This ending was better and the idea we were much happier with. It was the beginning which now drew our attention. The split screen, whilst completely confident with to begin with, was beginning to look a bit out of place, especially as the piece was becoming more nuanced and understated.

 

Before we started ripping that to pieces just yet, we began playing with adding a little something before the beginning, establishing the characters and their emotions and the environment more. Below is a couple of beginning tests we did to put at the beginning of the current animatic:

 

 

Nope, still wasnt working. A rehaul was in order. This time we thought we may introduce some of the white sparks in the beginning which would later bring Jay and Kay together at the end. We wanted to establish the idea, not just that the neurons were sad that they were disconnected but that they were saddened and actively searching to reconcile the situation. Below are two alternate beginnings which would replace the current split screen situation and join the rest of the piece when they look over the edge of the gap:

 

It was getting better but there was still something not quite right. We needed to try and establish what each character felt for the other very early on, i.e. that they were dear enough to each other that they would become uplifted at the sight of them and painfully dejected at the thought of them not being there.In the one below we changed the beginning, trying to isolate them in frame and converying the isolation they were facing in their situation. Also we had them get excited by what they think to be the radiance from the other (before they actually saw each other) only to realise it wasnt:

 

The holes in the environment that blue was looking through didnt feel in congruence with the rest of the scenery so another change was in order.  It was at this point that we began talking about adding another element to the scenery. Up until now, we had only cells and a few wiry objects. But when thinking about how we could get blue and red pseudo spotting each other we thought it would be good to use some kind of distorted reflection. 

 

The reflections tho were like nothing we had thought of before and would suggest something quite metallic. It was quite fitting tho when we thought of the van der graff generators - the metallic balls which which held a static charge - they seemed the perfect sort of object and was completely congruent. Concept for these orbs can be seen in Januarys posts but for now we were fairly confident this more industrial style for the brain was appealing and would work a treat. Here are a couple of changes made to the animatic where blue spots red in the reflection of these orbs and vice versa:

 

 

 

Here is the final animatic that we handed in for the January summative. We used this as the template for getting the timing for our animation, yet were still open to changes and which we did change small bits in the end. 

Now that we were happy with the animation, it was time to finalise the characters and begin more previz tests, in terms of colours, textures and just generally how we were going to achieve the look we wanted. This would stretch in to much of February and March. 

We began to look at how we could achieve a cellular look, both for our characters and the scenery. We always knew we didn't want the look of our film to be typically CG so trying to aim for even a low level of realism was something to be avoided. This would be something we had to work upon. Below is the sum of a few trials are getting a specific celllular look. 

It didnt look quite right, more like they were marbles. They were also too realistic. The characters are good examples of the 2d-3d mix. They were to be 3d created but intended to look 2d somehow. Many test had to be done as were done throughout february and march.

However, the characters by the end of January were also pretty much final. Here are some final concept drawings for them before they began to be modelled and rigged in February: