Howdy all. As some of you may know, I'm currently studying animation, and have just started my final year. The major project this year is a short (2-3 minute) animation. I have my story mostly laid out, but I'm looking for a little help refining a couple of elements, and designing the characters. I have a pretty fair idea what I want with the characters, but I can't draw for ***.
Before you ask, no, I'm not cheating. It's actually part of the assessment to bounce test the story on an audience, and also okay to have someone else design characters/sets/etc., as long as I'm directing and doing the actual animation.
That being said, here's the story I have so far:
Quote:
A woman walks into a market place and approaches a wizard at his stall. She mumbles a question at him, and then speaks up a bit and says that her husband has a problem... you know... in the bedroom... Obviously she's very shy and hesitant about asking for help.
Just as the wizard starts to explain how he can help, a travelling priest/templar/paladin interrupts over her shoulder, saying how he couldn't help but overhear (even though she was basically whispering) and suggest she make an offering to the good god.
The wizard and templar argue about paying tribute to imaginary gods and paying for cheap tricks etc. and then start fighting, throwing fireballs and holy thunder etc. at each other.
The fight goes on for a little while, until it starts to get a little ridiculous, then all of a sudden we see the woman reading a magazine, half disinterested, half disgusted at the wizard and the priest.
Over her shoulder, we see the wizard and priest hiding behind their stalls, making sound effects with their mouths and throwing imaginary fireballs at each other.
The woman rolls her eyes and says something like "psh, men! Nevermind, I'll just try the article in this magazine" and then wanders off, leaving the wizard and priest's jaws hanging open in shock.
Copyright 2011
Now the main issue I have, which I'm just looking for some random input for, is that I feel the ending is a little disjointed. I originally wanted her problem to be something that is easily solved in todays age, but probably would have been a real issue in the middle ages. That way, her resolution would be to pick up the ready made solution for her problem from a nearby stall, rather than the magazine. But maybe you all think the magazine ending works?
As for the fighting, the only thing I really have in mind is a fireball, a lightning attack, and a holy hand-grenade, so I'm looking for some spell suggestions too.
Onto the characters:
The setting is medieval, but may have a little bit of a modern/futuristic twist (yes, I'm heavily influenced by Final Fantasy). As such though, there's no requirement for anything to be historically accurate, which is my main motivation there.
Mage:
This guy is a cocky knob. He thinks he's king ***. He's trying to look like a traditional wizard, shooting for style and missing. He also can't grow a proper beard, but at least he gets points for trying.
Not so sure about the frilled collar.
The Gauntlets could be more bracelety, and especially have bigger emblems/jewels.
I'd like the boots to come up a bit higher, incorporate knee-pads, but go no higher.
The black and red image next to the bracelets is the sort of thing I want to do with the material of the coat, but no decision on design or colours yet.
Would also like some shoulder pads perhaps.
I'm okay for this guy to be mismatched, and in fact I'd probably prefer it. A few patches and stains would fit pretty well too.
Templar:
This guy is like a used car salesman, sneaky, weaselly, slimy and annoying. He has such a "better than thou" attitude you just want to punch him in the face. He's big and tough enough to look like he belongs in armour, but without being overly brawny.
I have a fair mismatch of gear here, but I'd like this guy to actually match, since it'd be a uniform he's wearing. The body, gloves and feet in this image are all a bit heavier than I'm really thinking, he should be reasonably light armoured.
Helmet: I think the cross noseguard is quite important, but not sure that I want to have the cross as the religious symbol, or make something up. I'd like it to be reasonably ostentatious, but not sure whether or not I want the spike.
Bracer: I'm pretty happy with that design, but will have the religious symbol engraved on it too.
Gloves: I like the ostentatiousness (that's apparently a word) of them, but I'd rather they were fingerless.
Pants: I like the utilitarian brown leather pants, but also like the stitched on crosses of the black pants, and think they would work well together.
Feet: As I said earlier, they're too heavy, but I liked the engraving on the shin guards. I couldn't find a better image, but I'm thinking leather, perhaps with a couple of steel plate insets, which could have the engraving on.
