HALLOWEEN IS NOT HER THING
Focusing on emotion and over-the-top reactions, this 3D animation shows a frightened girl who is only a pumpkin-jump-scare away from swearing off pumpkin patches for good.
With most projects, I began with a synopsis and basic pose sketches. for this project through, I actually pivoted the choose an animation that I thought would actually be funnier and more involved. The initial plan, showed to the right, was just someone reacting to a splatter while cooking. It was (to be honest) a pretty lame idea, that would not test my skills at creating genuine and over-the top reactions.
REFERENCE AND BLOCKING
After shifting focus, I filmed reference footage for the main action of the scene, and imported it into Maya as an image sequence. I then completed the blocking stage, marking the major poses with the rig.
Originally I started with this animation with a spider-pumpkin rig. I hadn't had much experience with quadrupeds prior, so I wanted to try this out. I looked into reference footage for spider walking footage, and anatomy. This idea was eventually scrapped so that the girl's reaction would seem more justified.
SPLINE AND POLISH
I then added more breakdown passes to clean up the movement, and worked in the graph editor to work on timing. I noticed during test renders at this phase that there was clipping in the pants, and I thought I'd fixed it for the final render. The project needs some extra love to remove the clipping that remains.
I also tried switching to a spooky ghost direction this time around, but it looked out of place. The color was off, and while it looked to be made of cloth, it wasn't rigged to do so. I switched to a pumpkin decoration after this.
FINAL VIDEO
As shown at the top of the page, the final rendered product is a short, funny, full-body animation about a girl who does not like jump scares. I took extra care to push her expressions towards absurdity, and to watch the timing and arcs on her jump.