Flowers for Me?

I’ve always wanted to design my own character and animate her. So when I started studying 3D animation at Vancouver Film School, I decided to put what I was learning to the test. My characters have always had a resemblance to me or people in my family, almost as if they were extensions of us. I think that’s one of the most fun parts of designing a character. You get to pick and choose the traits this character has, their personality, what motivates them, and everything else in between.

I settled on designing a character that is a mixture between my mom and I. She’s classy, sweet, funny, with curly hair, and a killer style. After I settled on how she’d look like and some of her personality traits, I started playing around with different scenarios I could put her in where I could animate her. My mom and I love flowers and slowly the idea went from animating her in a random scenario to becoming a little Mother’s Day gift. So I filmed reference of myself being surprised by receiving a bouquet of flowers. In my classes I learned that, just like in drawing and painting, having a reference is key in animation. Not necessarily because you’ll copy the reference 1:1 but because it will inspire your key storytelling poses that you want to include in your character animation. Since I was learning 3D and not 2D, this was a really challenging exercise because in 3D animation, your character rig is modeled out for you in 3D space so keeping the shape and volume of your character in tact at every angle is a no brainer. However, in 2D animation, you are drawing the character at every angle and you have to figure out how that character will look at the angle you want to draw them in. Hence, the importance of our reference video. Below is the rough draft of the animation and underneath you’ll find the final version.

If you ask me how long this animation took me, I wish I could say a month or two. However, with life, school, work, immigration, and everything else, it took me a little less than 3 years to finish! I kept picking it up and putting it down between all I had going on and I am proud of myself to have finished it despite how long it took me! I love how it turned out! And I love what I learned in the process of the work. Plus, my mom loved it!!

Animation is not for the faint of heart. It is a craft that is tedious, meticulous, and time consuming. You will face a lot of technical difficulties, not just with your animation program, but with the process of figuring out your character, their movement and poses, and facing yourself and your determination to finish what you start. It is an art that constantly challenges you, sometimes in the most frustrating ways, and when you manage to figure it out, it is the most rewarding feeling to have given life to something that was once static.

I am so happy with the result of this little side project and I’m excited to continue exploring my character and making more stories with her! My next goal is to color this animation and give it a new form of life! Thank you so much for reading and watching! I hope you feel inspired to take on and finish your own projects and know that every sweat drop and tear is worth the final result!