Amber Erbezci

[ambererbezci]

Welcome!

Hello! This page is exclusively to show off behind the scenes content of the animated short film "Sereia". You can see snippets of storyboards, character designs, animation and more. I will share my process and how I go from these rough ideas to a final product!

Stay tuned for more!

[ambererbezci]

Unused Shots

So, with the deadline of the jury coming closer, we have decided to scrap some scenes so we could focus on the core of our movie.

This was definitely the right decision with the amount of time we have left. It does mean that some of my work will be omitted.

It's mostly expression, which I have never really done before. I found it a shame to let them rot in my OneDrive, so I will share them with you now!

This was good practice for me. I'm usually only focused on showing emotions through the hands of a character. Facial expressions are new territory for me.

For reference, here are the matching storyboard thumbnails for these shots!

It is quite magical to see how your concepts can come to life like this. Especially since it's first in your head, you capture it with a marker and ballpoint pen, and then finally you try to make your drawing movie.

[ambererbezci]

Animation process siren

I mentioned before that I had some difficulties when it comes to drawing the siren. To further illustrate this point, I will share some screenshots with you that have only been seen by me and my project partner.

This is a sketch for one of the frames of the siren's movement. It all started with this sketch that vaguely resembles what I'm going for.

This is how the frame looks like after my project partner and I clean and correct the sketch. After I have my main key poses figured out, I in between them (regular animation stuff).

For this particular shot, it took me a while to figure out how exactly the movement flows. We really wanted to show how she pushes herself up in a kind of arch. I came up with two versions

We ended up going with the one to the right, because she looks more like she's going in an arch.

Then I finish the shot by coloring the frames, adding some extra hair, slapping a net over her body. The final animation looks something like this:

After this, the background, color correction, and all the other fun post-production stuff gets added (which I don't have right now).

Anyway, I hope this gave you further insight on what it takes to make a shot of a couple of seconds. It's not exactly a walk in the park, but I do enjoy the challenge.

[ambererbezci]

Here are some simple head turns I made of the two main characters.

The character designs were made by my project partner.

Moira (the human girl) was a lot easier to capture than the Siren (the blue creature). I'm a lot more familiar with drawing humans, so Moira was quite easy to nail down.

The Siren, on the other hand, proved to be quite difficult. I don't usually draw mythical creatures, especially not creepy ones with a lot of teeth. Even in production I still struggle a lot with her long tail and hair. She's quite the challenge, that's for sure. I've never animated characters with this much detail, but I do find it's quite refreshing.

[ambererbezci]

Some storyboard sketches I made for the movie I'm working on right now. Most of these are done with pen and markers. Trying to figure out how a movie looks is always quite challenging, especially since I usually don't stick to what I initially planned. However, now that I'm working with someone else, instead of alone, I can't just free-style it. Planning is important :)