2021 Bachelor of Screen Arts

 

 After looking at my storyboard I've come to realize its very very long with around 100 thumbnails. When I bring this over to my book I will need to look at cutting down some of the thumbnails as there won't be enough space to fit them all within the book.  What I have decided to storyboard is one of the first cutscenes of the game. Eva tries escaping the academy for the night however is quickly caught, with her last resort being to throw herself out the window to get away from the guards chasing her, after mocking the guards from her safe spot she quickly runs towards the city eventually making her way towards the slums, the known home of the demon that's been terrorizing the city. Wandering the alleyways she begins to detect a presence and ends up coming to a dead end with the creature close behind her before it can grab a hold of her she cuts of its hand with her sword she quickly cuts of the creatures right arm, thinking she's got the creature cornered she smugly le...

  An unused idea for the castle. Originally it was going to be broody and dark with a more fantasy elven style with a lot of curved shapes. I ultimately scrapped this as I felt it didn't give of the sense of grandeur and wow the other rough design I had and overall it isn't very dynamic and doesn't really show the full scale of the castle. Work in Progress Final depiction of the castle designing the outside of the academy was probably the hardest part for me as I had a lot of ideas on what it should look like and keep changing my mind at the last minute however I settled on a more medieval look that fit more within the setting of the animation. I wanted the castle to look bright, welcoming and full of life, to contrast with the dark motives behind the organization and some aspects of the interior. When deciding the color I wanted something that would fit in with the city which is what I designed first and looked at one of my artist models Chim JolJol whos environment work o...

  One of the environments that's featured within the animation is the city (Can't really think of a name for it so I'll just call it the city for the time being) this is the main capital and headquarters for the academy which have smaller locations across the country. I wanted to give the city a design that showcased the modern with fantasy elements with a heavy use of stone and brick within there architecture with 21st century lamps. I also wanted to design the backstreets of this city. While many species live within the city those who don't fit within the mold are often segregated to the backstreets of the city which the academy  offer little to no protection to those who aren't human, or human like (for example elves and dwarfs).  Many rogue demons and monsters use these backstreets as a hunting ground as many don't seem to care what happens to those living within the backstreets. Within the story Eva wanders into the backstreets without realizing as she neve...

 I did a lot of updating within my storyboard and refined some of panels so it would be a lot eaiser for me to lean up. I also adjusted some of the action scenes within my story after watching some action based anime, such as Jujustu kaisen and Casltevania. The action scenes within these shows are dynamic and sacrifice details for fluid animation that feels weighted and effective. This is done through very fluid linework and an array of interesting and dynamic shots that help give a sense of scale and space to the fight.  castlevania castlevania Jujustu Kaisen Jujustu Kaisen

 ANNA HOLLINRAKE When designing the Outside of the academy I wanted it to look bright, colorful and cheery, a complete contrast to the inside of the building and wanted to look at an artist who is confident in creating these bright and cheery landscapes that I could use as a reference for my piece. An artist I stumbled upon was Anna Hollinrake, a concept artist who creates these vibrant peaceful utopias, covered in lush foliage.  The main piece I used as an example is this piece below, the way she incorporates green all throughout the entirety of the image, using it as shading for the characters white and orange dwelling while also choosing those two specific colors to make it stand out in its environment. Although the home looks out of place in this natural environment it also appears that it's begun to merge with the natural environment not only using the color green but the vines and bushes beginning to cover the house, the makeshift wood ladder and walkway combined with th...

 I have done some small tests with audio using my voice to fit in with some of the dialogue, however I hate hearing it so I think it would be easier for me to work if I was to get someone else to voice act for me. So I've decided to get my two sisters to voice act in my place.

  Here are the final designs for my two characters Eva and The strangers. While I mentioned in a previous post that they are twins they aren't identical twins however have some similarities in terms of eyes and hair color however I did slightly adjust there hair colors a little bit with Evas being a darker shade of green than the strangers lighter more teal colored hair to differentiate them slightly and kind of obscure there identities as siblings a bit.  Why did I design the characters this way? Because Eva is attending a a military styled school I wanted her uniform to reflect both elements of that a blouse which should be traditionally tucked in is left dangling about to go along with her carefree personality, its dirtied somewhat from its level of use and would be heavily pointed out by her classmates. Her green pants held up by a belt along with the steel capped combat boots are there to tie into the more combat aspect of the uniform aswell as the belts and side pockets ...

 

  Eva is the main protagonist of the story and is the one who went through the most changes as a character originally she was intended to wear a skirt, going along with a lot of the anime battle high school tropes. However if there was a fight scene I didn't really wanna have an upskirt panty shot that usually occurs within a fight scene so I just added some bike shorts underneath her uniform, while this was meant to be the final design I then wanted to see what an option with shorts would look like and preferred the look a lot more over the skirt. The shorts make her look a lot more practical and defernite her a lot more from her counterparts and overall look a lot more cuter. Below are some of the outfits often seen in high school battle animes. One thing I appreciate is there's a lot of versatility and creativity in terms of designs and typically in the medium you can go as minimalist or as detailed as you want but some of the designs can clash particularly with a lot of mor...

 One of things I wanted to do was design the inside of the academy and the outside. I choose to do this by showcasing one of the halls decorated in opulent weapons and portraits showing there pride in history and the many "heros" that have been born from there faith. I wanted the castle to feel like a gloomy church and looked at the Vatican as a historical reference and looked at Dracula's castle for a fictional reference (particularly the castlevania depiction of Dracula). I wanted the inside of the halls to feel cold and gloomy yet have glimmers of life. I've included a lot of details artifacts to adorn the wall such as paintings and weapons and the traditional pillars used to support the old building.  One thing I want to improve in this drawing is the color I think I've included to much purple into the drawing and its kind of overtaken it a bit I think that I may need to include more darker harsher tones as seen in the concept work for Dracula's castle whi...

CHANGES: One of the changes that I made to my animatic is the part where Eva lands a hit on Awarini I decided to completely remove this from the animatic and instead just have Eva get her a** handed to her instead to illustrate how powerful Awarini is.      A lot of the responses said that my choreography was good and the shots were diverse allowing for a clear story throughout the animation. Some of the criticism I received was related to the ending which people commented was abrupt which was correct, I forgot to extend the duration of the final frame so when it was exported it ended very abruptly with only a 1 second flash of the final frame, I plan on fixing this. Again another Criticism I received was with the length of the the shots some thought they were to slow in some places so I may need to adjust this in future, especially in the scenes with lots of dialogue.

 

 The two characters I have been developing is the lead Eva and the mysterious character the city knows as the stranger. I've started of by doing early and rough designs to help define there personalities, and settled on the final look for the characters. Within the story later down the line its revealed that the stranger is actually Eva's long lost sibling (DRAMA) who was failed to be captured by the academy and is aware of the academies true goal to use Eva as a host for god who they believe will fix the world and rid it of "demons", however god isn't as forgiving and will attempt to purge the world instead resetting it in its entirety, destroying all life on earth effectively.  When Eva first meets the stranger they are disguised and keep there identity hidden, however I still wanted to design the appearance of this character besides just the mask. Because Eva and the stranger are siblings there appearance will be very similar to one another, even though they ar...