Animated Documentary - Week 8

For this week I created my own concepts for a range of traders based on images I found of what they might have looked like at the time during the beginning of the 'Silk Road'.

References to a chinese, european and arabian traders:

These are the following character designs I made inspired by the references I found. They are in the form of assets to be used as rigs to animate on the documentary. I also made an extra design of a horse just to give an extra design for the others to work with besides the two I have already made.

Chinese Trader

Horse

Arabian Trader

European Trader

11 second Club - Problems

For this 11 second challenge on '11 Second Club' the challenge provides us to animate to a random piece of audio.

These are some character concepts I designed of characters I used for the audio provided based on how I imagine the people to look and where they are. I also took inspiration from a character named Spike from 'Cowboy Bebop' for the male character which I had to interpret into my own design to avoid copying the actual character.

Examples of frames I used in my animation. As shown I slightly changed the design of the female character as the type of head shape I chose for her looked odd to me and made her look older.

In the following is my final video as it is, I did have a problem submitting it so I didn't get it submitted on time. Most of the lip syncing look odd as they morph instead of appear as if they are talking. The rest of the movements are fine and the last bit of dialogue did work for the lip syncing I made for it. Thankfully now I know how to effectively lip sync.

Character Design References - Maori

For this character design challenge on 'Character Design References' the challenge was to create a character based on maori warriors.

I look through images to get an idea of what maori warriors look like, what weapons they used and what their tattoos look like to base upon for my own design.

 

I had an idea to base/combine my maori warrior with God of War Kratos.

First draft of my maori warrior basing him off Kratos.

My final design with colour, shading, details like the tattoos and textures for the weapons. I also used inspiration for the mouth using the art style used for Franky (from One Piece) who I used as reference for the previous character design challenge for hippie.

Character Design Reference - Hippie

For this character design challenge on 'Character Design References' the challenge was to create a character based on hippies.

I decided to do a muscular super hippie as shown, also taking inspiration from the following character on the right who is also very muscular (Franky from One Piece):

Looking at my reference of Franky I created my design for a muscular super hippie using one of the hair styles Franky is seen with (braids) and dressed in a similar way since most wear minal.

For the final design I added light effects and a peace symbol for a halo to show him being a super hippie with spiritual powers.

Thankfully this is my second attempt at the character design challenge that got posted on the Facebook Group and got a few likes.

Character Design References - Wizard

For this character design challenge on 'Character Design References' the challenge was to create a character based on a character from the Harry Potter series.

I decided to base my character on a masked death eater as shown:

I also looked at a reference to a wizard type of character I can use to combine with a hooded masked death eater as well as looking at the various death eater masks for inspiration. I also looked at another mask design outside of the series.

However through designing I decided to make another design choice to combine the design with a sort of samurai twist with a magic sword.

After adding colour, shading, details, glowing and smoke effects:

Adding background with final design which adds more of a dark theme for my masked samurai death eater which also emphasises the glow effect:

Unfortunately I had problems joining the Facebook group where you submit your submissions. Even when completing this on time I wasn't joined to the group in time and missed the submission date.

Animated Documentary - Week 7

 We had our first group critique on the 14th March to share our progress with the rest of the groups as well as see their progress. With this we can gain feedback to improve and provide other groups with feedback if we have something useful that can help them improve. We can also see how much other have progressed so that we can get an idea of where we should be in terms of progress with our documentary.

At this point so far we only provided research with mood boards and character designs, showing images referencing the Silk Road and character designs based on figures related to the Silk Road (e.g. Marco Polo). We also had drafts for a storyboard and design concepts.

draft page of storyboard

Mulberry Leaves

Taklamakan Desert

Animated Documentary - Week 6

 I thought I'd start making asset concepts for animals to be shown in the documentary. These will hopefully be used to create rigs animated alongside the traders.

I wanted to exaggerate how the Chinese would trade the bigger and stronger horses brought over from the west to use in battle and to show off their strength. This is because the ponies the Chinese at the time had were a lot smaller.

Handsome Horse

Feeble Pony 

Camels would be the used transportation of choice for traders in the middle east as they are native and are adapt to traversing across sandy deserts.

Camel Head

Camel Torso

Animated Documentary - Week 5

For this week I did more concept designs for the Silk Goddess based on designs from one of my collaborative partners. I also drew some designs for traders based on images of what they might have looked like at the time.

References for european and middle eastern traders

This is also a background I tried designing for the opening scene of the documentary which primarily served as a test and practice for perspective for me.