Final Major Project Pre-production Pack

WS Number WS296595
Name Kaine Spindler
Project Title Final Major Project – Hunt of Cuchulainn

Contents:

 Introduction: Pg. 2
 Themes/Genre & Target Audience: Pg. 2
 Environment design/Colour palettes: Pg. 3
 Character design: Pg. 4 - 5
 Animation & Style Breakdown: Pg. 5 - 6
 Audio/Sound/Music: Pg. 6
 Lore/Backstory: Pg. 7
 Technical Details & Naming conventions/Folder structures: Pg. 7 - 8
 Project Asset/feature list, Must haves and desirables: Pg. 8
 Production outline/Timeline plan: Pg. 9
 Final Comments and Notes: Pg. 9
 Bibliography: Pg. 9 -11

1
Introduction:

For my Final major project, I intend to create an animated short based on my

own short stories “Edward Dandellian and the Froghoul” & “Cuchulainn’s
Origins” written by me, the project animated short will be called Hunt of
Cuchulainn, named after the main character in the stories. The animation will
focus on the events of the short story “Edward Dandellian and the Froghoul”,
specifically the scene when Cuchulainn and the Froghoul fight, though it will
also include a flashback sequence referring to the other short story
“Cuchulainn’s Origins”.

Themes/Genre & Target Audience:

The animation will be an action fantasy steampunk with a darker more horror
esc theme to it. I’ll be utilising a darker colour palette and flickering lights to
give the animation a more eerie feel, along with utilising a slower pace of
animation at times to build tension and suspense, for it to then pay off and
become more fast paced chaotic and intense action.

The animations content is targeted at a more mature audience, though the

horror fantasy steampunk theme/genre will make it more appealing to young
adults and older teens.

2
Environment design/Colour Palette:

Most of the animation is going to take place aboard a fantasy steampunk sky
ship, a flying metal ship, with flashbacks to a fantasy steampunk laboratory.
Both environments are going to have a darker, more horror esc, theme to it
with the use of darker lighting, flickering lights and iridescent green glows.
Along with-it taking place at night so there’s no natural light besides moonlight

if any. When the lights flicker on aboard the sky ship the colour palatte will be
brighter, but when the lights flicker off, the colour palette will consist of mostly
darker colours, except for the irridecent green glow of Cuchulainns eyes and
his biomechanics, along with the labrotory environment which will also have
an irridecent green glow to it due to its lighting. The ships primary colour will
be a bronze, followed by browns and greys, where as the labrotory will be
primarily grey but with bronze and green as its secondary colours.

Character design:

There will be two characters in the

animation, the main character
Cuchulainn and the antagonist, the
Froghoul. Cuchulainn will have two
forms, his human form, and his werewolf form. The only things that stays the

3
same in both forms is his iridescent green iris’s, his white/grey hair colour that
becomes his fur, and the prominent biomechanical enhancements he has all
over his body, except his entirely mechanical right arm which mechanically
transforms into a more beast like arm when he shifts to werewolf form.
Additionally, in his human form he has well-kept hair and facial hair, incredibly
soft and smooth skin despite what his many scars would lead you to believe.
His most prominent scars are the one across his left eye and the large jagged
circular scar in the centre of his chest and has only one visible tattoo on his left
arm, an array of unknown runes that form a band around his bicep. He wears a
modified crop jacket which fits around his biomechanical implements using
leather straps and various holes in the jacket, he doesn’t wear anything else on
his torso, exposing most of his upper body which isn’t covered by
biomechanics or the jacket. He also wears a pair of jeans and knee-high leather
boots. In his werewolf form, the whites of his eyes become black, and he
becomes a bipedal wolf monster. He is covered in white/grey fur, he grows a
tail, and his legs become the back legs of a wolf. His head becomes wolf like,
being more of a mix of a humanoid structure with wolf features like the ears
and snout, and he grows claws from his fingers. His general size and muscle
mass expands in his werewolf form.

The Froghoul is essentially a large undead zombie esc frog, though it has claws
and a mouth full of jagged teeth, it has striated muscle like skin with a rotten
esc colouration.

