Responsive - Collaborative

After finishing the animatic and getting the final character designs from our illustrator, we began working on designing the card puppets.

One thing i realized when i started making some of the tests for the puppets is that this process is essentially rigging. The process is a more practical application of rigging used in 3d applications such as Maya. The same considerations need to be made, such as the range of motion needed for the arms and legs. For the different heads of the characters we used replacements, this technique can be likened to blendshapes in Maya.

When making a prototype for the arms, i realized just having joints for the shoulder and elbow wasn't enough to give the arms realistic movements. Therefore i added a scapula/collar bone joint that allowed the arm to access its full range of motion.

When designing the legs i had to consider what direction the character is facing in the shots, luckily the characters legs only needed to be facing right as the only scene of the characters face on was a mid shot which didn't include the legs. Working efficiently like this reduces production time. 

After i made the prototype for the adult characters, we made a size chart to make sure all the characters were to scale and that they would fit on the screen. It was a challenge trying to fit everyone on the screen in some scenes such as the first scene when all the characters are on the scene. However with a few altercations of the scale chart we worked it out.

After making the size chart we used it to make the characters. We used different types of card for the different characters, the characters were made out of normal matte black card whilst the elephant were made from white textured card.

After the characters were cut out we used a paint roller with acrylic paint to give some parts of the models interesting textures.

After the characters were fully complete, we split the scenes between us so we would each have an equal workload. One of the last scenes however, we decided to do all together which was interesting. We organized a day when we all came in and worked the whole day together on that scene. Rosie and Stacy both animated the children and i animated the baby elephant.

We were all pleased with the result. I think Rosie and Stacy animated the children well and i think i animated the elephant well too, the elephant has personality to it in its stumbly walk and bobbing head and it feels like a real character. Although to improve it i could have improved the secondary action.

Below is the full animation, i really enjoyed this project and learnt a lot. I have learnt not to be impatient when animating something very practical like cut out, patience is very important to achieve good animation because rushing things will not turn out well.

Thirsty Planet from Stacy Straub on Vimeo.

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