sees .
I also added in a scene where she’s climbing the stairs only to get to the top and see something and is surprised . This was to add more suspense and make the viewer want to know what she saw at the top of the stairs. I noticed many trailers use that tactic .
I had created an animatic at the very very beginning of an idea I had had for the trailer but I ended up disliking it so I completely scrapped it.the original concept was going to have a bit more explanation of the story and it starts out with Naomi hiding in the school bathroom stalls while she overhears multiple girls talking badly about her. This was because I originally wanted a bit more context but I decided to change it to be a bit more mysterious.
I went through much trial and error with the story boarding and animatic and kept taking things out and adding different things in. Alltogether it came to around 40 seconds (ended up rendering about 30 seconds) . I didn’t want to spend to much time on this as animating was the more important part of the portfolio.
I received some feed back that my animatic didn’t make a lot of sense without the sound or the music and I was told to take out certain parts of the animatic that seemed uninteresting and unnecessary, I was also told that original stair climbing animation wasn’t very clear and that the same movement shown at a different angle would be more interesting so I changed it.so this is why some of the drafts looks so different from each other.
CHARACTER DESIGNS
when it came to the character designs I experimented with some different art styles since the designs where pretty much already finished , although I thought the style could use some work. I went for a more western cartoony artstyle that had more details on their designs but ended up opting out for an artstyle not to far away from my original pitch bible concept designs . I wanted to change them however to be less anime and to be more of its own thing and look a bit more cartoony. How I changed this was that I took away any sharpness the characters had so they were round , even the spikes in the characters hair was rounded off. I also simplified the faces to have less detail.
original designs-
Experimental design-
simplified chosen designs
I wanted the designs to be a little more inspired the the music video . I also thought this style would be easier to animate in comparison to the original designs and the redesigns.I ended up lining the lips while animating as I thought the lips looked better in the artsy or when they where more defined. ( in hindsight I actually noticed stars hair felt a little but harder to animate since it no longer had a defined shape an was rounded out)
Fairy Strange is about Naomi Sato, a Japanese American 18-year-old girl who struggles to make and keep friends due to her bad attitude. One day a shooting star falls from the sky towards the ocean and Naomi runs to the scene only to find that it wasn’t a star, but a magical fairy called Star Berry. Star Berry tells Naomi that she is the chosen one and takes her to a magical fantasy world called Twilania, where she defeats evil and at the same time learns about the value of relationships, friendship and how to be a better person.
my inspirations for creating the project where shows like card captor Sakura , sailor moon and Tokyo Mew mew. These shows are focused around magical girls and friendships which are stories I personally really enjoy . My target audience would be 10-18 year olds as it has elements that can be enjoyed by those ages. I was going for an art style reminiscent of the more western anime art styles such as avatar the last air bender and totally spies. I felt as though this art style really fit the story as it is light hearted but also can have its more serious moments.
Bible production-
I had a few early design exploration for Naomi the main charcter which were mostly me trying to figure out the art style. I was going for art-styles which were either a little too detailed or too simplistic for my liking . But I eventually landed on an art style tat I felt met both of those needs and I also knew that I would be able to anime it. I felt as though the main character having pink hair was essential as a stereotype on magical girl anime is that the main character is usually the pink colour coded character.
For the final designs I drew Naomi and Star in their simple casual outfits , Naomi lives near a seaside town where it’s usually sunny and I wanted their outfits to reflect that. Then there is the magical girl outfit . I made it so The magical girl reflected what classes they were , so Naomi is a wizard , Star a Druid and Pipa is a type of Imp. In magical girl fashion they needed to be really girly and over the top . This is one of the things that makes magical girl shows so appealing so these outfits were going to be important as turning into something so absurdly feminine to become more powerful has a very important meaning for many young girls and women.
Naomi and Star-
about Naomi-
Naomi Sato is an eighteen-year-old Japanese American girl who lives with her single mother. Naomi is a loner who prefers her own company and doesn’t care about other people (or at least that’s what she would have you think). Having no friends and a very strained relationship with her mother Naomi dreams of escaping her reality. When a shooting star crash lands on earth this dream may come true sooner than she expected. It would be hinted that throughout the show Naomi’s attitude is mostly due to her mother having a poor relationship with her and her father passing away. I wanted the show to show a complicated relationship with a caregiver for children who maybe struggle with that type of issue, and to show how having friends and other people close to you can be important for healing and coping.
about Star-
Star Berry is a magical fairy who has been sent by her home world on a mission across the galaxy to find the chosen one on earth. Star herself is very fun loving and free spirited, during her mission she also intends to attempt to live as a human on earth to learn as much about human culture as she can. Star loves that Naomi is complicated and enjoys being able to help her be better as it it is her nature.
Pipa-
Sophie-
Pipa and Sophie are two of Naomi’s classmates who Naomi secretly wants to get closer too but due to her own issues she feels as though she cannot. Pipa is her rival as sometimes their personalities can clash and Sophie is so shy Naomi finds it hard to approach her.
