For the final group animation project we had the opportunity to chose from the remaining developed world ideas. I was mainly interested in stories and worlds that included magic and fantasy. The two groups I was thinking about joing was the Spirit Sky Fish and the Dark Academia groups, I liked both current storylines and ideas. I decided to join the Dark Academia mostly for the potential character designs and environments plus fight scenes and magic effects that would be included into the animation. These are all things that I would love to learn how to do as soon as I can.
Week 1 – Animation Development
During this week in class, we refined key story points to keep it clear and understandable. Made note to look at mushrooms and other plants to match silhouettes to characters. Make storyboards, and ask another group to see if it’s clear. Decide how mushroom people are going to look and how they transform – Look at the last of us and dragon age for good transition concepts.
We put all our thoughts onto a whiteboard so the majority of the group could see, discuss and generate new ideas. I really like this method of team development, as I think it helps create new ideas from previous ones.
Along with starting to refine the story, we also started to create general looks and personalities of the three main characters included in the animation. We took note of the workshop Sorcha had done previously and when we were stuck on character designs went around the group and said traits that we felt were fitting for our protagonist – Fern the witch.
I had been to a Videogame Orchestra – The Electric Arcade, recently, and noticed the conductor (Eimear Noone) had similar movements, gestures and flair as I imagined spellcasters would have. I mentioned this to the group and they agreed that it was great reference for casting spells, which then led into the discussion of if wands should be involved or not. We ended up agreeing that inclusion of wands could extend the flair and silhouette of characters. The dynamic posing, and different personalities of the orchestral conductors can make great inspiration to different characters and their individual casting style. I then added a few conductor references into the Pinterest board I had made and shared with the group.
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/feylock_/magical-horror-academia/
Before the Groups were officially announced I had started to begin some concepting with the uniforms. I wanted to keep it reminicent to typical uniforms but with a witchy/fantasy aspect to it. I included puffy sleeves, capes and big sweaters, with palettes that are common in uniforms.
When discussing with my group, we pretty much overall like the colour of the blue palette, along with a combined design of the red and blue. The green outfit seemed too old and sophisticated, and more teacher like than student. We plan the school to be mixed, so working from our decsions of these concepts, we will design some more masculine clothing as well in a similar fashion.
