For this assignment, we were specifically tasked with emphasising character acting and lip-sync for this animation, which made my mind immediately jump to one of my favourite video game franchises; Sonic the Hedgehog.
Sonic is a character well-known for his cocky and rambunctious attitude, confident in his abilities as he resolves to stop Eggman from taking over the world with his machines. He can be caught off guard sometimes in a comedic way, but will almost always pick himself back up with a determined heart to protect the innocent.
His movement can be fast and punchy when in action and much more deliberate and dramatic when standing still, always striking an iconic pose or spouting a playful quip in his element.
As a long-time fan of the franchise, I immediately used my knowledge to search for different inspirations I could take reference from for my own work.
Before even starting the animation, I had also decided to brush up on my audio editing skills and combine in-game dialogue and sound effects from “Sonic Heroes” to use as my own original audio. While this wasn’t required for the assignment, I had a lot of fun putting everything together to make a cohesive and engaging scene that conveyed information about the environment without direct visuals for them.
I had originally wanted to make my animation in 3D with a fan-made “Sonic Heroes” inspired Blender model, but I decided against it because I didn’t want to pressure myself to learn a whole new animation program and stress about any complications in the lead up to the deadline. But this was my basis for taking direct inspiration from “Sonic Heroes” for the design and art style of my animation.
For the animation style, I took a lot of inspiration both from “Sonic Heroes” and the 2003 anime “Sonic X”, in which the latter used the 2D medium to its advantage for smear frames to enhance movement and forcing a consistent perspective on Sonic’s spines to keep his iconic silhouette. I also took reference from many other Sonic sources to recreate poses and properly convey Sonic’s character through movement.
As a way to test out my new design and adjust to it, I sketched out a few poses that weren’t done directly alongside my final dialogue, but gave off the same kind of energy I wished to convey with my final animation.
Throughout the animation process, I was constantly making sure the poses and keyframes I planned out would work in time with the dialogue, and would adjust timing as I added new in-betweens. I wanted to convey a consistent level of energy for Sonic even as he stood still, which I did by giving him many gestures.
Overall, I am very happy with the final outcome, as I believe I have improved my skills considerably through analysis of already existing works and was able to put the things I learned into practice in a way that feels personable and emotive to watch.