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This is the animatic that Elizabeth complied with all of our storyboards, and I really really like it! I think changing my storyboard was definitely the best thing to do as with my originals, it would of looked really out of place and very unprofessional compared to the others. But with my final ones they really fit in and look good with all of the others. I think overall it has a nice flow to it and is really expressive of all the narratives we were given and will look great as an animation! 

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So taking the things I have done, I complied the things I thought were most relevant to my style frames and research so far and compiled them into these design documents. 

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I finally began my style frames. I decided to start off with my jousting scene because it was something I really wanted to get done as I hadn’t thought as much into it as my zorro style frames. I used the colours given to me but also used a blue and white for the sky as previously mentioned as well as a brown for the fence. I decided to leave the dirt out because I couldn’t get it to look right in any perspective and just left it with the green grass. I also Incorporated lines to show off the speed that they are going. I also decided to add lines to the scenery around them after watching an animation I had watched on youtube (which is screenshotted above) I really liked the difference of not adding lines to the character but to the scenery, it still showed that the character was running fast but with a different twist. So from this and the anime lines, I decided to apply it to both the characters and scenery, to really exaggerate the speed. 

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The zorro style frames were quite a bit more easily done as I think it has been my main focus so far. So Taking some shots from my animatics, I cleaned them up a bit more but also made them slightly transparent so that the colours of the sun and scenery could show in their outfits showing light reflecting off of them. I also gave the white cat an outfit using the colour scheme given to me, and I think the red works well for him and he looks a lot like the bad guy from the real zorro film with his blonde hair! Overall I’m really happy with how this turned out and will definitely try to keep to this when it comes to animating. 

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Style frame

zorro

So I wanted to look into more research I have already conducted to see how I can create my style frame. For the Zorro style frame, I looked into original scenes from Zorro as well as referring back to red dead redemption. Both of these still/ style frames show this red, yellow, orange undertones that show that it is dry and baron, indicating that the setting is a place like a desert because this is what deserts are like. So I think incorporating the setting drawing idea I have already done with a style frame would work really well to show this desert style I’m going for. 

Jousting 

For jousting, again as previously discussed, tends to be in a grassy area and its normally sunny with crowds of people watching. So perhaps with the colours given to me, this will be easily done with a few other colours added such as blue for the sky and brown for the dirt that the jousters ride upon. 

In particular I really liked this illustration of the jousters. It clearly shows what is happening and uses one of the main colours I have to use (green) as the setting. It also as the rushing lines that the research into anime has to show off the speed that they are going. 

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So now that I had the cat sequence sorted, I wanted to focus more on the settings and scenery. For the zorro scenery, I used the colour scheme to create a desert like setting. What inspired me to do this was that zorro is mainly set in a dryland/ desert scenery which can be seen with my previous research on this blog about zorro, where most of the fight scenes and pictures I have put on here are shown of Zorro in the desert and the colours Elizabeth gave to me with the red and yellow reminded me of the desert. 

With this desert idea before drawing it up, I also looked to red dead redemption for inspiration in how they clearly depicted the desert and how they used colours to clearly show this. To me, there is clearly a red/ yellow tint to the ground and one of the skies which I think is a clear indication of a desert because it makes the land look baron and dry. 

For jousting, I honestly struggled to come up with an idea for scenery, So I have started to look at more inspiration in how artists have depicted a jousting match and what the scenery is like. From what I see it is a public sport, having people watching from on the grounds and also have different colour tents. It’s more or less depicted as being played on sunny days with bright blue skies and green grass, with the jousters being on brown dirt. I just have to figure out how to be able to depict this type of scenery with the colours I have been given. 

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This was definitely my favourite storyboard that I did! Being able to just drawing directly rather than following any lines really let me be expressive with the characters! The style has also changed from my original character design slightly, but I prefer this cuter and simpler style because I think it lets you focus more on the cats themselves rather than the detail of the outfits. The only thing I will need to address is the outfit for the white cat. But overall, I’m really proud of this storyboard and I think the cat like behaviours really come through in this such as the claw fighting and the puffy tails. 

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So I went back to square one for my storyboards, and with some help and tips from my group, decided to just draw each panel on a layer in photoshop. I had a much bigger canvas to work with and overall these are definitely better than my original storyboards! Because I had much more space to work with and no lines to follow, I could be more free and looser with my drawings and I think I achieved that extra motion and character to my storyboards. 

The only problem I have with my jousting storyboard is that I got confused with which cat is which, so some of the frames they change places from the side of the fence. I also haven’t been able to really exaggerate cat like behaviour in them, however its really hard to do with this particular scene so perhaps when it comes to animating it, that cat sound effects are really needed and should be frequent throughout this scene. 

