Environmental Concept Art.

I think during the illustration process and even to a certain extent before that, i.e. the brainstorm process, I had concluded that I wanted the animation to solely focus on the characters, the performance and more importantly their relationship with each other. After all it is their interaction with each other which really sets the tone for the entire project (accompanied with narration). It didn’t feel correct to situate the characters within the physical world where locations and time zones could be identified, i.e buildings, parks and forestry to name but a few. I felt there would be a disconnect between the characters and their performance within the sequences and the backgrounds. This all takes place within a metaphorical environment and the choice to create a world where there is nothing can just be as symbolic as the characters and even the sequences within the project.

Having said that, I did believe that due to the simplistic ideology and lack of environmental backgrounds it would have been beneficial to have had some form of background which complemented the environment the characters are situated in. It would also compliment the texture within the brushes used to make the marks for my drawings. I explored a few different types of paper textures of various colours, sizes and degrees of texture until I could find one which I believed would be a good balance for the project. I decided on a white light paper texture as it would help me in my attempt to create a balance between the traditional look whilst working on a digital platform, creating a timelapse animated background at a later date.

During a tutorial with my animation lecturer he advised me to use some form of 'flooring'. To me it grounds the characters and gives some sense to the audience that although this environment has no parameters it does provide clarity that characters are not merely walking on air, that they abide by the laws of gravity. I decided to use the same charcoal brush I used for shading the characters as there would be consistency.

As time passed I began to reflect on the use of textures and questioned whether the textured timelapse would be beneficial for this project. I felt the textures were not detailed enough and therefore decided to abandon it. Whilst trying to figure out what background I could use for the project I remembered, being left handed, my own experience of drawing characters and how the graphite from my hand while drawing would smudge against the paper. Having this in mind, I decided to create a background animation sequence using a charcoal brush, each frame different in an attempt to replicate the graphite smudge look. I was pleasantly surprised by how the sequence looked and felt it would compliment the design of the characters. As a result I decided to use the graphite smudge background sequence for the project.

Background flooring process:

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/18b9e9_2ce55faa1d9247c1996a02986ad62e63/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Finalised animated background with texture:

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/18b9e9_760ecb787469433daa9f3caf20ac5a9f/1080p/mp4/file.mp4