Shield: I really liked this half shiny/embossed look, but the logo will be the religious symbol (be it a cross or made-up). I couldn't care less about the shape.
Lady: I'm not too phased about the design here. I'd probably prefer her wearing shirt and pants than a full dress, as it's much less hassle to deal with animating. Same reasoning applies to braided hair over loose. A bit of boobage is good, as it gives more motive for the wizard and templar to be fighting over her as a customer. I also have some reference pics for her, but it's pretty typical medieval type garb really.
So that's where I'm at. I'm mainly just looking for some feedback on the story, as I can build the characters up from what I have already, but if anyone wants to take it on and draw some sketches it would be massively appreciated. There's no money involved, but do a good enough job and your name will be in the credits of an animation I'm hoping to get into festivals.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and if nothing else, maybe I've stirred up some interest in my animation, although it won't be finished until the end of November :p
I need to finish the script before I launch into the storyboard. I'm not looking for professional input, I'm looking for thoughts and opinions from regular people. As for the character design, for the most part, that's completely aside from the story itself.
Don't worry, there'll be a storyboard and animatic soon, and if people are interested in seeing them then I'll gladly show them, but at this point I'm still finishing off the script.
The thing with getting someone else to design the characters is that they'll also put their own ideas and styles into the character. Yes I have a fairly good idea of what I'm after (moreso for the mage than the templar), but I know there are some really talented artists that lurk these forums and would love to see how they interpret my guide and add their own influences to my half-formed characters :)
Reading over it now Blazza, i did animation to and would be happy to help you out ^^ Still reading the post atm though. Ive done a lot of scripting and character design for college and my own stuff.
Ok read it all. I like the story you made its funny xD haha. I could easily picture it in my head as i was reading it. When is your deadline for this? I'll gladly help make some characters and scripts for you. Will start working on it right now ^^
Whats your animation style btw? Flash? 3D? Or Traditional?
It's 3D. Looking to contain it all to just the market place so that I can cut-down on how much I have to model, and make it look shmexy as. Also planning on putting a fair bit of time into the spell effects (hopefully). The total animation is due in November, but there are plenty of steps on the way there. Don't worry about that though, as nothing is set in stone until it's complete really. First thing for me to complete is script, storyboard and animatic, although I'd like to start work on at least one of the characters so that I can use it for my character animation and engineering classes. However, I have plenty of other work I can do in the mean-time if I feel like I haven't developed anything here enough.
But again, any and all help is greatly appreciated, even just feedback (positive or negative) is more than welcome.
I've changed the story a tiny bit I think, she'll buy some sexy lingerie instead of the magazine.
Rather than being disinterested, why not have make it so that both guys have terrible aim and she keeps having to dodge ***?
Just a thought.
Could make it so that her clothes (cept the essentials) get magicked away and someone does one of those catcalls for her and she realizes she's sexy enough as is.
Edit 2: Possibly have the wizard try and launch some supercoolradicalawesome disarming spell, the other dude reflects it somehow, she gets hit, and BAM wearing lingerie.
Link to DA of picture if needed
I have alternate versions in my head of clothes, face structure, beard structure and accessories. The above stuff is just my thoughts in general.
What may be of some use to you is that while I was drawing him I kept on thinking of Jansen from Lost Odyssey:
I don't know if you've come across or played Lost Odyssey but yeah, your wizard character kinda reminds me of him lol.
It would be interesting to see some other stuff you've done and ofcourse to see how you progress with this.
I'd personally find it useful if you could post some sort of style you'd like this to be in. My current work tends to default to a typical anime/chibi type style and I don't know if that's something you want or not. For all I know you might want it to be in the same style of work as My Little Pony!
@Xueye, The moral of the story is that magic and religion aren't real, magic is widely accepted as fantasy and good for games and books only, while people still follow religion avidly, even though they're both the same (please let's not turn this into a religious debate, it's just for a bit of fun really). If I was to have the girl get hit by something, it means that she's joining in with their stupid games, and wouldn't fit too well with the final scene where they're doing it all in their imagination. Although I can definitely see a fireball going so close over her shoulder that it disturbs her hair or something, she'll still be unfazed. The story is based on these three videos:
Selkhet said:
Do you have any examples of your animation works?
