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Series Animation - Branding

After completing everything it was time to get it all compiled into the bible and it was quite nice seeing it all together, Its the most articulated piece of work I have produced that is my own and having it together made it feel more real.

All that was left at this point was to make a logo for the show, I took a minimalistic approach to this so that I could make something as instantly recognisable as possible that could be applied to in multiple ways across multiple media.

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Marketing and Budgeting

When it came to marketing and budgeting for the show it was quite easy to come up with ideas for how to merchandise the show such as

Books

Clothes

Furniture

Bedding

Toys

The majority of these options will appeal more to kids which makes sense since they are the primary target audience but room has been left for older audiences through mediums such as books to read to their kids or books for themselves to read that go more in-depth on the world of Warthog!

Budgeting simply consisted of trying to build a team and an office space within a specific price range. We were given a template of a spreadsheet that covered all the roles and items we'd need take into account and it was up to us to decide how many people were in each role and how much it was going to cost in terms of wage and equipment. I started by adding formulas to every total field so that the spreadsheet could update its prices live and then for the jobs that went off a per session basis I created another separate formula.

After this I then went onto job listing websites such as Indeed, Glassdoor and Reed to get average earnings for the input and converted them down to a weekly basis.

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Series Animation - Story

The story I had so far was interesting but I had to try and define some of the aspects more such as the macguffin that drives the heroes and villains and after running through different approaches I settled on the idea of the macguffins the characters were after being not objects but sacred wells or pools that the sword had to be dipped into causing Bhorh to gain a new power, which then plays into the theme of reflection that is set up in the first episode.

Having the macguffins be sacred places rather than items is also a good way to embed the mythology of the world making it feel deeper and enriching whilst also deepening the backstory of Warthog (the character)

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Series Animation - Environment Art

When it came to the feel and theme of the world, I wanted to implement the theme of "Modern convenience in Medieval times" and the main image that came to mind when I thought of this was of a "Medieval Petrol Station" leading me to try and fit such a modern concept into a time it didn't belong to.

I eventually came to the idea of a "Hay station" where peasants would come to refuel their horses at a place where they can buy snacks and weapons with hay bails and syphon-powered water pumps acting as the fuel pump

Once I had the idea it was time to draw it out but this lead to another problem, which was how to draw a petrol station in a way that is interesting but also explains everything you need to see. I tried initially with some thumbnail designs but nothing was really inspiring me so I settled with one of the thumbnails.

After developing it further I realised it wasn't going to work out for me. I then went back to looking at reference images and found one that worked well and used that as a base for the angle from there I was way more inspired.

Before working on this piece I tried making a piece that explained how the fuel system worked and from that, these two started developing in tandem with each other, whatever I managed to make work on one would then be implemented on the other i.e. gravel, grass texture and colour scheme helping me raise the overall quality of my work and bringing all the different ideas together.

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Series Animation - Story

With all the designs done, it was time to move onto writing the story starting with the first episode since it was what I based my sample script on.

Trying to find a call to action for the hero took me a few rewrites, It was difficult finding one that suited the characters, the situation, the context of the show over the series and the themes and concepts I wanted to explore with Warthog! but I managed to finally find a solution that suited all those needs by trying different ideas and then adjusting them for the scenario of the script.

Finding how Warthog and Bhorh united was another challenging problem to solve too since I couldn't come up with a way to explain the process, the scene made sense in my head but I couldn't explain it. Looking into mythology and symbolism helped translate the idea across, I think the nature of those subjects is directly tied to this kind of writing, leading me to using the basin of water as a medium for the spirit of Warthog and Bhorh to communicate.

Setting up the main villain was another challenge when it came to making the bigger picture make sense (in terms of what actions moved which characters and when characters should meet) since I didn't want the main villain to have a huge role in the story but I wanted them to have a presence. The main problem seemed to stem from trying to give Bhorh reason to follow his destiny and by introducing the villain too soon we wouldn't have been able to see what Bhorh had to give up to do the right thing.

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Series Animation - Side Character (Warthog!)

Creating the turn around and and action sheet was quite simple and easy since Warthog is Bhorh transformed so a lot of his designs came across like height, size, clothing and colours but it also gave me a chance to articulate that initial sketch I drew years ago which was satisfying to be a part of.

Problems did arise though with the design of this character in relation to the target audience and logic of the characters. The problem was finding that fine line of what is suitable for kids but also a good design that is engaging to look at. There have been many famous examples of skeletons in media from Scooby-Doo to Goosebumps so my design was suitable so long as I wasn't too graphic with the design.

After finishing the turn around I moved to the action sheet and the first design I came up with I quite liked but It seemed a bit too similar to other existing characters so I made some slight adjustments to bring out the uniqueness of the character, leaving me with a pose I'm quite proud of.

