This week, I participated in a group discussion on character design, story, and to-do lists.
Character design
Character setting concept:
The central theme of the story is school bullying. The protagonist Nimo is a boy who has a traumatic childhood experience. He could not forget this memory; over time, he could not understand the beautiful things in his lonely life.
He has destructive thoughts when he encounters these good things. He became distrustful of intimate connections and became insecure. The character is set up to be a dark person.
We tried a variety of color schemes, such as black and blue, to express this feature physically. Through this, we attempted to contrast the dark inside with the innocent and kind exterior.
Storyboard (First version):
The little boy got lost while playing with his companions. A long time passed, and when it was dark, the boy did not find a playmate, but his lively nature attracted him by the glowing grass, and he burrowed into a new world — the amusement park Kingdom. He looked at the building in disbelief and went inside. But along the way, he was attracted to strange things like horse-faced figures sitting on chairs, talking dolls in doll machines, carousels with severed heads, and laughing funhouse mirrors. The boy was frightened and cried. He tried to get out of the amusement park.
Story concept: The story tries to trick the hero with fantasy rides that allude to bullying. We tried to have this visual way of expressing the inner impact of bullying.
But the current situation is that there are too many shots, and some shots are not connected and need to be clarified. We need to cut out some shots without affecting the expression of the theme and make the story more concise.
Group to-do list:
We put together a general task list to make it easier to assign tasks more clearly.
3D part:
1. Modeling and material paste (object design: amusement park gate, carousel, doll machine, doll, Ferris wheel, etc.)
2. Character binding (Hero rigging, doll rigging)
3. Integrate files in Maya and animating
4. Light and render
5. Compositing and sound effects
2D part:
1. Object design (door, room of toy machine, and carousel)
2. The first shot is presented in the form of a 2D image
3. 2D elements appearing in the shot: musical notes, falling ribbons, potential other elements (not discussed)
4. Sketch at the end of the credits
Group process:
Amusement park map
Character modeling
Character drawing( Painting by Guowei, presented above)
Storyboard (Made by Sophia, presented above)