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To help me with adding a boarder to my storyboard, I looked up a storyboard online to help with guiding me, and I think adding a boarder has helped tidy it up... But I think the drawings in the storyboards I could make a lot better; I don’t think they are expressive enough and because they were sketched over pencil, the line work is to ‘tight’ and not loose enough, which I think looses the characteristics and motion I want to express. So I will probably go back and re-do these differently so I can get the desired and professional look I want. 

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So we were given a colour pallet to follow and I did this for digitally colouring my storyboards. Overall, I’m not pleased with how these look. Just like with the pencil, I think the narrative is clear enough, but having digitally sketched over this I think it looks worse than the pencil sketch and not professional at all! It doesn't have any boarders so maybe if I add boarders this will address the problem and tidy it up more. 

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https://drive.google.com/open?id=13mxt3AtT-OUtcyLqVcLzNWB3kE0pV9XBKst2kyQE2J8

So this is the presentation Elizabeth conducted of all of our research. At this time was when I had just changed the idea to Zorro cat so it was to late to change it from fencing. I had also not shared my research inspiration with the group yet so my inspiration ideas were not included. But I think it gives a good representation of our project so far and gives me more confidence that our idea is now collectively coming together. 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1N5dMEOhKCgVJUkWRbRDHPGDyR_ZtnXJQWO8OETK825o 

This is the second presentation... and I’m a bit disappointed because none of my work is on the presentation anymore. However, I think the presentation still clearly shows what our idea for the group collaboration is.  

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So I began to do rough sketches of my storyboard... and so far, whilst I think they express how I want the story to go, I’m really not a fan of how they are presented, but hopefully digitally drawing over them will make them look more professional. 

So for the jousting one, whilst I was really looking forward to animating this part, when it came to drawing the storyboard... Theres not actually a whole lot you can do with jousting because its literally waiting for the two to meet in the middle and collide. So I took the inspiration from the anime research my group had conducted as in the images shown, the fight scenes were lengthened out and prolonged by having a lot of other things to look at on the page to occupy the viewer such as the excessive line work to show that the scene is happening at a fast pace. This is something I took and then applied to my storyboard hoping to do the same thing until they finally meet in the middle and collide. I have to work out however, how to get more cat like behaviours into this, but its difficult because I have re-drawn them wearing armour like in the research I did and the only thing they do is go towards each other on horses... So I will have to rethink this when it comes to colouring in the storyboards and see if adding colour will change this.

The Zorro storyboard on the other hand was really fun to create! Because in the film scenes I showed in my research there is always something happening and the fighting is intense and full of action and really dramatised and made dramatic. So I took this made and made the intro full intense by having the character drop down, pause, draw out their swords ready to fight. But, to include the cat like behaviours I decided rather than fighting with the swords, they chuck the swords away and begin to fight with their claws. I think this adds the cat like behaviours when they fight as well as playfulness and humour to the fight scene. 

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These are a few rough drawings of my zorro cat design and again, I really like these outcomes for my first attempt and I think these are the designs I will try to follow! I really had fun designing this character as because I think its following a character that already exists, being able to study the zorro videos then apply them to my character design was easy and fun to do! Taking a human character and figuring out how to apply it to a cat. 

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This was also featured in the group research and something I had already discussed before, and wanted to research more into because whilst I won’t be going for this animation style, I just really love how they express the cats in this film and how they take human traits and apply it to the cats, something which I need to try and find a balance for in my animation when it comes to it.

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This was more research conducted by my group. Whilst the art styles of the first three is probably things that won’t inspire me with my character designs and animation style, I really like the collage of pictures created by Zoe as it gives a full range of different cat poses, the different kinds of cats and the different art styles of depicting cats. 

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The rest of the group posted their research into the shared folder and I decided to also look into this because I wanted to see what the others were inspired by and see if I can take any of their inspirations and apply it to my animation ideas and character design ideas. Whilst I’m not going for an anime style, what I really liked about these images was the line work to show that an action was happening fast and think this could look really good for the jousting scene when they are running at each other. I also really loved the colour pallet for the cat returns, I really like the soft, pastel colours they used and is something for me to consider when colouring the characters. 

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The main thing that gave way into changing the character was this advert, we thought that the advert and the character displayed was really funny and to be able to express this through a cat would be really funny! It then gave way to making a zorro cat and researching into zorro, in particular the zorro film featuring George clooney. 

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So with our project, we decided to change the fencing characters into a zorro character because as I was researching how zorro fights for references for fencing as its very similar, we thought that having a zorro cat would be more funny and interesting than fencing as well as being able to give the cats more character and personality as we would have a character to follow to portray his personality onto the cat as well as being able to use more colours for it. This character design idea I’m really looking forward to designing this character!