Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore - Character Animation

This was a project that required a focus on character animation and emulating a particular style to evoke the feeling of the Zelda CDI games (at least the first two). I didn't design the characters and I wasn't required to match backgrounds or layouts. I handled four different characters and seven scenes in all. The runtime totals about 3 minutes and 30 seconds of animation.
The special challenges of this project also made it very rewarding. I learned what I could about the original conditions that led to the animations being the way they were by reading interviews and asking some of the other passionate people on the project about it, and I studied the animations from those games to try and get a feel for the things that made them unique. Then I approached the actual animation like it had an extra layer of acting on top of the regular acting challenges of animation. Rather than only focusing on the characters themselves I also tried to put myself in the shoes of someone from Eastern Europe/Russia trying to animate with unfamiliar tools in an unfamiliar place. There were specific techniques, such as "zooming" the camera in and out of characters, having characters talk straight to camera, and doing in-betweens in some places where a cut might have made more sense, that I used to try and get that awkward feeling. I hope my unironic enjoyment of the original cutscenes comes through. I genuinely think they're very charming. Hopefully I didn't draw anyone too "handsome" or "cute" to be in a CDi game but sometimes the character designs were so nice I think I ended up falling back on my drawing habits rather than getting them closer to what they might have looked like in the originals. Ultimately, it was a game with a budget and a deadline, so there are some places where I would have liked to spend more time and put more effort in, but I am still pleased with the work I accomplished.