Okay - so far, so reasonable, but a couple of observations: re. cancer, you'll need to carry your story on a little further to include cancer treatment, so chemo, because in the context of an educative film, you can't stop the story at the point where the body is 'dying' or damaged beyond hope - because the kids watching it will learn about cancer, but they'll also learn to be terrified of it.
Because of the clear narrative structure your approach implies, you need to think how the information is going to be communicated - through dialogue? If so, you'll need a decent script. Through narration? Then likewise - or through in-world text elements, like signposting? The 'fact-giving factor' needs to be in your thinking from the outset.
In art direction terms... you need to ditch all these sludgy, muddy colours and embrace greater stylisation and boldness. I also encourage you to take much more time and care over your responsibilities as a character designer: yes, spheres with eyes and spiky spheres with eyes go with the territory, but I'd like to see you investing much more time in seeking to establish a less generic response. I want you to take a much closer look at the art of animation backgrounds and see how strong, bold and clean they are:
I'd like to see you shift over into something less soft and spongy in terms of brushes and colours etc and seek to think more like a concept artist for animation - consider using Illustrator instead, which is more limiting and shapes-based, but I think this could work well for you and move your image-making on. I also want you to make use of this colour scheme designer, to give your palate some courage and your work a bit of distinctiveness:
So - short version, yes, great, do a character-based, story-based approach to 'when cells go bad' - but I do think you need a stronger, less generic visual concept to help you move your story world away from grey blobs and ox-blood coloured tunnels and towards something more individuated. You need to think about the tone of your story - how it ends - what the audience is left with as a message in a addition to the facts - and also how you're going to convey the nuts and bolts of what's going on - are the character's talking? If so, you'll need to think about characterisation, voice-artists and so on.
OGR 16/03/17
ReplyDeleteHi Jack,
Okay - so far, so reasonable, but a couple of observations: re. cancer, you'll need to carry your story on a little further to include cancer treatment, so chemo, because in the context of an educative film, you can't stop the story at the point where the body is 'dying' or damaged beyond hope - because the kids watching it will learn about cancer, but they'll also learn to be terrified of it.
Because of the clear narrative structure your approach implies, you need to think how the information is going to be communicated - through dialogue? If so, you'll need a decent script. Through narration? Then likewise - or through in-world text elements, like signposting? The 'fact-giving factor' needs to be in your thinking from the outset.
In art direction terms... you need to ditch all these sludgy, muddy colours and embrace greater stylisation and boldness. I also encourage you to take much more time and care over your responsibilities as a character designer: yes, spheres with eyes and spiky spheres with eyes go with the territory, but I'd like to see you investing much more time in seeking to establish a less generic response. I want you to take a much closer look at the art of animation backgrounds and see how strong, bold and clean they are:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/e0/91/03/e09103e0ed7cc67e331ee8620b27964a.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_QdHn8FT7SdY/TJ77PbPZh6I/AAAAAAAAJ9w/aWQqtQVMePg/s1600/beep15.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/56/5f/fc/565ffcf259ca6f72c7e9b45c6a471fb7.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/19/87/04/198704c373e2b32d6a8fc0d76aa0ff7b.jpg
I'd like to see you shift over into something less soft and spongy in terms of brushes and colours etc and seek to think more like a concept artist for animation - consider using Illustrator instead, which is more limiting and shapes-based, but I think this could work well for you and move your image-making on. I also want you to make use of this colour scheme designer, to give your palate some courage and your work a bit of distinctiveness:
http://paletton.com/#uid=1000u0kllllaFw0g0qFqFg0w0aF
So - short version, yes, great, do a character-based, story-based approach to 'when cells go bad' - but I do think you need a stronger, less generic visual concept to help you move your story world away from grey blobs and ox-blood coloured tunnels and towards something more individuated. You need to think about the tone of your story - how it ends - what the audience is left with as a message in a addition to the facts - and also how you're going to convey the nuts and bolts of what's going on - are the character's talking? If so, you'll need to think about characterisation, voice-artists and so on.