Setting up the Group
Before the semester started Sarah, our tutor, contacted us and asked what type of project role we would be interested in doing for this assignment and I knew I wanted to work in 3D as a concept artist for characters or environments.
Once the semester started I was placed in a 3D group with Danielle, Sarah, Michael, Oisin and Meghan and were given the choice between two different briefs, both aimed at 6-12 year olds; internet safety or don’t judge a book by its cover. Our group decided on ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ and started to create some potential story ideas that would fit the brief as well as creating a team name, we went with Squid Productions.
Scheduling and Checklists
After the group got well acquainted we discussed what roles we wanted to focus on within this project then we set up a Discord, a miro board as a whiteboard that we could all edit live and a few different excel sheets to manage our time on this project some of which include a gantt chart, a shot list and a weekly to-do list so that everyone knows what they are working on for the week.
Mood Boards on Miro
We all began by discussing potential ideas for our group’s story then started to gather references from Google, Pinterest and other Media that we liked the styles of or that had an ocean/ deep sea theme as well as photo references of the real fish, coral and depths.
Story Outline
The team decided we liked the idea of a starfish sinking down to the deep depths of the ocean and meeting a scary deep sea creature for dinner. The team discussed a few different variations on our initial story idea before tasking Oisin with writing a first draft then after feedback from the group, Meghan took the story and adjusted it.
We presented the adjusted story to the class and tutor where we received feedback to shorten and simplify the story to make the message more clear so Danielle took it and adjusted based on the feedback.
Concept Art
—Characters—
When the group decided what characters we wanted I started into creating some character concepts of a starfish, giant squid and anglerfish. I first took the style inspirations and broke down some of the characters that the team liked from the pre-existing characters and some of the art style elements that they thought we could try.
-Starfish-
Using the references we gathered on Miro, I created some initial starfish designs and explored a few different styles for the character.
After sending them to the group for some feedback, we all voted on which designs would go through to a second round of designs and what elements I should keep and explore further for our main character as well as deciding that we all had a preference for designs that look more classically like a starfish.
On the second pass of starfish designs, I focused on creating designs that had the elements that the team liked; for instance simple eyes and chubby shapes. I did add a few designs that didn’t fully follow what the team were looking for, just to test out some other features that were voted on but weren’t highlighted. I also played around with some potential colour schemes and line styles to see if any of them were the way we wanted to go for the animation.
After sending the designs to the group for a vote, we all decided we liked the use of solid lines, gradient colours, simple patterns and half tones.
For the third round of starfish designs, I really wanted to nail down the starfish’s design so I combined elements that we all liked and sent them through to the group for final voting and feedback.
After the voting, design number five was liked the best so I moved on and started into creating a 3D turnaround of the character to make modelling in 3D easier for Danielle, who was tasked with modelling the Starfish.
I really liked how the turnaround for the starfish came out and his soft, round shape should help to portray that he’s the ‘good’ character who is happy and carefree. Later the turnaround was used by Danielle to model and texture him for the animation.
*Modelled and Textured by Danielle* *Rigged by Meghan* *Eye Blend Shapes by Sarah*
-Squid-
For the squid character, we all knew we wanted to have them be sharper and more threatening looking to contrast with the starfish and give the audience the impression that they are dangerous.
For the first round of designs I heavily referenced real life squids with a few octopi mixed in in case there were any interesting design elements that the team liked. I also kept in mind the style we had agreed on when designing the starfish, like the solid lines and simple patterns.
The team heavily favoured design 2 and had a bit of feedback like give the squid larger eyes, keep it as a squid and not an octopus and longer arm like tentacles.
For the second round of designs, I combined the parts that the team liked and really pushed the sharp, angler shapes of the squid to make them feel scary but maintained some softer shapes to hint at the fact that they aren’t as scary as they seem.
Everyone really liked design 1 and the fact that it resembled a harpoon in shape makes it feel all the scarier. The team also liked the idea of making the squid green to complement the starfish but decided that it would blend in with the seaweed and background so we decided on purple instead. Due to the purple being a cool colour it pushes the difference between the starfish even more as the starfish is a warm, bright pink colour.
