The supermarket thief

This is the story of a little petty thief who wants toilet paper by all means. However, he has not think about the sophisticated security system of the supermarket…

Idea behind the piece

The idea behind this short story was to develop my animation skills but not just with a dull and mechanic exercise. I wanted to tell a funny story with its whole narrative arc and with a character with a strong personality. The premise of the initial exercise was: “a character with an objective who faces an obstacle that stops him from achieving it.” Based on that statement, the goal of my character is to be the king of toiler paper rolls. The obstacle is the ban on taking more than one per person. As a result he has to dash away.

Process

As it can be seen in the video of the process, I started with a much longer video reference. I thought that there were many actions that could be synthesised and make the story more powerful. So, in the blocking we can already see that the actions are more clear and short. I continued polishing the animation until the final version which I rendered.

I tried to achieve a very cartoon animation with multiple smear frames and a snappy timing.

Also, I have kept the textures and environment simple to focus the attention on the character. The finishing touch was a showy lightning which boosted the eccentric personality of the character.

It was a really fun shot to animate, I have learned a lot in the process and I think that I have achieved my objective of improving my skills while telling a fun and entertaining story.