After some discussion during week 4 we chose between the Alien & Giraffe story, and the Poker Alien story. We finally decided we should work on the Alien and Giraffe story! We had started to make proper concept work and storyboards for these two ideas to build up their story and see how we should go about making them into an animation.
Again we listed the pros and cons of each story, paying close attention to the features of the story and how we should create them. We discussed the problems and made solutions however our final thoughts were that the Alien & Giraffe story would be best to create.
I made some character design sheets and a coloured storyboard for these stories to build up its visuals, storyline and production.
For the Alien & Giraffe story I made some character design sheets of the two main and only characters, the alien and the giraffe. My team member Alisa thought of the first looks of the characters so I attempted to revamp them and provide different styles to show variation. I also added its simple shape to help us 3D model the characters. To the left I made a quick environment study to grasp an idea of what the scene will look like.
Next, we were moving onto creating the presentation. We gathered our decision making processes, our concept work, and any thoughts about our story, to add to our presentation.
I took on the role of decision making, Matthew took on project idea, Jennifer took on references, Alisa took on storyboard/animatic and Ben took on storyboard also. We all also had our own parts describing our designs and concepts we’ve made so far.
Our presentation is below in the link. We were given good feedback from our tutors; they envisioned the story could be stronger in some parts to grasp the idea where the alien character is coming from, and what are their intentions. Brainstorming possible additions to the story will give it more build up and strengthen its high and low of the narrative.
Source: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pVHk6izrGSCk-x8uX7H1JASEDjv6h356?usp=sharing
After presenting our group presentation. We got to work with the feedback we were given and to discuss more ideas we could add to our animation. We grouped up for a chat on week 5 to figure out the storyline and possible additions that could build our story. We made a script, with a stronger storyline that can guide us in our storyboards, animatics and future animation.
We added features such as:
- The alien is taking trips around space by using a spaceship to land on this planet.
- The screen in their helmet telling the alien what planet they are on, and if they have found a friend yet, is showing us their objective and how long they have been working for this.
- The environment the alien has landed on shows their fear of being in a scary area alone, by the way they act and the look on their face.
- Their first interaction with the giraffe, getting spooked by them, will determine the last encounters the alien has had have not been good.
- The giraffes calm nature and interest to the alien also calms them down.
- The aliens reaction to the giraffe also having antennas determines their objective may finally be complete.
After making this, me and the group decided to work on a few more concepts for week 6 so we have a more built background to the story. We decided to take rolls of finding our colour scheme, making thumbnails of important shots, designing the spaceship, environment surroundings etc. trees, and final designs of the characters.
I’ve come up with a final storyboard design, some colour theory and thumbnails.
I experimented with the colour palette we could use for our work to emphasise the story and its emotion. I picked colours from some references we liked and experimented with them in a sketched scene of a savannah environment.
Here were some of my thumbnails that would enhance the visuals of the story further on in our development. I made use of the darker tones for the beginning thumbnails to see how the story would be impacted by showing a scary, dull tone, then lighter colours during the end for a heartwarming finish, where all the scary tones leave.
I had made a storyboard of how I predict this story will go relying on what concept ideas we had made so far and what we have all agreed on showing. I made use of colours and made sure to reenact the camera shots I had in my mind. The storyboards are below.
We gathered once again on week 7 to discuss our finalised storyline with the use of the storyboards we all made earlier on in the week. This will help us progress onto our production starting with the previs. We discussed in call what sections are important, how the story will flow, what little details will impact the story and what camera angles/shots we will use.
We wrote about each shot on a sticky note in Miro Board. When we were done discussing, we cut out parts of all our storyboards, and placed them to the shot that suits it best: Its overall visual.
When we were done this, we were ready to move onto our 3D modelling and previs video to capture the story in 3D!