CT5ANIGP GROUP ANIMATION : “A DRAGON WAKES AT DUSK” WEEK 4

On the 4th week, we had another group discussion on how do we could have the relationship between the man and the woman looked more connected as man and wife. I worked on more thumbnails, changing the beginning of the story interpreting the woman's strong intentions of running to her husband, making a valid reason for her actions and her connection with the man.

As I go, I tried to work on drawing the man's head structure and form, attempting a more worn-out looking, skinny, bone-like face, like a farmer who lives in poverty, in contrast with the woman who looks young and youthful.

Extra poses that may be used as an example of the man holding his spear when he battles the water dragon.

After that, I've decided to research more on how to show a connection between the woman and the man. In the eyes of the audience, what we see may be different from what they see. Noting on that part, I went searching for a design of an object to represent their 'engagement', such as ring or a bracelet. As the Myth started in the Iron age of Japan, I aimed for designs for handcrafted bracelets. Most of them would be jade stones, made in the form of a magatama or 'Tomoe', which the people in Japan sees it as a common design element in Japanese family emblems. 

Along the way, I worked on color test with the woman, paying attention as how the light travels across her form while focusing on the shape of her face, and comparing the light and shadow tones as the scene goes with the woman running in a dark forest with only one lantern as a light source.

On the last day of the week, I work on several environment design and color. 

1.) Another work on the water, testing to see if the ripples would work as well as focusing on the tone on the moon and clouds.

2.) Working on color tones for the forest, testing the depth of darkness on the first picture, then testing on more lighter shades, tones, and adding a hint of mist in the second and third picture.

3.) Working on the interior of the house, testing on the depth of tones. This is where the scene shows the woman dropping the scroll of the dragon, and running out of the house, showing only her silhouette.

4.) A short color test of the sky

Lastly for this week, I've worked on testing the mist animation for the story. Aiming for something which is easier for the animators to animate as mist are the form of air, not solid form and not consistent. Although it was difficult to grasp the form of air, I've manage to try this simple test as an example.

CT5ANIGP GROUP ANIMATION : “A DRAGON WAKES AT DUSK” WEEK 3

For the 3rd week, I worked on the man's design, his body shape, a full body drawing of him, some color testings, poses and a rough animation of him throwing a spear.

The drawings below are 20 different facial expressions, mostly anger, sadness, angst, fear, frustration, shock, pain, and agony, expressions that would be used in the animation.

Extra poses of the man holding the spear and also drawings of stages when throwing a spear

After that, I've decided to do a rough animation of the man throwing a spear, testing it out to get a good example of how he should look in the animation.

Also, I worked on coloring 6 different colors for the man character, aiming for a dim, dark tones to suit the story.

On the last day of the week, I had a group discussion with my teammates on what should happen to the characters in the story. The scene shown below is how the spear flew through the dragon's body and hit the woman who stood directly behind it, and the man drops to his knees and screams in agony.

Along the way, I worked on the woman's design, poses which would be used possibly and also a little extra on a new character design.

As the discussion with my group members go on, we realized that the woman character may not look obvious that she was the 'wife' of the man, or someone related to him. As we haven't finalize our ideas , I have decided to work on designing a new character : A little girl who would represent as the man's daughter. But after the discussion, we decided to have the woman back into the story, and the little girl would not be used.

As I go, I've decided to do a drawing of height comparison between the woman and the man.

And lastly for this week, a simple  color test on the water and moon scenery. Aiming for a dark, misty, silent look, befitting to be the mystical dragon's home.

CT5ANIGP GROUP ANIMATION : “A DRAGON WAKES AT DUSK” WEEK 2

On the second week of group project, I worked on coloring the woman character.

Aiming for pale, blue, white, light purple, dim tones to suit the atmosphere of the animation and at the same time making sure it would not complicate anything when animating her.

After discussions with the team members, No.3 was chosen!

I also tried working on some rough sketches on the woman who is tied up on a crucifix as written in the first story. After that, I tried to do some color testing on her with dark tones which would fit in the setting of the story.

As I go through with my team about the story, we decided to change some ideas. Instead of the woman being hung on a crucifix, this time, we decided to put her on a water shrine. I immediately work on the design for the water shrine as much as possible and going as far as to color some of the selected design.

 I worked on drawing rough sketches of poses for the woman from 3 different angles and drawing a small rough idea of the height between the woman and the dragon.

For the dragon, I decided to work on drawing some rough ideas of the possible poses the water dragon would make, just like a serpent. As I go along, I worked on a short rough animation on the dragon's pose.

  

Other extra work I did on that week was designing the lantern which would be used in the story, trying to design something that was made in Japan's feudal era that the myth originated from, as well as attempting to redesign the Man and the Woman character.

And the last work I did on that week was drawing 3 different thumbnails for the story. Each of my team members produced different ideas, and matching some of what we think may work well.

And at the end of the week, one of them was picked but further discussion on developing it was still on progress.