After watching Sarah Beth's tutorial on planning, I used this process to do a personal project based on the UK's National Wildlife week. It was a wonderful opportunity to do something based around gardens and focus on those little creatures that live in your garden or in the forests.

I started with a mood board and collected references.

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 1 - student project

Here, I researched lots of photos of nice gardens, animals and tools.

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 2 - student project

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 3 - student project

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 4 - student project

My mind map was done on paper and I seem to have lost it in a pile of papers, sorry.

Next, I looked into style references. I wanted to explore some new techniques in 3D and play around with vegetation (plants and trees)

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 5 - student project

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 6 - student project

I looked into colours:

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 7 - student project

Next, I did a few really rough storyboard ideas. This is the part where I wished I had spent more time on as I found myself getting a bit lost with the core part of the story. Scribbling your ideas first is a good way to start.

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 8 - student project

I drew a few simple doodles of the assets I needed to create in 3D and a visual style reference.

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 9 - student project

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 10 - student project

Next, I started to develop some style frames and play around with the light, textures and how everything would be positioned.

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 11 - student project

I had a few cut frames where I showed close-ups of the bee coming close to the flower.

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 12 - student project

and the wellington boots eyes getting bigger with excitement.

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 13 - student project

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 14 - student project

Here's the final animation.

Some points that I would do next time really follow the process of doing the mind map, colour blocking and more research into references. I loved how Sarah did message to her client and I will definitely use this. Thanks again.

National Garden Wildlife week. - image 15 - student project

http://instragram.com/leonnikoo

Leon Nikoo

Artist / Illustrator / Animator

6

28