The Bond of Four - After the Deadline

   I have already set myself a deadline for after today's deadline, which will be the Exhibition itself starting on the 13th of June (But chances are that we will have to hand in our works and set up everything much earlier than that). 

   And here' s a to-do list:

1. Finish the animation itself:
   - Sketch out the last few scenes
   - Clean up animation sketches (All timing should then be properly established for Luke to work with)
   - Colour (Which can be done while Luke starts working on the soundtrack again)
2. Finish painting last few backgrounds (Only about 1 to 2 left)
3. Do up a couple more polished looking character sheets and concept art
4. Update art book before getting it printed
5. Have Luke update the soundtrack

   Those are the mandatory steps that I should take after this deadline while also moving onto PPP3 and its deadline.

The Bond of Four - Working with Luke

   Luke Tingle, from the very first time I decided to work with him, has always been an incredibly composed and dependable individual, and so it was only right when I decided to go back to him for my music and sound needs for this project. After presenting my animatic to the class during that one critique session more than a month back, I thought Luke would have been to commence putting together a proper soundtrack from what I had given him. Before then, I had shared with him a few examples on what sort of music I wanted, while also giving him the time to gather together the sound effects that I would like to include in the animation.

   It was about a month later and 2 to 3 weeks before this deadline that I started worrying if a little. When speaking to one another through Facebook on one another's progress, Luke said that he could only truly start composing a proper soundtrack for the animation only after it was fully completed. While confounded and beginning to panic a little by that point (Seeing as Cara was able to get a soundtrack composed for her by simply providing an animatic to her own composer), I started discussing the matter further with Luke on what could be done, seeing as there was no way that I was going to completely finish this animation for this module's submission. Luke was thankfully as patient and assuring as always, and eventually, we agreed that a percussive of sorts would work better for this submission, a full proper soundtrack would be developed after the deadline when I continue finishing up this animation for June.

   And so for the time being, throwing whatever new scenes (Be they completely or just somewhat better looking than those posted doodles) I have into the animatic, I then handed it over to Luke through the shared Dropbox folder for him to put together the percussive. I am sure that I will at least still have an original soundtrack for this submission and will be able to replace the placeholder music that I have been using this entire time. But if not, I at least still have a backup (That being the placeholder music).

The Bond of Four - Working with Rosy 2

   To wrap up things up on the title sequence itself, I am thankful that there is at least one part of the animation that is technically completed and ready to be viewed for submission, and all that is thanks to Rosy and her boyfriend Ben. There really weren't too many problems (Save for a few tiny misunderstandings between us due to our increasingly exhausted we were getting) and the design of the title sequence was done in just a few weeks. So, I realise I have only actually made one other blog post about this, and that was more than a month back when I simply mentioned what it was that I actually wanted Rosy to do... Sooooo, with our Facebook conversation as my reference, let me try to summarise what has taken place during this long period.

   Since answering the first set of questions I received from her (Which was mentioned in the first post), I eventually decided that I would preferably like to only have an ending sequence designed for my animation as it better suited the overall presentation of it. This decision came about when Cara and I were one day throwing ideas at one another when sharing with one another progress on both our projects. I received a couple more some time after once she commenced working on mine:

1. What is your plan for your audio

   (i) Would you like me to provide audio to fit on the end like Lurk or would you have that           covered?

    I would like for Luke to work on that too, but I fear that due to time constraints, we wouldn't be able to do so. ;u; Just like that time when we tried with Lurk, haha.  

   (ii) If yes, what is your plan for the sudden cut into the fight sequence audio?

   I'm pretty sure that part would be covered by Luke though? It is just this abrupt change from a seemingly peaceful and sombre atmosphere.

2. What characters would you mainly like featured in the credits? (I have had a look through your Tumblr but not sure what ones you want as the final designs) 

   Most definitely should include the 4 main characters: Aoyi (The one with the orange scarf), Hojo (The one in very loose blue robes and has heterchromia), Jubei, (The one with the sleepy expression on his face) and Date (The masked assassin), others can be added to at your choice.

3. A list of Cast and Artists? 

   There is no cast or artists, save for you, Luke and possibly your bf if he does help out with the music for the ending sequence?

