Penny and the Sugary Scheme!

The Film:

What is this Project?

This was my first experience creating an entire short film from the ground up. Unlike with other animations I made, I had to write, design, storyboard, rig, and animate the whole project! This was a great learning opportunity, as it not only helped me understand the general flow of the animation pipeline, but it also gave me a wide variety of artistic experience, which I'll go over here:

The Process:

The Very First Pitch

The first drawing for my initial pitch of the film. Originally, the film was supposed to take place inside of a convenience store, where a clerk gets his hand stuck in a vending machine. Suddenly, the place gets robbed! The robber realizes the clerk can only give up the money if his arm isn't stuck, so the two form an unlikely alliance and try to get his hand out of the machine. Hijinks ensue, then credits roll!

After pitching the film, some aspects of the story had to be rewritten to make it flow better, such as removing the clerk character and adjusting the setting. (Turns out, vending machines aren't that common inside convenience stores. Who knew?) Penny and the vending machine were pretty much the only aspects that stuck around.

The Makings of a Thief - Designing Penny

Below is the entire process of Penny's creation - from pitch to perfection!

A series of Penny sketches, ending with Penny's final film design. In the film's story, Penny is aggressive, goofy, and a bit pathetic, so I wanted her design to reflect that. Her shorter and rounder appearance makes her look more harmless, while her explosive hair and expressive eyes give her a bit of edge.

Most of these were drawn with the Procreate app, while the final sketch was done in Adobe Photoshop.

A series of colour experiments for Penny, as well as the final pallet used in the film. The film's pallet is based on Pallet #1. Created in Photoshop.

Penny's final turnaround, which was used as reference for her rig. Drawn in Photoshop.

An image of Penny's rig, or the 'digital puppet' I moved around to create the film's animation. Made in Toon Boom Harmony.

Once I finalized the story, I started to design Penny based on the original pitch. The main challenge was to create an interesting character design with limited details to make the animation easier later on. There were a few changes in Penny’s design, such as adding a mouth and changing her suit, but overall the look stayed pretty faithful to the concept art.

Building the Backgrounds

A few rough layouts of the main location and the parking lot background. Drawn in Photoshop.

Here’s a quick process on how I designed the backgrounds of the film. The overall design was based on the style of late 90’s cartoons such as Dexter’s Laboratory. All drawings were done in Photoshop.

Producing the Props

A series of sketches for the Jewel Candy bag and vending machine. An image of Penny's rig was added to make sure the props and character matched stylistically. Drawn in Photoshop.

Sketches of Penny's trusty gun and her bag of jewels. Drawn in Photoshop.

The final design of the Jewel Candy bag, taken directly from the film. Drawn in Photoshop.

The final drawings of the Jewel Candy vending machine. Drawn in Photoshop.

Designing the props was a lot like designing Penny, except it was on a much smaller scale. That doesn't mean there was less work to do, of course, since there were way more props to make! To help incorporate them into the cartoon-y style of the film, I tried to add a subtle 'wonkiness' to the props by sketching them using asymmetric shapes.

The Animatic

When all the designs were finished, I visualized the story by creating the storyboards using Toon Boom's Storyboard Pro. After numerous rounds of feedback, I finalized my storyboards by creating a full animatic with placeholder sound effects.

The Animation Pass

Once the animatic was created, I used it as a guideline for my final animations in Toon Boom Harmony. The following video is my animation pass, which is the normal film without the added sounds, music and effects.

When I finished the animation, I added in some extra effects using Adobe After Effects. This includes things I couldn't create in the original animation, such as the police cars, gun flashes, and flying bullets. Once all the visuals were complete, I compiled everything in Adobe Premiere Pro and added the sounds and music.

Finally... A Title Card!

After the film was completed, I drew a custom thumbnail in Photoshop to help complete the overall look of the video. I was loosely emulating older Looney Tunes and Disney title cards by making the thumbnail more detailed and painterly compared to the models in the film. It makes it more dramatic and eye-catching!

My Final Thoughts:

Overall, this has easily been one of my proudest achievements as a junior animator. Like I said before, it was an excellent learning opportunity and offered me a unique set of challenges I don't normally face as an artist. Despite some of the hurdles I encountered, working on this has been a blast and I'm so happy with how the final product turned out!

If you've made it this far, thanks for checking out my film! It really means a lot to me.