Scale world: my second story

2nd STORY:

(Backstory)

Bigs are running out of space on their world due to constant technological development and they're preparing to invade the Smalls' world.

Midi not present (just like above), their world is obscured by clouds and space dust.

No Big or Small that ever ventured down the scale made it back to tell the story.

Midis are just a myth.

Bigs can physically assimilate parts of their environment and they communicate through high pitched noises.

Bigs are thelepatic

Main character:

- the runt of the Bigs' world:

-a bit of an outsider because his shoulder crystals are smaller than average

-moss growing on the side of his face (unkept allure)

-has a bit of a flower power spirit

-shorter than others because he's been spending too much of his childhood in the mines, fascinated with the beauty of the ore

-in his spare time he polishes different stone parts of his body

-dreams of becoming a sculptor

-plasma crystal-based life form

(Story below)

Story follows the goofy Big marching to Small world

We see propaganda posters about Smalls

Our main Big doesn't really believe that Smalls are that bad and once on their world, saves a lonely scared Small

Scale World: my first suggested story

As the group didn't want to change much about the world we were given, my two stories had to keep the scale part a bit too literal for my liking so I decided to work around that and focus on the story.

1st STORY:
(Backstory)
With the purpose of keeping true to the scale idea, the Midi world does not appear in the middle of the scale but is rather situated at the base of it, long forgotten by the Bigs and Smalls.
Both Bigs and Smalls perpetuate their species by asexual reproduction(once per life cycle maybe).
Bigs and Smalls come from the Midis of the bigger world underneath (explaining the gravity pulling down the two worlds) and are the result of a disease.
The Midis built the scale to keep Bigs and Smalls from contaminating the others and separated them in order to avoid the possibility of conflict between them.
Midis now exist in Bigs and Smalls culture only as a myth.
Smalls have discovered a cure for the disease (by accident) and are slowly reverting the process of getting smaller and smaller.
The Bigs are too proud to accept anything from the "despicable" Smalls as they believe logic and knowledge will reveal the cure to them
Smalls are afraid that the fast expanding cities of the Bigs and their constant increase in size will tip the scales and destroy both their worlds so they insist on giving them the cure

(Story)
The story follows a Small diplomat as it travels to the world of Bigs in order to give them the cure
We see  a few Bigs trying to sculpt their legs smaller, in contrast with other Bigs that are obviously proud of their imposing statures.
One of these Bigs listens to the Small and travels back to Mini world with them in order to get cured.

Scale world: my work

I was assigned the task of drawing the Big for our project so I changed the backgrounds to find the colours that work best with it:
(Note to self: remember to rasterize stuff)

Final scene (Mini will be placed under the "soft light" layer)

Each image took a lot more time than I expected due to trying out different brushes and textures.

Designs are inspired by Nuala's work (below)

Scale world: our animatic: my notes

Notes:

If the audience is made of people that use written language from LEFT to RIGHT, then the starting scene should pan in the opposite direction to accommodate the natural movement of their eyes.

The colour of the sky keeps changing back to a lighter hue - inconsistency 

I believe that in our animatic (below) the Mini was not placed right.

Working on different layers usually prevents mistakes like that.

Correct way:

 Mini/Small should be placed under the hand layer so that the finger covers it slightly and looks like it's standing in the middle of the palm 

Below: Scale is different

 Mini below has to be smaller OR Mini above has to be bigger

In regards to story:

The Mini/Small is surprised by the Big's stature because it's not what they expected, but there is no follow up. I believe that having no visible disappointment or a reaction to that discovery is unrealistic.

The showing of the Midi is confusing as it looks nothing like either the Big or the Mini/Small and has no similar colour palette (audience will have no clue what that is or where it comes from) - may be better to remove it completely.

Where does the flower come from?

The ending is different from group storyboard. Happy with the unexpected change though, as the previous ending, within the context of our story, seemed a bit morally on the edge.

Animatic inspired by Nuala's work below:

New project : Scale world

After the first meeting with the group I still have unanswered questions that I believe are important whenever developing a story. Motivation and reason determine the way any sort of character behaves, walks, talks, carries themselves, interacts with others etc which helps the story grow in a logical way and I feel that we don't have that yet. Not having all that explained creates the same issues we had in the previous group which I believe generated a lot of confusion and thwarted our group work.
This time though, I will try my best to work it out

Unanswered Questions that need to be addressed:
- how do bigs/smalls reproduce - how do they come into existence? (if it is through kissing, we have to be careful with that)
- if midis are the children of bigs+smalls, why do their bigs+smalls parents hate them and abandon them?
- why would the mistreated midi kids want to help keep the balance and peace in the worlds of their bad, hateful parents? Would it not make more sense to let them self-destroy?
- what pushes minis to go to the bigs' world and what do the midis think of all these minis/bigs going through their land?
- what is their relationship?
- do the bigs ever try to go to the smalls' world?
- how do bigs/minis react when an opposite manages to enter their world?
- would the bigs/smalls try to kill the intruders?
- if so, how could minis possibly kill one of the bigs?
- how do the porcelain smalls come into existence? Born? Made? Wishful thinking?
- where does the gravity come from? Two planets floating in space connected by a bridge do not act as a scale, so what pulls them down?
I believe that understanding and explaining the world to ourselves generates good stories. They sort of write themselves when you know the environment you're dealing with

Story:
We all decided to develop individual storyboards for tomorrow when we will also make a choice. So far the group is leaning towards the classical Romeo & Juliet plot developed by Charlotte: a mini and a big that already knew each other are trying to be together, so we follow the mini travel through the midis' land to get to the bigs' land. Once there they hide in a room and when another big tries to come in, and check the noise, the mini hides on the ceiling's light source from where he starts sliding off only to be saved by his/her big at the last second after the other big leaves. I believe it would be a good, fun choice.


Pictures of what the previous group did with this world ↓