Squishy Squashi Squids
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For our enemy our first thought was squids because or art style is steam punk and you see a lot of squids or octopus in steam punk style. I and so many other graphics students at Game Design are new to animation. We have not had any other assignments than doing bouncy balls so stretch and squash was not that new to us. There were a lot of struggles in trying to get it right and understanding how animation works. Squash and stretch was not that new to me because as I said earlier we had made the bouncing balls, but doing anticipation was, and therefore more of a challenge. I was very uncertain on how I should make the arms and head work at the same time. I checked a lot of reference videos on how squids move and small animations other people have made.
One of my classmates then told me to first look at the arms of the squid before anything else. I should think about where the action happens first. As for the squid it is the upper part that would move first and then lifts everything up or down. It was very hard to make it look coherent, but as it was my first creature animation and sprite sheet. To make it easier for myself I only have four arms for the squid so it would not be too complicated. When I began my design, I was thinking a lot of screws and metal to make it look steam punk inspired. In the original concept you can see that the squid with all the details but I did not use a lot of details for the final design and animation because it would not be noticeable on the screen, and as it is an enemy it would probably be killed quickly and people would not look at it for a long time, it is also hidden in the water most of the time. I think the most benefit we could have had in our art classes would have been that we started out with doing some kind of basic walking cycle or the classic flour sack animation sequence to figure out how weight, acting, posing and timing works. As for now it has been very interesting and and a great challenge, but I hope that I will become better and enjoy it more. /Linda S. Khamphoukeo Lead Artist of Team Ouroboros  |
