Hotel Trouble Animation
A short, fully formed piece of animation I made. Starting from a sketch, to design, to color, to 1 minute of action!
Where to begin with this one? I was developing some characters into my cyberpunk world of Silver City, the same setting of my previous animation, Katana Fight. I also had a goal of making a slightly longer animation to generate some portfolio pieces. Katana Fight was good for that, but only got me one background and a couple characters.
First thing's first: a storyboard. Our hero, a young woman named Kyrie, just got back from a huge score and has brought her on-again-off-again girlfriend to the penthouse of the Durant Hotel near the city center. Little does Kyrie know, armed goons know where she went, want their money back, and her dead!
First thing's first: a storyboard. Our hero, a young woman named Kyrie, just got back from a huge score and has brought her on-again-off-again girlfriend to the penthouse of the Durant Hotel near the city center. Little does Kyrie know, armed goons know where she went, want their money back, and her dead!
Now that I've got my animatic, let's get to the reason we're here: design!
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Kyrie: a con artist, dead eye, and a bit of a loser.
Wears a suit in an effort to seem more professional, wears sneakers because she isn't. |
Nova is a dancer at a club Kyrie frequents.
I feel the Sorayama influence to her design is obvious to many. It was fun combining that with my already established cyberware. |
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And who could forget our hired goons? There are even more in ensuing sequences.
To save on time and effort, I made a couple of designs with swappable skin and hair colors. Next up: props! |
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That's a lot of guns for 1 minute of animation!
I like to make fictional guns by referencing firearms from the early 20th century. They look strange, but still like a serious threat, which is what a futuristic gun should do. Kinda like how original Star Wars weapons are just WWII guns with extra scopes and stuff glued on. I don't know what the ZR on the purse stands for, but I like the logo. Also if you look closely at the door being kicked, you can see the peephole react for a frame. |
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Now for my personal favorite: backgrounds! Designing a prohibitively expensive hotel room was a lot of fun.
I was looking through a lot of 80s ans 90s interior design books for the decor. Plus, I wanted to make a cool place I'd like to hang out in, so of course I added a conversation pit. The damage overlays were fun to do as well. I especially like the ludicrous amount of bullet casings piled up by where the first goon was standing.
I was looking through a lot of 80s ans 90s interior design books for the decor. Plus, I wanted to make a cool place I'd like to hang out in, so of course I added a conversation pit. The damage overlays were fun to do as well. I especially like the ludicrous amount of bullet casings piled up by where the first goon was standing.
Lastly, you may have noticed the final shots of the animation aren't in the initial storyboard. I thought I needed to juice it with a little more action, so I decided to include how exactly Kyrie got out of there instead of skipping to the next sequence.
I drew up a quick storyboard, and added those shots.
I drew up a quick storyboard, and added those shots.
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After that, all that was left was compositing and audio. Kyrie is voiced by my wife (Thank you, Lizzi! I love you!!!), and the goons are voiced by myself. Add some public domain and royalty free sound effects and music, a bit of my own foley, and voilà! Big shout out to Helton Yan's Retro Anime Sound Effects, and my local library as well!
Oh, also check out this pot breaking: |
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Here's the video again to save you from scrolling back up to watch it again with all my hard work in mind. :-)
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed my work!
-Andrew
-Andrew