Nutcracker - a student project

#1

Hello everyone,
I just started in the Digital Character Animation class at the Vancouver Film School, and I will be posting the progress on the short animation film I will be working on for the next 6 months. A bit about the project itself, each student has to submit an animation short with a couple of guidelines: the film should be roughly 30 seconds, have one character and one scene.

I’ll be posting my work here, and every critique you can give me on the story, storyboard, animation, visual concepts will be very welcomed.

As with everything, first thing’s first, the story:
A caveman leaves his cave with a grocery list, and the main item: coconut milk. He approaches a coconut palm, retrieves a coconut and has to figure out how to crack it open. After a series of failures, he finally gathers various materials and tools, then comes a montage of him building…a traditional nutcracker (yes I know the coconut is technically a fruit and not a nut…). For this I have two possible endings in mind: the first, he cracks open the coconut, and gets carried in his joy and spills all of it’s juice (think Sid in Ice Age with the watermelon). The second ending would see the coconut explode at the touch of the nutcracker, and the caveman giving up.

I’d probably adopt a visual style inspired by The Flintstones for the project.

All of this is still in the rough, as you might guess, and is still subject to many changes, even an entirely new concept, but that’s my idea for the moment.

#2

ok, waiting first pictures :arteest:

#3

Dumped the nutcracker idea, kept the prehistoric setting. Here’s my character concept (edges won’t be as sharp, had to use my mouse for coloring). My drawing skills are trailing behind and I’m bashing my head against my desk trying to get the front view of the character out. Should be coming along soon…ish.

#4

I think he has too intelligent facial expression for man who can’t open coconut. maybe more brutal looks give him some charm

#5

Good point, though now I’ve revised everything. I’ll post my new stuff when I come up with the concepts.

#6

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