The Classical Elements - Pre-Production - Development 1

(Left) Character Design for another scrapped idea, so ignore it
(Right) Concept doodles for two ideas, blue ones focusing on Air and green ones focusing on Earth

After much thought, it finally came down to two ideas, the first one that revolves around the element of "Air" is about a fellow struggling through a windy street with his umbrella, the second one simply focuses on another fellow busily tending to his crops.

Both had amusing enough narratives and a simple but nonetheless appealing enough art style to them, and both were definitely short enough to fit the given duration of 20 seconds. 

This was when I decided to ask my classmates and lecturer to pick out the one they preferred, and in the end, they went with the first one, it was the better of the two short narratives and allowed for more amusing antics to be animated in.

Water Colors Concept Piece

Whilst I had considered doing a more detailed character design, again I thought the incredibly short duration given for the animation would not allow for any real character development. I believe an animation with proper character designs can be done for longer animation projects in the future.

Seeing that my lecturer had told me that it was not truly necessary, I decided to make do with a simple little faceless character (That a few of my classmates also found quite cute) and gave him a few tiny details (Such as little pointed feet and a bump on his face to signify his nose whenever he turns to his side, showing that his head is not completely round).

I already had the visuals in my head, and so I decided to do a quick concept piece on how the overall art style of animation would look, I really wanted to give it a more painted look and so I found Photoshop to be the more suitable program to create my animation (While of course more tedious that Flash), I might however give the Timeline mode a try this time round however.

Concepts for Umbrella Shapes and Handles, Character Dimensions and Wind Styles

During my presentation, my classmates and lecturer once again aided me in choosing which designs to use. The 7th (And pretty much the last umbrella) was chosen as it definitely allowed for more exaggeration, while the  2nd umbrella handle was chosen for its classic design (Seeing that the art style is already so simplified, I decided to add in little details such as these, other little details include the scarf he will be wearing around his neck and perhaps a little suitcase). 

I ended up sticking to the same wind style I had used in the concept doodles (First pic at the very top of this post), that being the 2nd one. The rest, while stylish, did not give off the strong, forceful-looking gusts I wanted them to as compared to my final choice.

Character Poses and Background Concepts

The blue ones above are just practice sketches to see how expressive I can make a faceless character and to see how far I can actually exaggerate his body language. Giving him a face was definitely taken into consideration, but somehow I found it appealingly more challenging to animate a faceless character and see if the viewers can tell what he is feeling through the way he poses and moves instead.

The green ones at the bottom are background concepts, I decided to go with the center (The street one) one as I don't think I will have enough time to do an animated background that will match the movements of the wind and character.