Duck and Cake

by lumai on 13 Dec 2023

A short 2D animation created on TVPaint. The brief for this module, at Escape Studios, was creature creation. I chose to design a duck that enjoys eating cake.

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Duck and Cake

by lumai

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Duck & Cake: Short 2D Creature creation animation

Brief summary: In this module, I was tasked to study the techniques and theories used to bring 2D animated creatures to life through traditional 2D hand-drawn methods. The animation required a minimum of five seconds. An industry standard pipeline was practised, the export of the final video must be a 16:9 ratio to at least HD 720.

Character Design

The outcome of the animation highlights a Duck, though I had several creatures in mind to accommodate the brief. At first, I thought of a fish flopping on land, with more thought I felt it would be quite cruel to animate. To appeal to a wider audience, I decided to go for a friendlier style. My second idea was a turtle yet I wanted a faster animal, a creature that would engage a child audience.

Finally, a duck was suggested to me and I agreed, animating a duck sounded fun. Through heavy research, there were many interpretations of animating a duck - realistically, stylised or anthropomorphic.

During the first few sessions, I started conceiving my duck idea. Without having a clear idea, I sketched freely. I covered the duck in royal clothing, a large cape and a tiny crown, ducks are perceived to be "sassy" so I wanted to incorporate a bold personality. I randomly added a strawberry cake, and it stuck with me. Unfortunately, the cape and crown did not. Contrary to an anthropomorphic duck animation I went for a stylised design, rather than a flashy character. The final design looks silly and humourous.

Walk Test

After designing the creature, it was time to animate it! I started with a walk test, I wanted the duck's webbed feet to be exaggerated for the audience to notice the waddle.

I tried capturing some natural movements in the walk, I used multiple references from live-action to cartoons.

Storyboard

The storyboard contains the key actions of the animation and was later developed into an animatic. The animatic provided further understanding of the scene, the duck began coming to life for their prized cake.