Ball Park

MORE BALLS!

Now that I rewatch this, I've noticed that the red ball is a bit slow on its way back after it hits the block. Ew.

Again, for this, I wanted the ball to have a bit of character, so he slides gracefully through the hoops and jumps into the box at the end. 

I don't quite know why I insist on making the balls hop in or off things. But I think it makes me work a little harder, because some of the movements are almost subtle (at least I hope they're subtle) and they don't need to be so exadurated. For example, when the ball leans/squashes down before making the leap, I tried to make that movement small and then have the jump big. An enthusiastic jump.

I don't know anymore...

Croquet Ball Exercise

This was simple enough to do. Just move the bat, hit the ball and let it roll.

However, I decided that at the end, rather than just have the ball simply roll off the edge, he could roll back and jump off instead. I think I just wanted the ball to have a bit of character.

SoftImage Ball Roll Exercise

The very basics of animating, but it has to be done. If you can't do this, then there is no hope.

Rolling, rolling, rolling our balls.

Mr and Mrs Potatohead comic

Good God, I don't even know!

Idea came from watching this This is Sparta with Electronic Sounds.

Found this a little bit hard to do since I have never used SoftImage in my life, so making the limbs and everything else go to the place I wanted them was a bit mind boggling.

Thumbnails

These are the thumbnails I made just so everyone had an idea of what I had in mind for the animation. These were passed on to Farideh, who made the storyboards from these.

 

Here are Farideh's storyboards created from these.

Layout Designs

For the room layout, I wanted to keep the room as simple and empty as possible. The only pieces of furniture in the room would be a desk, a chair and a clock.

The only other thing besides the character would be the piles of paper, which would steadily grow as the animation goes on.

Because of the amount of paper that appears, the room would feel quite claustrophobic, which will add to the characters distress.

More Character Development

At this point, I asked everyone to come up with some character designs of their own. That way we would have more variety and the character used need not be just mind "because I like it". This is supposed to be a team effort, and every part of it needs everyones involvement.

Everyone was given, or already knew, a discription of the character and what he/she needed to look like.

For this version, I gave the character a short and stumpy look. This way the character would look small next to the piles of work they generate and it'd look easier for the character to become lost under it. The character could also look fairly innocent as well.

This version of the character looks more alien but still retains a look of innocence. 

I feel that the character should have a look of innocence about them. After all, the character did not ask for this phobia, and depending on how strong minded the character is, they might not know how to handle it which makes the situation a whole lot worse for them.