Yes and no. All my previous projects can be found here, but I'll be stepping it up a notch for this one. I'd only put one of those (the hair one) on my showreel as they are now, although I still plan on finishing Paper Man one day, which needs more spit than polish at this point.
Quetzalcoatl.Xueye said:
Shiva.Gylfie said:
Why is Howard Wolowitz the templar?!
Socially awkward sleeze?
Perfect fit.
^ This :D
Hewiiii! Thanks man, that's really good, I love everything except the short sleeve version, (not sold on the chest hair either but I guess you could say *puts on glasses* it's growing on me YEEEAAAAHHH). Quality wise I'm looking at a cross between something like this and this. So putting my crappy collaged reference pics into that sort of 3D. I haven't played Lost Odyssey, but that guy is too oriental in design for me.
I'm thinking more and more that I'm going to give it a real futuristic twist, but probably moreso the scenery than to the characters themselves, certainly not the wizard anyway. In fact, I think you've given me enough to start modeling my wizard Hewi, cheers!
Thankyou for quoting the entire post to add your 2 cents, very helpful. I've never played Assassin's Creed, but yes, it's set in roughly the right time-period. Other than the time-period though, I'm not sure my story has any similarity at all?
Thankyou for quoting the entire post to add your 2 cents, very helpful. I've never played Assassin's Creed, but yes, it's set in roughly the right time-period. Other than the time-period though, I'm not sure my story has any similarity at all?
Not the same at all. I wouldn't mind him, he's trolling.
Sorry Blazza, by nature I tend to focus too much on the journey of the character to self discovery than what they already know >< One of my many flaws :X
Nothing to be sorry for. Any and all input is always welcome, even something you think might not fit or be too ridiculous can always give birth to other ideas. It just so happened that what you suggested I'd already thought of and discarded :p
Over her shoulder, we see the wizard and priest hiding behind their stalls, making sound effects with their mouths and throwing imaginary fireballs at each other.
***, I misinterpreted that....
>_>;
I was thinking like, she looked up and they were embarrassed and tried to hide their real magic and such >_>;
Oh my god people, stop quoting my OP please, or spoiler it lol. Most of my resource pics were taken from sites that actually sell all that stuff, when I'm on my main pc in a few hours I'll see if I can dig it up if you're actually interested.
Eh, probably a shitty idea, but the problem could be something medical, like a headache. The wizard suggesting like snakeroot and other ***like that and the templar saying its gods doing and that prayer is the only cure for it...and in the end she gets like a bottle of Tylenol or something.
But maybe i missed the point. Oh and I imagined it all in my head in the style of a Red Bull commercial. xD
Eh, probably a shitty idea, but the problem could be something medical, like a headache. The wizard suggesting like snakeroot and other ***like that and the templar saying its gods doing and that prayer is the only cure for it...and in the end she gets like a bottle of Tylenol or something.
But maybe i missed the point. Oh and I imagined it all in my head in the style of a Red Bull commercial. xD
No no, you got the point exactly, that's exactly the thing I was looking for! Although I think I'm still gonna go with the slightly raunchy approach, but that's still a great idea!
Howdy all. As some of you may know, I'm currently studying animation, and have just started my final year. The major project this year is a short (2-3 minute) animation. I have my story mostly laid out, but I'm looking for a little help refining a couple of elements, and designing the characters. I have a pretty fair idea what I want with the characters, but I can't draw for shit.
Before you ask, no, I'm not cheating. It's actually part of the assessment to bounce test the story on an audience, and also okay to have someone else design characters/sets/etc., as long as I'm directing and doing the actual animation.
That being said, here's the story I have so far:
Quote:
A woman walks into a market place and approaches a wizard at his stall. She mumbles a question at him, and then speaks up a bit and says that her husband has a problem... you know... in the bedroom... Obviously she's very shy and hesitant about asking for help.
Just as the wizard starts to explain how he can help, a travelling priest/templar/paladin interrupts over her shoulder, saying how he couldn't help but overhear (even though she was basically whispering) and suggest she make an offering to the good god.
