How the sausage is made: The Making of Monsieur Sausage by Jay Foster

How the Sausage is made A r t A

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Introduction

M

y initial inspirations for what would eventually become my Extended Practice project came on a trip in the summer of

2017 to Annecy Animation Festival in France. Trips to animation festivals have always served as useful catalysts for sparking creativity, many of the best animations I have produced in my time since starting my studies at university have come about after trips to animation festivals, and my week long trip to the south of France was no different. My main takeaway from the week was a mocking nickname we devised for one of our mates which served as the inspiration for a character which would go on to star in my final project at uni; Monsieur Sausage.

Initial Character Sketches (August 2017)

Character Development

Early Digital Designs (August 2017)

Before figuring out the intricacies and specifics of the story of my animation I wanted to make sure I had a solid aesthetic foundation to build upon as I would be relying mostly on visual, no verbal storytelling to communicate my setting, story and characters. The

design fundamentals for Monsieur Sausage didn’t deviate too much from my initial sketches though I did experiment with different

hats and aprons in order to decide what suited the design better. My intent is to create a main character which is easy to animate and can communicate body language clearly and efficiently. For the design of Monsieur Sausage I did take inspiration from previous characters I have worked on, most notably a character I worked on with Tess in second year; Lorde ‘Queef’ Keith, my main takeaway being the silhouette and emphasis on exaggerated posture and body language.

Character Face Sheets (September 2017)

One element of Monsieur Sausage’s design which I feel most effectively communicates body language is the moustache, which acts as a sort of stand in for the character’s mouth, which is obscured by the size of the moustache, to indicate emotion. (E.g; a smile, frown etc…) The moustache also serves as point of secondary action which will emphasise movement more. The inclusion of a moustache as one of the main focal points of the design was at least partially inspired by the characters Asterix and Obelix, themselves products of French culture, with the 1967 film Asterix the Gaul serving as particular inspiration.

Character Walk Cycle (September 2017)

I created a test walk cycle and turnaround of Monsieur Sausage in order to get better feel for his mannerisms, as in most scenes he is the core element moving the plot forward through his actions,

therefore it is desirable for movement and nuance to be planned out ahead of time. I like the idea of a character of Monsieur Sausage’s stature being very top heavy but with very thin legs, almost like a chicken, as I feel this emphasises movement a little more and is

more fun to animate, as well as lending to the comedy of a largely overweight character gliding around the scene like a Ballerina.

One issue with the turnaround I did run into which was called into question during a group crit was the character’s apron, which I had unwittingly made tube-like, stretching all the way around Monsieur Sausage like a pair of dungarees.

Character Turnaround (October 2017)

Initial Character Designs (August 2017)

For the woman’s character design I looked to inspiration from classic French Cinema. The woman character in my animation is largely

inspired (at least visually) by the archetype of the ‘Ingenue’ or ‘Femme Fetale’. I looked to fashion trends in mid century French cinema in order to inform the look of my character, settling on a striped shirt motif, a staple of actresses in 20th century French cinema.

Character Sketches by Daniel Goodman (October 2017)

As for the dog’s design, I turned to one of my mates to provide the groundwork as I have little experience in designing anthropomorphic

characters. He produced a series of rough sketches for how the dog in my animation could look, testing out different breeds and drawing styles. However, I instead opted for a simpler style as I felt his designs were not in keeping with the simpler style I was going for in my animation. I eventually ended up brainstorming a few ideas for how the dog could look in my sketchbook and put it down to a vote on one of the college’s communal whiteboards.

Initial Character Designs (November 2017)

Concept Art

Character Concept Art (October 2017)

Character Concept Art (October 2017)

In the beginning I was undecided on how to incorporate linework, torn between a more vector-based style and incorporating rough linework to emphasise primitive shapes. I did however, after much experimentation arrive at the conclusion that my neat linework is one of the strongest elements of my drawing practice, but in order to differentiate from my previous work and ensure a higher standard of polish

I opted to colour certain lines and give character’s their own line colour motifs in order to better distinguish themselves from one another.

For example, Monsieur Sausage’s outline in the final film is brown, while the woman’s is blue, blue being the more neutral tone indicative of

the power dynamic in the scene.) The final effect I feel plays to my core strengths as a character designer with its simplicity and emphasis on primitive shapes.