   NOTE: I would hope to discuss a small change with Rosy about this as I wish to include Yiynova's involvement in this. Seeing as this was my first ever tablet monitor I have ever animated with. None of this would have been possible without their product, to be quite honest, and so giving them a small mention would be absolutely lovely.

4. Would you like me to design a typeface again like Lurk or work around a pre-made type. (Both would work in my opinion unless you want it to be like a signature)

   Both would work just fine for me too!

5. Since you would like me to only focus on an ending credit scene, what kind of duration were you thinking? (40 seconds?)

   Yeah, around 40 sec is fine.

   From then on, I simply started throwing all my concept art and sketches into the dropbox that were shared between me, her and Luke, and let her grab whatever she wanted out of there as she started working on the ending sequence. Knowing that she was also working on several other sequences for a few others, I gave her all the space she needed and didn't really badger her with too many questions until it started getting closer to the deadline. But, during that period, Rosy had also set up an Instagram account to show her progress on all these title sequences that she was working on, including my own. 

   About a week or so back during one of our tutorial sessions, I started giving more thorough feedback on how it was that I actually visualised the ending sequence, particularly when it came to the style of music. The placeholder music that she used initially was much too energetic, and so I started sending her a few sombre music pieces (Including the ending music for the Legend of Korra) as examples as to what I actually had in mind for the title sequence. And, as for the look itself, it was getting there, but again, I wanted to go for a more quiet feel than the fast paced animation she had used for the first version (Hopefully she posts that version on her own blog so you will know what I mean). My last super important request was to make sure that the title itself actually sort of popped up right after the animation itself ended on a plain black background, very much like how the title of the Lion King appeared after it's opening sequence with the birth of Simba.

   And after that, all I really needed was a png of the title she designed so that I could use it for my concept artbook... and that's the gist of it.

The Bond of Four - The First Storyboard and Other Stuff

   This storyboard is a travesty, and with so many changes having been made when I started on the animatic, I almost thought that there wasn't any point in even including it here... but then I remembered that we needed to show our progress and so... here you go, here are all the posted notes I painstakingly rearranged so that it would make some sense if you squint closely enough. Again, a lot of scenes were either changed or cut out completely. The final scene however was never storyboarded and was instead directly animated into the animatic itself. A lot of scenes were simplified too as it would eventually go over 2 minutes (I was really trying to stick to a minute, but that would really be pushing it with all these necessary scenes that I really needed to keep in).

I figured I might as well include some of the sketches I did way back
to get the creative juices flowing. I hope to do more actually so that I can
include them in the concept art book.

   Here you will see some sketches I did of Lee Jin as I played around with her relationship with Prince Jubei, Prince Jubei's appearance has also been updated here when compared to the color concept I did of him, his eyes are no open and his hat is a little different. There are also some studies of how Ayame handles her weapons, which I did around the same time I was storyboarding concepts of the fight sequences.

The Bond of Four - Animatic

   While this is probably the messiest animatic that I have ever done so far, I am glad that I was able to throw a lot of animation tests in there as my proof of concept. I did skip a bit of the beginning where there is a quiet view of the moon as the camera slowly pans back. The music here is simply used as a placeholder and will hopefully give Luke an idea of what I am going for, and I actually think that both tracks I have used nicely matches the pace of each scene... Now if you will excuse me, I am just going to sit back in relief that I actually managed to finish this thing for our presentation that will take place in a few hours time...

The Bond of Four - Animation Tests

   To make up for the fact that I still need to get a lot more concept artwork done after tomorrow's deadline for Research and Development, I tried including as many animation tests as I possibly could into the animatic itself, there should be more resting periods/pauses added in there as well as some speeding up on certain parts, but other than that, it should still be below 2 minutes, excluding the title sequences later on. 

   Over the past few days, whilst looking through numerous references, I ended up directly doing several animation tests (After storyboarding a couple as well based on some instructional videos I watched, and oh, there were way more that I watched, I'm just not going to link them all here) for the fight sequences to see what might look decent enough to be inserted into the animatic itself, there were a lot of times I wondered whether I should just let them use one weapon each instead of a dual set (Just to make things easier for myself), particularly Ayame, who is seen handling two fans in most of my concepts of her. 

