Initial Research
This is my Pureref board for the project. Early inspirations for a fairy character.
I wanted a magical forest environment with a flower fairy. Playing around with the concept of a small creature/ being in a world too large for her. I thought that it would be interesting to explore creatures made out of existing plants and flowers, and drew inspiration from existing artworks using flowers as dresses and outfits.
Storyboard
For the story, I wanted to convey a hopeful message that not all hope is lost, even when bad things happen.
We begin with a fairy tending her beautiful garden, which she is very proud of. As she finishes her gardening work, she heads off and a leaf falls down to seemingly transition the shot.
Once she completely leaves the garden defenseless, we see the shadow of birds hovering over it, and more and more join in until the screen is completely covered. When the birds leave, the garden is completely destroyed, trampled on, and uprooted. The fairy comes back to see this in her horror. However, she doesn’t let this dismay her, and she begins to clean up the garden. After cleaning up everything, she lifts up the last leaf to reveal one small sprout.
Test Stills
These are shots from Heartwood Forest in Sandridge. I converted the raw footage from the camera into Rec.709 to see if I liked the colours and the composition of the shots.
I think that the green really pops out because of the lack of leaves on the trees, but I wasn’t too sure about the cut-down tree trunks. I will be reshooting some footage in May.
Modelling
I am currently working on the modelling of the fairy and the garden, which will be updated soon!