Deeper Study

 At first, I was not sure how to set up my puppets. I had trouble figuring out how to differentiate between the two tigers, as the difference between male and female tigers is so subtle. Really, male and female tigers look similar, but the females look smaller. This size difference would be noticeable in the scenes where the tigers are together, but would be hardly noticeable in the majority of the scenes in which they are separate. So, I decided that changing the stripe colour would be less imposing and would fit with the bright colourful stylized nature of the video. I also made subtle differences in the faces of my characters. The female has a pattern around her eyes that suggest eyelashes and a thinner jaw and eyebrows than the male. You can see the difference in this shot

After looking through my Story Board and factoring in the subtle difference between the bodies of the different genders, I decided that creating separate male and female bodies would make for double the work. Instead, I decided a better and faster option would be to make one body for each position and change the colours of the stripes using colour correcting effects in After Effects. This way I could cut my puppet making in half.

To make the puppets I first found pictures of tigers online in positions that I enjoyed, cut them up and adjusted the  anchor points like I would a puppet, but in photoshop.

P.S.  The giant Cintiq was my best friend in creating this video.

After testing out this puppet, I traced the outline of the pieces and painted/adjusted them to make them look like my stylized tigers.

I would then scan these hand painted puppet pieces into the computer and erase, arrange and set up the files for animation.

To Animate my puppets I used the DuIK rigging system. This plug in was designed for human character animation, So in a way, I was conducting my own little experiment by using the rig for Tigers. However, I was very impressed with the results using this rig, and had a lot of success with it.

First, I used the rig on my Human Ring Master puppet character.

Here you can see how the rig is set up:
A series of controllers are set up and parented to the  limbs.

The result is a very natural moving character and a much more organized and less hectic amount of keyframes. There is no way I could have got the smooth and controlled result that I got if I animated each piece of the puppet separately rather than on the set up controllers.

Here is a fun video showing the results of my Ring Master Walk Cycle:


Ring Master Walk Test from


For the Tiger, I first would animate the body using the DuIK system and then the Head to create the expressions, and then combine them later. 

Here is a run cycle test I did using the DuIK system(don't be scared of the headless-ness)

 For the backgrounds I created a library of leaves and trees as well as grass and dirt and would rearrange them for all the jungle scenes. I found this technique was the fastest way to get things done. I would have preferred to spend more time on the backgrounds.

I used 3D layers for most of the scenes. Including the inside the cage scene and the majority of the jungle scenes.

Here is my first failed attempt at creating a grassy open field.. it just wasnt bright and pretty enough.

Here is another failed attempt at a passed out tiger position. Looks too human and terrible.

Overall I am pleased with the result. I would describe this video as "half-animated" there are very subtle, robotic movements mixed with a lot of still frames. I would have loved to go in and spend more time animating each scene.

In the future I would like to use toggle hold keyframe interpolation to achieve less robotic looking animation.