Animatic Rough Draft #1

There are no sounds yet, and the timing isn't perfect either, but I think this will be a more efficient way to tell my story (compared to script-writing that is).

http://www.ecuad.ca/~qwang12829/movies/gf_animatic1.mov

Characters Design Progress

I spent some time looking up the significance behind the winged lion. The creature might already be very symbolic, in that case, the association it carries may confuse certain audiences. I found that lion is a symbol of power, which makes it a suitable subject to appear on the family emblem. In my story, the lion is sort of a persona of the girl's power, so that is great! The wings symbolize spiritual elevation. When the lion travels with the girl, he will show her a new world, a new way of living. This will work alright too. 

I played around with different shapes and art styles. In the end I came up with four types of lion faces (just faces for now, bodies later). I picked the square-looking one because I think it will look better on an emblem. Next, I tried different manes with the square face lion but I think I need further experimentation on this... I don't think I am satisfied with any of these at the moment. Plus, I still have to draw the whole body, make expression sheet, apply colors... etc.

Oh look, I found references pictures for my winged lion! Anatomy is essential. I will also need to look up wing-rigging videos. Hmmm, this is going to be quite the challenge when I get to the modeling/rigging phase.
(p.s. I have more reference images than I showed here.)

The girl's look is pretty much settled. She will come with two color variations. One for inside the castle. Another for when she goes out into the wild. The picture at the bottom is one of my early character designs that got scratched, as you can see, I drew a lot of the design from my earlier work. Now before I enter the modeling part, I might have to think more about the topology. Right now I am a bit worried with the area near her braids, and her shoulder. How is it going to deform when it's animated....? 

p.s. Oh and of course, the girl will need her own pose sheet, expression sheet as well.

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p.s. Look, these two images are provided from my friend Desirae Witte. She knows what kind of stuff I am into. Isn't she so sweet!! <3

Script Draft 1

---*the characters are unnamed at the moment, so they will be referred to as "girl" and "lion" for now*---

Motifs:

feather

flower

color orange

hourglass

Beats: 

1. CHARACTER INTRODUCTION, ESTABLISH CONTEXT - A TYPICAL MORNING

2. FORESHADOWING LEADING UP TO GIRL MEETS LION

3. ADVENTURE FOR A DAY

4. ENDING - WAS THAT A DREAM?

Script:

http://www.ecuad.ca/~qwang12829/images/gf_script.pdf

The Visuals

Art Style:
I will be making my grad film in the medium of 3D. The art style that I am interested in is similar to game characters that have hand-painted textures. Since I have some art foundation in 2D, and my recent internship involved texturing characters, I plan to hand-paint all of my assets' textures, including both characters and environment. I will be working with diffuse, normal and specular maps to minimize poly count while keeping the art style believably cartoony.

Influence Map:
In pre-production, I am more worried about making the environment than characters, mainly because I have less experience in that area (I've done some 2D environment paintings, but not 3D). Luckily, I have the habit of saving good reference images into my computer, so I dug into my 3D folder and found many images that can help me visualize the look of my scenes. As you can see, there are lots of images here that are from games: Animal Crossing, Frisbee 2, Temple Run 2, Mini Ninjas... just to name a few.

SFX Preview:
The two SFX videos above are homework from last year's class. They are all done in Autodesk Maya with the particle system and container. Since I am not aiming for realism, a cartoony/stylized scene like this won't take too long to render (phew!). I plan to put the same SFX into my grad film. I am especially excited for the cloud scene!

First Thoughts

Title: unknown


Length: unknown


Theme/Concept: freedom


Log Line: A young heir "escapes" her rigid lifestyle, goes on an adventure with a mystical creature, and gets a taste of freedom.

Setting: Medieval/Gothic-looking Castle isolated from town and people. Highly-decorative, yet unfeeling and rigid.


Characters:

-the young heir is a little girl (age 7?) who will eventually inherit a castle(?) she's got a lot of etiquette to learn and manners to follow. She is trained to be the perfect lady. Her nature is very optimistic, energetic and playful (like Anna in Frozen). These qualities certainly are not suitable for her to become the high-class lady that is expected of her. Perhaps it is time to break away from tradition, rules and authority, try something new in life, follow your heart and imagination, discover some new options in life.

-the mystical creature is a winged creature, a symbol on the coat of arm of the young heir's castle. It will lead the little girl to a day of adventure in the vast world outside of the castle she grew up in. Is this beast weaved from the powerful imagination of our young heir, a product of her desperate longing for freedom? We shall find out.


Minor Character:
-governess will be the little girl's teacher/nanny, she is responsible of teaching the young heir everything that she needs to know to become a royal and gentle lady. Her characteristics are suppose to be stereotypical and flat. She is your usual disciplinarian; a persona of authority.


Movie Inspirations:
There are many movies that share the same theme and motives as my story. These are a few that I thought of when I was forming my ideas. These movies should help my watchers understand where I am headed more clearly.

movie inspirations

Why do I want to do this?
---It's a theme I can relate to.
---Making 3D assets is a lot fun for me.
---This project will improve my skill set (rigging, animation, rendering, storytelling especially.)
---This can be included in my future demo reel.
---I've never done something so big before, I love new challenges.
---I hope this can be inspirational to some people, or at least a delight to watch.
---I love what I do!