12 // Colour Themes and Storyboard Finalisation

I spent a few hours today thinking about and applying a test colour scheme to the animation. It was a simple enough process as I was able to take the working files from the lighting exercise and colour-adjust each layer until I had what I was looking for.

As I said in the last post, I was planning on making a cold to colder transition through each shot. I wasn't sure if this was going to be the best approach for the animation and this method of colour application allowed me to test my theory quite easily. It didn't look right to me when I tried it, as there wasn't much variety throughout the colour scheme, so I opted for a cold to warm transition, while still maintaining that it should also go from light to dark, to reflect the narrative.

I tested out a few different colours during this process but eventually settled on the blue to dark red theme. It seems to be more effective at matching the comic-book style of my illustrations, although seems a little garish in places. I'll be able to tweak the colours easily enough when it comes to producing the finals though, so there's still room for improvement.

The first couple of shots definitely need to be made lighter - I imagine those scenes to be set in a daytime, snowy environment so I'll need to boost the lighting later on, which should also benefit the change to dark as the story progresses.

I'm quite happy with how the last few shots turned out; as the narrative describes Maal Ta'raath becoming a slave of the dark lord the setting shifts to the hellish underworld and the evil that consumes Maal, so the warm tones suit that transition quite well I think.

My colouring technique makes it quite easy to test different colours on the fly, so when it comes to the final illustrations I'm confident that I'll be able to make a few tweaks wherever necessary and get the colours exactly as I'm imagining.

I didn't plan the character's colours much as I intend to make the demon-hunters look similar to the Witch Hunter I made a few months ago. As for the dark lord guy, I don't have too much of an idea what to do for him yet, but I'll figure that out as I get closer to doing his final shot.

I also went back and had a look at the first animatic that I produced. It seemed to have a lot more fluidity and variety in the shots, so I took this into account and applied the same camera movements to the new storyboard. again, when it comes to editing, it's simple enough to make adjustments on the fly so if I come up with any fresh ideas for that side of things I can do it quite easily.