The Friend Who Waits For You

The Vertical Slice

This is one of the last shots of the animation where the girl is an adult.

The Process

Here is a video that shows the process of how I did the animation for this preview

The Pre Production

I have had this project idea in mind for quite awhile now and am looking forward to finally sharing it. This whole project started because I wanted to animate the shot that is in the preview. I love to animate big emotions and movements and wanted to animate a character who got more distressed as the animation went on. I also wanted to tell a relatable story. Growing up and changing is something that everyone has to go through which makes it something that everyone can relate to.

Concept Art

Below is some concept art that I did when I was trying to work out exactly what this project was going to look like.

Character Turnarounds

As you can see from the concept art above the art style changed from the original idea. It became more geometric as I not only found it easier to draw as it allows myself and anyone else who helps to animate on this project to be able to clearly understand the structure of the characters, but it also allows the bigger moments to hit harder than they would with a softer art style.

Backgrounds

I started the backgrounds off by creating a 3D blockout of the scenes in Maya. I then went over it with the details before doing the first colour pass. After the first colour pass I went gave it more contrast and lighting.

The Future

Sneak Peak

I do not want to show everything before the project is finished but here are some images to show what some of the other shots are currently looking like.

(Notes: none of these images are complete and all have a lot of work that needs to be done to them before they go into the final production)

I would like to thank Casey, Erik and Sophie who have done some amazing work helping me to get this project to where it is now. Casey and Erik did an incredible job of cleaning up the story and refining the shots and Sophie is doing some awesome work with the audio.