End of semester

So I've got quite a bit of progress with my film, even though it's not nearly where I thought I would be at this stage. I completed some rough animation and keys and have layouts for the entire film. It is at three minutes right now, way too long, I think. I will take the break to work on tightening the story to shorten the animation and get it to move faster. I know there were some questions about the clarity in my story. I'll also do some color keys and hope to complete the backgrounds as well. Next semester will require me to do a lot more work to get this film finished.

http://vimeo.com/33766358

Update

So I've been slightly reworking my film over the past week or so, re-drawing a lot of my initial layouts and trying to find better angles to give the animation more of the feel I want. It feels much better, to me at least. My main objective now is to complete the keys for all scenes, something I've been doing for the past couple of weeks. The goal is still to complete rough animation by the end of January, and I'm already feeling the crunch.

Here are some of the tests I've shot recently.

Cave concept

A concept painting for the cave environment. It's a very mystical place, hence the blue lighting and ethereal look. The walls are supposed to be covered with animal paintings.

Some art

This is the poster I used for my film before I changed the story and a piece of art I did to capture the feel of the forest.

The Animatic

This is version four of my story in animatic form. I've done away with a lot of the story and reworked it to be a little more magical and mysterious. The fox that was a regular predator looking for lunch is now a sort of spirit that gathers the dying animals to its cave. The squirrel may or may not be dead by the end of the film. 

My film will be a traditionally animated short, hand drawn, and colored and composited in the computer. I am drawing heavily on Disney and other great animation as my inspiration, and hope that this film will showcase my abilities as a character animator.

The film is about a little girl called Dot and her pet flying squirrel Berry, who encounter a fox in the forest where they play which then carries Berry off. Dot will have to save her. I have a solid design for Dot as of now, and am working on the storyboards that I will have to revise over the weekend to make the story flow better.

















Berry's design and colors have not been finalized yet. I also have to design the characters of the evil fox, and Dot's grandmother who will feature in the film. The setting is mostly forest and the fox's cave, with a few scenes near Grandmother's cottage. The backgrounds will be painted in Photoshop.

I am looking to animate around two to three minutes of animation and maybe add extra scenes at the end of the year is time allows. I am shooting to have the animation flat colored, and maybe add shadows at the very end again if I have the time.