Underdogs

The brief for this project was simple. Find something we were passionate about that is underappreciated. We take these underdogs and market them to a new audience - I chose the anime fanbase (typically 18 to 35 year olds in N America).

My passions lie in many areas, but the greatest of all is mythology. English folklore is an unsung hero. Greek and Roman mythology has been repeated across the cosmos through planets & constellations, and modern pop culture uses Norse mythology.

I drew my inspiration from a story called the Lyminster Knucker: the tale of a badly behaved child and the wrath of a dragon on an English town.

Bringing a dragon to a new audience is a difficult thing without a unique element to it, since they have existed across world cultures for centuries. Dragons are popular across almost all genres, so I drew from a great creator in the sphere of horror: the incredible Junji Ito (author and mangaka of best-selling graphic novels such as Tomie and Uzumaki).

Our task was to create three items - a physical artifact, an educational zine, and an animation. After working on some alternatives, I found the idea with the most potential was an illuminated letter, at the beginning of the poem I had rewritten from the story of the Knucker.

The artwork was inspired by traditional monastic calligraphy & portraiture, mixed with contemporary imagery and celtic pattern-work. I used this artwork as the basis for my animation.

We were discouraged from making our animations the heroes of our project, because of the complexity of the process. I saw this as a challenge to relish. Instead of shying away from the steep learning curve, I dove straight into it.

The final animation was 30 frames per second over 2 minutes (3600 frames many of which were hand-drawn). I employed a voice over actress to recite my poem for the film. Uploading it to YouTube was a matter of course, but it did so well with my target demographic that it was undeniably well done.

I'm exceptionally proud of my work on this project. Although it was academic, I felt it was still as complete a brief as I could achieve. I researched everything from the ground up, read books, parsed out every relevant detail available, and only once I knew I had the best grasp on the subject matter did I begin the process of creation. I still rewatch the animation occasionally, happy to see my hard work in action again.