Concept Art (September 2017)

I spent a considerable amount of time developing the backgrounds for the animation as to further sell the settings. I want the layout of the

scene in my animation to showcase the environment just as much as it showcases the character animation; in order to really sell the setting.

While I was in Annecy last summer I took numerous photos of architecture that could possibly serve as inspiration for the backdrop of my animation. Local landmarks such as the Church of St Maurice, which may indicate the setting are scattered around the backdrops of many

pieces of concept art, but aside from that the setting is only loosely based off Annecy. I tried to keep the colour scheme for the backgrounds to a minimum in order to not distract from the foreground action, hence why i opted for a blue and white colour scheme. I drew some inspiration from children’s illustrator Sara Ogilvie, particularly her book ‘Dogs Don’t Do Ballet’ which employs a similar colour scheme to

backgrounds, allowing foreground figures to better stand out. Ogilvie’s characters also have a coloured pastel outline which I can see working well for characters in my animation; lending to the childlike aesthetic.

Character Concept Art (November 2017)

Character Concept Art (November 2017)

For the design of the boy who serves as the waiter in the animation I wanted to draw from literary characters such as ‘Tiny Tim’ and ‘Oliver Twist’ to serve as the more empathetic audience stand-in. It was important the character’s design to convey their backstory as a street-child in order to let the audience better empathise with them over the course of the events as they unfold.

Character Concept Art (December 2017)

Initially, I intended to give characters a darker skin tone, however felt that for

the sake of simplicity and practicality,

it fit my film’s aesthetic more to leave the

characters skin plain white. This served two purposes; cutting down on colouring when it comes to producing the finished animation as well as emphasizing key

features of the characters design, for

example; Monsieur Sausage’s moustache (important in indicating character’s body language) and the woman’s sunglasses (important in establishing to the audience the fact that the woman is blind).

Storyboard Thumbnails

For this project I very much wanted the story to be informed by the visuals as I feel visual storytelling and art direction is my strong suit and I will be undertaking this project largely by myself; hence why I let concept art and character designs inform the plot. The basic outline of the plot is fairly simple; a French Sausage Vendor attempts to serenade a blind woman with a romantic meal, the meal goes south and Monsieur Sausages ends up having to dispose of the woman’s poisoned guide dog in a sausage, which he then serves to the blind woman. The structure of the plot, starting off fairly straight-faced and romantic before escalating to pure ultra violence and vulgarity, with this sudden shift in town being the punchline of the piece, was inspired largely by shocking early-2000s internet web animation, notably ‘Chucks New Tux’ by Harry Partridge, which follows largely the same plot structure. I opted for my animation to be board-driven rather than script driven, as much of the action unfolds in a largely non-verbal way. For me personally this is also an easier way of working as I am a very visually oriented creative. I did however create a plot outline and break down the action to bullet points in order to inform the visuals of my storyboards.

As I was not producing a script and working purely from a story treatment and my statement of intent, the storyboards are one of the most important stages in the development of my animation. While I do feel it would have been nice for my artbook to fully develop and take the time to polish my pre-vis work, as I was working by myself time was of the essence and my storyboards could have been better. Though not that important as I was working by myself and could understand what they were depicting, I do wish I had spent more time on them as what I have here is not exactly presentable in a professional context. Initially I had intended to work on colour scripts similar to those depicted in Pixar’s ‘The Art of Pixar’ art book, however the aesthetic I had settled on as well as the time I had to finish pre-production didn’t properly lend itself to this approach.

What was important to me was that the storyboards communicated shot-composition, staging of characters in the scene and the number of sets I would need to construct for the final animation, with details such as character animation and body language being more fleshed out at the animatic stage. I consciously tried to keep the number of sets to a minimum as I wanted the layout to be of a high quality, so I opted to keep the majority of the action in the scene on a two-dimensional plain, with events revolving mostly around the table in which the romantic dinner is taking place.

Early Concept Art (August 2017)

Backgrounds

Early Concept Art (September 2017)

Before starting work on my animatic I took the time to flesh out and

Initial Background Sketches (October 2017)

develop the backgrounds I would be using in my final animation.

