Assignment 1 — Wyatt Westmoreland
My Limerick
Short Story Idea — Green Vengeance
Set in the middle ages, a fat, greedy prince rests atop a big mountain, in a dark rocky palace, spending his days capturing and eating rabbits.
The prince lures rabbits in with big plump lettuce at his doorsteps, only to drop down his large cage to capture the rabbits. His family have done this for centuries, and have nearly put the rabbits at risk of extinction.
As the prince begins a new day, feasting upon his family of rabbits, he is interpreted by a visitor.
This visitor is a plump, dark green rabbit. As the cage comes crashing down, capturing the rabbit, the prince is amazed by its size and beauty.
As the Prince begins his meal preparations, he is shocked as the green rabbit begins talking.
The rabbit exclaimed, “I am here to save the hundreds of rabbits you have kept hostage for years. Your greed has gone too far, and I am here to set the rabbits free.”
Humoured by the talking rabbit and his ridiculous claims, the fat, egotistical prince began prepping the rabbit for the oven.
Hours past and the prince had prepared the green rabbit for his evening feast. He had never smelt such a beautiful rabbit, with such rich colours. The prince was ready for the feast of his life.
As he began to eat, he was overwhelmed by the succulent rabbit, it’s tastes apparelled to any of the thousands of rabbits he had eaten before.
However, as he came to the last bite, he was caught off guard by the green tinge of his hands. From his hands, the green moved up his arms and down his legs.
The Prince screamed, and began to panic, only to pass out from the supernatural occurrence.
After years of housing the beautiful rabbits in his evil lair, the prince awoke to the sounds of trampling rabbits. As he regained consciousness, the Prince awoke as lettuce. A round, plump, and succulent lettuce; a perfect meal for hundreds of hungry rabbits.
As the rabbits flooded the castle and broke free from their cages, it dawned on the prince, maybe I only I had let the green rabbit free. His greed was his fatal flaw.
Life Drawing — Learning the Basics
Being a business student in my final semester at uni, I chose this subject as a means of finding a creative outlet. However, having not done art in years, I needed to prepare for this assessment item.
This began with learning the fundamentals of drawing 3D shapes as well as the rough human form.
I later moved onto life drawing, sketching objects and people around me in my everyday environment, such as when I visited Cedar Creek or sketched my mum's bedside table.
When watching my friend slackline at a local park, I took the time to map out a rough sketch of his balance pose without moving my pencil off the paper. I practised the use of the centre of gravity and horizon lines.
Concept Drawings — Environment
To begin creating the visual themes of my short story, I originally thought of a farmer who breeds and eats rabbits. So I started drawing inspiration from cartoon/animated farms off google.
My first attempts of recreating a mid-evil, farm-like environment resulted in a cartoon look and feel, that didn’t encapsulate an evil feel I created from the short story idea.
However, after multiple attempts, I began to develop the right feel/mood. I knew from the story, that a lot of the animation would be set inside the evil castle/lair of the fat prince. So I began drawing inspiration from movies with amazing production design, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, even a staircase I recalled from the Matrix Reloaded.
Concept Drawing — Characters
The next stage of the project involving developing my characters. From the short story, there were two main characters, the fat Prince and the green rabbit. Extra characters would be the imprisoned rabbits and potentially evil, skinny chef that worked in the kitchen for the prince, preparing the rabbits.
Much like my original environment drawings, my characters began with a cartoon feel, that was too happy/innocent.
I drew inspiration from cartoon farmers, combining angry animation facial expressions to create a fat, angry farmer. However, this type of character would not fit inside the environment I finished with, so I continued developing the character.
I played with the shape of a fat man. As can be seen, I utilised the skills from the first 4 weeks of life drawing to create the exterior shape, start with the rough line and then build to create a more accurate centre of gravity etc. From there I began drawing inspiration from evil ruler concept art, to develop my prince further.
The final concepts of the fat rabbit eating man came together after a few iterations. I wanted to create an extremely overweight, egotistical and dumb vibe for the character. Someone, who’s greed ends up being their fatal flaw.
INCLUDE MORE PRINCE CHARACTER DRAWINGS
For the green bunny, I used concept art from Alice in Wonderland, combined with random images on the internet to move from an innocent cartoon rabbit to a more refined rabbit that would mould well into the environment.
As can be seen in the first round of character development, I started off with simple cartoon-like bunnies, and different rabbit poses/shapes. I made notes around what I liked/didn’t like about each type, later taking two styles to further develop the rabbits held hostage and the green rabbit.
I wanted to create a strong contrast between the rabbits held hostage and the green rabbit. Almost the difference between a monk and an overworked, stress human living in new york. I wanted the hostage rabbit to look sad, angry, dishevelled and caged up. Verus the green rabbit, being young, vibrant and on purpose.
Concept Drawing — Props
Throughout the creation of my short story, I became fascinated with the idea of how the prince captured all his rabbits. From there, the idea to use a big lettuce as bait, and a large medieval cage as the trap was formed. I found it quite ironic that he would turn into the exact thing he used to capture the rabbit's in the first place.
I began looking at the different version of cages to come up with something that would fit well into the environment concept work above.
Next Steps — Creating Finished Art
This project has been a process of testing and iterating different ideas. I have been able to establish a rough environment, locations, characters and props for my animation. While these are still rough ideas, I have come to a conclusion the animation will be 2D, with a mid evil setting, focusing on the irony of greed. I look forward to turning this concept artwork into finished pieces of art ready for animation.
Assignment 2 — Formalised Art
‘Green Vengeance’ will be produced in 2D format, using a range of simple colours, drawing inspiration from cartoon shapes. The following portfolio presents key characters, environments and concept drawings, which will be used to develop Green Vengeance into a short animated film.
