Rockin' Robin Animation Project - It was designed around the 1950's Rock and Roll genre of music, using Bobby Day's song Rockin Robin as the music for the animation. The project was designed to introduce 4-6 year old children to a genre of music in 30 seconds. All image research for the project is taken from 1950's popular culture, with the focus on the teenage and young adult popular culture at the time. All the 3D characters are stylised so that their appearance is akin to a 2D 1950's cartoon character that has stepped out of a 2D cartoon into a 3D world!
Below are Screenshots from the final animation:
'All the little birds on Jay Bird Street'
The other birds that are mentioned in the song from left to right, The Oriel, The Buzzard, The Raven, The Black Crow, which were used as the characters from Jay Bird Street, which is also mentioned in the song. Jay bird street was drawn the style of 1950's illustrations of the time using a stylised approach. The building references are taken from black and white photos of the time from a mix of architectural styles and genre's that were found on the streets of New York in the 1950s.
The Piccolo Bird which appears from the record player. The Piccolo is the instrument which produces the introductory melody of the Rockin Robin song. The bird was designed to look represent the popular art styles found on record album covers of the time. The background wallpaper was designed in the style of popular printed textiles of the time. All the background illustration was made in Illustrator.
The Piccolo Bird flies on a journey where the landscape becomes 3D. When children commented on the animation this was a favourite part. Characters later on were also a favourite.
Some pages from the Rockin Robin Portfolio showing Character Development and Storyboards etc:
Rockin' Raven
Rockin' Raven as a 3D Character, work in progress. I aim to finish the song and create a musical game from it in Unity. Rockin' Raven now has her own video which is used in The Showreel.
Guitar Print for Rockin Raven Character, which was created in Illustrator
Text for the above page: The main influence on the instrument characters was 1950’s Album art and in particular Jim Flora. Jim Flora created his art so the instruments become characters themselves. The instruments are quite simplified however they still have a 3 dimensional quality to them, although they are abstracted. These were used to influence the development of the Piccolo character. The Piccolo is the instrument at the start of Rockin’ Robin which forms part of the opening,‘Tweeting,’ melody. Another influence on the instrument characters was Disney’s, Silly Symphonies, Music Land. (1935). In Music Land the instruments become characters, which are recognisable as people that are made out of instruments. For example the Princess Violin, (see Fig 3), has her bodice made from the body of a violin, her neck is the violin neck and her face is the scroll. The scroll is also used to incorporate her hair. It was decided to develop the instrument characters in a similar way. As Rockin’ Robin is about birds and the Piccolo, ‘tweets,’ at the start of the song the natural progression was to develop the instruments as birds. Whilst making sure the that the instrument and bird are still recognisable as both instrument and bird.
Guitar Birds
The Guitar Birds, the characters all use the same colours all the way through the animation so that they are all linked for continuity.
Fabric Design for the Buzzard and the Crow
