For Future Reference: Forest Rivers...

All these images are from www.ForestWander.com:

A couple of them are very similar but they'll have small details that are different in them that I can use later, such as the patterns in the water. Lovely stuff! :D

New Story Ideas...

Using the notes I made last night, here are my new story ideas:

• There's a hidden river deep within a forest where life thrives. Creatures from great to small gather here everyday to drink from it and celebrate their life. However, not too far away, there is an evil that lurks high above. Living off jealousy and hate, it strikes out against the forest creatures, corrupting the river and devastating everything around it.  There's little hope among the shrapnel and dust, save for a single seedling, barely visible above the grime.

• Dawn has broken on a new day and the creatures begin to stir. These creatures of nature, all elegance and beauty, are preparing for their fight to survive as they rise up against the evil force that's held them in fear for so long. They gather together and rush forward to their enemy's stronghold. Hidden deep within the castle(?) walls is the spiteful wizard. Too long has she been attacking those below her from afar and today she'll have to pay for it.  The creatures burst through and into the castle, running high and low until the find her. She's chased to the highest tower and before they can catch her she either: Falls into the blackness below or disappears instantly in a puff of smoke/fire.

• Opening on a beautiful courtyard with a great tree as its centrepiece. Many creatures live here, protected by the courtyard walls and seeking refuge within the solid wood of the tree. However, all is not well, as the evil outside the walls wants to destroy everything within them. Option 1) Unbeknownst to the creatures, the evil slowly creeps and crawls its way up the courtyard walls and steadily into the courtyard itself.  When the creatures realise they run to the tree to hide from the evil outside but the evil is strong and constricts the tree. The creatures are trapped. Option 2) The creatures feel a rumbling and crashing from outside the courtyard walls, it isn't until it's clearly reached the walls that they all retreat to the confines of the tree. They wait, huddled together as the evil brutally forces its way past the walls and despite their great strength, they tumble to the ground.  The evil rushes in towards the tree and finding no way in, it begins to smother it.  (I have no idea how these would end for sure, whether it would end with the evil reaching and constricting the tree or if there would be some big retaliation on the creatures side, I'm not sure).

Leftover or important story points:

• Flowing lines, twisting and dancing.

• Jagged rocks, things shooting up from the ground
• Spells and magic
• Violent weather.
• Rolling evil either liquid or rock. 
• Corruption of beauty, twisting it.
• Overwhelmed and surrounded, hopelessness or feeling trapped.
• Sudden and drastic actions.

I'm not sure if I'm getting myself stuck because I keep seeing it as a conflict between natural beauty and corrupted evil or if that's just going to help narrow down the story ideas. I'll add more stories later though I think, just to make sure I have the best options I can :)

Generating Story Ideas...

I need to generate story ideas as I only have the one at the moment so, music on, let's go:

Things I see in the first section of the music:

• Flowing lines, twisting and dancing.
• Sun
• Flowers opening, dew drops and floating seedlings
• Thriving life.
• Life by water, a lake/river.
• Beauty in nature or something constructed.
• Dawn of a new day, maybe an important day leading to battle

The second section:

• Rumbling
• Jagged rocks, things shooting up from the ground
• Spells and magic
• running/chasing in tall towers, general  racing around, dodging things.
• Violent weather.
• Falling into emptiness, water or just from a great height.
• Rolling evil either liquid or rock. 
• Corruption of beauty, twisting it.
• Crawling and creeping, general sneakiness.
• Rising up against something.
• Overwhelmed and surrounded, hopelessness or feeling trapped.
• Attack on a castle/safehouse.
• Sudden and drastic actions.

Quick story thoughts:

Life around lake>rumbling>enemies appear causing chaos.

Good rising up against evil, chasing it down.

These are just things I saw as I listened to the soundscape. I'm a little stuck when it comes to the story side of things so this was great for just getting some ideas going. I'll grab some of the ideas and write up rough stories from them next and see which are possibilities to take further!

Story Ideas...

The first thing that springs to mind is the idea of journeying through a lovely, lush, healthy forest/pasture where everything's lovely and gorgeous but as the music changes a conflict arises. An evil force appears and starts to destroy everything around it, leading to a big conflict between the 'goodies' and 'baddies' which will have some kind of dramatic climax that I haven't decided on yet.

I'd say the firebird suite from Fantasia 2000 is a big influence for this idea:

I'm not sure if the story is too much like the firebird suite and obviously there's a lot of details I need to put into like. For example, what kind of place are they all living in, why are they fighting, who will be the focus etc. As I've done a lot of character design work, and I'd like to do more, it should focus on them, but it is deciding everything that should happen in-between that's the tricky part.

Whatever idea I go with, I would love to end up with a gorgeous animatic similar to the style I previously posted for Guild Wars 2, directed by Horia Dociu:

Guild Wars 2 Animated Trailer from Horia Dociu on Vimeo.

It's a really nice example of an animatic that feels like an animation and if I get further than that then great! My idea may change later but I still think that achieving something like that would be really great! :)

Villainy!

I thought I'd research into animated villains and see what makes them so successful as I'm worried I'll fall into some clichés, in a bad way, so here are some images I have at present:

Thanator from Avatar

Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty:

Scar from The Lion King:

Ursula from The Little Mermaid:

Chernabog from Fantasia:

Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove:

Ratigan from Basil the Great Mouse Detective:

Shan Yu from Mulan:

Hopper from A Bug's Life:

The Horned King from The Black Cauldron:

Randall from Monsters Inc.

Tai Lung From Kung Fu Panda:
Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2:

I know there are much more villainous looking characters out there but I'm drawing a blank, so I'm going to go and chill out and have a think. Any ideas would be muchly appreciated! :D

Silhouette Collection...

Any silhouette with colour around it is one that I personally like. The yellows are the 'maybes' and the red indicates 'villains', the green the 'good guys' and blue is possibly neutral.

I'm feeling a bit stale at the moment so I think I'll have a go at making my 'wheeler' silhouette creepier, it's a little too much like a squashed deer at the moment. I have a distinct lack of villainous silhouettes, or maybe I should just have one super evil one... Any feedback will be great, whether it's about merging two together or making something completely new. All help is appreciated! :D

For Future Reference: Allison Theus...

Most people know her for her awesome but minimalistic animations for Extra Credits but, not so secretly, she is also a very talented 2D artist. She featured in this months Imagine FX and I fell in love with her marker pen and ink drawings.

It's the detail that really captured my attention. Drawing the smallest muscles and knowing the skeleton and muscular structure of your fictional creature is just amazing to me, I'd just love to be able to have that in my work one day. Gorgeous!

She has many ways of finding here: Her website, blog, deviant art and tumblr.