This very admirable animation has become the reference for the animation project that I am working on. Samurai Jack has always been a great and unforgettable series and most inspiration can be drawn from it, apart from it already having a very effective and yet simplistic art style it has some moments where the artists use different techniques to enhance the aesthetics. Demon always had a menacing face about him all throughout his appearance in the show. This demon had a human like body which we could identify as what was the normal thing about him but his other features made him look like something more sort of an evil entity that we can identify as demonic.
Looking into more reference and great pieces of animations, the demon should be less ethereal and wilder. The scene from Princess Mononke where Ashitaka defeats Nago was a great example although animating all the worms on a character would not contribute too much to my specialization. Nago being a giant boar, we can identify it as something natural that has become corrupted obviously also because of the billions of worms squirming about him this identification allows us to categorize him as demonic/corrupted.
The things that have been taken from these reference/inspiration is that
- Less ethereal
- Brutish/ Aggressive attitude
- Pure negative emotions
Originally the fight scene was going to have an equal match between the monkey and another character of the same proportion. The character would have used magic and weapons to fight the monkey as the inspiration was taken from another one of the admirable Samurai Jack fight scenes. The character and the monkey would have even skill but the monkey will emerge victorious in the end as opposed to the current one where the battle appears almost one sided.
Now to apply it to practice, noticing how the use of camera angles made the demon in princess Mononoke more menacing I wanted to incorporate this with this in my own project. Throughout the storyboard I tried to apply as much high impacting shots which would highlight the most dangerous angles of the onis attacks making it look more dangerous.
The two referencing showing demons have very erratic features on them this to me adds the feeling of unease and adds to their unnatural, inhuman appearance. To incorporate this to my character design the oni will have a flaming mane which wildly dances about and becomes more erratic as the demons mood changes or if it uses its unnatural abilities.
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