   

   The same goes for Date however, whose fighting style is based on Taki from Soul Calibur, but while she herself handles dual kodachis, it is not often that she would use both of them and has a preference in using the one placed on the higher part of her back (Which at times makes the second kodachi more cosmetic in my opinion)... Either way, Date is going to get his butt kicked in this animation.

Only background I did by this point.

The colliding bit can most certainly be sped up a bit, I also feel that I should improve
on the strength of the impact itself.

The Bond of Four - A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

   Things have been a huge, huge mess for me these past weeks, and with the deadline for Pre-Production work drawing near, I found myself swapping between several things over the last few days. While my rough storyboard is practically 99% complete, I found myself changing a few things whilst working on the animatic, such as completely redoing some scenes or cutting them out completely (Needing to make sure that I didn't go over my 1 minute duration).

Fight scenes not included here.

   I ended up storyboarding several different versions of the fight scene (Whilst watching numerous videos for references), and having a tough time deciding on which one to go with, I found myself trying out an animation test for it instead which I could then throw into the animatic later on. Fight scenes are admittedly hard to visualise for a newbie such as myself, and most certainly took much longer than I expected to storyboard. The final scene especially is suppose to dramatically if not abruptly increase in terms of the tempo and pacing.

Try outs.

    After having a glimpse at Cara's own storyboards and animatic, I felt that both our scenes of our characters falling back were a little too similar (My scene can be seen in that terrible photograph of my rough storyboard if you look reeeeaaal closely), and so I decided to try something a little different with my scene. While I am still unsure about whether I should go with this version instead of my character simply falling off screen, I will at least have an alternative for the time being. I also feel that this is certainly more dynamic and humorous to see as compared to the original, and will certainly present the more humorous and clumsy side to this character.

   I have also decided to give in and order myself a tablet (With permission from my parents of course) in hopes of being more efficient and productive from this period onward.

The Bond of Four - Character Designs 4

   So it's been awhile since I posted about any of my character designs, and while one of them will no longer be featured in the animation itself (This will be discussed about further in another post about the storyboard and animatic itself), here they are! Lord Hideyori and Tamaki the Giant.

   As Lord Hideyori is obviously meant to be this character that leads a very luxurious lifestyle, I had to figure out someway to keep that extravagant look his robes had without having to draw in heavy amounts of detailing on the sash and hems (Like I had with the old illustration). I soon enough found one brush I had that creates a subtle sort of texture instead of flatly coloring an area which I think would make his robes look less plain. The first color scheme as always is based on the colors used in the original illustration. I will be honest when I say that I am still pretty stuck on what color scheme to go for with this character, and so while keeping the feedback I was given by my buddy in mind on Skype, I will hopefully be able to get more feedback during my presentation this coming Thursday.

   I decided to remove Tamaki the Giant from the animation while I was halfway through redesigning him, but decided to continue on finishing his character sheet so that it can be placed inside the art book itself (It still really breaks my heart that I had to take him out, along with the little kiddies that he took in, and speaking of them, I still need to design them too). I also used the same texture brush to color him like I did with Lord Hideyori so that his outfit wouldn't seem too plain, and in this case, it works in giving him a more rustic feel. And seeing as he will no longer be in the animation, I did a second version that is closer to his design in the original illustration (AKA, the psychedelic vest). Also a noticeable difference between the original design and this one is that his hair now covers his eyes, which is a little detail I felt added to the adorable quality that this gentle giant should portray.

   I did this way back and just hadn't posted it. After receiving some more feedback from Cara and the others, I eventually decided to go with the biggest image in the right-hand corner as Ohana's final design. Everything else was just a little too genie-ish than witchy (Look at my splendid variety of vocabulary here). The ones in the right corner bear far too much resemblance to Blue Diamond from Steven Universe... which, I did technically base the design on, to be quite honest. Also, I really did want to show her eyes in the animation, so that was another reason to boot that design out.

