The Animated Self - Animating

Seeing that I only had two days to finish this up (So I had initially thought… well, we still have to submit the first version at least), I had to cut back on a lot of details, most of these scenes are just still images that are later on edited to have some movement in After Effects. 

As seen here the background, Felicity the central character, and the groups of people crowding around her are all separated into their own layers (The background was separated from Felicity just in case I needed to make any changes in details to it).

A little shadow was given to her body after on a separate layer, which I then
decided to combine for easier animating later on.

David gets a cameo for his contribution.

Nothing but straight lines for the first bit of the background.

Once I figured out a train interior design I was somewhat satisfied with,
I then started shading it in.

I then added in a bit more lighting.

I had to mess around a bit with Felicity's sitting pose, initially it had looked
like an exact copy of Chihiro's in Spirited Away, I also thought that
she looked a little too composed, and so I went with something that shows
more exhaustion.

Seeing how monochromatic everything already  is, I had to sketch out the crowd
in red so that I could actually see anything when I started painting over it.

I was considering adding in some blood details, but it would take away the tension I was trying to evoke… people however would probably still question why is it that woman in the bottom right is crying. To create better focus on the main character, I then painted a shadow over most of them.

The background perspective turned out to be a real huge pain in the ass,
I had to decrease her size and draw out a rough outline of her body to better figure it out.

After numerous attempts and references that weren't all that helpful...

After animating the head turning bit, I then started painting in her hair, it had originally simply looked like a blob without any volume whatsoever and it just looked so darn weird… (I think I had a gif for it, but for some reason it won't upload properly here, so I will just talk more), so I decided to take a bit more time in improving the movements of her hair sliding off her shoulder.

Another layer was placed over the last few frames so that there wouldn't be
a spastic change of hoodie shadows.

For the last scene where she reaches for her mother, I was clearly rushing with this bit and was thankful that the last section where she gets thrown from the sudden braking of the train had to be done quickly (So I didn't need to be too precise with the details on her).

I had originally drawn her arm frame by frame while copying and pasting
the hand, but in my rage I decided to scrap it and try something else.

The arm was instead separated into two sections, that I started to piece and position together for each frame, while it still looks pretty stiff and weird, I think it looks a lot smoother than the other hand drawn version.

I after that rushed to paint in each figure, coloring any transparent bits first.

I then once again did some quick shading.

I was suggested by my teacher to lessen the shaky movements of the train, which I will definitely do once I get some sleep… and fix up that darn white line at the top of the reaching scene… that's just my fault for not shading that sill properly.

The Animated Self - Further Information about Lurk

Don't worry, I will get new concept art done later on.

As you can see, I chose to go with one of my horror narrative ideas for the final PPP project. Seeing as the teaser trailer won't give too much away, I thought it'd only be right to write a little more about the story.

Lurk was a survival horror video game concept that I had worked on for one of my classes during my final year, it was based on a rather lengthy dream/nightmare (Call it what you will) I had a long time ago, upon waking up, I had quickly penned it down for future use. 

Several events occurred throughout the dream, one of them involved me sitting in a subway train, a woman whom I believed to be my mother sat across from me, looking so frail and weak, the strangest smile on her lips as there was a blank look in her sunken eyes… And for awhile, I just looked back at her, things were quiet save for the noise the train made as it travelled through the tunnels… 

And like a video game, everything faded to black. It was as if a cutscene was playing, I was seeing everything from outside the train, even though I knew my physical body was still inside the train, something huge had stopped the train, I could only describe it as some hellish sort of demon… 

Something even worse happened then, a stewardess had somehow fallen out of the train… flames suddenly burst from the entire thing's body before it attacked her, for some reason the scene shifted and all I could see was the side of the train as blood splattered everywhere… I think I could actually hear people screaming, trying to escape.

In another part I was scavenging for weapons and food, this had possibly taken place before I had gone onto the train with my mom, for some reason I had decided to enter a deserted underground club of sorts, it was nearly pitch dark, save for the light of a few functioning soda and snack machines, and some surprisingly expensive looking pool tables (The ones that had their own lights), the dim blue lights that came from all these sources did nothing however to help me to see better.

I found myself picking up a few pool sticks then, including some broken ones with splintered ends, before I suddenly heard quiet weeping in one of the dark corners of the room… I obviously got the hell out of there afterwards.

Other random bits in the dream involved me meeting with my cousin and his family, and even my siblings in another train station, they were surprisingly well equipped with all sorts of guns… I didn't add this bit in obviously.

Inspiration was also taken mainly from the Silent Hill series, along with various other horror games as I worked on new settings, characters and monsters that hadn't been in the dream. While I have yet to even come close in finishing the script for this game, a 'sequel' is already in progress (Oi vey).

Cover Design

Everything was done in ink and markers, I was still trying to familiarize myself with Photoshop and my new tablet at the time, and so I had only use Photoshop and Indesign for cleanups, the layouts and the title design. Markers to this day however remain one of my most favorite traditional mediums, even though I had been told numerous times by an old lecturer of mine that they should never be used for professional works...

Characters

Monsters and Stages

I couldn't exactly remember how Malorum (The one on the right) looked in my dream, and while he was the only creature that I had seen, I had to mess around with his design just as much as I did with the others. I never liked the more traditional designs for demons, and so I tried incorporating some more twisted human features to it, so that it bore some similarities to the other monster designs.

