Final storyboard.

Cleaned up key poses.

Rough key poses (Meredith)

Feedback from classmates.

Today I received some good feedback from my peers. Most of it was compliments, although I also had some good suggestions and questions. One piece of feedback I received was that I was putting a good amount of "thought and research" into my key poses. I was happy to read this because I had put a lot of effort into that and it was nice to be complimented on it.

I also received some good feedback for some of my background concepts, particularly this one...

... which is also one of my personal favorites of the background concepts as well. Though having such a hilly terrain might not suit my animation so well, the colors blend together really nicely.

A suggestion that I received from one of my classmates is that at some point in the animation my character could fall over and break her back. Though I think that this is quite a good and funny idea, I do not think that it is something that would suit my animation for the time being. Although its an idea that I would certainly be interested in revisiting in the near future.

Final prop design.

Storyboard journal notes

Feedback.

The advice Michael gave me today was that I should consider rotoscoping my animation, because I am practically copying the actual scene anyway. I think this is a good idea, though I will have to learn more about how to do this as rotoscoping is not as simple in 3D as it is when working in 2D.

Rough key poses.

Here I have drawn over Neo with a rough sketch of my own character to try and figure out how this is going to work. Because my character is significantly fatter than Neo, I need to work out how her knees bend and how far she can actually bend backwards before her back starts dragging across the ground. Also I need to consider that my character will be walking under a limbo stick, so I will need to think about how I am going to animate the legs whilst my character is in this pose.

Storyboard silhouettes

Today I have examined the iconic scene that I am going to recreate and decided on the key poses that I will have my character in. Because I am going to practically copy the same poses and camera movement of the actual scene, I am planning on drawing over screenshots of the scene so that I can get as identical a pose as possible to the character of Neo as possible.

Here I am basically trying to get an anatomically correct figure in mind before I go over it with the character I designed. This is to give me a better understanding of the pose and the movements that I will need to get my own character to do.

Rough background concepts (holiday resort)

Rough background concepts

Additional pose

Texture page

Feedback (concepts)

Feedback for concepts.
The feedback that I have received so far has been largely positive and helpful. Many of my ideas have come from suggestions that were given to me by my tutor and classmates when I was stumped for ideas. I got my peers to help me with lots of decisions, such as which costume design my character should wear and what colors she should be made up of.  I feel that I work better when given feedback and the advice of other people, so to have the amount of advice that I am receiving is vital to the further development of my character.
One piece of advice that I received from one of my classmates was to not design my character with a grass skirt, as it would be difficult to rig (especially because I have never worked in 3D before). I decided to include a grass skirt in my costume concepts anyway in case I really liked how it looked. Although I personally felt that it looked good and might be worth the effort of rigging, I found that I liked some other concepts more and decided to go with them instead. I feel that this example demonstrates a good balance between taking on board feedback and my own personal opinion, which I take away as a positive.

Prop page

Model sheet 2

Model sheet. Character turn around

Colour concepts

Expression sheet

Costume design.

Final design and back story.

This is the design that I feel will best suit my animation. It is very comical but a little simple as well with a lot of round features throughout the character. This repetition of shape language should make rigging the character easier.

Back story.
Meredith was the world champion in limbo until her fateful injury which kept her out of the game for years. Now she is 63 and whilst on her holiday to Hawaii she hears about a nearby limbo competition that was only a week away. For one final hoorah Meredith enters, and practices relentlessly for hours on end. This scene that I am creating is Meredith during one of her practices.

Further developed character concepts

Further developed concepts.

Character inspiration

I have finally decided to go with the old lady idea, because I feel it would make the scene more comical (because one would not generally expect an old lady to do the limbo). Also old ladies have many characteristics that can easily be exaggerated to make a comical/cartoon like effect. I have been analyzing these characters for inspiration.

Journal notes

Journal notes.

 As I progressed further into the development I decided to develop the skinny man and fat old lady concepts further.

 By this stage I am fairly certain that I am going to go with an old lady character. So on this page I am exploring the different possible ways in which I can design an old lady. I did this by thinking up different stances in which she could stand, whilst also looking at different walking canes and glasses.

Clothes/accessorie ideas

Today I reviewed the concepts that I have made so far, and I am leaning towards the old lady character (although I am interested in furthering the development of some of my skinny man characters as well). I am now going to further develop my concepts in Photoshop, before I explore color options.


I have been looking at what my character is going to wear lately. I want to experiment with flower wreaths, as it does associate with the Hawaii theme that I am going with. Also hats would be interesting to look at, in particular caps and straw hats. I have decided to scrap the idea of a walking cane as it wouldn't make sense as she is doing a limbo (although it might add more of a comical factor to the animation). As for her actual clothing I was considering to give the character a bikini to wear (this was then suggested by my tutor), this could be further developed by turning her bikini bra into a coconut shell bra (which is often associated with Hawaii). Or she could also have a towel wrapped around her as well. Also my character could be wearing a typical Hawaii floral shirt to add to the tropical theme. Sandals and sunglasses are also decorations that I am currently looking at.




Clothing ideas.