One of the next steps I took was creating the poster for the show, I looked at a lot of magical girl show posters and a lot of them are the main character the focus of the poster and had them looking very pretty and posed so I wanted to do the same.I really wanted some references to dnd in the poster since that’s a big inspiration for the fantasy world she travels too. Naomi’s wizard abilities are very Moon and Star themed for aesthetic purposes to call back to her relationship with star and how she stares at the moon every night from her window. (Also a reference to sailor moon)
Rough –
rendered-
The next step was the background. I was aiming to finish two backgrounds, one of the beach beside Naomi’s house and the inside of Naomi’s room . I chose these places because I feel as though those backgrounds would be seen a lot in the show . I looked at many backgrounds from animated shows but one of my inspirations was Steven universe . The backgrounds are simple and have really nice colours but I could also see them in a magical girl show because of the vibe they give off. I also looked at the backgrounds in totally spies to be my inspiration.I wanted Naomi’s room to very feminine and reflect how Ben though she’s so hard on the outside the inside of her room shows how she likes the softer girly things.Meanwhile the beach background shows the shooting star that falls from the sky.
rough-
rendered-
I then wanted to work on some assets for the pitch bible , I drew decorative Stars and d20 page numbers to add to the aesthetic I wanted the pitch bible to showcase, I was going for something cute and magical. I also drew some images to depict the relationships between the characters to get a better understanding of their dynamics. Some pages are done like a note book as of the characters where either writing about themselves for someone else or even drawing someone else through their own eyes.
Iv thought through Naomi and Stars dynamic and it’s your typical night vs day friendship where one is the sunny bubbly one and the other is cynical and sardonic. However their opposites attract and while Stars personality opens Naomi up , Naomi’s personality helps keep Star grounded.
I made a contents page so that the reader knows what pages to look at onto find specific content and I also tried to make a realistic time chart of how long production if this project would take without using any specific dates, the thing that would probably take the longest amount of time is the actual animation process since my idea for the show is that it is 2d hand drawn animation.
the episodes themselves are going through the story of Naomi in the beginning has a bad day at school and comes home to see a shooting star outside her window. When she goes to the beach to find it she discovers a girl in the sand and this girl is Star Berry, she at star go to the magical Realm of Twiliania and Naomi is told she is the chosen one. Then she fights baddies who often represent real people in her life like Pipa or her own mother. When she learns a lesson from each battle she can go home to earth and is able to use this lesson to make a friend.I had the last episode end of a cliff hanger potentially hinting at a season 2.I also wanted the ending to not show her making up with her mother as that is another potentially realistic way that those kind of issues can happen for children in real life, so it is left unresolved.
In conclusion I really enjoyed working on this project , I felt a little overwhelmed since there were two other projects to be handed in around the same time but I managed. I feel like Iv really learned about what goes into a pitch Bible and being able to do my own idea was very enjoyable.
Now that the designs for the characters where complete we could movie on to creating more detailed story boards with the characters designs implemented and also move onto the animation process.
When it came to the story board Barney was the one who did a lot of the work and Shannon added in the Audio and sound , we got some feed back that the story board during the scenes that involved Poppy spiralling into misinformation online was a bit slow so I edited the the storyboard slightly to include some scenes and some copyright free intense music to try and amp up the vibe of the story board and show the tension. I included Rose doing a product placement instead of her just proclaiming that water was poisonous , I think this was another suggestion by a Tudor which worked well and added more context to her video . I then I added in some dramatic phone scrolling and a press conference with “Donald Turnip” which we thought would add to the comedy of the animation, also some picket signs on the news about water being poisoned. Finally, I included a scene of Poppy have a melt down and hyperventilating then a few hours later they dry up due to not drinking water. Me and Barney did the voices in the short so sometimes poppy’s voice changes from his to mine…..
picket signs-
Donald Turnip-
Phone scrolling-
Hyperventilating-
dried up-
animatic before-
animatic after alterations-
A shot list was created by Barney and Shannon so we could all keep track of which shots we would all be taking on, I decided to take on the shots of –
-rose saying water is bad
-Poppy hyperventilating
-Poppy knocking the water off the table
-water bottle getting crushed
Since I was unable to get a rig done for Poppy I instead opted to make assets that could be copy pasted to make animation easier, I drew poppy’s head from many different angles that their head might move around and I also took poppy’s turn around and took apart this limps in order to make it so he could just be used as a sort of puppet.
When it came to animating rose, I took reference videos of myself and looked at gumballs animation style for inspiration, I wanted her to movie in a Really exaggerated over the top way. Iv been trying to work on keeping a more consistent character through my animation without any wiggling lines and iv learned that copy pasting many of the shapes instead of redrawing them into the next frame really came in handy for achieving this look. I had it so she cried at the end of her exclamation to play up how dramatic she was. At the end she takes on more of an exaggerated anime look as she robotically tells the audience to drink diet kelp instead which is an in world fizzy drink. This is to imply that she is telling the audience to not drink water for the sake of this product placement instead.Rendering was simple enough and it just involved cleaning up the lines and copy pasting some shapes.
