Applied Animation: The Great A'Tuin

To be placed the centre of the 'space bit' within my animation there is a turtle that holds 4 elephants on its back, which support the Discworld (the name of the world the story is set in). Because I am zooming through this scene I have to had to create this bizarre visual, which wasn't easy.

Out of all the elements I thought I'd start with the largest, the turtle, to try and get it out the way to and help me set the style and aesthetic of the whole composition. As I started out I thought that it was going great and that I'd got lucky, because it seemed very easy to do and I wasn't having any trouble at all. That was until I came to add texture to the shell of the turtle. Once I reached this point, I realsied that the colours weren't appropriate for the mood, style and context of the whole animation, nor did it fit with the notion that this turtle was floating through space.
As usual, I got really frustrated and fed up with the Great A'Tuin after spending so long colouring it in, in the wrong colours. So I gave up for the day and decided to think on it for a while and return to it in the morning.

The not so great Great A'Tuin

However, me being me, I had a burst of inspiration just before bed and ended up staying up quite late experimenting with colours on a small section of the turtles shell until I found a colour I was happy with. And I did. And that small section of the shell looked great, I really liked the texture I had managed to achieve and I felt that the colours were more sensitive to the mood and tone of the book I am trying to animate. However, I had done it in the most painstakingly time consuming way I could possibly think of and I then had to spend the whole day finishing the turtle off.

Complete Great A'Tuin

Although it took me a long time I do feel that it will fit in better with the rest of my animation and it also helps to portray the mood and tone of the book better than the brightly coloured turtle. The colours and style also help it to fit into the scene better, as the colours don't clash with the colours in the space environment and the turtle doesn't look like it belongs under water.

The elephants were a lot more difficult than the turtle to do, which surprised me a little, as I had already figured out the style I was working in. However, it was actually the style that made it really difficult for me to get started with the elephants because when I first started off with them, they looked like they belonged in a Scooby-Doo cartoon rather than with this turtle. 

Which again frustrated me a lot because I just wanted to get this section of the animation done, as I had already spent two days working on it. Plus I still had the world itself to design and draw (by this point I was ready to pull my hair out).
However, I stuck to it and I am really pleased with the outcome. I feel that both elements work really well together and I am happy with the overall style and aesthetic of the composition. Once I had completed this I then designed the Discworld. This was very straight forward and it took me a matter of minutes to complete, as I was aware of the style and aesthetic that I had to use in order ot make it work.

Thinking of how I am going to animate these elements in After Effects, I started to think about whether I wanted them to be on separate layers or not. At first I decided that I would without really thinking about it, but then I realised that I wouldn't be separating the elephants from Great A'Tuin, as they were all on the same level, so I made it easier for myself and kept them as one layer rather than multiple layers.