After choosing the audio, the exercise where we had to draw down what initially came to mind when listening to our audio helped me get all the ideas that I had and made it so I didn’t stick to one idea and also having the situations be more unexpected and not being an exact copy of what the audio was originally from. My ideas ranged from the most expected situation I could think of being two people talking, the most unexpected was to use the sound and put it in the context of animals talking about their “litter”. In the end, I wanted to go with the more unexpected situation as there was more I could do with the audio.
at this point, I was still figuring out the story or narrative I was trying to focus on and other details like how the characters might relate to each other. In the end, I went with the idea that it was two cats talking about their trash in the context of the owner having to take out their litter which plays on the word in the audio as they discuss not littering.
the feedback I got back from my classmates was that the storyboard needed to be made clearer on which cat was on the frame – at the time I had already made the character design sheets for this second draft but I needed to apply it to the storyboard, also they suggested making a character sheet for the owner too since his movement is still visible while the other two cats are talking.
when designing these I thought about how I could design them to fit the aesthetic style I had in mind for this project, I wanted flat colours and more outlines so it would look more on the illustrative side. I also changed around the initial colour palette I had in mind to a more muted softer earthy colour palette since its less bold and calmer, but also so for the end scene it would contrast more since it is brighter.
note – I decided that the outlines being black looked too harsh, so I changed it and I liked this outcome better since it was much softer and it would also allow the characters to stand out better as they would be outlined in black
-Transcript –
Tall cat – that guy’s got a ton of trash
Small cat – he’s being VERY VERY nice , he’s really helping the community, thumbs up to that guy!
Tall cat – thumbs up to that guy!
Small cat – all the litterers, i just have to say PLEASE STOP LITTERING, we’ll give you peace
Choosing the audio was quite hard but I ended up using a short interview clip which could be interpreted in many ways, I tried to think of unexpected ways I could convey the conversation but also the most expected being an interaction between two characters with one being the interviewer. I got inspired by the animations of past students where their characters were animals having a conversation which I thought could translate well with my audio. While still thinking about the story I researched some art styles and colour palettes I thought would suit well with the vibe Initially I thought of it being cute and loose, similar to children’s book illustrations either with a bright or a more toned down colour palette. I went through many trials and errors thinking of what I wanted to animate and made a few storyboards and using the feedback from my peers (initially the storyboards were unclear and hard to differentiate the two cats from one another but at the time I was still making the character designs for the two cats so I was unsure what to put for the storyboard). with the character designs for the characters I initially did two but I got feedback to make a character design sheet for the owner since he would still be included, i went super simple with the designs since it would make it easier to animate and I could focus more on the animation then making sure the details stay consistent. an issue I did come across during this first elective was that when making my x sheet, it didn’t seem to link up to the audio when I was starting to animate on toon boom. Still, since it wasn’t fully off I used the x sheet as a guide and did most of the scrubbing of the audio again on toon boom. for my final outcome, I had some feedback from my peers suggesting that I needed a few more in-between in some sections, having close-ups of the cat that talking since it is confusing as there’s a lot of motion happening in the middle and also making a normal walk cycle for the owner as he walks off screen.
lipsync (feedback).mp4 – I applied all of the feedback I was given, however, I prefer it as a wide shot so you can see the owner walk out. the only downside is that it can get confusing on which character is talking