Cut Out character process

I created the cut out characters using Adobe Illustrator, as creating vector images will help retain the good resolution when importing and animating them within After Effects. The process involved drawing each part of the character's body seperately in different layers, and making sure that this was done to each part that I wished to animate later on. After creating the multiple parts to each character, I then tested several colour variations to see which would look best and most appealing.

Here are two early versions of the wolf character in my film. I tried two variations of brown and light grey, with the dark grey of the full body. Originally I wanted to put a ring of the lighter shade around the neck of the wolf, but after looking closely it seemed to give the wolf a more docile and domesticated appearance of a dog.

After completing the character, his initial leg design looked strange and unnatural, so after adding some simple paws to the bottom of the legs I felt the design looked complete.

When creating the Deer character, it was very difficult to get the look of the antlers from the side view correct and not overly complicated. The original image had the different spikes quite seperate apart and almost completely horizontal, which would not have been accurate for a real stag to have. I then rotated them slightly and this seemed to look better. I wanted to differentiate the characters by their design, colours and facial features. The Deer is the lightest colour out of all three, which symbolizes purity and innocense in many stories. The two hunters are quite dark in colour, such as the wolf's dark grey coat and the Man's dark brown clothing. Though they are hunters by birth and cannot undo this fact, it is still a way of life for them to extinguish one life to save their own, and is still regarded as an act of villainy.

With the facial features, I purposely created the wolf with pure black slits for eyes, as opposed to the Deer who atleast has a small reflection of light cast into it. Though it is only a reflection, it is still a lighter colour, and dark eyes are normally represented as having no innocense and void of all conscience. The cave man too has any lack of light or colour to his eyes.

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