The Gatekeeper
Character Animation Short
Character Animation Short
Production: Courtney Hopkinson (insta: @3D_storyteller)
Character Design: Joe Olson (insta: @jobus)
Character Design: Joe Olson (insta: @jobus)
Audio: Dylan Galletly (url: https://wolf.horse)
This personal project is a short character animation created to develop my storytelling and animation skills, while also diving into a complete production pipeline, from concept to final render. It was also an opportunity to get more experience with Redshift in C4D.
The inspiration came from Joe Olson’s wonderfully expressive 'Fuzzly' character. I’ve loved Joe’s work for a while, and after reaching out to him on Instagram (@jobus), we explored a few animation ideas using some of his characters. I ultimately chose a light-hearted gag where Fuzzly takes on the role of a jungle bouncer; stoic, serious, and mysterious.
Joe was also generous enough to design a second character for the project - BUG. The animation needed a cute and small character to contrast with the GUARD character.
Once we settled on the concept, I wrote a short script and storyboarded the sequence. The boards were then edited into a rough animatic in After Effects to establish the timing and flow.
From there, I moved into production:
Modeling & Sculpting: ZBrush
Texturing: Substance Painter
Rigging, Animation, Lighting & Set Building: Cinema 4D
Rendering: Redshift
The main challenge was cinematic: finding the right camera angles and pacing to build tension, deliver the joke, and do justice to the character's charm in a very short runtime.
I worked through all of this during the 3D animatic stage.
I worked through all of this during the 3D animatic stage.
Here's some of the process of taking Joe Olson's Fuzzly character design from sketch to a 3D character ready for animation.