My animated short - Jungle (probably a working title)

Artwork Works in Progress
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Hey guys!

I’ve been working on a short film for just under a month in my freetime, which with GCSE’s coming up and a bunch of good movies coming out, isn’t all that often :slight_smile:

It’s set in the amazon rainforest and involves a Jaguar, who’s cubs are taken away from her by poachers. Two years later, she has become needlessly aggressive, and seems to hate the world. On one particular day, she decides to pounce on a squirrel monkey that has just been released from a life of captivity. She jumps from the bushes and lets out a huge roar, but the monkey, unaware of the threat she poses, doesn’t understand her aggressive signals, and responds with kindness, unlike everything else that just fled. From this one action she realises that maybe the world isn’t so bad after all, and life could get better, even after her horrible past.

There’s a little more than but that’s the basic idea.

Visually, I’m going for a kind of painting-like look, which I think I’ve gotten down fairly well, and I’ve finished creating all of my main models, and everything is ready for the opening scene where her cubs are taken away, of which I’ve already made 5 shots for. I set this opening sequence at night, just because I thought it would set the mood nicely, and it opens with the mother and her cubs sleeping peacefully. I sent some stills to my mate and his first response was:

“jaguars are nocturnal”

Ah…i should have realised that. But relighting it all would completely change the mood, and cause some big problems. The main one being that none of the poachers have a face because I was hoping the dark lighting and shadow of the hat would obscure it. So, what do you guys all think? Should I change the scene in the demands of realism, or push realism to the side in favour of a better tone?

I’ve got some images below so I’d be super grateful if you could give me some general feedback too.

Here’s a test of the Jaguar.

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And the monkey:

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Some of my miscellaneous props and stuff:

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So yeah, I’ll post some images from the shots I’ve got so far, if anyone cares that is. And thanks for listening to some stupid teenager who thinks he can make films.

Thanks for any replies!

Phew! I’m surprised you even bothered to read my pointless ramble.

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It’s good to get some advice from people every once in a while, but you will have to make the final call at the end. You will have to decide on a scale how realistic are you trying to convey your idea.

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2 tips

  1. Set up yourself a deadline. It will make you think about what you can do and how much you have to do certain thing. ( but choose a realistic deadline, give yourself a year, half year )

  2. Organize your project. I just finished a short film ( I’m Not Even Human - release date June 1st ) in the beginning I had no organization and it was extremely slow nothing was done. But then I developed blender-orginizer and everything suddenly started to move very quickly and focused.

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. . . if anyone cares that is . . . some stupid teenager who thinks he can make films . . .

No artist got anywhere with lack of confidence. :slight_smile:
Looks good so far , so don’t be so negative !