Constant slow falling
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During the past few weeks, I have been working on a shoot em’ up game called “Revenge of Teddy” (name subjected to change) as a graphics artist. The game is about a young boy called Timothy who is falling through a nightmare, having to face his fears along the way. My first main task has been creating and animating the player avatar in its idle state, or in other words, drawing Timothy as he is falling straight down. The avatar had to look like was falling, but the game was supposed to be slow-paced, so it should also be falling slowly. I tried to think of it as a middle way between falling in air and sinking in water.  In the first version of the avatars idle animation, I used both afterimages and a wind effect that made the result look way too fast for the intended purpose. The pose was also too inflexible for my liking, as the character was supposed to be able to aim and shoot projectiles in circle around themselves. I removed the effects around the avatar and tried to think of other ways of make falling convincing. Fluttering arms and legs was the first thing on my mind, but I had a hunch that it wouldn’t work, as fluttering extremities would be motions from side to side, and not down, which would in other words not add to the falling downwards motive. I felt like idea had too high of a risk (I was lazy and didn’t want to spend energy on extra work) and probably no reward, so I did not test it, and instead tried to think of other ideas for making falling convincing. I thought about making the clothing flutter in some way. My first idea was to have folds go from one side to the other in a loop. It seemed like a bother to do though, so I just held it in the back of my head. My friend showed me a technique where one draws over the same lines multiple times to create a fluttering movement or cheap breathing effect. I didn’t appreciate it properly in the moment, but later realised that it was exactly what I needed.  I used the fluttering technique on both the clothing and hair to make them look like they are effected by the wind that is hitting them. I also used the technique on the eyes in order to make the character seem more alive. I added some weaker wind effect lines and used loosely the same technique on them to make them support the movement direction. The difference with how the fluttering technique was applied on the wind lines was that I consciously made them move up and down more.  |