research
was closer to the style that I would like to take my art to. Japanese wood prints is a style of art which has been turned into a “stamp" which is green card from wood and then inked in order to create the end result of a print onto a piece of paper the art lines are sharp and easy to see and this also allows they are to have multiple patterns on it without messing up the line at.
Other types of Japanese traditional art is there paintings these paintings use if it ink-based line. This art style is more fluent but harder to recreate. For my animation I plan to use the wood print look to my artwork as it allows me to use flat textures on the characters design.
Other types of Japanese traditional art is there paintings these paintings use if it ink-based line. This art style is more fluent but harder to recreate. For my animation I plan to use the wood print look to my artwork as it allows me to use flat textures on the characters design.
beat board
To sum up the story I created the board with all shows the main character. I wanted to show within the picture what the story always based around which was the character out for revenge in the name of love. As that a mysterious creature in the distance to show the mystery and fantasy within the story itself. while I was working this beat board was also trying out the Japanese print style in my work. In my opinion the art style fit what I wanted to make it look because of this I planned to use in my animation.
storyboard
After I created and the board and did the research I then started work on the storyboard. My 1st concept of the storyboard was more action packed part of the story this was going to take place in what I call Autumn (climax). This was mostly based around the main character of the masked woman. The storyboard that I did for this was not very clear on the stories plot and so I decided to work on a new storyboard this will mean based on beginning (Spring). This storyboard was to start off slow allowing the viewer to get to know the characters story. This begins at the point where the character has met her true love and is still a normal person. This animation would be mostly silent at this point allowing people to take in the atmosphere of the animation.
after working on this storyboard I came to the realisation that the animation will be too long and so I had to drop this storyboard and go for the shortest Storyboard to make an animation out of. This left me with the ending of the story (Winter) a storyboard focused on the fight between 2 main characters the masked lady and the samurai armour. This animation was fairly short but still had a lot of action as well as capturing the story. After I worked on the storyboard I moved on to doing the live action recording of which are used to turn into the animation using rotoscoping.
animatic
Before I began working on the 3rd storyboard I turned the 2nd story world into an animatic to see how long it should run for after a while I realised that the animation would be too long and so went onto my 3rd Tory board for the final project.
character design
My main focus was to work on character design. This story based mainly around the main character the masked lady and the 9 tailed fox. After doing research on the art work that shows how Japanese artist would draw their females I finally started working on the final concept that I would use for the main character.
mask lady
Just let the women in the Japanese prints the faces elongated but yet still rounded off giving a smooth faced design. The mask ladies mask is based off a Japanese play mask. I wanted this character have a looming movement to her design doing this would make the characters seem more expressive through body movement instead of facial features.
nine tail fox
The 9 killed Fox character is the mischievous character changing the story by giving the main character the choice to dish and think wrong in order to get back someone. This character design had changed multiple times at 1st it started off looking more like the European Fox with its head being more oval shaped then elongated. I also changed how the tables were going to be drawn instead of being a straight line they were a repeated pattern of the 2 match closer to the design used within Japanese paintings and other concepts. Although this character is not appear very often within the story his presence I wanted to make it stand out so that you would not forget who the “ villain" is.
samurai
The samurai design came in later through the project his concept was to simply be a empty shell of armour. His design was very straightforward based around real Japanese samurai armour I modified the patterning of it making it simple and design to draw repeatedly the character also has a mask face as well as being of the same colour palette. I made them the same colour in order to link both characters together as both were tricked by the Fox into doing evil deeds.