   I have considered several eye colors for her, and for awhile, I almost considered something otherworldly and interesting for her (Aside from some crazy anime colors, I even thought of slitted pupils)... But they all turned out a little too evil or freaky for a character who was suppose to be a 'good witch', and so I decided to go with a warm brown for her eye color. I even considered making her blind during one time... Which, I am actually still thinking about... Nah, the brown honestly suits her best out of them all.

The Bond of Four - Third Tutorial Session

   So, the one thing that stood out in particular from this tutorial session with Mat is the fact that we will be presenting our Pre-Production work by the 17th of March, which is in about 2 weeks time. Of course, I had to be honest and inform Mat that I was at least 1 week or so behind on my work (When checking back to the schedule/gantt chart that I had put together for myself way back) due to some personal matters that have gotten in the way, but I am hoping that I will still have a chance to catch up over the next few weeks.

   Rough storyboarding is at least 80% complete and I should be able to put together a quick animatic over the weekend so that I will now how long its entire duration will be, which will then allow me to know whether I should actually cut out any scenes. To keep to my desired level of animation quality, it is a necessity not to go over the initial duration I had planned for this animation. Sometimes, sacrifices just have to be made, despite how you may love and wish to include everything... and while I am not looking forward to that, it must be done.

   Once that is done with, I will try to insert in more (If not all) polished images before sending it to Luke so that he can begin composing the music for it. And speaking of music, Cara brought up a wonderful idea of intensifying the final scene, along with the music itself. Meaning, a slower but nonetheless 'epic' style of music will play for the majority of the music, but at the very end, things get absolutely intense as the fight scene reaches its supposed climax... I'm terrible at describing these things but I hope Luke will understand what I am talking about when I tell him about it.

   While all main characters have been designed, I still need to design two more characters that will be included in the animation. This does not include the background characters, but that shouldn't be as time-consuming as the main character designs themselves. If there is time, I would absolutely love to put together a few turnarounds for some of them, as well as expression sheets.

   I was gently requested to have some form of animation test done from the fight scene itself as my proof of concept for the presentation itself. Not that these lists have been of great use to me based on past experiences, but here we go, a little list on the key things I should try to finish up before the presentation day itself:

1. Character Designs
2. Storyboard
3. Animatic
4. Some Background Designs
5. Last Few Research Posts
6. Animation Test/s

The Bond of Four - Second Tutorial Session

   It feels nice having Mike and Mat again to help us out for this module (It honestly feel like forever since I have last seen them, to be quite honest), and it was last Friday where I shared with Mike my idea and progress, just as I had with Annabeth and Mat. By speaking to my third and final lecturer, I felt that everything has now been established once and for all, now that all of them have approved of my idea and what I am planning to produce at the very end of it all. While I might have already repeated this in several other posts, it only seems right to keep hammering it into my head so that I don't end up steering off like I normally do. An animation of the utmost quality (I'm definitely going to go all out) of 1 to 2 minute duration and a concept art book will be done for this project. 

   In terms of progress, it was during that same day where the bulk of my script was finished as well as the last of the main character designs. It was from there that we agreed that the very next thing I should be working on is the storyboards and the animatic itself, which I hope to finish over the next week. A few animation tests should be done too if possible, at least for one of the main characters. A few simple scenes will do, just so I can get started somewhere. There are a couple more character designs that I need to finish, but they can be done in between storyboarding and such.

The Bond of Four - Character Designs 3

   Whew, so it's been awhile since I updated. But so far so good in terms of the character designs themselves, while I still have at least two more to go (Excluding background characters), all the main characters have been designed by this point and it's finally time to move onto storyboards and perhaps a few animation tests. I am really hoping to get all of that done by next week and send an animatic over to Luke so that he can begin planning for the music itself. My Tumblr blog has also been shared with Rosy and all concept art is available for her usage when she begins designing the title sequences for this animation.

   I have seen many people regard their creations as their children, and perhaps, I am starting to understand exactly how they feel. Being a huge fan of assassin characters, Date quickly became one of my most favorite designs. Granted, he was definitely a pain to polish and update (Especially when I had to look back to my 6 year old illustrations) because of how much details I had to take out when I have to consider the fact that I have to animate him in a fight scene…

   So there’s not much variety going on with Date as compared to the other characters, but I really just wanted to keep his outfit as simple as possible. So of course, the chainmail and little patterns had to go! I am most likely going to stick to the black and grey color scheme for him, though I’m still considering keeping his scarf a greyish blue color. Details probably won't be that much of an issue considering the fact that the fight will take place at night with lots of shadows covering up most of the details.

