More Music and Sounds!

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 In the process of creating my animation, I needed to acquire sound effects to sample. I made a few of them myself including a 'splat' noise and the rest I recorded from the internet.

 My main choice of sampling was a instrumental score composed by Quincy Jones, named Ironside. It came to my attention from watching Quentin Tarantino's film, Kill Bill. Tarantino samples the music himself for Kill Bill and uses it for whenever the protagonist sees her next victim. It is some form of alarm sound, which I find appropriate for my animation when the creature sees his rival.

 Another musical score that came to mind was something from the epic video game saga, Final Fantasy. Whenever the player claimed victory in battle, a distinct chant of music would play marking a success. My creature will find something that he very much desires, in which the music will play.

 Lastly, a sound effect from another video game saga, this time known as Metal Gear Solid. Whenever the protagonist was spotted by an enemy, a sudden alert sound would play. My creature will spot his rival, the Cheshire Cat, alongside the alert sound.

Musical Influence

 For my animation, I wanted to add something that would make the process ever more nostalgic. As a child I watched Cartoon Network for hours upon end and I was intrigued by everything it threw at me: the visuals, the camera angles. the humour, the sounds... This cartoon in particular had an instrumental intro which has remained in my head since it aired in the early 90s. I now happen to play both guitar and bass (mainly bass) in my spare time, so it seemed very much appropriate to apply these skills into my own animation.

 With the aid of my dad and his recording equipment, we created a short score together which would play in the intro and finale for the animation. I wanted it to be short and snappy, so we kept it a 30 seconds maximum. I played both the distorted guitar and the high treble bass and we chose a drum beat from a drum machine. We also scored a bluesy bass line which would play in the first scene involving the creature acting 'cool'.

The T'ao T'ieh 3D Model

 I have now completed my 3D model creature. I decided to paint it with acrylics to give it a design rather than having it just as plain wood. I referenced another design that I'd researched previously, which was the image of the two black, Chinese dog ornaments.

 I painted it mostly black and applied small amounts of red and yellow (trademark Chinese colours). I painted it's teeth and claws white to enhance it's monstrous appearance and I painted two huge, round, circular, white eyes with small black pupils drawn with marker pen within each centre. The eyes especially make the creature look somewhat tormented and psychotic.

 Like I've said before, 3D's not my area of choice, but I believe this piece was a successful one: probably my best 3D creation so far.

My Animation Process

 I have almost finished drawing my sequence for the animation!

 To start with, I bought myself a lightbox from Ebay. I positioned two strips of card onto the box creating a right-angle in order to keep the sheets still whilst I drew them. The media process I used was nib and ink due to its success of looking effective in my sketchbooks, as opposed to a standard fine-liner. This effected my choice of paper too, seeing as some qualities of paper would take longer to dry from the ink. So I decided to buy 400 A5 sheets of inkjet printer paper, because the ink would dry relatively faster; however the accidental stains and splodges on the sheets will give the animation a rough edge, which is what I am intending for.

 As soon as I'm finished with these drawings, I will photograph them and start editing within Adobe After Effects.

A Potential Design

 From the doodles from my sketchbook, I remembered I painted this using watercolours. It depicts my chosen creature in an Oriental style. The colour scheme is typical but appropriate. I believe I will definitely make use of the colour red, seeing how it is connotative with China. This could be a potential influence for the design of my 3D model.

My Sequence

 Now that I have developed the character's appearance, I can now develop a narrative for the animation. Doing this I created my own sequence. The two images above are parts of the sequence.

 My style for this is cartoon-like and I have taken influence from various techniques used from the likes of Ren & Stimpy and other cartoons from that era onwards. I've kept it simplistic in the most kinetic parts of the sequence and have put most detail into the facial close-ups. The images above are just parts of a storyboard, not the actual animation.
 I plan not to use colour because I want to stay authentic of how I used to practise drawing when I was a child. Perhaps if it comes to creating another animation in a further project, I'll consider using some colour; but for now it's going to remain monochrome.

 The narrative will host for two characters: the two-bodied dog (the T'ao T'ieh) and the Cheshire Cat. It's a classic cat vs dog scenario: seeing the obvious victim (being the cat) outwit the dog.

John Kricfaluci (Ren & Stimpy)

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 During the early 90s, The Ren & Stimpy Show alongside many others influenced a lot of the work I produced when I was younger. It's crude humour and grotesque qualities fascinated me as a child. Watching them today, I find it hard to believe I was permitted to view them years ago; as they were hosted on the children's channel, Nickelodeon.

 In terms of influence for this and further projects, I find them very useful and nostalgic. My drawings have always adopted this almost surreal nature, and I find it highly appropriate to use this now seeing as I'm creating an animation.

 The images above are screenshots from the animated show and depict the two characters, Ren & Stimpy. Ren is a psychotic chihuahua and Stimpy is a dimwitted cat. Both conflict in personality, in turn creating a dark humorous double-act. The show consists of them both getting into various chaotic situations that they try to get out of, through torturous difficulty. These narratives will influence my own for the animation.

Keith Haring Style 3D Model

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 After completing my design for my official 3D model, I just started making a series of doodles using the paintbrush tool on Illustrator. Since Illustrator is vector-based, it gave the drawing a very smooth edge, much to the likings of Keith Haring's work. I made my creature under the influence of Haring and made each of it's limbs separate for the 3D quality. I used rotation pins to stick the body parts together.

Character's Environment

 Now I haven't really given this much thought, but what I was thinking was just a vast plain in which the creature can roam about as much as it wants.

 I did a few paintings using watercolour of what it could look like and this one came out most successful. It depicts a sweltering desert where even the sun melts. Depending on how relevant this sort of environment is to the creature, I'm unsure as whether to include it within the animation.