My Character is also almost ready

This is the male character. I still have to work out a few things, such as blend shape eyebrows or FK, and decide what kind of control I want over the hands.

I will be doing some animation tests soon to finalise my ideas.

My dog is almost ready

This is the dog fully rigged. I still have to work out shaders and textures. Other than that this dog is ready to go!

Progress with Maya

I am finally getting to grips with the Maya Interface. I have nearly finished modeling and rigging the man and the dog - I will post screen shots soon. After trying out a few different methods of rigging I finally settled on the reverse foot setup. I decided against sliders wherever possible because I want the characters to be 'hands on'.

Design Sheet

This is a mock up of what I expect my film to look like.

It outlines how I intend to use colour to add emphasis to the characters and their animation.

I will not adhere to this strictly as it is just a test to see how viable this animation is.


This is a collection of just a few of the sketches I made when coming up with my characters. I found that the difficulty is in coming up with two characters that work together.

Synopsis of my Major Project

My submission for the major project shall be a short film. It will consist of a number of plural gags that stem from a repeated formula indicated at the beginning. Each individual gag will be less than ten seconds with some being less than three.

The Narrative of the film is set around the relationship between a man and his dog. The setting is a park where the two begin to play a game of fetch. From there the film takes an obsessive line in exploring many of the possible outcomes from when the ball is first thrown. As the film continues the results become more ludicrous and riddled with entropy. The first few instances see the dog refusing to give the ball back or covering the ball in slobber. Then a twist comes when the dog enters from another direction. From here a different dog brings the ball back, the dog brings a different ball back, the dog refuses to get the ball, the man gets the ball, the dog brings back a roast turkey, a giant foot squashes the characters, followed by anvils and safes etc.

The film addresses the relationship between man and dog, and how through body language the two communicate. Empathy is generated by providing situations we can all relate to - failure of communication, embarrassment, resignation and frustration. The obsessive structure of the narrative builds a sense of momentum in the story and pushes the characters to the edge of insanity. This relates to the absurdist tradition within animation, exploiting the plasmaticness of the medium, paying homage to some of the animators who made animation a viable creative medium.

My Film will imitate the stylised 1950s animation of Hanna Barbera and UPA with colourful, sharply designed backgrounds, and simplistic yet aesthetically pleasing characters. This will facilitate two important tasks. Firstly it will enable me to concentrate my time on the animation itself; one of the aims of this animation is to showcase my knowledge and skills in animation (timing, weighting, character performance etc). Secondly it will allow the narrative to proceed at a fast pace whilst still being highly communicative in animation and story telling.