Final Animation for Animation Skills

Titled "Fear" (Of being interacting with others and being judged, mainly sociophobia), alternatively titled "That Escalated Quickly", enjoy!

Final Study Task - Progress 2

Accurate depiction of my present state

Alright, so I put my heart and soul into this final project, I nearly sprained my fingers and my back is killing me, but I think I finally got it done… though it could obviously have turned out a lot better.

Since there wasn't much time left, I felt that digitally animating my final project would be the most efficient way to go, as I could easily go back to any frame and edit them should they seem out of place, there also wouldn't be the issue of wasting time scanning in frames one by one.

I believe a bit more explaining is in order for my decision in my choice of animation style. Aside from time constraints, I actually believe that by using a limited color palette, certain details can be better enhanced to create a more dramatic feel, many examples of horror works tend to stick to such a coloring style (Such as the few that I had shown in my research post). And by using a spot/outstanding color for the gore, that will especially allow it to stand out more than fully coloring each frame for the animation.

Also to me a simple line art style would conceal the true intent and aim of the animation, so to allow me to surprise the viewer with what occurs later on (Why am I making it sound like my animation is a full length film?).

I had to sadly cut back on a number of details, otherwise I would have planned to render each frame like these two I did while I was experimenting:

 

… as well as go into more accurate detailing for the blood splatters and such… the best I could do was clean and thin the lines a bit more, as well as try to prevent the tentacles/tendrils/tendons from looking like a blood fountain show (And honestly it now looks like bacon to me). I also had to cut out the last scene as I was taking too long to smoothen out the animation (Though I placed the unfinished scene inside the development folder for submission).

Alternatively I am going to title this animation "That Escalated Quickly", for obvious reasons. Now I have to go back and polish my other works for submission, whew.

Also to my family, I promise I will work on cuter and prettier projects after this, I love you guys, mmkay?

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Final Study Task - Research

When my laptop starts getting slow while I'm animating on Photoshop, it means it's time I do something else… so here are a few works I used for research and inspiration in my short little animation.

Junji Ito

One of my biggest inspirations when it comes to the horror and macabre (Aside from Silent Hill), the amazing amount of details used to enhance each gruesome black and white image was always astounding to me, there was never ever need to color the gore. While I am trying my best to simplify the art style I am using for this animation (Especially by already using a limited palette), I am still trying to pick out little details to enhance the more gorey (STOP AUTOCORRECTING THIS WORD TO COREY UGH) frames, though it will sadly nowhere be as horrifying as the images above.

Sachsen

Sachsen is also another fantastic artist I knew for awhile now, he is pretty well known in the community for his cutesy faced girls and unbelievably detailed mutants and creatures, most of the time combine these two creatively together. In this case, I was just trying to get some ideas in the mutation design and see if there is any way to improve it further, while still keeping in mind that it needs to stay fairly simple due to time constraints.

The Thing

You are probably figuring out by now on what I am aiming for, and so you know it makes sense that I am also getting some references from "The Thing". It is surprisingly hard finding good images from the original film, but I remembered how amazingly creative and terrifying their designs were, I even chanced upon some pretty freaky comic and novel covers in the past, so I kept them in mind while working on bits such as the eye gore and the head removal, you know, the cringe-worthy bits…

 

I was looking through Ace Attorney sprites for animation references, especially since they have some pretty amazing animations while still also managing to use a limited number of frames for them... particularly for when my character is laughing. It is a huge relief that not too much motion is required in portraying that action, only a few body parts really need to be focused on instead when animating the laughter motion.

Still I am having a little trouble when she is laughing with her head down, it seems a little stiff, but when I remove a few frames, it wounds up being far too fast for my liking. I will go back to that area after I finish the other frames that aren't causing me as much trouble...

Final Study Task - Progress

There wasn't much time given for this final assignment, so I am afraid I didn't get a chance to explore all the themes that were available in this assignment (Aside from the mind maps in the earlier post). I couldn't get much sketching done either, so I figured it was best to pick out one of the more outstanding ideas I had written down awhile back and quickly get to animating as I only have a week left.

Fear stood out to me the most, and not often do I get to work on something more horror-based (Even though I am quite a fan of that genre), and as the duration is pretty short, I feel that this if my chance to have some fun in animating something short, sweet, and gory.

I still have to try my best to keep it as simple as possible as this is practically my first major animation assignment (No, really).

Assignment Outline

Sketches

The idea is pretty much based on a nightmare I had a couple of weeks back, about a family that have horribly mutated and a girl that was hiding away from them in a tiny cabinet as they devoured something right on top of it (And to me that was the scariest part, they were eating cake, and blood was splattering everywhere). Obviously I can't animate the entire thing for this assignment so I separated it into several areas, as well as sketched out some more obvious types of fears/phobias (Darkness, clowns, dolls, etc.).

In terms of this depiction of fear however (Aside from the obvious physical manifestation of a terrifying monster) for the top sketches, I feel that it depicts the fear of the unknown as well as the fear of being negatively judged and mistreated by others (Hence the cruel laughter), be it peers or one of your siblings.

I would also consider this to be fitting of the Happiness theme.

My choice was quickly confirmed with my lecturer so the next thing was to sketch out key points to make the animation process a little easier, instead of simply diving right into it, even if it is a short animation. I decided to do it digitally as it would be faster (I won't have to waste time scanning in frames one by one) and perhaps cleaner, as the brief mentioned to keep the animation as simple as possible, I decided to at least settle with a simpler coloring style, black and white with red for the gore.

Final Study Task - Brainstorming 1

Whew, I can't believe 5 weeks have already gone by, I just spent the morning doing up some quick mind maps for my final Study Task, as you can see some are a lot smaller and half-assed as compared to the others, which makes it easier for me when it comes to choosing which themes I will start sketching concepts for…

Well back to work.