For my film for the two characters and a setting project I have decided to use a dog and a turtle as my characters. I think these animals will be interesting to animate together as they have very different traits, with the dog being quite playful and clumsy, while the turtle is more calm and slow. I have chosen a beach as my setting, a place where both these animals are likely to be. To keep the focus on my two characters, this beach will be empty except for a few objects left behind by people, such as towels and sandcastles.
So far I have created a storyboard to outline the key events of the film and the camera angles I intend to use. The film will follow the dog as it finds a turtle shell and realises there is a turtle inside, before trying to make the turtle leave its shell. The main challenge this project presents is animating the dog so that it moves convincingly, which will be difficult as I have never animated an animal with four legs. After watching several videos and researching walk cycles, I animated a short clip to try and figure out how the dog might move, and I'm really happy with how it looks.
I have decided to use photoshop to create my film for this project, which I haven't used to animate before. This was difficult at first, however I am becoming increasingly comfortable with this technique and also feel my skills are improving.
My next task will be to create an animatic so that I can plan out the timing of my film. I also need to decide how the film will end, as I'm not sure the current ending will work as well as I initially thought.