CONFIDENCE

At the start of my 4th year, I had to start work on an animation. My only idea was a specific aesthetic of just colors with no outlines or shading. Similar colors bleeding into each other and shapes blending together. I also really wanted to animate a fight scene.

It was also at this time that I realized I had nowhere near enough time to actually make something that looked good. I needed shortcuts. The character design process overall took about 2 months, scrawling concepts in secret at my internship. The final character designs were completed about 2 weeks into the first semester, and a full storyboard completed at the end of the first month. I was set to start animating 3 full months ahead of schedule, so I took a couple of 3D models from previous uni projects, altered them to fit the character designs for 2 of the characters, and got to work.

After the character designs were done, I got to work animating. I didn’t go at it in order. I mostly started with the 2D characters, while fixing up the rigs in the 3D models. I believe the first scene I animated was the Demon girl turning into fire and flying up the screen. That first scene made me fall in love with that character, and cemented her as my favorite one to animate. (She later became Caprii in Welcome to Soulmarket)

I made a good bunch of her animations right off the bat, with a handful of the 3D animations with the Skull and Chain characters. Then, I went to the Dog and Magician. They weren’t as fun as Pre-Caprii but I do remember having a very good time coming up with visual gags involving those two.

On that point though, a lot of the shots that involved a 2D and 3D character interacting needed some tough problem solving to get a good visual. I had both 2D and 3D assets for that knife that the Magician’s holding, so it could simultaneously be animated in his hand, and in other characters.

This shot in particular I remember getting a few laughs, both from other students while I was asking peers for help, and even at the final presentation at the end of the semester.

Man, looking back, this project really was lacking so much polish. Its such a shame it had such a tight deadline, and suffered so much for it. Still though, there are some good sequences and definitely some ideas I still love. It did end up evolving into Welcome to Soulmarket, so maybe that will live a better life than this did.

Chain