Rough animation-
Finished animation-
I used poppy’s body that I took apart into pieces to create the hyperventilating animation, since they where just sitting down there wasn’t need for much head movement or body movement, I made it so that the head and the chest would rise and fall at the same time and I gave Poppy an expression of breathing in and out very intensely, since I was just using pieces of the body there wasn’t much rendering that needed done since the character was already coloured and lined.
For Poppy knocking the water bottle off the table I was able to copy and paste poppy’s head since it turned to the right during the swing of the arm, I tried to exaggerate the swing so that it came across very powerful and over the top. Since Iv copy pasted the head there was no need to to render that part so it was just a case of lining and colouring the body.I tried to give Poppy a silly expression trying once again to use that gumball inspiration. I also drew a cup asset to be hit across the table and fly off the screen. Courtney drew some very nice backgrounds and for the final part I just added in the backgrounds she created.
rough animation-
Finished animation-
Assets-
Final animation that Shannon edited together-
In conclusion I feel as though I learned a lot by doing this project and getting to experience the pipeline of the animation process was very helpful in my understanding. I really enjoyed working with my group and I feel like we worked well together. I wish we could of finished the animation for the deadline but I think considering everything we did well in the amount of work we created.
We where put into a group of 4 and started brain storming ideas that where relevant to the two topics of “don’t judge a book by its cover” and “internet safety”. I came up with an idea to combine internet safety with false information where a child is on the internet and finds a video of an influencer claiming that water is poisonous, this makes them spiral and the video causes tons of false information to be spread online, eventually their friend tells them to use a trustworthy search engine and they find out it isn’t true .As a group we decided to go with that idea.We called our group “3 and a half girls”
We used the white boards in the room to brain storm all of our different ideas and keep track of who was doing what. We also used the white board to do a rough of what the story boards looked like , doing this in person made it easier for us all to contribute our ideas for the story board, in the story board we see an establishing shot of Poppy sitting at a desk scrolling in their phone and then then seeing the influencer online saying that water is poisonous, then we get the montage sequence of things escalating and Poppy dries up. In the end we get the nerd coming into the room and telling Poppy to search it up online and it comes back that the information is false.The idea to have all the characters be humanoid plant people was Shannon’s idea.
Rough story board-
While doing our planning we also kept in mind the professional pipelines we where going to be following so starting with the ideas stage and pre production with the storyboard/ animatic and concept art. We had many inspirations for our project, and it was mostly all inspired by shows seen on Cartoon Network, especially shows like the ‘amazing world of gumball’ and ‘Steven universe’.
Inspo videos-
Script created by Barney –
Poppy first design –
rose and the nerd first designs-
I was in charge of designing the characters and I thought it would be interesting if as a group we all made some designs of the characters and then afterwords I would take all the working elements and mesh them together. We had at least 4 main characters that needed to be designed, Poppy who is the cowardly main character who is susceptible to false information online, the “ nerd” who is the more reasonable friend who enters at the very end to help Poppy, the “yes man” one of Poppys friends on a face call who encourages Poppys freak out, and finally the influencer who is very over dramatic but fashionable.
For Poppy I decided to stick with my original design since I thought it wasn’t too complicated, they are based of the pansy plant due to their cowardly nature and his colours are yellow and blue, I wanted them to really stand out, so they have a very different head from the other characters. They also don’t wear clothes because I didn’t want their design to be to cluttered and I felt as thought they stood out just fine without needing unique accessories, I was thinking of the logic used in shows like “gumball” where many of the characters are very different from each other and some characters wear clothes while others don’t.I felt as though their design gave them more of a main character look.
For the Nerd I combined my design idea with Courtney’s design idea, in Courtney’s design the character has a very cute and unique hairstyle which really fit the characters vibe so I combined our two designs together, I gave her a bow tie and glasses since I thought it fit into that nerdy vibe but then she’s wearing overalls dress to give her a more casual look. This character will be a rigged character by Courtney.
nerd mixed with Courtney’s design –
The Yes man is a very playful type of character and in one of Barney’s designs he drew a character with a flowerpot for clothes, this was very cute, so it was implemented into the yes man’s design, he has a sunflower head as being a sunflower adds to this sunny bubbly personality he has. Once again, this character is very different from the other characters due to his shapes in his design.
Mixed with Barney and Courtney’s design-
For Roses design we were conflicted between mine and Courtney’s design, I made two variations using elements from Courtney’s design which I really liked both but ultimately went with the original as a rose fit more into this fashionable persona for the influencer, she’s very “ Gen Z” influencer inspired so she wears a crop top and bell bottom jeans, she’s very differently proportioned from the other characters due to her being a fully grown adult.I also gave her heavier makeup in this newer design because I liked Shannon’s makeup look in her design.
my design and Courtney’s version design –
Line up-
The next step was creating turn around for Poppy and “nerd” since they are the only characters that move their entire bodies, both of the characters were supposed to be rigged but unfortunately Poppy wasn’t, and we decided to just go with hand drawn animation for Poppy like the rest of the characters. When creating the turn around I tried my best to make sure everything was lined up together to keep the characters consistent throughout so that the rigging and animating process would be simpler. I also created an expression sheet for Poppy since he is one of the characters that has the most expressions, the expression sheet was inspired by gumball with its very wacky over the top expressions.
