SPACE FACE
Synopsis: One can only imagine the day to day life of intergalactic space travelers. Clarence and Hugo must maintain themselves and their spaceship as they encounter powerful enemies, embarrassing pasts, and dirty emails.
This project was created to gain more experience with Adobe After Effects. The idea was developed with three restrictions in mind:
Short Production Time: complete in a month
Limited Aspect Ratio: Ideal for Instagram mini series (square format)
Rapid Production Rigs: full body rigs can be over complex - need to keep things “simple”
With this in mind, I decided to create a mini-series based entirely around the face of my character. Much like the scenes in Iron Man where they would show Tony Stark and the heads-up-display (HUD), I wanted to approach the characters in the same format. This approach would allow for all three limitations to be fulfilled as the character, overall, would be simplified, fit inside a square ratio, and the various scenes could be streamlined to fit into the production period.
IT ALL STARTS WITH A SCRIPT!
The script is the foundation to the production. Since this was a solo project, much of the visual details were either in my head or sketched out. This script laid out the dialogue and basic story structure of the episode.
SKETCHES
The designs of Clarence (captain) and Hugo (co-captain) & the HUD (heads up display) were created in Adobe Illustrator. The spaceship and other assets for the short animation were created in Adobe Photoshop. Full face rig of both characters were created in Adobe After Effects.
ANIMATIC
The animatic is a rough cut of the animation. This animatic included rough designs of the main characters, mouth lip-sync test of Clarence, and established the pacing & timing of the dialogue. Placeholders were used for sections that weren’t developed yet.
