The Little Wine Key That Could

For Methods of Motion last week, our assignment was to create a storyboard for a character animation. Using all that we've been learning about giving personality to characters through their motion (especially the 12 basic principles of animation) we were supposed to outline a short, simple scene that would introduce a character.

I decided to tell the story of a simple wine key. Like everyone else, I can't help but see a human form every time I look at one of these guys. With its extended arm, upturned eager face, monopod leg, and arm-like motion the temptation to personify these is so strong, I'm surprised I've never seen one as an animated character before.

Once I had the idea of animating a wine key, I started thinking about the world a wine key might inhabit, its hopes and dreams. The storyboard I ended up with tells the tale of a wine key's epic journey out of the drawer onto the counter in order to fulfill its lifelong dream of opening a bottle.

Here's an animated GIF that will show you the storyboard in five second frames (may take a little while to load, it's a 1.5mb file).

For something I'm supposed to animate in a week, this story ended up a bit.. .complex. Hence, this week I'm working on exploring just the basics of bringing the wine key to life: how it will move around, how it will express emotion, how it will interact with a few objects in its surroundings.

I'll post the final animation this week when it's done. Wish me luck!