Distance Animatic

So after much work, the animatic is finally done! Well there are still a few tweaks to be made but its basically there.
Enjoy.

Anik Armature

I made the armature for Anik and I tried out some things so not really sure if it'll work until he's all fleshed and clothed out. For starters I've made him taller than Aluki, as guys are usually taller than girls and since their character designs are very simple I need little things like this to help allude to their genders.The Aluki puppet I made earlier was just a tester and I felt her legs needed to be longer to allow for her to be able to kneel and crawl, as well as her arms being longer as she could barely carry out certain necessary positions. Although her arms looked long enough at the armature stage, when she actually got her bulky coat on it made them seem shorter, as they had to stretch over the bulkiness. So with Anik's armature I have made his arms longer to account for the bulky coat and I have made his legs longer than initially planned, while trying to compensate for the fact that when I make the real Aluki puppet, she will be taller than before as I will increase her leg length, so Anik's height needs to be proportionate to that, not the current prototype one.

I also used Araldite epoxy glue for this, instead of the Z-Poxy glue I used on Aluki. I will be returning to Z-Poxy from now on. It is cheaper, dries slightly slower so you have more time to apply it and actually sticks better and stronger.

Aluki's First Steps

So today I have been testing out if my Aluki test puppet can walk..... and she can :)
But I was only able to do three steps as the nuts in her right foot fell out at this point, rendering it impossible to hold her in place. The reason the nuts fell out (despite being epoxy glued!) was because when I initially set them in the polymorph feet, some of the polymorph overflowed into the holes in the nuts, meaning when using the tie downs there was not enough depth to the holes in the nuts to get a good grip. So basically I need a drill to make the holes in the feet bigger, so there is enough room for the nuts and bolts.
Despite this issue I think the walk (well, steps) went well. So I guess next its onto a run....

             

Distance Storyboard

Here we have the first pass of the storyboard. It was drawn by the genius that is Eline Lindaas, The two of us spent a day going through the script and discussed how best to visualise it. Eline then drew it up. She has done an awesome job, her drawing skills never cease to amaze me. Find more of her work here: www.elinelindaasanimation.blogspot.co.uk

There are a fair few things that need changing, as some parts are not bringing out the emotion and tone enough. The whole of the wood chopping scene will be changed and the majority of the blizzard scene and reunion scene will be altered. There are also lots of little tweaks that need adjusting. But I do feel it's on the right tracks.

I'm in the middle of creating the animatic at the minute and will upload that in due course, so stayed tuned!