4
Animation & Style Breakdown:

It’s going to be a 2d animation inspired by the animating styles of both

Vivziepop and Telepurte, with a simple yet smooth and polished design. I also
plan to use a variety of camera shot styles, with many scenes within the
animation going between different kinds of shots such as over the shoulder,
full shots and close up shots in a short amount of time to create a chaotic style.
30 frames per second.

5
Audio/Sound/Music:

I want the animation to be backed by the song Sinners by Barns Courtney, the
song’s lyrics can reflect a lot on Cuchulainn as a character, and the beat of the
music fits the kind of animation being shown.

6
Lore/Backstory:

The Animation is based on two short stories I have written for the character
Cuchulainn, “Edward Dandellian and the Froghoul” & “Cuchulainn’s Origins”,
though reading these stories won’t be necessary when viewing the animation,
it would give insight into design and narrative choices throughout the
animation. The short stories can be read here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m_tghLd06zif6eXDyLcCnk73WzaZj75C
p3rR-RK-tRg/edit?usp=sharing

Technical Details & Naming conventions/folder structures:

Majority of the work, including research will be done on computers, though

some physical research will also be done and recorded utilising the camera on
my mobile phone. Along with using a computer I’ll be using a drawing pad
attachment so that it’s easier to draw the animation/designs. I’ll be utilising a
mixture of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Animate to create the animation and
designs.

I’m going to have an in-depth and organised folder system for this project,
having one main folder named “Final Major Project”, and inside that folder
have some sub folders named “Research”, “Planning”, “Character
development”, “Environment development”, “Final Assets”, and “Final
product” which hold their respectively named contents. For example, the
Research folder will hold anything involving research for the project, such as
mood boards, tutorial links used, etc. Whereas the character development
folder will hold all the artwork created during the development stage for the
character, such as pose sheets and turn around sheets.

7
Project Asset/feature list, Must haves and desirables:

I need to create a story board for the animation, connecting each panel to a
time during the background song track Sinner to give a time frame between
each panel, and I need to create a character turnaround and pose sheet for the
Froghoul and Cuchulainn in both human and werewolf form. I also need to
create the background concepts and the backgrounds for the animation.

8
Production outline/Timeline plan:

Final Comments and Notes:

The Laboratory could have other cages with animals inside them scattered
about, also being tested on, which could raise the ethical debate of both
human and animal testing. As within the animation the only reason Cuchulainn
survives is due to the testing and experimentation that was done on him,
however, does the fact it saved his life make the testing done to him and the
other animals alright or does the pain and cruel nature of it outweigh the good
and ultimately make what was done to Cuchulainn a bad and unethical thing?
It also raises the question of where testing on Cuchulainn would be classified,
would it be classified as human testing due to him being human at base, or
would it be classed as animal testing as he’s a werewolf and turns into a wolf
like beast. Which then asks where’s the boundary between animal and human
testing and why is it okay for one but not the other?

Bibliography:

Images used in Final Pre-Production

Contents:

https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Warwick/LoL

9
Theme:

https://arnaud-simon.artstation.com/projects/96J1q

https://www.wallpapermaiden.com/wallpaper/25267/underground-
creepy-walls-scary-light-hallway/download/1536x2048

Environment:

https://polycount.com/discussion/138801/ue4-cruise-ship-hideout

https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_GB/story/singed-thenightmare-
story/

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rRE28m

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/616078424004016873/

Character:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/3pd75i/
homebrew_monster_a_day_froghoul/

Animation/Style:

https://thegeekiary.com/helluva-boss-an-indie-animation-with-morbid-humor-
recommendation/101357

https://www.reddit.com/r/pointlesslygendered/comments/ka4eoq/
pockets_by_telepurte/

Audio:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sinners/dp/B079JLBCDY

Technical:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Animate

10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop

https://www.amazon.co.uk/XP-Pen-Professional-Graphic-Drawing-Shortcut/
dp/B077W5SZD3

https://www.indiamart.com/shree-infosolutions/computer-system.html

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/64234-change-folder-picture-windows-
10-a.html

11