y e a r t w o

This is the first draft of my script. I felt like it wasn't going anywhere, and like I didn’t have anything interesting to write. Instead of letting myself get stuck, I decided to actually start the script later in the story, when things were a little more exciting. It worked really well, and I actually wrote the script from that point instead of from the ‘beginning’.

This is a style frame I did on Procreate in an attempt to better visualise the kind of art style and colour palette I wanted for the finished adaptation.

The art style would, however, probably be a little more realistic than this.

I think I also could work on consistency, so my plan in the future is to study the human form more, especially in different and more unusual positions and from complex angles, so I can fully visualise a human in a 3 dimensional space. This would help if I animate characters turning or a change of perspective.

This is the line work for the lip-sync animation. I really prefer the original sketched version, and I think with future animations I’d like to try and keep the ‘drawn’ quality to them in the end product. However, here I chose to keep going with the thicker, solid line to make the characters stand out, since there is no background. 

Drinking culture at University - The Independent 

I tried to record my own background sounds for this, however without access to the recording studio I found it to be almost impossible. The birdsong is from freesound, but the footsteps are mine and the small sounds from the haggis are from my cat! I did have to keep them quiet, however, because the sound quality is noticeably worse in those clips than the birdsong.

This is a very rough draft of my lip-sync animation, which I am really enjoying animating. Next I’m going to do neat outlines, colour, and the actual lip-sync (which I did a test run of here to check if the mouth style worked with the rest of the animation.)

This is the very basic outline of my haggis. He doesn’t have fur yet, which is what I will be adding next.

I wanted the movement of the haggis to be very fluid in quite an unnatural looking way, so I used the myth of them having two legs shorter than the others and edited it slightly. My dad would explain that wild haggis had half short legs, half long legs due to them running along sides of hills and mountains in the highlands. Instead of this, my haggis has mysteriously elasticated limbs that can grow and shrink at will, making it easy for him to navigate the glens and forests.

These two cats ‘talking’ gives a great example for the kind of sound I am trying to get from my cat.

As Scotland’s scenery is so beautiful and unique, I didn’t want to take photos of any woodland and pass it off as the Highlands - so these are the four I’ve chosen and cropped to the correct ratio.

There are several things I like about this storyboard. One is the clear frustration that both parties are feeling through body language alone, and the other is the expressions. I would like to focus on the facial expressions of the characters in this animation, particularly the girl, as she won’t be speaking. Last year I looked at visual storytelling, and how body language and expression can really put life into animations. I hope to apply that knowledge to this.

This is a rough animatic for my lipsync animation. I want to focus on timing and consistency a little more on this, as I think that is something my animation can lack.

The haggis also has two ears and a tail, but as these will not be moving around as much or as vigorously, I don't need wooden inserts for them.

This is the base for my haggis model. It's made of lightweight but solid foam. I plan to cut the snout off of the main body so i can insert wire between; this will enable me to move the snout in a sniffing motion in my final animation.

This change of expression was based on the part of the sound clip in which the man says “[the envelope] will be tossed!”. In my animation, at that moment the man will grab the paper she is holding and toss it nonchalantly behind him, at first shocking her, but quickly making her angry at his lack of care.