2D Animator and Illustrator
SHORT FILM
Penny and the Sugary Scheme!
Meet Penny, a rascally robber with a bad case of insatiable greed!
Follow her as she plots her latest scheme - stealing a delicious diamond at a crappy mini-mall.
Penny and the Sugary Scheme! - A Short Film
The Process
The Pitch
The very first step of the storytelling process! For this stage, I had to present my idea by showcasing a rough story layout and a bit of concept art (left). Afterwards, I created a rough script detailing the whole plot of the story, then rewrote and refined it until it was clear and polished.
Design
Once I had a clear script, I began to plan out all the visual elements of the short film, such as the backgrounds, props, and Penny herself! When designing these aspects, it was a constant balance between making interesting designs and making them easy to redraw/animate, and there was a lot of feedback involved!
Storyboards
After I had a good idea on what the film would look like, a started to draw my storyboards. These drawings essentially work as a slideshow to help show the main movements of the film. After lots of feedback and polish, I edited the boards into an animatic (left) by adjusting the timing to match the film and adding sound effects.
Penny and the Sugary Scheme! - Animatic
Rig Building
Once I had a solid understanding of the story, I began creating the rig, or the digital puppet I animated in my film. I did this by creating drawings of every part of Penny's body based on a turnaround as reference. I then added pegs and deformers to the drawings to allow them to be manipulated for animation. Every part of Penny had to be considered here, so lots of planning was
involved!
Animation
Now it's time to make the main course of the film's visuals: the animation! To do this, I first had to follow an animation schedule I created to help keep me on track. Then I had to key frame, in-between, and occasionally adjust my animations until they were just right. Like the design phase, I had to balance between working fast and polishing the animation.
Penny and the Sugary Scheme! - Animation Pass (No Sound)
Penny and the Sugary Scheme! - A Short Film
Compositing
The very last step before the final export! Here, I spruced up the animation by adding effects such as smoke, sparkles, and police lights (a special thanks to Roland Baron, one of my instructors, for helping out here!). This was also the part where I added the music and sound FX. I finished up by making a custom thumbnail for the film.
...And there you have it!
One complete minute-and-a-half long short film done in about six months!