update

Another quick little update, this is more for myself so I can remember what I am doing so it will probably just end up as a random set of incoherent notes that get mashed into something readable at a later date.

My final major project is coming along nicely; I now have a script and some rough thumbnails and am working on a load of concept art and character designs. I am also hoping to make a couple of models of the characters and maybe do some experiments with different effects that could be applied to the finish of the set.

I am afraid to say that, yes, I have ignored the advice from the panel and gone off and developed my crazy, puppy drowning idea which have turned into something slightly less drastic. I had thought it was quite an original idea but it is actually very similar to the Pied-Piper of Hamelin but there you go.

I have tried to keep the storyline and anything I have to make as simple as possible; there is absolutely positively no dialogue and if I am clever I can probably get away with just having two sets and a minimal use of special effects, I am also considering doing away with all Foley sounds and just having a music track but I think it may be too early to call that just yet. The main character is pretty featureless except for arms; it doesn’t have any legs so no walk cycles to worry about. The ‘puppies’ have now evolved into no descript ‘creatures’ which I am considering making out of lint and stuff, collected from a wide variety of nasty sources.

In terms of animation the creatures should be quite easy to animate as they are just lumps, although attaching rigs might be fun. The main character will be trickier, I plan to do a dance scene and I also want to try and get that rippling effect you see in the early Creature Comforts. That said there are lots of films with similar movements to those which I want to get so I might just ‘borrow’ a lot of the animation, like I did for the OSTN project.