   While all of them were pretty much had closed eyes and missing mouths and noses in the old illustrations, I found myself keeping the closed eyed look for Prince Jubei... well, at least in this concept piece (In a rough sketch of mine, I actually gave him rather lazy if not slanted down eyes when they are open). Prince Jubei may seem like the laziest little bugger the kingdom has ever seen, but the majority of the royal family are well aware of the sharp intellect he possesses, as well as the immense potential as a political leader. Which makes him the top runner up for the throne.

   I then put together a quick character lineup to see how they all looked together. Jubei definitely needs a little more work (But at least I got his outfit figured out) in terms of the art style used. It is pretty apparent that not all of them are done in the same art style.

   The next character design I worked on after that was Ohana the Witch (She's practically floating in this concept, hence the way her feet are positioned). While she is seen in a really brief scene in the animation, I intend for her to play a much bigger role in the story itself... and so found myself putting a lot of love into her design. I was still able to keep all the little details for Ohana the Witch, seeing as she was going to be in one short scene in which she barely moves in (Save for her face and hands).

   I was going to do up one really quick reference of her (I was simply going to go with her original design, which is the second piece shown here) but ended up getting inspired by several gorgeous Indian and Thai traditional costumes that I saw on my dash… So, as compared to the other concept art where I simply messed around with different color schemes, I ended up designing a few different outfits for Ohana the Witch, while keeping to the same (Or similar) color scheme throughout.

The Bond of Four - Character Designs 2

   I managed to get Princess Hanabi's character design done, as well as experimented with a few other hairstyles for Ayami (I really liked the last few ones, but they would all be too difficult to animate). Princess Hanabi's design is obviously meant to contrast Ayami's in every way. She is meant to be your typical princess, who is full of rainbows and sunshine (Well, most of the time), and while some people may find that annoying that about the naive woman, people cannot help but be drawn to her as well, seeing as she is a genuinely sweet and caring person. Sometimes, it's not all that bad having someone like her around...

Princess Hanabi

    Hanabi's original design sported a lot of little gems on the hems of her sleeves and dress, obviously, I had to remove all of that as shown above (Still, I will probably do up a nice portrait of her with all those details included in) for the animated version. She was also the most fun to experiment with in terms of color scheme (I actually want to do a few more, but I feel that I should move on for the time being and get the other characters done first).

Alternative hairstyles for Ayami. 

A closer look at Hojo's facial design.

   As I had mentioned in my previous post, while Hojo's design is much simpler as compared to the rest of the cast, there are also some little details added in there to still make him somewhat memorable. He is the only character that has heterochromia, and while I was almost tempted to chosen more outstanding colors for his eyes (Such as green or blue, though, I notice that a lot of character designs tend to go for that combination when it comes to designing heterochromatic characters), I decided to go with something a little more subtle.... It's still going to stand out either way, especially during close ups.

The Bond of Four - Character Designs 1

   There are a total of 9 characters that will be featured in the animation (Excluding background characters), progress is still a little slow but I do hope to finish up most of my character designs by the end of this week (Something tells me that I might have to multi task and get a little storyboarding done too). Thankfully, most of their designs have already been somewhat established from my original project with them. There aren't many changes, some details are simplified so that it will be easier for them to animate (So I ended up removing lots of decorative patterns from their clothing, or changing an accessory to something much simpler to draw, or have it removed completely).

   I did mess around with some alternative hairstyles as well... you will see why.

Aoyi

    While these characters were designed more than 6 years back, I have gone through the rather exhausting experience of hearing people comparing one my main characters to several anime characters that have come about in recent years (Particularly Ryuko Matoi from Kill La Kill and Mikasa Ackerman from Attack on Titan), and that just wouldn't do. The first thing I thought about altering was her color scheme. While she would originally be the 'red' sibling (With that fancy scarf of hers), my friend and I found ourselves liking the orange scarf look, and perhaps, the darker colored coat. That scarf is meant to look like the most valuable thing on her, and it seems to me that the brighter orange makes it look just that as compared to the original red scarf that she wore in the original designs.

