The process of determining what my final year project would focus didn’t take too long as I became quite familiar with a Webcomic series called “The Loving Reaper” by Jenny Jinya. The comic series features stories of informative messages revolving around the titular character of Death and a chosen animal companion, the purpose of these comics is to raise awareness for the mistreatment of animals due to their irresponsible/ neglectful owners, and the lack of consideration our actions have on animals around the world. The concept fascinated me and posed many unique challenges that I wanted to attempt in 3D.
This however caused a point of contention between me and my colleague Conor because he wanted to lean into the side of Deaths role and “job” in this universe showing how much of a physical toll this could take on a “person”, this was also a fascinating concept that would allow for its own series of unique animations and themes. I initially felt strongly about my own idea and wanted to only pursue it but, I didn’t want a better story to be lost through my own hubris and therefore me and Conor discussed making the idea of Death being stuck in an exhausting cycle of his “dead end job” and merging my idea of a animal companion that would make him appreciate his role all the more creating a narrative resolution as Deaths outlook on life had then been changed. We talked about how this idea would work and began working out the details, I posed the idea death is very worn down and is very opposed to this current job and by the end of the short he would realise just how important his role is. We were quickly advised without serious reconsideration of timing and planning the plot and narrative could suffer from this concept as it may take longer than the time frame we were allocating for the entire short as this story needed longer to properly explore each theme without overshadowing or losing them.
We both workshopped our current ideas and developed the concepts into storyboards that would allow us to tell the best versions of our stories, because I am lacking in the artistic capacity, I discussed we would both draw thumbnails and Conor would then take the chosen arc to final developed version of the storyboard. My refined version of the story ended up being the story which had the clearest message but also the most plausible to complete within our time frame. The emotional backing and message of my story meant it would not only be easier to know and understand our characters but also it would make the story easier to portray and allowed more room for artistic interpretation along the way.
The reason for choosing a feline companion over the plenty of difference options featured within the original source material was simple as I knew I wanted to rig a quadruped model to be able learn that pipeline as well as the familiarity I had with cats (owning two). I wanted the story to focus on the themes of abandonment and how moving on (In the literal sense) isn’t always an easy process and for some it can be significantly more difficult as seen in this case as Tom’s character cannot move on. I began working out a plan of what would be needed for a project with this scope, I made a simple list of potential characters and environments wanting to keep it more reasonable, I refined my list to include Death including his classic Robe, An Animal Companion that would be shown with a mostly ethereal glow and a Base Skeleton representing mankind thinking it would be best to make physical differences in the models by creating blendshapes for different characters meaning I would only need 1 rig and base mesh for each model. I filled out sections of the list within Trello to better visualise the amount of work needed and to better assign roles tasks between me and Conor as I was also project lead to keep both of us on track and inline.
Defining a pipeline took longer than I was planning but it allowed enough room to test different areas that could be beneficial to the project as each software available to us would allow different areas to explore, I started by familiarising myself with blender having never used it before as I knew a look similar to studio Ghibli was possible and this painterly style was in line with what we were planning. Once familiar I began trialing Blender, Maya, Unreal for grass planes that would be used as the foundations of our film.
Our process would consist of modelling in ZBrush, Rigging and Animating in Maya then exporting in Unreal as the tests I conducted proved the best results. I also planned on using NukeX to try some effects and colour grading etc. The environments revolved around 3 main areas 1). An apartment complex in which an elderly soul has passed away. 2). The River Styx 3). A forest Grove. This idea of an apartment was then revised as the amount of assets we needed to make the scene feel lived in would mean we either needed to gain an asset pack or model a large amount of props but we were looking to keep costs down and focus on look development. When revising the scene, we decided to focus more on the forest location as it would better fit the abandonment themes and allow for a clearer narrative.
My Initial research into potential styles wasn’t very useful as the sudo-realism the comic used wouldn’t transfer as well to 3D and could prove distracting. I looked into styles that completed a comic book origin such as the Spider-Verse styles. I also looked into another art style from the Deathly Hallows scene in Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows (unfortunately the processes are both proprietary information and had little concrete information for their actual process). Ultimately, I decided it was best to widen the scope of “stylised” and work with the idea of creating a painterly effect that would feel like pieces of paint on a canvas. A quote that was stuck in my head throughout the course of the project “You should be able to cut out any frame of a roll of film and put a picture frame around it and hang it on your wall and admire it.” – David Lean.
I knew what I wanted to achieve look wise for Tom and had a very clear image in mind I made a sketch concept detailing the rough pattern and shape of the cat before asking Conor to design concepts for both Tom and the Death models. I focused some time on research into cats both in real life and in media and gathered a large amount of referenced for Conor but also myself to use during modelling. I look at a website to extract colour palettes from images and found the images I had already gathered gave starkly different results which was great to compare. I used this to determine Tom’s colour palette and coat pattern to focus on warmer tones for the “living version” and cooler tones for the spirit. I determined Tom’s actual proportions should resemble that of a domestic tabby cat. The colour palette Tom I would end up referencing is a Orange Tabby Cat as their domestic cat pattern was immediately recognizable and the mannerisms are wildly different to some other breeds but for the characters personality it fit a lot better. I got very focused on the detailing of how the cat would end up such as with the fur clumps that I stalled on progress on his overall form and needed to take a step back to look at the shapes better. I spent a lot of time refining his proportions so it would not only be good for animating but also appealing and something viewers felt sorry for to better understand the themes of the film.
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