My audience is mainly universal, I wanted this animation to be viewed by all ages as Aesop Fables tales can transcend generations

at a time. The Peacock and the Crane is an Aesop Fables tale of two very different birds encounter of each other, and the reveal of the opposing abilities they both hold. My animation comprises of two characters being inside a empty yet bold environment to where they have no choice but to interact with one another. This is a character driven story with and abstract 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, improving old ones and being a more experienced more capable designer and animator . What I mostly enjoyed about this project was the growing of ideas and how the animation naturally shaped itself to be everything

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.

I thought this type of sound would be amazing to with for an animation, as there is much background context to American culture, 1930s cinema, powerful links to the film noir genre as his past music is prominently is a fusion of dialogue from noir films of the 1920s to 60s sampled ontop of a modernized rhythm. After contacted him about permission to use his music with a particular song in mind, we agreed for me to create a visual to Pinstripes now called A Nice, Peaceful Scene. At the time it was an incomplete beat I but fell in love. There was something magically and graceful yet dark at the same time. It was the perfect sound

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.

However the decision to create a lo fi animation is the only path for me, and Saul Bass proves that there is something beautiful with commicating an idea through colours that voice emotions and shapes that tell stories

The development of the Peacock was an amazing and fluent process that has lead me to learn so much more about character and personality. I instantly knew of the Peacock was from reading the story, and I knew I loved him. He is a vanity driven, self obsessed creature, thriving on insecurities on others to make himself appear to be bigger and better character. His beauty has and will always define him, even when the looks fade away into age, because he knows that there is nothing like him in the world, and that thought is what makes him sleep at night. Though he is intimidating and bully like, something good to take from him is that he appreciates life. He values his existence and I always felt this factor could enable him to be a loveable character.

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

I didnt however start this project excited about the character development and design, as the past has shown that it has been the weakness ability of mine. I knew I had to know everything my characters, how they would eat, approach others, view themselves, interact with the environment, and once I knew all this everything from designing the characters would be easier to fall into place.

Initial sketching the Peacock was interesting process as I tried to experiment with different styles trying to gain a feel for the type of Peacock I wanted to portray .

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

Modelling the Peacock had to be 100% correct if I was to successfully create a strong art style. The model had be finely shaped as the turnarounds in order to reminisce the 2D aspect. The silhouette had to be right.

I wanted the rig to be as clean and problem free as possible. I need a good control of the neck especially to have good flexibility in order to be more expressive. The center of Gravity (COG) was very important to function well as I based a large amount of animating the Peacock on the movement and bounce of the COG Joint.

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.

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.

The Crane developed to be the loveable runt with wisdom in its eyes. When modelling I wanted his body to be quite wobbly and unstable, almost that he could collapse easily. So when he does make his reveal of being able to fly, its a sly discovery and shock to the Peacock.

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

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 continue with a strong graphic style.

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 the Peacocks 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.