Scenes 05 & 06 - COMPLETE

Of course, there will likely be revisions, but for the time being I will leave them as is. Pardon the low quality, but I can't upload every little snippet to Vimeo.






Here's the process:

Scene 06 - Preview

Scene 06 is only 29 frames, so it seemed like a good one to start off with. It's the one where Blu turns is head as he's scanning the club for potential single ladies. I'm starting small so I can get back into the groove of paper animation, as well as figuring out my pipeline.

Here's a color test of what a final colored frame will look like:



Here's my line test for the same scene:



It may seem quick as is for what is really just a casual "lookin' around" kind of glance, but it works well with the musical beats and rest of the film, you'll see.

Extras - Model Sheets (clean)

I've got this week off, so I've had lots of time to work on the film. I've almost got my first scene completed, but there was an issue with the frame coloring process so it got delayed a little.

Anyway, I also had time to make some definitive designs for all the extras in the club scenes:

Main Characters - Model Sheets (rough)

I reserve the right to adjust the designs if necessary once I start animating. Sometimes, you only realize certain aspects of a design don't work once you start animating it.

Character Development

Although I've had a pretty good idea of how I want my three main characters to look like like for a while now, I've still taken the time in the last couple of weeks to pinpoint the details and try-out a few alternatives. I've also been thinking about the look of all the extras in the club.






Notably, I've changed how Rose's headband is worn, swapped Noksek's hairstyle again and adjusted Blu's facial structure to be more square and less angled to differ more from Noksek. Each of the the main three are not only represented by a single color but also by basic geometric shapes.

Blu (from Italian) - Blue - Square
Blu is a dreamer. Though he is part of the hip crowd, he is somewhat at the lower echelon of it since he is more of a thinker than a dooer. Tired of the typical flaky female fair, he aspires for a more meaningful relationship, but doesn't know how to find it.

Rose (from French) - Pink - Circle
Rose is sweet, clever and fun. The perfect girl. Needless to say she's already taken.

Noksek (from Korean) - Green - Triangle
Noksek is at the top of his game. Looks, fitness and the will to succeed. He acts first and asks questions later and that's why he's got the girl.

Regarding the title

coup de fou·dre (ko̵̅o̅t fo̵̅o̅′dr')

1. a thunderstrike
2. a sudden, intense feeling of love

Etymology: Fr, lit., bolt of thunder

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"Pour certains spécialistes, le coup de foudre serait la naissance immédiate et irraisonnée d'un sentiment amoureux pour une personne inconnue dont l'apparence physique correspond à notre idéal."

My rough translation...

"According to some specialists, coup de foudre is a sudden irrational feeling of love towards a stranger with our ideal physical appearance."

It's irrational. Blu doesn't really deserve the girl. He's a silly dreamer looking for love in all the wrong places.

Old Stuff

I'll start out just by posting all the artwork I've done prior to true production, most of which is quite old and on my regular blog. I just wanted to show where I was coming from.

My initial idea for this film was different from now and the song I had in mind at the time was actually a track by The Faint. It was initially more of an electroclash/grungy type of feel, but since then I became interested in 80's Retro futurism which I thought suited my idea better since I find 80's retro futurism to have a lot of romantic undertones.