The wizard and templar argue about paying tribute to imaginary gods and paying for cheap tricks etc. and then start fighting, throwing fireballs and holy thunder etc. at each other.
The fight goes on for a little while, until it starts to get a little ridiculous, then all of a sudden we see the woman reading a magazine, half disinterested, half disgusted at the wizard and the priest.
Over her shoulder, we see the wizard and priest hiding behind their stalls, making sound effects with their mouths and throwing imaginary fireballs at each other.
The woman rolls her eyes and says something like "psh, men! Nevermind, I'll just try the article in this magazine" and then wanders off, leaving the wizard and priest's jaws hanging open in shock.
Copyright 2011
Now the main issue I have, which I'm just looking for some random input for, is that I feel the ending is a little disjointed. I originally wanted her problem to be something that is easily solved in todays age, but probably would have been a real issue in the middle ages. That way, her resolution would be to pick up the ready made solution for her problem from a nearby stall, rather than the magazine. But maybe you all think the magazine ending works?
As for the fighting, the only thing I really have in mind is a fireball, a lightning attack, and a holy hand-grenade, so I'm looking for some spell suggestions too.
Onto the characters:
The setting is medieval, but may have a little bit of a modern/futuristic twist (yes, I'm heavily influenced by Final Fantasy). As such though, there's no requirement for anything to be historically accurate, which is my main motivation there.
Mage:
This guy is a cocky knob. He thinks he's king shit. He's trying to look like a traditional wizard, shooting for style and missing. He also can't grow a proper beard, but at least he gets points for trying.
Not so sure about the frilled collar.
The Gauntlets could be more bracelety, and especially have bigger emblems/jewels.
I'd like the boots to come up a bit higher, incorporate knee-pads, but go no higher.
The black and red image next to the bracelets is the sort of thing I want to do with the material of the coat, but no decision on design or colours yet.
Would also like some shoulder pads perhaps.
I'm okay for this guy to be mismatched, and in fact I'd probably prefer it. A few patches and stains would fit pretty well too.
Templar:
This guy is like a used car salesman, sneaky, weaselly, slimy and annoying. He has such a "better than thou" attitude you just want to punch him in the face. He's big and tough enough to look like he belongs in armour, but without being overly brawny.
I have a fair mismatch of gear here, but I'd like this guy to actually match, since it'd be a uniform he's wearing. The body, gloves and feet in this image are all a bit heavier than I'm really thinking, he should be reasonably light armoured.
Helmet: I think the cross noseguard is quite important, but not sure that I want to have the cross as the religious symbol, or make something up. I'd like it to be reasonably ostentatious, but not sure whether or not I want the spike.
Bracer: I'm pretty happy with that design, but will have the religious symbol engraved on it too.
Gloves: I like the ostentatiousness (that's apparently a word) of them, but I'd rather they were fingerless.
Pants: I like the utilitarian brown leather pants, but also like the stitched on crosses of the black pants, and think they would work well together.
Feet: As I said earlier, they're too heavy, but I liked the engraving on the shin guards. I couldn't find a better image, but I'm thinking leather, perhaps with a couple of steel plate insets, which could have the engraving on.
Shield: I really liked this half shiny/embossed look, but the logo will be the religious symbol (be it a cross or made-up). I couldn't care less about the shape.
Lady: I'm not too phased about the design here. I'd probably prefer her wearing shirt and pants than a full dress, as it's much less hassle to deal with animating. Same reasoning applies to braided hair over loose. A bit of boobage is good, as it gives more motive for the wizard and templar to be fighting over her as a customer. I also have some reference pics for her, but it's pretty typical medieval type garb really.
So that's where I'm at. I'm mainly just looking for some feedback on the story, as I can build the characters up from what I have already, but if anyone wants to take it on and draw some sketches it would be massively appreciated. There's no money involved, but do a good enough job and your name will be in the credits of an animation I'm hoping to get into festivals.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and if nothing else, maybe I've stirred up some interest in my animation, although it won't be finished until the end of November :p
