In the beginning. I didn’t have a lot of ideas. I didn’t know what theme I would choose for the animation. When I first approached this project, I only had a few ideas about the theme I would choose for the animation. This is my initial idea about this project. I thought of two aspects that I could use as a theme. The first is my experience in my childhood, and the second is traditional culture/religion. As my family is religious, I am also interested in the traditional aspects. I also wanted to be able to animate in the style of traditional painting, so I was going to try and make an animation about tradition. My original idea was to draw a human/monster who wanted to become immortal. But he wasn’t confident enough to become a god, but when he believed in himself, it was a very simple thing to become a god.
my initial mood board about my painting style.
About Initial character: I am going to use my daily practice painting style. this is new painting style.
Character Reference
This is my initial mood board about the scenes and characters. I preferred to create an experimental animation with simple lines. Then I added a scene that resembled an ink painting.
Why? Motivation about becoming a god.
I created a story about a monster who wants to become a god. He always fails to become a god. But in the end, he is inspired by an old god and realizes that he is the key to becoming a god.
record about my thinking
when I started to add details to the story, I found it challenging to become a complete story . So I spent a lot of time thinking about this story. After that, I had to review my original idea, I found I wrote a keyword that is traditional and modern. It gave me a new idea. I thought that the theme of the story was a bit unclear. I could improve my story through tradition and modernity.This story is about My story is about a forgotten god and a forgotten place and god’s duty is protecting this place. Because A god was forgot by the human. he found that it is hard to him to continue protect this place. The creatures and forest in this place started to die and in order to save them, god gave his life.
It inspired by my experience in my childhood
Reference
Test( imitate rock painting style)
I improved the style of my scene design. I think the ink painting style is good but the colours are monotonous. I intended to combine the ink painting style with rock color for a good visual effect. I watched a video by the rock artist Lotus Sheep, which showed a lot of steps in rock painting, and I learned a bit about rock painting. But the problem is that the computer could only imitate the colors but not the real volume of rock painting.
His style is very similar to the rock and ink style, but the colors are monotonous. I thought I could combine the best of both. And then added the technique of white space in ink painting in my background.
My character is a tree god, I started with the design of my character with branches on his body, but I felt it would be difficult to move them in the animation, so I removed them and replaced the tree branches with necklaces and bracelets and added yellow leaves. I didn’t use green leaves because it is the same as the color of the clothes, which will look monotone. Meanwhile, I wanted to have some color contrast, and it is also a hint of the character’s fate. Falling leaves are always used to describe bad things, such as death or leaving. The costumes are based on traditional Chinese costumes, but I made some changes to make my character move better in the animation. It doesn’t the same as the real costumes.
still working on my backgoround
I think I need to change my story….
A forgotten god wanted to protect a wish of a child. But this place had been forgotten by the human for a long time. He protect the wash of this child and maintain the existence of this place. However, the child also forgot him. So the god disappear.
It inspired by my experience in my childhood. The reason I set up this tree god is because my family believes that every family has a family god who protects the family. Our family god lives in a tree, but because of the move, he was forgotten in the tree. To live better, you need to invite him back again.
my inspiration
working on my background
life drawing, I am not good at drawing the tree. I wanted to find a way to describe complex tree branches.
It was a challenge for me to draw trees because I rarely draw them in my daily practice. I found some references in the real world and websites and did a life drawing to find a suitable tree style. In the first design, my tree was more realistic tree visually appealing, but I didn’t think it would fit into the animation. Because I had some close-up shots that needed to show the branches and leaves, if it was too realistic, it would add unnecessary work. So I researched ink drawings and learned about painters’ summary methods. So I tried to go for a semi-circle to depict the leaf and add different colors to make it look more volume.
my second character design
I think I need to add more information to tell the audience. for example , I need to explain this place is abandoned by human for a long time. And where did this kid come from.
I can add a train.
I need delete child’s parts. because this is not important plot. I added too many unnecessary plot.
Because I needed to make backgrounds with texture, I used ps to paint them. Using a combination of harmony and Procreate to make animation. I used Procreate to add textures to the characters’ clothes as they also needed textures, and the brush function of harmony was not very good. Because many of the scenes were cut, they left a lot of static backgrounds. Although characters were moving around, I felt it was too monotonous, so after editing the video, I used ae to add some flying highlights. It added interest to the image and was also able to reflect this forgotten magical place, which was more in keeping with the setting of the story. When I create shots and edit my animation, I always remind myself to pay more attention to the camera angle. In the tutorial, I learned continuity editing. Eyeline match and cut action and managing camera angle are my shortages. So I focus on these parts when I edit my animation. Doing my best to reduce the mistake of these parts.
meanwhile, I learnt how to use After effects to make rainfall.
Here is my final work