Making of El Dodo Freedom - Part 2

Recently completed a short animation for the Annecy Festival 2011 competition:

http://www.youtube.com/user/neongsan#p/u/0/4z-TfoWMShg

Here is part 2 of the making of. Part 1 can be found here.

The sketches that worked, were used as a solid base for the general art direction. Still, lots of different styles were quickly experimented with before a rough colour speed painting gave some sense of where the animation could go.

Colour and style treatment experiments

The blueprint sketches were then used as reference to model the characters in 3d space. Low polygon modelling techniques were used due to my limited technical modelling skills. This proved to be much faster to model and rig.

Low poly modelling of the cowboy and dodo models

Wire frames of the models

A rougher stop motion style animation was then also better suited. The time restriction of the competition deadline also contributed to the simpler and more experimental direction of the final animation. More experimentation was then made with the animations in After Effects to get the desired look and feel.

Below are some final screen shots from the short animation.

Making of El Dodo Freedom - Part 1

Recently completed a short animation for the Annecy Festival 2011 competition:
http://www.youtube.com/user/neongsan#p/u/0/4z-TfoWMShg

Here is the making of.

At first, as usual, a lot of time was spent sketching and doodling around to look for something that might feel right. It can sometimes be a long journey of exploring new ideas and combining with old ones. When presented with the theme referencing the USA, of course the theme of classic western movies came up and out of nowhere cowboy sketches started to pop out.

Cowboy standing out from the crowd

Character taking shape

blueprint for the modelling phase

For a recent project, there were some random dodo doodles flying around but the dodo concept was not used. Then it all kinda merged together: a cowboy who tries to ride a dodo...

Dodo sketches on the fly

Part 2 will show the process of developing the unique visual and animation style for El Dodo Freedom...

El Dodo Freedom

Recently completed a short animation for the Annecy Festival 2011 competition:



If you enjoyed it, please vote for 'El Dodo' here: http://www.youtube.com/annecyfestival
(you might need to search for 'El Dodo' in the Vote tab)