Ang Li Lin
/Animation
Sem 7 Week 1 - References & Sketch
In this week, we started finding references for our character and environment design, which the story takes place in the Victorian era. In our meeting, we review each of our references together to see if it fits how the story goes and the character's personality. Our references is organized into a mood board form for clearer view.
The mood board include reference of our characters, the boy, man and monster. For the environment include indoor and outdoor, for props is real life object reference and the 3d version. We also find some environment art reference for our color mood, with our understanding in the color theory taught to us and also researching additional information by considering the emotions we want to show in different story parts.
Early Stage Design
After having all the reference we need, our concept artists start designing the characters and environment. By first rough sketches on paper and notes written, we then show them to the lecturer along with our reference. The rough sketches contain the design of the boy, man, monster and hallway environment.
Character Sketch by Then Sze Ying
Environment Sketch by Tan Wen Jing
I was in charge of preparing the key art sketches for the most important part of each act's story for simple visualization.
Key Art Sketch by Ang Li Lin
Challenges Faced
For some of the character 3d reference we find need to replace with a better one that fits our style, and also the design of our monster may be difficult for us to execute as in vfx due to our production time, according to our lecturer.
Solution
We find the right reference for our style, and propose to our lecturer to change the vfx of the monster to another effect that can also represent its character, which also would save us time.
What's Next?
After the sketch of character sheets and environment design are prepared, we move into refining our design and storyboard part.