This storyboard shows the basic flow of the 30 second cartoon.
Scene 1 shows a little alien kid bouncing a ball against a wall. Sounds in this scene will be general wildlife (birds etc) and the sound of a ball bouncing and hitting a wall.
Scene 2 will start when the ball bounces over the wall. When this happens, the kid will look down at his feet and sigh. I will be using noises rather then actual words for this 30 clip because of the lack of time and because I was inspired my the long running children TV show Pingu where all communication in the show is down with random noises rather then words.
Scene 3 will consist of the kid knocking on Mr Johnson's house because the ball landed in his garden. The sounds in this scene will consist of background noises (birds etc) and the knocking on a door.
In scene 4, Mr Johnson will open the door and look angrily at the kid. The kid will have to look up at Mr Johnson because he is so talk, as he does so the little kids eyes (on storks) Start to shake as he gets scared. After some more noises from the kid and grunts from mister Johnson (which is them talking, and is hopefully obvious that the kid is asking for his ball back.) Mr Johnson shuts the door. After a couple of seconds he comes back with the ball in his hand. and gives it to the kid.
Scene 5 happens when the camera spins around and looks at the kid as he thanks Mr Johnson. But then Mr Johnson's arm quickly comes out and he pops the ball with his spiky fingers. The Kid looks down at the ball and starts to cry
Scene 6 starts when the camera spins back around to show Mr Johnson laughing at the little kid. Then he slams his door shut and the scene ends with the little alien kid crying over his popped ball.
This simple sketch was to help me with what type of eyes to go with and other features of my character, for example clawed hands are threatening and add a feel of power to many evil villeins but what type of claws, should they be just pointed fingers, retractable claws like a tiger or a lion or should the fingers themselves be blades.
This first sketch show basic ideas for shapes of eyes, whether they should be on storks or just on a face ( if they are on storks it will be easier to get the eyes to look down on people but it also makes it look a little bit nicer in my opinion then if its just on a head.)
The mouth is also interesting, I like the idea of a big mouth that is almost as wide as the head. I think shark teeth are a nice touch since it looks like the mouth can easily eat you, but i think it might be a bit much for a children villein.
The first tutorial was to create cartoon eyes and use a FFD box to manipulate them. To create the eyes we started off sphere, then sliced it in half to get and eye lid. Then we created a copy of the half sphere and rotated it around to create the bottom eye lid, then it was simply a matter of creating a slightly smaller sphere inside the eye lids and crop out a small pupal. then adding a material that will make they eye white and the pupal black.
By then attaching the eye to a FFD box to the eye I am able top manipulate the eyes shape is a way which will help express emotions though the eyes. This technique will come in very hand when making my characters.
All in all I am rather disappointed with myself for the video. Quite a lot went wrong when I was making this small animation. It took me 3 weeks just to skin the model and another 2 to find out how to animate the CAT tool.
If I had time I would spend a lot more of my time on lip sinking with the sounds, as well as add a lot more background sound into the animation. There are long periods of silence in it at the moment and it is a little bit boring.
I would also want to spend more time on the effects. Even though the render is in hi def, the video quality is still very disappointing.
The first scene consists of the child (victim) head butting a ball over the wall. to set up this scene I needed to create a plane on the floor. A box for the pavement and another box for the wall. These where all then given the appropriate texture. The sky behind the wall was created simply my applying a sky tile texture to a plane.
During the animation, a ball bounces to the wall, then back to the child. then the child headers it over the wall and leans over in disappointment.
The next scene has the child knocking on the door of the bad guy. when the door opens the eyes of the child vibrate to show he is scared. While he is shaking, he asks the bad guy if he gane get his ball back. The bad guy replys and then closes the door. A few seconds later he reopens the door with the ball in his hand and gives it to the child.
The camera pans around to show the ball with the child. The bad guy's hand then comes in and pops the ball. the camera
The camera the npans back to the bad guy who larphs out loud, his eyes close and the leans back in a laughing fit, he then slams the door and the camera pans back to the child.
The child looks at his feet and crys, this will end the 35 second animated clip.
CAT systems are a little bit more difficalt to animate then simple bones tools and similar bone structures. To animate with CAT you first need to add a new animation layer to the CAT system mosion modifyer
This is the CAT tool motion modifyer. In order to animate you firast hav e to add a new animation layer by pressing the ABs button, then you press the play button. Only know will you be able to use key frames and both AUTO KEY and SET KEY to animate a model that is useing the CAT tool.
These are the two characters in the animation. The one of the left is my bad guy and the one on the right is my victim. As you can see, I've made it so the bad my is in a constant stoop, making him loom over the victim constantly, Ive also made his hands sharp and pointy to give him a more threatening look. The little victim Ive made much sorter then the bad guy and his only facial extremities are his eyes. His eyes are wide and innocent looking to make him look young and week. The eyes are on storks so I easily make them shake and vibrate with fear when he gets scared.
Both the bad guy and the little victim are boned using the CAT tools. These tool make it easy to construct bones and customise there sizes into the necessary shapes easily and effectively, making it less likely that the skin will be pulled in the opposite way my another bone that is unrelated to its actual movement.
The main body for the character was crated using a capsule, then I added a edit poly to it and using soft select with a fall out of 10. I then moved the middle vertices's closer into the centre of the shape. This gave the character his unique peanut shape. His mouth was made using the cut tool. I simply cut some new vertices's into the body and then deleted the middle faces to create a hole, lips I added later simply by bending two planes and merging two of the vertices's together to crate a mophable mouth.
