Home to a collection of artworks and photography by David Billingsley
The Spirit (2016)
The Spirit
“Another year and another animation to do.” However, for this particular animation, I decided to drift away from my trusted comedic formula and lean towards more dark matters. The inspiration for this came through some of the personal hardships I had to go through during my second year of study in university.
In order to collaborate on this animation, I asked a fellow student to come on board to animate the Spirit character and a personal friend to compose the music for it. The combination of efforts I felt truly made this animation wonderful and a joy to see it being brought together. I decided to make this story rather open to interpretation , the feedback thus far has been varied and interesting.
The main premise of The Spirit follows The Puppet, a rather lonely and depressed character who is need of guidance. The uplifting part of his soul escapes from within and manifests into the young Spirit, which then prompts him to "re-connect" before continuing on the journey through life.
The music was composed by Simon Parton, a talented ex student of The University of South Wales and close friend. If you like what you hear, he has a soundcloud where he has written and produced other amazing music, including his upcoming project "And Friends".
In the earlier stages, my initial concept was to have a simplistic humanoid looking character which can move freely.
After receiving feedback, I took it upon myself to alter The Puppets design even further. This was done by looking at the Easter island heads for inspiration on proportions.
This was the first concept piece I had shown to my lectures, showing the two characters together.
The Second concept piece was drawn in the moment, showing the main character wading through thick fog.
This image was the poster I used to advertise The Spirit Animation
As clay was going to weigh down my character, I needed to make sure that my armature was built rather strong / sturdy to hold all of the weight.
This was the Final Turnaround Sheet I used as a reference for building up The Puppet character
Keeping with the initial Armature plan, I did my best to make sure that the main two pieces (the top chest piece and bottom hip piece) was strong enough to hold all of the connectors and wires together. I twisted two pieces of metal wire with copper wire twisted on top to add more sturdiness. The chest and head were made out of carved foam which served as a light material for padding the characters features out. Milliput was used to cover any exposed areas and the hands.
Half way building the character, I noticed that his arms were placed a bit more inwards than initially planned but, I decided to stick with it and carried on. In hindsight, this helped me to look at my characters design again and I decided to make his shoulders a bit more wider and flexible, using them to act as the characters eyebrows and emotional states (happy / sad)