The Art of the Peacock and the Crane

7/30/2019 The Art of the Peacock and the Crane

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The Peacock and the Crane is an Aesop Fables tale of two very d ifferentbirds encounter of each other, and the reveal of the opposing abilitiesthey both hold. My animation comprises of two characters being insidea empty yet bold environment to where they have no choice but tointeract with one another. This is a character driven story with andabstract twist that communicates the emotions of the birds visually.This piece was created to a particular type of music that ultimately

drove the art style, character design and shot composition.

This project was 13 weeks of learning, acquiring new skills, improvingold ones and being a more experienced more capable designer andanimator . What I mostly enjoyed about this project was the growingof ideas and how the animation naturally shaped itself to be everything


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I came across LOrange an

American producer some time

earlier this year through a

suggestion from a very good

friend. After listening to The

audition a track that sampled

blues singer Billie Holidays Ill

be seeing you made in 1944,

and recreated with an

contemporary hip hop esque

beat, it instantly felt nostalgic yet

familiar. It is a sound that

breaths the pain and heart ache

of Holidays voice and brings it

into context of today world via

the composition of various

rhythms working together.


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From there I looked alot at Saul Bass and Keith Karring as inspiration on their

fearlessness of simple forms and colours. It is always a little worrying for me to go

ahead and create primal style, as 3D animation can offer you so much choice to hyper

real visual effects.


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The

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intOn this Page: Initial concept of the Peacock. Opposite Page a developed

design


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Initial sketching the Peacock wasinteresting process as I tried toexperiment with different styles tryingto gain a feel for the type of Peacock I

wanted to portray .


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My final designs set in stone the look I wanted my animation to be. Sharp but cute,

expressive but structured.


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Modelling the Peacock had to be 100% correctif I was to successfully create a strong artstyle. The model had be finely shaped as theturnarounds in order to reminisce the 2Daspect. The silhouette had to be right.


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The final model turned out

to perform how I wanted.

It was sleek and

controllable which was

most important. The facial

expressions, or the eye was

key, to convey the stuck up

rude persona of the

Peacock, but it was also the

most fun to create.


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Creating the Crane had to be done quicker than the Peacock due to

time, but that didnt render my Crane to be any less conceptual. The

original Aesops tale perceives the Crane to be wise and humble, the

attitude of an older more experienced creature. When I first did an

initial concept having the Crane to be an adult age, it didnt feel right, as

I wanted the Peacock to be able to intimidate the Crane. So I made the

bird young and naive , to contrast the Peacock in size and persona.

With the change in age, I originally believed that the Crane should be

very intimidated by the Peacock and insecure as much of us were at a

younger age. Not confident about our appearance and valuing beauty

over mind, the Crane would be the bi polar opposite to create the

tension. Shy, quiet timid, the bird become too weak too defeated

before the story started, and untrue to the Aesops tale of the Crane

being the underdog, the character that no one expected to be

important. He then changed to still be the quiet one, but instead

reassured in itself enough to succumb to the taunts of the Peacock.


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He had a few less expressions than the Peacock mainly because

I wanted him to be very watchful of everything, to take in the

Peacocks show and analyse. His expressions were to portray

him as the quiet genius always taking notes and examining


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Creating the environment was a different challenge that ended up being

scraped along the way unfortunately. I wanted empty space filled with

distorted pointy trees to represent a forest to where the Peacock lives . I

wanted it to be quite unwelcoming and twisted to reflect the Peacocks

attitude. It was the thumbnail where I just included Orange as the

background and Black for the trees and the Peacock where I it made sense

to have the environment to be extremely limited and distant. Deciding on

the three colours really gave me a confidence to go ahead and continuewith a strong graphic style.


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Storyboarding was the longest and hardest

point in the animation. This was due to the

an unclear direction of the goals of the

birds. I started off with a dark perspective

of the two birds both being insecure over

their appearance and abilities. The Cranes

insecurity was his appearance and thePeacocks was his inability to fly. I was trying

to express their feelings of entrapment

through the sharp curls of the trees and the

distance between them both. In the end I

settled on having a lighter more clear aspect

to the tale, by simply having the Peacock

perform an elaborate show for the Crane, to

try and be little the small bird, but to no

avail at the end.


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Documents

The Art of the Peacock and the Crane