The Weekly Update at Atom Pancakes - Week 5

It has been a strange couple of weeks here at Atom Pancakes after we scrapped our main idea for a short, and went in a completely new direction. At first this seemed like a big step, but now it feels like it was completely the right decision and we are pushing forward into preproduction with confidence and excitement. Today we met on Skype to discuss some design decisions and there were some really positive results. We are all individually working on different aspects, from character design to environment design and script development. At this stage, we present our work to one another and then discuss, critique and improve. Today was a big step on the road to completely preproduction.

Character Design

Firstly we started with character design, an aspect that is headed by Ruben. He showed some incredible sketches and after some talking, we all decided upon a final character. Here is a glimpse at the great design sheets.

We decided upon this design as our final character. He will be developed further and we will be creating a whole bunch of supporting art work to show his character, but this is the start of our final character. We present, Arthur Winters...

Environmental Design

I am head of environmental design and concept art so I've been working on some thumbnails ready to take forward as final artwork. As art director I have to make decisions on style and design. This will start to come to life as I continue into the concept art stage. The sketches below were presented in today's meeting and after some good feedback I'm ready to get some ideas pushed forward.

We have been discussing the setting and time period of the animation and we want our character to have the feel of the Parisian artists that lived in Montmartre. This was also mixed with the idea early 20th century English authors like Tolkein and Lewis.

Later this week we will be presenting more artwork and some completed concepts. So keep an eye out for some great updates.

Script Development

Ethan has been doing a great job on refining our script and getting it ready for storyboarding. This will all take place next week when we are meeting in person to discuss ideas and board the script out in draft. He has also been working on prop design and getting the model sheets ready for the modelling stage. Below is a glimpse at some of the sketches that will soon be drawn up as final prop sheets.

Preproduction feels like it is finally starting to move forward and now that we have resolved our narrative problems we will moving forward quickly and producing some great work in the coming weeks. Keep checking back to stay updated.