I would be needing four in total, though in order to increase shot variety I would be zooming in and out of them in the frame, meaning they would need to be drawn at a larger dimensions than 1920 x 1080. I opted to draw the main background, the set with the table

and lakeside backdrop at 4K resolution to enable this. Every element in the scene had its own separate layer in order to enable

characters in the animation to interact with objects in the scene, such as the chairs. Much of the linework used for the backgrounds used a pastel brush in keeping with the aesthetic inspired by Sara Ogilvie.

Table Set Background Roughs (January 2018)

Foreground Roughs (December 2017)

The opening establishing shot was derived and repurposed from a piece of concept art I had been working on, with multiple layers of buildings moving as the camera pans down to our characters in order to simulate a parallax effect. I added more buildings and linework to the mountains in the backdrop as I wanted the opening shot to seem dense and lively. I was very much inspired by Sara Ogivie’s work but also classic Disney layout art, such as the work highlighted in fraser McClean’s setting the scene. While I do wish I had planned around shifting perspective and pushed myself more in the technical drawing aspect I do feel this background fits the animation well, serving as an interesting opening shot.

Opening Shot Concept Art (December 2017)

Main Table Set Final Background (February 2018)

Interior Set Final Background (April 2018)

The background for the interior shot is the only one which I didn’t have to draw in larger dimensions as it is used sparingly across only three shots with minimal camera panning outside of the frame. Lighting was an important aspect of this background as I wanted the lighting in the scene to change when Monsieur Sausage enters the scene. Compared to the other backgrounds this one is very much created with a particular shot in mind with a very deliberate perspective and line of sight, with clear distinctions between foreground, background and the path the character will tread in the scene.

Unused Background for final unfinished scene (March 2018)

For the final background for the final scene of the animation I opted to make the outlines white rather than the darker blues and browns of previous scenes in order to emphasise lighting and the romantic nature of the scene.

Like others this background exists on a purely 2D plain, is drawn in a 4K resolution and separates each object in the scene onto its own separate layer to enable interaction with the characters. While for the cut of the animation I would end up submitting by the deadline would not include this background I hope to develop it further in the future, perhaps with further changes.

Dead Dog Insert/ Close Up (April 2018)

Inserts & Closeups

Sausage Insert/ Close Up (April 2018)

Spaghetti Close Up (April 2018)

For multiple shots in my final animation I cut to a digitally painted close up of a character or object for comic effect, exaggerating the detail and grossness.. I was inspired mostly by cartoons such as Ren and Stimpy and Spongebob Squarepants which also use a similar technique.

A n i m at i c /A n i m at i o n P r o c e s s

1) Initial Sketches/ Keyframes w/ pre-drawn foreground assets.

Timed to backing track.

2) Add Background elements.

3) Fill in characters. Animate inbetween frames. Details such as secondary action (moustache) and overlapping etc...

4) Recolour lines/ fill in additional colours. Line cleanup and final Composite.

The bulk of my time spent on the production of this project was dedicated to developing and refining the animatic, which I would argue is the most important stage in the animation process. Strong keyframing is integral to strong character animation. Having learned from my experience working on previous animatics for comissioned projects I applied a workflow which would work best for me. Initially I was contemplating using TV Paint or some other form of specialist software in order to bring my animation to the industry standardm however opted to use Adobe Photoshop CC, as it was what I am most comfortable using and acquainted with.

Using the preliminary animatic I had constructed from my storyboard thumbnails as a framework to work from, to determine rough timings and staging, my animatic served both as an animatic in the traditional sense as well as the first pass of animation which I would continue ot work into. The first pass was dedicated to ensuring keyframes and character poses communicated the story clearly. Drawings were a little rough but the important thing was I was working out the staging of scenes and determining how characters would move throughout the scene.

Next I would fill the keyframes in and begin work on the inbetweens,, which is where I determine the mechanics of motion, how the characters move in the scene, what speed, what weight etc...Details in the animation, including secondary action and overlapping action are also added at this stage. For this animation , particular attention was paid to the main character’s moustache which served as a main focal point in conveying body language, it is the bounciest part of the characters body and reacts to the slightest movement or change in emotion within the scene as a result.

The final stage of the process is the recolouring of lines and filling in of additional colours, probably the most tedious task , along with line cleanup. Cleanup is usually a task, which in collaborative animated efforts is undertaken by a third party, however knowing this going in I decided ot optimise my workflow by ensuring sharp and detailed keyframes with neat linework in order to minimise the amount of cleanup required in the end.