I started my online visualization project today; coming up with a story and art for a 16 frame, 40 second animatic with the theme ‘topsy turvy’.

I started planning for my animatic with a mind-map; i just wanted to brainstorm ideas for topsy turvy and see where i ended up. I knew quickly that i wanted to do something more light hearted, because the phrase ‘Topsy turvy’ seems a little silly and informal to me. I thought of ways to interpret the theme both literally and metaphorically, and in the end i decided it would be more fun to do something more on the literal side. I then thought of what could send things out of order and topsy turvy, and i liked the idea of creating a character with magical powers, but not much control over them.

Influenced by my mind-map, i came up with a basic synopsis for my animatic; an ambitious but scatterbrained young witch casts a spell that goes drastically wrong, sending the world into chaos. I imagine the full story of this animation to be that she would eventually go on to seek out a special ingredient/object to fix her wrong doings, learning a lot and meeting people along the way, but for the animatic i’ll only capture the part where she casts the spell and it goes wrong. The character would grow and mature a lot by the end of the animation, similarly to in Ghibli films. to put things simply;

The protagonist- the magical character who casts a spell that goes wrong

The antagonist- the character’s own recklessness; the magic spell she casts that sends the world into chaos

Emotional response- the journey that the character goes on, the maturing she goes through and the people she meets along the way.

Target audience- younger audiences

I further developed this synopsis to flesh it out and add some originality to the story; A young witch, intending to pull off an ultimately harmless prank, finds herself in trouble when she casts a spell that plummets her usually happy go lucky world into chaos; everything is turned upside down when the civilians of the happy world lose all their kindness, becoming horrible and nasty. This witch must now locate a special crystal; an object said to have the power to undo any spell, and fix what she started.

Now that i had my story, it was time to start working on some of the visuals for the animatic. I started out with a mind map to influence my character design; i wanted my character to come across as someone with big goals and a lot of ambition, but not much maturity or foresight.

After creating my mind map, i knew that i wanted to combine two witch portrayals; a cute small witch character, and a more traditional spooky looking witch. I wanted my end result to be a cute and human looking character, with a few creepier details. I waned it to look like she was trying her best to come across as scary, but failing. I also liked the idea of the witch hat being it’s own living character, and i wanted to incorporate that into my design.

These were my first initial sketches of the character i was envisioning. I liked that she had creepy elements to her, but i felt she looked a little too naturally scary looking. i wanted it to look more like she was trying and failing at coming across as intimidating, and i wanted her to look a little more child-like as i felt it would fit her bold but reckless personality better. I liked the design for her face-changing hat, so i kept it and developed the design a bit further.

I refined the design a bit, getting rid of some of the creepy features; I felt that the jagged shapes on her were causing her to come across as more scary than intended, such as the sharp corners in the design and her sharp teeth, combined with other factors like her tiny pupils and creepy clown-cane. I looked into shape in character design, and i came across Shape theory; to summarize what i found out, different shapes and lines send different signals to the brain, which can influence how a character design is perceived. Sharper and more aggressive corners come across as sharp and violent, so i wanted to develop my design further and get rid of most of the jagged lines on the witch. I ended up rounding off her facial features; i made her pupils bigger circles, changed the shape of her eyes from semi circles to full ones, got rid of some smaller details (the cane, the spiral shapes on her cheeks) and tried to make her look a little younger by giving her a bigger head and bigger eyes. I think my refinements were successful, because the character ended up looking more like a traditional children’s cartoon witch, and i feel it would appeal more to the target audience.

I decided to name this character Arnika Grimoire; Arnika is the name of a mildly toxic plant, and grimoire is a term used to refer to a magical book. To stick to my plant-naming trend i named her hat Mitsuba, the name of an east Asian herb.

To summarize Arnika’s backstory;

〠 She comes from a prestigious and evil coven of witches, and aspires to be like her seniors

〠 She’s crazy about magic, but very bad at it. She dreams of proving herself as worthy of her place in the coven.

〠 Her first and only friend (because she’s too focused on being an evil magical genius to make other friends) is Mitsuba, a hat she accidentally brought to life when she was younger. He doesn’t speak, but he does react and make small sounds, and can move on his own. he stays on Arnika’s head despite having free will because she’s his closest and most valued friend.

〠 She’s ambitious but a little delusional; she makes big plans that she isn’t powerful enough to carry out

〠 She’s only 5’2, and wears massive shoes to make up for her short height as she wants to look intimidating

〠 she has a very over the top and extra personality.

Here, i used watercolors to work out palettes for Arnika and Mitsuba. After taking my second class, i learned that pink and purple are colours often associated with magic and ethereal happenings, so i wanted to incorporate them a lot into Arnika’s design. I have her a tanned skin tone with yellow/orange undertones to contrast the purple, and i gave her shoes a colour that would match mitsuba. I wanted Mitsuba to be more naturally colored, with his eyes being his feature that stood out the most, so i stuck to a cream-ish colour for his fabric and a dark green line between his red and popping out eyes. I wanted him to look a bit creepy, as he’s what adds the spookiness factor to Arnika’s design, which is otherwise more friendly looking.

In conclusion, I’ve got rough ideas and starting points for my animatic now. i look forward to developing my idea and characters, and challenging my imagination some more.