Character Turnaround
I think some of the best characters are ones that reflect their story. I went into this project knowing I wanted to tell a story with the character. That’s when I read the prompt of a cold rat that likes taking pictures and wants to see the Northern Lights and I immediately thought, “I could tell a story about poverty.”
I was focused on creating a character with the idea they would be used as the protagonist of either a comic or animated show with the target audience of older toddlers to teens. I wanted them to be able to watch an enjoyable cartoon show while also being able to take away a message and taught a valuable lesson. I felt inspired by shows like the 2009 Fantastic Mr. Fox; 2018 Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; 2023 My Adventures with Superman. All of them teach a valuable, sometimes heavy, topic while still appealing to kids through their bright colors and fun shape language. I wanted to incorporate this in my rat.
The lesson I wanted to express was empathy. Through my rats backstory, I wanted kids to see the struggle of poverty, big or small, and learn to empathize with those who might be less fortunate than them. I wanted the kids who did have to live through this struggle to be able to see themselves in the character. This is where I bring in the “cold rat” aspect of the prompt. I tried to bundle the rat up with what I imagine to be thrifted items he bought or borrowed. (Yes I’m aware he’s not wearing pants, it’s what the fur is for- cartoon logic.)
I also wanted to teach the kids another lesson about hope, and how sometimes following your own passion is something worth doing. This is where I brought in a plot. Despite his struggles as an underpaid, overworked, under stimulated young adult, Lucio take the chance to do something with his passion for photography, and throughout his journey I imagine him coming to discover himself along with his place in the world around him that he never got to before. Kinda like a coming of age story.
I feel you could definitely feel my inspirations really shine through with my slightly humanoid, stylized proportions of a rat. I loved how the artist of TMNT pushed the boundaries of the shapes of a human body and a turtle to make the characters so expressive. Though I dialed it back, I did try to capture that with my rat.
I was originally going to have really desaturated and a little dull color palette to set the tone. But then I remembered my target audience and rethought the colors. I picked more saturated and bright colors, but not too much. I was thinking of the colors they used in the Superman cartoon I talked about before. I found the colors vibrant but still grounded in reality which I thought would be great for what I was going for. If there’s really anything that I was dissaisfied with about the colors is that he looks a bit too clean and polished for someone who lives in poverty. But I didn’t want to have to many different colors with the thought that the more color there is , the harder it makes the animators jobs if this was an animated show.
Animated MV
I was assigned to create a minute long, animated music video with pretty much no limits; I could do whatever I wanted with this video as long as it met requirements. That was the first thing I had to do was decide what I wanted to do. To decide this I asked a different question, what story did I want to tell? I ended up deciding to do something I was familiar with. It was February at the time and Lunar New Year just happened so I decided to reflect on some of my childhood experiences with this holiday. This may have been self-indulgent, but I wanted to share a peek of the traditions I lived through as someone from a Chinese Immigrant family to either someone who does not know or has experienced it themselves.
I made a loose storyboard. It was mainly to get an idea of what scenes I wanted and what assets I would have to draw. Not everything made it into the final production but it was still helpful to have something to reference as I made the actual video. This part did take up a lot of my time though, mainly because I was struggling to get a grasp of how to best pace everything and convey my story. In the end I pushed through and got it done.
Next was creating my assets. This part was relatively straightforward because of my storyboard. I kept things simple and tried not to fuss over details in order to meet the time limit I was on. The last thing was to put everything together and “animate” it. This, as expected, took a long time. As I worked through the video, there were times where I had to edit things, discard previously made assets, or completely change a scene. Funny enough, one of the effects I used most was the wiggle effect as it was an quick and easy way for me to add movement, which was super helpful as it not only made some scenes more visually interesting but saved me time as well.