Character Backstories
Igor
Born during the dark ages, Igor, the main character in ‘Green Vengeance’ and his father spent their days living off the land, exploring the mountains of Ugorthia, by hunting and killing rabbits.
Igor grew up besides his father, learning the art of hunting, catching and cultivating a sustainable flock of rabbits.
At age 18, Igor’s father passed away suddenly from a heart attack.
Igor grew depressed, lonely and resorted to eating more than his fair share of rabbits. Igor disobeyed and went against the principles his father taught him and instead let his ego and desire for greed and power to take over.
While Igor appeared large, strong and a man on power on the outside, internally, he was broken. Green Vengeance begins with Igor at age 25. He is a man of wealth, land and power, yet suffers from lonesomeness, and a trail of destruction, killing off the mountains and the land of rabbits.
Albert
Born in the mountains of Ugorthia, Albert the rabbit always knew he was different growing up around his fellow rabbits. Albert parents told him from a young age, that he was born to bring peace to the rabbits, after years of suffering.
Albert is the protagonist, fighting for the survival of the rabbit species, against the fat, evil and ugly Igor.
Every day Albert watches his fellow rabbits be caught and eaten by Igor, who loves on top of the mountain.
Albert at first doesn’t believe he was born to bring peace. He chooses to dress differently, act differently, even stand different with perfect posture, to separate himself from the rabbits and his destiny.
It’s not till one day, Igor captures Albert parents for one of his evening feasts, that Albert takes the step towards fulfilling his purpose.
Albert is smart, witty and different from other rabbits. He possesses special powers that come out after he finally accepts his fate as becoming the rabbit that saves them all.
After sacrificing himself to Igor, Albert is reborn, with Igor being turned into a helpless piece of lettuce.
Albert leads the rabbits to their vengeance.
Character Development Process
Igor
In the past assignment I decided to portray Igor as a troll like man, with a huge frame, big bald head and ugly face.
During the process of creating formalised art and developing the character backstory, I tried to build more irony into the character portrayal.
I began using a very cartoon driven style. However, I quickly realised this style didn’t fit into the mood of the story. I pivoted and began working on a more barbaric, war hero look.
Taking inspiration from war heroes, I built more armour and animal skin into the characters outfit.
With Igor turning into a helpless lettuce, I wanted to build as much irony as possible by portraying him as a man of power and wealth before he decides to eat Algory.
Ultimately, I kept many features of Igor from the previous assignment, his heavy set frame, bald and ugly head, but focused on developing more detail in the character.
Albert
Albert is the protagonist that is meant to save the future of the rabbit race. When working on Albert’s character backstory, it appeared he acted, dressed and portrayed himself differently to a ‘normal’ rabbit.
Albert, being extremely smart, witty and focused on his appearance, was designed with more mystical clothes. I focused on developing different types of rabbits, sitting and standing. After truely understanding Albert’s back story, it was obviously a standing positioning was best.
Adding the cape allowed for the mystical powers of the rabbit to be expressed in a visual manner.
The choice to keep Albert’s eyes large and black was a conscious one. During the previous assignment I focused on making the rabbits eyes the point of focus. I wanted to maintain this focal point, while using the characters backstory as a way to develop the stance and outfit of the rabbit.
Prop Development Process
Cigar
During the previous assignment, I never looked into the use of a cigar as a prop. However, after developing the character backstory, and finding out that Igor was a very lonely man, it made sense to provide him with a vice that could help his boredom and lonesomeness.
I researched different cigar designs and used some time to play around with drawing different styles and angles of a cigar.
Ultimately, a large Cuban like cigar was chosen, to match the personality of Igor.
Cage
The cage prop is crucial to the story. It is the device used by Igor to capture the rabbit and is where Albert sacrifices himself.
While I experimented with five different cage styles, a simple, bird cage style was the end design.
I chose to incorporate bone into the cage to symbolise the death of the rabbits.
Angles of the lettuce in the cage and Albert sacrificing himself were key frames.
Concept Art
For my main pieces of concept art, I focused on depicting potential scenarios of Igor and Albert.
Igor’s dining room inside his large castle with a key piece of concept art.
The shot showcases Igor’s power over the rabbits, with two caged either side of him.
Albert is positioned at the end of the tablet awaiting his fate. Little does Igor know it would be his fate.
The above piece of concept art highlights a key prop, character and environment. The cage, Albert, and an up close shot of the castle are shown. I chose to use very dark browns to create an dark and evil mood to the imagery. This is to symbolise the moment before Albert enters Igor’s castle to fulfil his destiny.
Environmental
I chose to develop an environmental shot which showcased the power Igor has over the rabbits.
By protesting the barren land, with dead trees, and positioning the rabbits at the bottom of the hill looking up to the castle, it portrays the rabbits weakness and Igor’s power.
Thumbnails
The below thumbnails are key shots of the land, Igor’s castle and the main scene within the animation which shows Igor eat Albert and turn into a lettuce.
Thumbnails begin very dark, symbolising the destroyed land.
The sky was created rather dark, with a storm brewing around the castle for dramatic effect.
A key shot of the dining room tablet with Igor awaiting his most delicious meal yet, Albert.
The final thumbnail shows Albert reborn, after sacrificing himself to Igor to save the rabbits. He is shown as the leader and hero of the rabbits, with four positioned behind him.
Final Comments
I believe this assignment really pushed me to developed my skills. Looking at the quality of work produced now, compared to my first assignment is really satisfying. I have gone into more detail and created actual concept art. I am very proud of the final product.