The shoulder joints of this model are simple spheres and the arms are made out of two separate tubes with the inside row of polygons removed, then to give them a more muscular shape I simply applied a editable poly modifier and slightly pushed out the vertices's around the arm. His hands where more tricky. They stated as a cylinder with 18 sides. Then I extruded 6 of the sides, making sure to leave a 2 side gape between each extrusion. These formed the base of the fingers, I then selected the top face of each finger and moved it so the it was slanted. then I extruded each finger one more time and once again slanted the top face to create a pointed, spiky hand.
The legs where made the same way as the arms however i used a sphere for the nee caps instead of the hip joint. The feet are simply squashed sphere again and the toes are squashed cylinders.
I wanted to create eyes that looked menacing to look at. The bad guy is very tall so he is always looking down on other people. The eyes themselves where created using 3 separate spheres. Two of we adjusted the hemisphere on them to create two half spheres. The third we made slightly smaller then the others to fit in between them. Then we slightly adjusted the hemisphere in order to create the pupal. I made one of the eyes significantly bigger then the other inorder to give a more "mad" look. I then applyed a FFD box tool to each of the eyes. I then adjusted the vertics to make the side of the eye closest to the nose (or where it would be if my charactor had one) into a squint, I then exstended the back vertices in both of the eyese (the onse furthese away fro mthe nose) out inorder to raze the eyelide to create the look you see know.
This is the rendered and see though (boned) view of my model (the little alien behind him is the protagonist of the show)
I went for a deep red colouring for the villain character because it really gives him a evil aura and red is associated with danger.
The spike/ claw like hands are suppose to be threatening and creepy
The size of him is also to make him look dominate and scary compared to the little child alien. He also is constantly stooped over, combined with his size, it makes him constantly looming over who ever is talking to him, making him so he is always physically looking down on everybody
Height: 8.3 ft (although his is always slumped over so he only stands at 6 ft)
Likes: moaning about everything, basketball, marshmallows and making others as miserable as he is.
Dislikes: soup(cant pick it up because of his fingers), low doors/ceilings and people who wont listen to him moaning. He also hates his job.
Mr Johnson is a bully, he always has been since he was a child and it stayed with him thought his adult life. Bullying others makes him feel better about his boring desk job, he wanted to be a basket ball player but whenever he got the ball it kept popping because of his spike finders.
The only thing he likes about his fingers is that they are good for picking up marshmallows. Because he does not like his job he is always moaning about it to who ever is around but it makes him moan even more if nobody will listen to his moaning.
Also his jobs cafeteria only ever serves soup, he hates soup because he cant pick up a spoon or pick it up with his fingers, no marshmallows are much better.
Villein Research and Research Boards
Smiling Villains. In my research I have found that all the best villains that children love have three things in common. An evil smile, An evil laugh and a cool villain song. As I wont have enough time to create a villain song in this small 30 second animation. Ill stick with an evil laugh and a creepy smile. The smile can come in many ways. For Maleficent, it was an evil self satisfying grin. For Scar it was a mischievous smile that said he new more then you do. For Count Lord Frolo, It as a sinister smile that made you know he was about to do something positively EVIL!!!
I have chosen to focus my research onto three villains in particular. They are Maleficent, the evil witch from Sleeping Beauty. Scar from the lion king and Count Lord Frolo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Maleficent
Maleficent is one of the most famous and feared of all the Disney villains. Evey this about her screamed evil, her glowing yellow eyes pierced though you, her evil laughter sent shivers down your spine. Unlike most villains that just want power, she already has power, in fact the only reason why she puts the princess in an eternal slumber is because she was not invited to a party. She has both unbelievable amounts of magic power and is more then capable of turning you to dust, but she is also incredibly manipulative and she is very good and mind games as well allowing her to attack you moth physically and mentally. Even though Sleeping beauty came out in 1959 this lady is so evil she still makes it into the top 3 spaces of most evil Disney villain lists, and tops many of them.
Scar
Scar is different from most villains in that he actually succeeds in killing of a main character (Mufasa, Simba's farther) Like most villains scar wants power, he want to because king and rule over the pridlands Scar himself has a very interesting character design. unlike the other lions in the movie, which are bright yellows and browns, Scar has very dark brown skin and black fur, he also has his signature scar across his left eye, its dull pink is in real contrast to the glowing yellow eyes (again with yellow eyes, hmmmmm) and his dark skin, it really catches your attention and easily lets you no why his name is scar without even being told.
Count Lord Frolo
Count Lord Frolo probably has the longest list of crimes that almost any other Disney villain, he kills, he burns down houses, he tries to drown ugly baby's, but he justifies all of these horrible acts by lieing to the people as much as himself. He truly thinks of himself as a very religious person he is driven mad by his lust for the Gypsy girl Esmeralda. Disney took a big risk with this villain, they not only made him do much more evil things them most other villains but his motives for doing them is because of a very complex and adult reason. But in doing so they made a villain that very few forget and in the end his true evil is finally reviled and people loved him for it. The subject matters of this villain crimes and reasoning are a very dangerous subject and so I will be steering clear of this style of villain, although it is interesting to note just how far sum Disney villains can go, exspecily when you consider there intended audience.
After I looked at the assignment brief, I got quite interested in the consept of being able to create a villan. A hero is only as good as there villan and if you ask people who they remember from a film or animated show they will alsmos always say the villan befor the heroin. The villan is what hooks people to the show, the villan song is always the best and its them that create all of the atmosphere and chalanges that the heroin has to go though.
The assignment says that he villan we need to create is for a childrens tv show where the target audiance is 7 to 12 year olds, this aspect of the brif rearly lends itself to a cartoonish style villan, so more like Wild Coyote (Loony Toons) rather then Oogie Boogie (The Nightmere Befor Chrismas). All in all I think im quite looking forward to making this style of villan and I am looking forward to the module.
