These were the key words we decided on as a group, we wanted to continue on the themes of transformation that we had touched on during our rotations. we had a mis of different concept ideas.

->One was leaning hard into the transformation and being trans, i story of how scary it can be but to come out the other side better and happier. ->Another leaned into the environment and exploring things like a nuclear disaster. -> Or being trap by anxiety and a struggle with self. ecta ectra – we wnt through a lot of ideas.

As a group went though so many different iteration of the story but the is was the first draft.

https://pin.it/14YkHBFag -> creating a clear mood/arc to hep put everyone on the same page and kickstart the story.

Just from the vibe of all the imagery we have gather. I imagined the traveler as an explorer, as almost a god like creature that we don’t get to see the face of. I think if the traveler is a god like creature it would make sense why the environment is kind of its mindscape. They want to explore the forest picking up herbs-(imagine a witch or collector )

They come across a lake that they get to see the future – a glimpse of our ideas of solace– this is to show the travelers’ reaction and show them grasping for the future a, but it slowly fades into their reflection. Their emotional distress leads to the sort of decay of the environment around them. 

They eventually calm down all the colourful decay stops. When they see this light orb that they can hold. They eventually absorb it into their body as their environment fall away

At this point i started to get worried about timing and splitting up roughly how log each things takes

At this point we got sort of stuck on the story and it went really progressing. We couldn’t find a way to make to lake make logical sense. The story felt split in to 2 sections and the climax was not purposefully enough. We took a break and started working on a character profile and environment.

Character profile Character name: Aether (they/them) Physical attributes: small, agile, has a cape, pretty lanky, has a cane (staff) and leg braces, carrying herbs, magical little fella, very wispy  Hobbies: collecting a shiny things. Knitting, exploring thing, foraging  Personality: Desperate, curious, easily overwhelmed, skittish, quiet but fascinating  Their origins: some sort of spirit creature, woodland sprite who lives with their little villages hidden in the forest, the sprites aren’t well integrated into the rest of magical society and tend to keep to themselves.

Environment profile Dark trees sharp and annulare. Dark but has life to be decayed. Winter/autumn. Blue, purple is the colour of the forest. Set deep into the forest in mid winter. The sky is a dull medium shade of blue and it looks as though it might snow with the way the sky is quite foggy. It’s clear that it has snowed recently as the ground is still frozen and lightly dusted in snow meaning you can see Aether’s footprints yet the forest is resilient against the frost and you can still see grass and certain plants cropping up from underneath the snow. The trees are bare and sharp, a stark contrast against the white snow and the sky. The lake contrasts the background as it shimmers under the harsh winter light – indicating its potential magical qualities but it shouldn’t be too vibrant or else it will be too obvious. In the background in the trees you can catch glimpses of the frozen stone statues of other woodland creatures where they have been caught and petrified.

I really love this environment and i would love to use it make a painting or make a really detailed sound scape in the future

After taking a little break from the from the came back with wind in our sails

These are some of the initial character designs drawn by Rhianna cork as we spoke about the narrative. Though i didn’t play much of a role in this stage you can see all of the different version we went though before agreeing on a final design. All of these quick sketches really helped me plan how we would break up the animation and have a more concrete idea for the character and their personal story before the animation.

The Final Character designs and colours

At this point in the process we were till investigating the idea of decay as a scary but necessary thing that has to happen. To do this i was personally focusing on the colours using bright colours to contrast the world bleak work around but leaning towards uninviting shades and shapes. I loved the way it subverts what we normally associate with to cause fear. Another team member brought up the final scene from Paranorman where aggie emotion is linked ad reacts with the forest.

This was one of the paintings that I did for the painting of the forest before we made any concept art. as you can see i had a more wisp lighter forest in mind be for i so the concept art. I was also struggling to get the colours i wanted and had to get a lager pallet with a wider range of water colours

This is some of the concept that Rhianna cork made focusing around the environment. As you can see we are looking at a very dark forest in the winter. These art works also helped us decide that wanted a painterly style.

This was our first storyboard before our final story

This story-board has all the edit we needed to make to it was a more dynamic

This is our second to last storyboard