   I did try to experiment with some alternative hairstyles for her as well, but I found that none of them really suited her or the setting as much as the one I had originally chosen for her (The mohawk is cool and all but... yeah, it would be pretty out of place, unless I created a whole bunch of other characters that sported something similar). Of course, these hairstyles can now be recycled and applied to a bunch of background characters.

Ayame

   There is going to be that one character that you will always enjoy drawing as compared to the rest, Ayame just so happens to be mine. Seeing as she will be fighting in the animation, I wondered for awhile if whether her outfit was still practical enough for such movements. I also didn't want to necessarily give away the fact that there is much more to her than a voluptuous concubine. One particular detail I definitely to change for animating sake are the beads around her waist, I had to change them instead to colorful bindings (Hoping that they will still go with the rest of her outfit).

Hojo

   It saddens me that Hojo was a design I struggled with for a great deal of time, despite its simplicity compared to the design of my other characters, it remains one of my least favorite (But NOT because it is one of the simplest ones). He was also the first character that I actually designed for my first project... While the details can't be seen here, I will show what I have in mind for his facial designs to make him stand out more.

   While rather awkward when it comes to the way he interacts with other characters, there is still some form of elegance to his overall look, hence the noticeably more flow-y robes (Especially when compared to Aoyi and Ayame, and honestly, the others characters). I pondered for awhile about whether I should completely remove that part of his costume... before deciding against it as that is another detail that just made him who he is. While Aoyi is stealthy and athletic, Hojo is most definitely the brains of group (I obviously forgot to mention earlier that his robes are based on chinese scholar robes).

The Bond of Four - Working with Rosy

   I mentioned way back that Rosy will be working with me again on making a title sequence, and here's the progress so far on that.  About a week or so back, she asked me, along with a few others some necessary information needed to get the ball rolling. So, this isn't all that different to what I included in my Statement of Intent, but there's definitely some new information in here too:

1. What am I making?

A short story/teaser concept that should be around 1.5 to 2 minutes (This will be full confirmed once storyboards and an animatic are done)

I was especially inspired by these few examples (Particularly the first one):
https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/124313553
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5H9KqYZXiY (First 30 seconds)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5H9KqYZXiY (Updated version since the project met its goal on kickstarter)

Might be doing a little research write up on each of these examples in the future.

2. What sort of theme do I have in mind?

So, to summarise this animation, it's definitely going to be pretty… anime. I will definitely throw over a bunch of concept artwork to you that won't be in the animation itself, so there will actually be different content seen in the titles, just like in Lurk. It might be good t0 show a teaser preview of the characters themselves in the opening title (Like, don't fully reveal them, show close ups of parts of them that will make them stand out as a character each. The closing can have more stuff of scenery and whatnot?

3. What duration is the animation?

Around 1.5 minutes, that example might have been almost 3 minutes but lol, I'm not gonna kill myself like that. At most, it will be 2 minutes. Once you add the titles to it, it would definitely be around that 2min 40 sec mark, wouldn't it?

The Bond of Four - Tumblr Blog's Up

   As mentioned in my statement of intent, I will also be posting most of my concept art, animation tests and whatnot on a Tumblr side blog I created for myself, I obviously named it after the series itself (And I am pretty glad that no one had actually taken it).  It seems useful seeing as this will be a series that I hope to continue even after this module ends. There obviously isn't much going on right now (Seeing as I was focused more on the research side in the previous two weeks, and still sorta am, actually), but things will start picking up eventually. I will probably pick a nicer theme for it too eventually, which really won't take long once I get into it. Hopefully, I can get that bit done tomorrow.

   ... This is the shortest post I have made in my entire life.

The Bond of Four - First Tutorial Session

    After rushing up that steep hill (This is probably one of my most informal blog posts, but then again, how often am I actually ever formal?) and taking some time to catch my breath (Having just left my home 10 minutes before 9.30am)... I wounded up having a very progressive discussion with my lecturer and covered quite a few things during this first session (And as usual, went over the time limit, ehehe...), while she approved of my plan to make a short animation and a concept book to go along with it, she had quite a few tips and suggestions I was more than happy to take up on.

