Blue Knight - Journal Megathread

Hi all.
I’ve never done an animation workflow journal type thing, but I see a lot of other people here doing it. For those who have, there’s nothing that interests me more, as you could tell from my constant commenting on those threads.

I will be doing an animation journal, XeroShadow style (hopefully it won’t last nearly as long as his did :eek:), and I look forward to hearing any form of critique you may have.

Without further ado, I present “Blue Knight”.

In summary, Blue Knight is an animation following the adventures of Lil Blue Knight. Knight is always placed in intense moral situations, however, he constantly and thoughtlessly reacts to the dilemmas in very nonchalant ways.
For example, when placed in a situation where Knight can push a man off a ledge in order to save five innocent lives, without hesitation, Knight pushes the man off the ledge as five lives are worth more than one.
In this animation, as Knight is the most logical person in the town, a legendary Wizard tasks him with the quest of finding 3 orbs in order to restore his magic and save the village.

The theme of the story is unclear. I’m certain I want to center it around the balance between intelligence and emotion, however, I’m unclear as to what statement I want to make exactly.

The animation style is meant to be goofy and simplistic, as you could tell from the character models. Sceneries should reflect this style, however, they should be a notch more breathtaking and beautiful.

Here is the cast, in no particular order.
These are proofs of concept unless otherwise stated.

Ally: An appointed magical assistant to Knight. She comes out of an apparatus upon command or sometimes her own will, kind of like a Poke-Ball. She is one of the starring characters.



Croc: They are simply a species of croc, and will only appear in the background.

Lil Blue Knight and his Steed: These are the stars of the show. This model is complete.

Twin Headed Jackal: One of the enemies Knight will face. This picture does no justice, he is incredibly huge. This model is also the complete one.



Lil Red Villain: Knight’s rival. He works for a villain association, and his main purpose in life after being awe-struck by Knight’s ruthlessness is to break Knight’s capability to act so emotionlessly.

Wiz: The fabled Wizard who comes back every so often and appoints the most logical person as a chosen one in order to undertake a quest.

This image is simply a proof of concept piece for the animation.
In this image you should get a very faint sense of the kind of feel I will want to portray. The environments will have the same feeling, however, the final versions will be a lot higher quality.


Updates are over for today. Thank you for reading!

When I read this comment:

“I will be doing an animation journal, XeroShadow style (hopefully it won’t last nearly as long as his did.” All I could do was this:

Civ: Meet Civ. In the Blue Knight world, there are many villagers present. For some reason, all of them look like Civ, albeit sometimes varied in terms of hairstyle or fashion sense.


The following are two concept animations I’ve created for several of the characters. My concept animations are NOT refined, as they were created with the attempt to just test out the armatures and how they work. In terms of feedback, I’m looking for feedback of the feeling you get watching the snippits, or issues found with the armature. If you know what I did wrong, offer a solution, or at least a potential one.

Villain Concept Animation:
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Civ Concept Animation: https://youtu.be/qxyhm15EWMY

that is coming together nicely! Give that croc some action!

Thanks!
Just for you then, tomorrow’s goal will be to give the Croc some life.
I’ll have a new update in 20 hours. :slight_smile:

Awesome, I look forward to it!

Great modelling the story idea is Knight when are you making an animation for the blue knight character.

Heh, the actual animation part of this won’t be for a few weeks.
I need to finalize the storyboard and make sure that everything is coherent and thematically impactful… which will take me a while since I’m still not sure what statement the video will be making.

In terms of concept animation, I’ll make one for the Knight either today or tomorrow.

More concept animations!
This was awesome to do, since it is both upon request, as well as a good practice tool and rig tester.

Croc Jump Animation:
This animation is a concept animation like all others. It is meant to portray the rigs of the Knight as well as the Crocs in a lively and realistic scenario.

Twin-Headed Jackal Concept Animation: Jackal is flexing his bloodthirsty bones.

Enjoy the update. Again, feedback of any form is absurdly appreciated.

Today I’ve uploaded several more animations. These concepts will be some of the last concept animations I’ll be making. From this point on, more story related updates will be shown, as well as environment updates and non-rigged character models.

Ally Flip: Ally is summoned to battle from her apparatus. In this short clip I wanted to experiment on her chest bounciness. Of course, it isn’t yet refined, but it was good for being able to experiment with the chest bones and how they interact with her clothes and the like. She was a monster to rig, and for that reason this concept is the one I’m hoping for the most feedback on. Again, the animation isn’t refined, so any opinions on the rig itself would be great.

Wiz Flip: A simple animation of the Wiz introducing himself playfully. At the same time, I learned how to make characters hold objects through the creation of this clip, which is demonstrated through his new Wand.

Steed Jump: This was actually the first concept animation I’ve made, and I’m posting it now in this super unrefined state so that I have a concept animation on the Megathread for every starring character.

Feel free to leave feedback, thanks much for reading up until this point if you’ve been following the thread. And to those ghosting, I encourage you to become more active in the forums.

In this quick update I’m going to be showing you a tweaked version of Ally, this time with textures to help her features pop out.
Looking at the 360 video below, I’m wondering how to improve her. Somethings seem off, but I’m not quite sure what they are…

Ally Intro: This is an introductory animation just for a touch of personality.

Ally 360: This is the actual 360, in order to see her entire body.

Thank you for reading this update.

The beginning of the video will introduce the story of a straight line who never strayed from his path regardless of what is in his way, of course alluding to the Knight character’s quirk.

This is a concept of that scene,
the final version will have more details, as well as an Adobe Animate animation of the red line’s adventure on top of the map texture during the last half of the video. This is pretty close to what I want to be final, so any opinions on how this following animation feels would be very helpful.

Thank you for reading this update!

Future updates will most likely start being story related, as the storyboarding process is nearing completion. I look forward to showing those ones the most. :stuck_out_tongue:

Hi all. The following video portrays a character not yet introduced (yet one of the first designed).

This is Headless Sheep. On Knight’s quest to regain the 3 orbs, Wiz informs him that he must defeat their respective guardians. The first guardian is the Twin-headed Jackal, the second is Headless Sheep, and the last is Unity.
Where Jackal himself is a beastly looking wimp, Sheep is the opposite, as he is a fluffy critter who, when provoked, packs a great punch. In this concept, that horrifying punch is portrayed, as his speed and precision is taken out on a poor fly.

Enjoy.
I’ll be tweaking characters and re-working storyboard aspects, so expect things related to those in soon-to-be updates.

Thank you for reading, the fact that you’re reading up until here means a lot. :wink:

That headless sheep has scarred me

Oh man, “scarred” or scared?

Regardless, thanks for checking out the page. Just that random comment gave me more motivation to continue this project. :slight_smile: