For the animation Jam, we have been given the theme of “Alternate Dimensions and Other Worlds.” I recently began thinking about an original story and world that would be suitable for making into a game in the future. The story is set in a post apocalyptic world where the rapture has happened; half of the World’s population has been taken by God, and Hell’s armies of demons roam the Earth. All Christian religions have formed into one Church, and both men and women who choose to join the clergy are trained as demon hunters. Members who choose to join as academics are known as “sisters” or “brothers”, and those who choose to train as demon hunters are given the title of “Priest”, regardless of gender. For the animation JAM, I aim to create a 10 second clip showing the main character walking in slow motion surrounded by demons, perhaps with establishing shots of the environment.

Aesthetic and Character Design

I began looking into Liturgical vestments as a starting point for character design. I am interested in costume design and I find that costumes and clothing are usually my starting point for character design. I found it interesting how modern day fashion designers take influence from religious clothing and symbolism, as shown in the video below.

As someone who comes from a ceramics/sculpture background, I couldn’t help myself but to take inspiration from one of my favourite sculptors when thinking about the general aesthetic of the animation I wanted to create. Below is a video showing images of his work. He takes a lot of influence from the clothing of nuns to create haunting sculptures of elongated female forms. I really love his work.

As well as Liturgical vestments, I really like the look of the wimple cornettes historically worn by Nuns belonging to The Daughters of Charity.

Inspired by the above mood boards, I started getting my ideas down by doing a quick first draft sketch of the female main character. I really didn’t like her helmet, it makes her look like an astronaut?

I drew her again with different head gear, I think a visor works better than a helmet. I started drawing a weapon in her hand but didn’t finish it. I’m really noticing how rusty my drawing skills have become! I have become too used to manifesting my ideas in clay, and I’m having trouble realising them in 2D form. Hopefully with practise this will improve.

Further Character Design

Environment

I really love the aesthetic of the dystopian worlds in the paintings of zdzislaw beksinski, his work would be an influence for the scene of my animation, as well as the demonic secondary characters.

I knew my setting would most likely be a dystopian city, so I had a look on turbosquid for free city models. I found this one of an alleyway, which I decided would be best for my environment.

Animatic

Here is the rough animatic I produced for my animation jam submission. It was good to get a chance to try out the music I wanted to use (which is the first 10 seconds of “Dead Gardens” by Nightwish.) I knew I really wanted to use this song, because the looming synth sounds ominous and uneasy, which is exactly the kind of mood I wanted to portray in my establishing shots. I also liked the idea of the music reflecting the theme of the story. I interpreted the song dead gardens as a reference to the fall of eden- this vaguely religious element reflects the religious dystopian world my story is set within.

Attempt at Modelling and Cloth Simulation

As I had a very specific character design in mind, I spent a long time working on creating an outfit for a basic female mannequin model I downloaded from turbosquid. I ended up abandoning this model. I could not get the skirt to function as I had hoped it would, the body parts clipped through the cloth when I tried to animate my character. However, I learned a lot about modelling in maya, and in my next project I hope to learn about painting skin weights, UV mapping and rigging, so that I may continue with this character and story.

Below are the videos I watched when working on this abandoned model.

Here are images of my attempt so far. I had to abandon it because I was running out of time for creating my animation, but I will certainly continue working on it. I decided to use the Azri rig for my final animation, as it is a high quality rig that I was already familiar with from the weekly exercises.

Sourcing Suitable Models

After cutting my losses with my Nun model, I decided to use the Azri rig in her place. I also found a suitable demon rig, skeleton and rat from turbosquid. I quite enjoyed animating the rat in particular.

Final Animation and Reflection

Below is the youtube upload of my final animation. In reflection, there are plenty of things I would do differently if I was to do it all over again. I would focus more on purely the animation- I spent far too long working on a failed model that I ended up not even using! I would especially like to clean up the animation of the final clip where Azri turns to attack the demon. However all things considered, I did learn a lot about animation, as well as modelling and cloth simulation, and I am much more familiar with Maya at this point than I had expected myself to be. This is an animation that I would definitely like to continue working on after this semester- I would really like to produce an industry standard version of this animation eventually.