   Having finally shown Celles et Ceux des Cimes to her (Seeing as it is one of my biggest inspirations as to why I wanted to go in this direction in the first place), I was told that I could bring the animation duration down from 2 and a half minutes to 1 and a half instead. If there is time, I was also suggested to work on some animatics for scenes that will not be featured in the animation itself (Though, I am beginning to wonder if these particular scenes might require some voice acting in them... if so, professional voice acting wouldn't be required, right? Or should I go that extra mile and find some experienced folks that will be willing to do just that?).

   Aside from the content one would expect of any concept art book (Such as character, setting designs and storyboards), the book will further expand upon the story, character biographies and the world design of The Bond of Four, I was reminded to give my character designs from big, strong action poses, and now to stay too hung up on the concepts as compared to the animation itself. Seeing as I am taking a lot of influences from eastern cultures, the colour palettes should also be driven by them, and so quite a bit of research into these cultures is required (Such as the symbolism as to why certain colours are used in some of their costumes).

   Speaking of the eastern cultures that I will be looking into, I was once again told to narrow it down a little more instead of attempting to squeeze zillions of asian cultures all into one design, something that I am actually pretty relieved about being told to do, actually. Still, it wouldn't hurt to include some references from a few others and subtly incorporate them into my character design later on, if it works that is.

   The last bit of advice that I was given before I was chased out was to attempt to follow the same practice as Cartoon Saloon and develop concept art boards that closely (If not almost exactly) present what a final frame would look like in the animated trailer itself. And... just be smart and learn how to utilise whatever concepts I have into the animation itself (As well as reuse a few things such as tree designs when possible).

  

   And oh... try to use a back up drive during this entire project (Especially since this project is surely going to grow to ginormous proportions as I progress over the next few months, my poor laptop), and especially if I am intent on using one of the college's Cintiqs.

   AND OH! Other inspirations I had wanted to include to the bibliography and moodboards were Samurai Jack, Secret of Mana, Bee and Puppycat and Steven Universe (I am just going to list them down here for the time being until I get the chance to add them to the list).

   ... And also take a refresher course on After Effects so I can fully utilise it for my animation.

The Bond of Four - Moodboards

   I honestly should have started way earlier on my mood boards for my COP3 project (Which I had only just put together earlier this week), and I am certainly not making the same mistake again for this module. These were the mood boards I quickly put together for my first Extended Practice tutorial session to give my lecturer an idea on how exactly I am visualising this entire concept.

   This first board focuses mainly on the overall aesthetic of the project,
it is obvious that this project will be much more colourful as compared to Lurk,
and will have a very Asian flavour to it (Despite being a mainly fantasy based world
that I hope to build from scratch, so this also means researching into more fantasy
based works as well, which should include fairytales, myths, and so on). 

This one focuses more on a series of traditional costumes from various ethnic groups,
as seen from my old illustrations, a lot of inspiration and influences were actually taken from
Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Peranakan costumes. I attempted to include some more
variety this time round.

Some ideas on landscapes once I get started on designing the universe itself.

And here are my main inspirations and influences in terms of... everything.
The art and colour style, the character and costume designs, the narrative, etc.
Some of these examples have been applied when I had first worked on Bond of Four
all those years back, and now a few new inspirations have been added to this collection.

The Bond of Four - Introduction

Compilation of all the illustrations that I had produced for my old end of year
project.

   Much like my Context in Practice 3 project, I will be working and expanding upon an old project of mine back from my old art academy end year project. 

   Titled the Bond of Four (Though, who knows, I might actually change the title over the next few months as I work on it), the story focuses on four siblings whom are separated from one another at a very young age during a freak storm accident, everything was lost during that fateful night, and that included their little village and even their parents. Fast forwarding to a number of years later, two of these siblings happen to chance upon one other by fate (With one trying to pickpocket the other), only to find themselves going on an adventure to find their two other siblings, whom are about to be caught up in a particularly large political affair between two kingdoms.

   Will the siblings be able to reunite in time before a war is waged? Only time will tell.