Inspiration
I was told to come to Japan with an open mind - basically come here with no pre-planned project in mind and just see what inspires me. I wanted to do something abstract initially, but I thought I would be trying to force something out and that would make everything feel very unnatural..and well.. pointless.
So I decided to do something that reflects my personality and more.. me.
One of the biggest inspiration for this piece would be the fact that it's my first time being away from home for an extended period of time. It was really difficult for me initially as I struggled to live alone and learn to be more independent, not to mention the homesickness I felt every now and then. (I'm definitely not saying that I hated my stay here. In fact, I enjoyed every bit of it, but that's for another post.)
The inspiration for the stars came like this:
The first night I was here, I was skyping with my sister and she told me to look at the stars. However, the night sky here was cloudy and there were hardly any of them. Anyway, her point was that we are looking at the same stars even though we were miles apart (sweet but so cheesy!). Yea, but as cheesy as it may sound, look what came out of it!
So from there, I went into my own fantasy world to find an 'explanation' for the absence of the stars.
P.S. for people who may not be familiar with Singapore, the pattern of the stars at the end actually forms up the Singapore flag:
Technical Stuff (in case you wanna know)
Well, since people have asked me, I'm just going to state it here.
The 3D scenes were modeled (only the environment), animated and rendered entirely with Maya.
2D scenes were created using a combination of Illustrator and Photoshop, and then animated in After Effects.
Final editing done in Premiere.
Animating in 2D was initially challenging as I had no clue how I was going to do it (Because I sure do not have time to go draw out everything frame by frame). But learning from the geniuses at DigitalTutors, I found an amazing way to animate in 2D.
So for folks who'd like to know, I downloaded the free After Effects plugin "DuIK" for my 2D character and with it, I could animated almost like I could in Maya.
What I've Learnt/Experiences I Have Gained
I think I've definitely grown slightly as an artist while doing this project. Maybe not just skill wise, but I feel like I've taken my first steps in stretching my wings in storytelling. One of the biggest reasons I ventured into animation was because I wanted to use it as a tool to tell stories and I'm just so very thankful that I had this opportunity to do so. So, this project has definitely given me a boost in confidence in this direction.
