I wanted my Narrative to be presented in the form of a 3D animated fight scene, which would use my own efforts and last around 1-2 minutes. This was my first time animating in Blender, so I went in knowing it would be a challenge. To do this, I had to learn the skills required to model texture and rig characters. So because I was making my independent project in 3D, I thought it would be a good idea to share elements between that project and this one, such as the figures.
I also already had a small amount of skill in 3D from working on previous projects, which made me feel reassured, despite how much I was taking on at once. In order to figure out what the style would look like, I began researching other media sources such as movies and TV. I eventually settled on a cell shaded 3D style, which would give the appearance of 2D. This was partly inspired by the many examples of animation in this style I had seen online and in person.
The first stage was to make the models. This seemed simple on the surface and at the beginning it was going rather well, until later on when I had to start adding more details and things began to get more complicated, at which point I began to struggle and progress started to take longer to make. It was at this point that I decided to change direction and instead switched from an animation to a 3D rendered comic. This meant I could spend more time on making impactful shots, without worrying as much about the in-between stages that animation commonly requires. This brought about a different set of problems because now I had to be more efficient and thoughtful about what I wanted to illustrate in my narrative. This was something I had to grapple with all throughout the making process. Changing to a comic instead of an animation eliminated the need for sound effects and long render times. However, now I needed to split my time between rendering my shots and assembling them into comic pages in photoshop along with elements such as speech bubbles and action lines.
One problem I encountered during the process was implementing dialogue, as the script had more lines in it than I could fit into my comic. Therefore I had to abridge and shorten my dialogue considerably, as well as shuffle things around. If I had more time I would've leaned further into the comic aesthetic and added the comic book colour halftone effect onto every element rather than just certain frames. I also would have played with colours slightly more.
With such a complicated making process, I am quite happy with the final result and how I adjusted to changes in circumstances to produce a good quality outcome in the time available. In tandem with my Independent Project, I learned a wide array of new skills and techniques.
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