Once the design was okayed by the team I made a turnaround to make it easier to model but a small correction was brought to my attention by Meghan; she thought the smaller tentacles were too short and needed to be longer so I adjusted the turnaround. This was later used by Oisin to model and rig the squid and Danielle textured it.
(Short Legs ^ )
(Longer Legs ^ )
*Modelled and Rigged by Oisin* *Textured by Danielle*
-Anglerfish-
After the other two designs were finalised and ready for modelling I moved onto creating the shorts antagonist, the anglerfish. I knew I wanted it to be boxy and sharp to show how dangerous.
Using real life references again, I sketched up a few concepts for possible anglerfish designs. I kept in mind that the anglerfish was only ever going to be seen sitting flat on the ground of a cave but I still experimented with some plumper shapes for the stomach and made the teeth like needles.
The team favoured design 4 so I moved forward with some potential colour schemes. The team really liked the brown and the reddish orange so I got to decide and chose to go for the warm colours of the reddish orange as it made the anglerfish standout from the background as well as made it more close in colour to the starfish giving the impression that the anglerfish could be something friendly instead of dangerous.
I really loved how the anglerfish’s design came together with the jagged, needle-like teeth to the large, coffin shaped body that makes you think of death and danger. The turnaround was later used to make a 3D model by me!
*Modelled and Rigged by Nicole* *Textured by Danielle*
—Height Guide—
Once all the characters were finalised, I quickly created a height guide so that when it came down to rigging the models the team wouldn’t have any problems with the characters being too small or large and being unable to resize them once they’re rigged. After everyone liked the heights of the characters we were ready to model once pre-production was done.
Looking back on the height guide now though, I do wish I made the anglerfish a bit smaller as he appears bigger than Cephi (the squid) due to the large volume of space he takes up as well as making Cephi a lot bigger to really lean into the Kraken vibe we originally wanted but by the time I realised that they didn’t fully look right, size wise, the team had already modelled and rigged the characters so it was far too late.
—Environment—
Using the references that we gathered on Miro, I created some initial environment concepts. These were made to test out some ideas and some colour schemes for potential props. The team really liked the use of soft round shapes and bright, warm colours to represent the upper ocean and the sharper, triangular shapes and darker, cold colours for the depths. I also experimented with some potential prop ideas like the signs and bubbles that were shown in the storyboards.
Once I got the team’s feedback on my initial environment ideas, I moved onto creating a depth chart to show the progression of some props as they appear in the upper ocean vs deeper in the depths. I made sure to follow the soft to sharp effect that the team liked.
*Seaweed Modelled & Textured by Danielle*
Storyboards, Animatic & Previs
While I was working on the concept art, Michael worked on turning the story outline into storyboards that were then turned into an animatic. Danielle, Megan and Sarah all worked on turning the animatic into a 3D previs. As we received feedback on the storyboards I drew up some rough interpretations of the scenes that Michael then turned into the final storyboards.
*Storyboards created by Michael*
Pipeline Tests
While Michael worked on fixing the animatic, the rest of the team worked on some pipeline tests. Danielle created a bubble particle effect and tested how my concept art translated into 3D by making seaweed, Sarah worked on creating and testing the lighting effects that we wanted like God Rays, an outline effect and a glow to the starfish and Michael created some seaweed.
Sarah and I were tasked with creating some scene mock ups of some of the storyboards. I was also tasked with creating some sample scenes of the upper ocean and the depths.
*Mockups created by Sarah*
*Mockup created by Nicole*
*Scene setup created by Nicole* *Squid Model created by Oisin* *Starfish created by Danielle* *Seaweed created by Danielle*
*Scene setup created by Nicole* *Squid Model created by Oisin* *Starfish created by Danielle*
Focus Scene
While we continued to work on the pre-production, we all decided on the scene we wished to focus on when it came time to animate.
*Storyboards created by Michael*