The hotel setting was also a new addition as I had to figure out other settings to include in the game aside from the subway, I know I had sketched down some other ideas, hopefully I have them saved somewhere in one of my external hard disks...

I later on tried to do a new set of concepts for my admission portfolio, this time they were colored digitally, though the lines remained traditionally inked. In all honesty, I really disliked the flat coloring I did for these character concepts, I was really tempted to go back to using markers (Maybe next time), but at least they gave a pretty clear view of the characters' designs.

Felicity 'Filly' Marshall

Helen Marshall

I had a lot of issues when it came to their face designs, for starters, Helen Marshall's change of appearance overtime made her look like two entirely different people (And not in that way, really, it just looked like two completely different characters standing beside one another). I was also told how Father Alex and 'Peter' looked related to one another when they weren't, and so during this update, I hadn't bothered to add 'Peter' in.

Mrym and Malorum

This was probably the only thing I liked from my updated set of designs (Seeing as I also decided not to ruin them by coloring them in), a mistake from the older designs made me decide to design several different versions of Mrym, and so some featured scraggly hair sticking out from other the hood while others had more pupil-less eyes.

Sister Diawara and Father Alex

Sister Diawara is just one of those designs you find yourself favoring over the others simply because she is so fun and colorful looking. I was upset when it came to her redesign however as I thought the original marker render I did of her actually looked better.

Yeah… I'm going back to the markers next time.

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The Animated Self - Storyboard Ideas

I decided to focus on a narrative-related animation (I bet you didn't see that coming did you?) in the end, it would evoke the right amount of challenges and would definitely be much more enjoyable to work/struggle on. It would also give me the chance 

Lurk (Horror Narrative)

This was the first horror game project that I had actually done proper designs for, while it had its fair share of monsters like any typical survival horror, it was the atmosphere and sense of helplessness from the main character that I wanted to utilize more. Again, I wish to define myself for my narrative works, based on my own ideas aside from existing works, this 'teaser trailer' will allow me to experiment a bit more with shadows, a more dramatic coloring style and more defined characters designs as compared to my previous projects.

Based on some brief research I did on video game teaser trailers, these previews normally contain one ambiguous scene that does not explain much, or a a compilation of incredibly short clips, both allowing the audience a sample of what the game's tone and mood would possibly be like (And I say possibly, because game designers tend to make a lot of changes to these games after the teasers are released) that gives us an idea on what the game will be like but not the story itself, all that manages to last around 30 seconds, give or take. More research will be done on teaser trailers in the coming posts.

I then quickly drafted down three ideas:

1. The Pool Room

While not shown here, we get a few pan shots of various areas that are completely deserted and completely void of human life, before cutting to the first scene of a supposedly abandoned pool room. The camera raises up from pitch black darkness, showing the edge of a pool table, and the shadowy figure of a young girl approaching it, only the light from her phone's light lighting up the area.

The scene then shifts to her point of view as she looks at the table covered with scattered balls and shattered glass (One of the ceiling lamps having broken off not too long ago), trying to get a further look at the other parts of the room but there doesn't seem to be anything of use to her, she sighs quietly...

Weeping is suddenly heard then… that seems to sound like that of a child's, even a baby's, she raises her head, freezing in place, but only for a moment as she whips around to the direction she hears it from, turning towards another dark corner of the room where another broken ceiling lamp lays.

The camera pans moves past it then, before the entire scene fades to black, the young girl then calling out to the voice as the title appears on screen.

"… hello?"

2. Father's Call

The camera pans downwards where a phone is seen on the ground, the phone then lights up the once dim area, the voice message activates as the young girl's father is heard, desperately trying to reach his daughter. A montage of various scenes are shown during the voice over, of monsters lurking in the darkness, the young girl hiding and exploring different areas on her own, before the final scene shows her mother sitting on her own in a train carriage, cracking an eerie smile.

The scenes cuts abruptly to black as the father ends his message there, assuringly say that he and the rest of the family will be there waiting for their safe return, the title appearing on the screen along with that last line.

"We will be here, waiting for you…"

3. The Train

In a train crowded to the brim with passengers, everyone is notably distressed and distraught, some even trying to comfort others. The young girl is shown sitting in the centre of one of the benches, for a moment staring down at her lap, looking nervous and unsure as she tries to contemplate her situation.

She looks to the side then, where her mother sits beside her, having been eerily quiet throughout, her features appear paler and more sunken than before, she can understand that what had occurred earlier must have frightened her mother, but, there was something off about her…

Just as she tries to comfort her, the train jerks to a stop, people scream, the lights go out.

Before a hellish shriek is heard echoing throughout the area as the title appears...

Blade Petals in the Wind (Fantasy Narrative or Sequence)

This idea is based on an old illustration of mine that I have yet to finish, I was taking a small break from a larger project that had a very similar art style at the time.

This short animation focuses on a tiny little fairy dancing among several blossoms as they bloom from her encouragement, her dance ends with her revealing to the audience the tree she had aided is now in full bloom and is ready for spring.

We are H2O (Sequence (I guess?))

Based on one of my scrapped ideas from my Animation Process and Production project, the animation focuses on the amount of water each human body holds and how it changes throughout the day.

 I found several problems with this idea, that being which gender I should give this character (Would it offend certain audience? Especially as they are seen drinking alcohol?) as well as what activities I should include that depletes and increase the amount of water within him or her body, aside from the usual drinking and exercising that is, after drawing a part of the storyboard, I realized it seemed a tad dull and required more development.

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