First Steps

A really, really basic test for the guinea pig walk. I've dubbed this the Standard Quad walk, which does what it says on the tin. To get a clearer view of the walk, I copied and pasted the movement, which is why a strip of black appears on the screen.

Part of the problem with this walk was that it was a standard quadraped walk, designed more for bigger animals. Rodents wouldn't move so slowly. Plus there'd be more stretching and compressing of the spine.

Regardless, I like quadrapeds!

Draft Animatic

Can't say I'm not a woman of my word! As promised, the draft animatic using the thumbnails.

Here come the Drums

It was when I was producing these small pieces of drum concept that I came to a very definite conclusion; I don't like drawing circles. It's a blessing that the drum kit will be in Maya, so I don't need to fret about drawing these circular backgrounds...

Bron

Thumbnails

First thumbnails for film. I plan on making a draft animatic from these to get an idea of length.

Bron

Early Script

Nat used some of her group hours by writing my script up for me:





The above script is the first script for my film, which will no doubt change over the course of the year.

Bron

Scribbles

Initial character designs and drafts for the guinea pig.

Seen here are various trials for designs, including less conventional guinea pigs, initial thumbnails and poses.

Bron

Idea Parts 3 - 5.5

Since the pitch, something has become clear. My fellow traditional animation students do not want to do a fun piece. They want to stick with metaphorical work. Fair enough, but this does mean I'm going it alone.

This does mean I've had to rethink my ideas, and take away one character.

I bounced some ideas off a wall, and came up with the scraggly moggy from the second idea, dancing to a music box. But it just wasn't what I wanted.

Then something happened involving a platypus in a one man band, albeit briefly...

*Then* I was hit with a guinea pig, square in the face. And it hurt, as it would do if you were hit in the face with a guinea pig.

The Pitch: A guinea pig finds a human-sized drum kit and starts to play. But he can't reach the much desired crash cymbal. So he devises a chain reaction using snare drums and the bass pedal. The guinea pig bounces off the pedal, flies through the air, but is just short of the cymbal. Instead, he lands among the drums, causing the entire kit to collapse on top of him. When he emerges from the rubble, he spots the cymbal in reach, and is able to hit it with his paw.

But why should this cymbal make a crashing sound? That would simply be... nice... Instead, when the guinea pig hits the cymbal, it makes a disappointing squark.

Visually, I'm going to mix 2D with CG, and I'm going to digitally edit the piece. The drum kit's going to be CG, possibly 2D planes in Maya or make it in After Effects, and the editting is mostly to colour the character and give it a real finished look.

I feel good about this piece, and I can't wait to try Maya. I'd love to be able to play around with a bit more CG stuff. Or get to know After Effects a bit better. Either way, it's going to be a good year!

Initial Concept Work

Some images from the first ideas with the platypus, the scraggly cat and the guinea pig.