Set Design

Here are a few set designs I have done for my Mayfly idea, I most like the 3rd one with the willow hanging over the stream.  This is because it looks most natural and fitting to a Mayfly.


I'll use these set designs to show examples of the style I'm thinking of and help you to understand more how I want the animation to look like.

Mayfly Development

Here are some developmental sketches of my Mayflies, I like the top centre design as it has the main features of a Mayfly whilst being simplified. I'll sketch up some more poses using this design and post them soon.

The Mayfly

After watching Ryan Woodward's 'Thought of You' it sparked inspiration for an idea, in short, the life of a mayfly. This idea is solely in 2D and hand drawn so I think this might be more down Mat's street :p and it's something that I have always wanted to do but never felt confident enough doing.  However because my idea is quite simple I feel we could definitely achieve this to a high standard! I'll email Mat with the full rough storyline and some sketches.

Using either photoshop or just pencil, I want the whole thing to be hand drawn with the backgrounds and characters being on different layers to give the animation depth.

I did a little research and found they begin life in a larval form known as a nymph.  Whilst in their nymph form they like to live under stones in fast flowing water or among plants in slow streams.  They usually stay in this state for around 1 year before all hatching out together and only living for between a few minutes and a day, this is because their mouths seal up as soon as they hatch from their nymph shells...weird! During this time they over run some towns and become a huge pest for people for a very short amount of time. I thought it would be interesting to see if I could show their life from a Mayfly's point of view, instead of seeing them as pests. They have to hatch, find a mate and lay thousands of eggs in just hours.

I have a more detailed storyline but don't want to blog it now...just in case.



I'll post some initial drawings I have made later on...

Ryan Woodward

This is a really powerful and moving animation, the moves are so fluid and natural. It's incredible work like this that inspires me to try something new, and hopefully will inspire a new storyline and new approach to animation for me.