Production Personal Project- Gobi and Babi

Production

Production began when I had written out a storyboard and practiced a short 2D animation, in order to provide myself with a plan on how I was going to move my paper puppets through each shot, make sure the movement was smooth and it was going to be clear to the audience the story I wanted to tell.

My story is based off the classic children’s tale “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” and I had changed the ending of the story to be a more simpler and happier storyline. My idea was to have the troll under the bridge as normal with three sheep crossing over the bridge to gain access for a walk up the hill and the plot of the story was to then have the two older sheep walking so fast that the smallest sheep could not keep up and therefore leaving it behind. This would then cause the troll to find the sheep and after a high and low in emotions between the both, the troll then helps the sheep finish the walk up to the hill and become friends.

(Storyboard- Marie)

I created a basic storyboard and had written out what each main point of the story would entail and then drew over this a basic illustration of the scene playing out. The story was simple, and it was going to fall more into the colours, movement and characters themselves to makeup the scene.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/8535eb_3cf57c40640b4d79814be878123493cb/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

(2D Animation- Marie)

Here I created a quick sketch of a 2D depiction of how the story I had previously storyboarded would play out, the placement of each character in the scene, what might the positioning of the background be and to give myself an idea of how the characters may be feeling, the expressions of their emotions and their movements throughout the story.

I had also counted up each shot and the amount of picture-by-picture frame I would need to capture, to edit together a smooth playthrough of the images, writing down what part of the story I would need to be narrating during each set of pictures. This planning on the day of filming would help to be able to look at my notes, understand the plan of action and move the characters accordingly making a successful animation.

(Concept Art- Marie)

The next step in the production line of creating my stop motion animation, was to draw up my characters, as neatly as possible and with as many separate parts of the body, so that I could bring my puppets to life with variations in expressions and moveable limbs. I took the time to draw out the bodies, arms, legs and different expressions of the characters, all spaced out to be later cut with scissors.

(Concept Art- Marie)

This step of the entire process from choosing a story, creating the characters and finalising my ideas was probably the most enjoyable for me as I enjoy crafting art and working hands on with my projects. Once I had printed everything out in colour and then cut everything out as neatly as possible. I needed to start attaching the libs of all my characters together and set the expressions and eye blinks to the side, as they would not be attached but left separate for easing switching during the filming process.

I had the initial idea of attaching the limbs of my characters together with ring binding hoops but had an unplanned difficulty when the rings that I had order where too big and actually ripped some of the puppet pieces I had previously cut out. This lead to an impromptu decision to punch holes with paper clips into each arm, leg and head of the character and to attach them to the base using paper clips cut into smaller pieces and bent in half.

In reflection this could have been avoided if I had planned and tested my way of attaching the characters bodies beforehand, however the end result was just as effective giving the characters seamless movements and more stiff than previously planned.

(Concept Art- Marie)

The bridge was an important part to the story as it was going to be where the entry of the story was set and its events would take place, so I made sure to create three different views of the stone bridge that the troll would be hiding under. This was just a plain, stone bridge for the characters to stand upon and I didn’t want it being too detailed or distracting to the audience line of view.

(Concept Art- Marie)

In completion of my character making and background design, the last step that I needed was a background design to frame the scenes of my characters and create a simple partner to the colourful characters puppets.

I again wanted this to be a simple piece and to almost fade into the background with a watercolour painted impression. I designed a soft, earthy toned drawing on procreate of a sky of clouds and some grass to frame my animation and to also set the scene that the story is withing nature and near mountains.