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Series Animation - Side Character (Rollo)

After creating everything for my lead character I then needed to do the same but this time for a side character who would follow Bhorh throughout his adventures, I decided to call this character Rollo.

His design initially grew from one of Bhorh's draft designs since i quite liked the helmet and from there the rest of the design fell into place.

I wanted Rollo's design to work in relation to Bhorh's (Opposing colours) but I also wanted to express the personality of the character through his design too (Head strong character - big helmet, charges in with a spear, bull crest on chest).

Once the turn-around was complete I then moved onto the action poses and expression sheet which was a lot easier after working on Bhorh's. One problem I did run into was the weapon he used, traditionally in kids cartoons, if a character has a sword then it is effectively used like a club to avoid making things too violent but i struggled with how to manage this problem with a spear and it was a design decision I didn't really want to compromise on but after researching shows that used similar weapons I realised that I could use it as a glorified staff as long as the character never lunges with the pointed end of the spear.

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Series Animation - Lead Character 2

With the turn around complete I then set out to put my character into motion through expression sheets and action poses. Initially finding an action pose for the character seemed challenging, to be able to define a person, essentially, down to their movements and way they carry themselves/approach the world and to help overcome this I researched reference images and sketched out rough drafts till the pose that spoke to me the most stood out.

After getting the pose I liked the most I moved immediately into adding detail and making it look more like the turn-around model ( this was surprisingly easy to do but time consuming) and eventually I had my action pose. After this I then created an expression sheet that not only made the character feel more alive but also served the purpose of giving other animators a reference to look at when working on the show.

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Series Animation - Lead Character

I knew the setting for the show would be based in myth and fantasy so I decided design everything around the motif of "Modern convenience in Medieval times" which gave me somewhere to start with my character designs, I also quite liked the idea of every character wearing a hat/helmet that represents them in some way so after looking at some historical helmets for bases, i started designing characters around them, keeping only to very simple and quick thumbnail style drawings until I had enough rough designs to start picking elements out of to create the first draft of Bhorh (the main character)

With a first draft I then scaled the character up and began developing further, adding and taking away details that defined the character (helmet, bandolier, waist cloth) until I had my front profile for the turn-around. I'm quite happy with the design, I think it has quite a bit of appeal to it, its unique and its not too complicated to animate and draw but it does have some complexity with the colour choices reflecting attributes of the lead characters personality, the simple design also makes it more suited to my target audience.

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Series Animation - Development

After the summer brief we were tasked with taking one of the ideas we had and developing it into a TV show bible and for this I decided to go ahead with the Warthog! show idea. From the pitch I had rough designs such as the logo and the design of the Warthog character so I used them as a jumping off point for my main character and story.

The idea for the story initially came to me as a dream so it was somewhat difficult to develop a story that captured all the elements of the dream whilst also being cohesive and easy to understand without explaining everything. I used the general setting of the dream as the foundation of the first episode, explaining how the main character gets the sword and the power and how acquiring these changes the direction of his life. I also wanted this show to be kid friendly with enough maturity for parents to enjoy watching the show so I had to take that into consideration when developing the story.

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Series Animation - Research

This video by Nickelodeon is a great resource for pitching your ideas and developing them such as making the pitch more of a conversation and not needing a completely finished bible to present, some publishers are looking for condensed and easy to read bibles

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Animated Series - Research

This indeed article shows a clear path for pursuing a career as a cartoon scriptwriter, this will be great for checking what I am going to need to do before trying to get a job in this field and for knowing what potential employers are looking for

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Series Animation - Research

This youtuber made a great video about Heart of Darkness and explains quite well how the themes of the book relate to psychology. This will be great for developing the characters in HellDivers

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Animated Series - Research

The book Heart of Darkness is one of the main inspirations for HellDivers, especially for its approach to storytelling. The story is about a group of men traveling on a boat down a river in Africa and as they travel deeper into the jungle they travel deeper into their minds. I feel as though HellDivers would suit this structure quite well, the setting allows for scenarios where people will be pushed to their extremes to survive which then opens the door to more character exploration

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Series Animation - Research

The main character from OK:KO has good design, I like the fun and bounciness of the character. it will be worth doing some design tests of my own character with some of these elements incorporated to see if its good.

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Main Animation - Research

When it comes to fighting games, the number of frames it takes for a move to play really matters, anything to do with this matter is referred to as frame data. Frame data is the number of frames it takes from an animation to wind up and connect and this is usually quite quick with some moves being as low as 10 frames to really test reflexes. It'll be important to brush up on this if it is going to be my main project

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Main Animation - MOBA Game Animation

This video is also quite useful but unfortunately demonstrates in unity, which I have never used before. The video covers some good ground with moves like idle and walking animations.