To help give a consistent visual aesthetic to certain scenes in The Joys of Being Furry, I drew up a character sheet of Jonathan's anthropomorphic wolf fursona Troy Baines in Adobe Photoshop, consisting of a front and side view. His grey-white-red colour scheme was referenced from another character sheet drawn by Sirod of Fur Affinity.
By drawing this up, this will serve as a good reference to keep Troy's design and colours consistent while also giving it my own unique drawing style. The front and side view will also prove useful if I decide to turn the design into a 3D model with Autodesk Maya. Depending on time constraints, however, I may instead opt for creating a 2D cutout rig by using either Adobe Animate or Adobe After Effects. Doing either of these will save a lot of time from tirelessly drawing this wolf frame-by-frame.
The next thing to do was to create two mood board by obtaining a bunch of visual references, particularly from other animated media, to determine the overall mood of the documentary.
Mood board 1
Some scenes such as the charity part and Troy leaving his social bubble is intended to be very stylized, featuring a lineless style which gives it an abstract, yet 3D-like aesthetic. The strong use of lighting is particularly inspired from the likes of The Dam Keeper (2014), Feast (2014), and Desert Critters (2016) in order present a lighthearted and hopeful vibe in those scenes. The lack of textures on Feast and Desert Critters make those shorts look simplistic, yet highly appealing, and could also save me from making detailed textures.
The hand-drawn aspects of Troy as a human and the animated drawing shot are meant to present rough sketch drawings with a cartoony aesthetic, something that resembles a moving comic strip. Some examples I found of roughly-sketched animation include The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales (2017) and My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999). These two aren't prioritized with perfect proportions of refined linework, but more so to give exaggerated designs and movements. This is especially present in My Neighbors the Yamadas as it's aiming to faithfully replicate the art style in the manga it's based on Nono-chan by Hisaichi Ishii.
Additionally, the 2D-animated DreamWorks short Bird Karma (2018) has more-refined drawings, yet still retains that exaggerated cartoony approach. This can also fall in line with the other lighting references I provided from The Dam Keeper, Feast, and Desert Critters where an emphasis is put on warm colours to give the positive feel.
Troy mentioned in the interview that the animated movie Balto (1995) was what motivated him to join the fansite and discover the furry fandom, so I've included that as part of the mood board, particularly the friendly bonding between Balto and Jenna. A production character sheet of Balto will also prove helpful for my documentary, to help me understand the different angles of a wolf when drawing or constructing a character rig.
This also includes Sirod's character sheet of Troy for additional character design reference.
Mood Board 2
I was required to create an additional mood board as part of the submission requirements. The first three images of this board are possibilities of the colour palette throughout the refined shots such as the charity scene. Concept art of Monsters University (2013) by Daisuke Tsutsumi (who later directed The Dam Keeper (2014)) and the artistic works of Colin Bigelow have a nice green palette that complements the strong lighting and positive tone.
The part during Troy's anxiety is going to put a big emphasis on black and dark colours in order to emphasize the depressing and helpless feels Troy is going through. White drawing lines will be used to give a style similar to a chalkboard, and to make the drawings stand out from the dark background. This will be similar to the chalk animated short Animation Hotline: Inside Out (2015) by Dusty Studio (not to be confused with the Pixar movie), and the black-and-white plane drawing I provided in addition to the darkroom lighting example where Troy picks up the fursuit head.
One image features a wolf howling silhouette for reference on animating the wolf shown on the television. The last two are examples of lineless and somewhat abstract animation if I choose to go in the Adobe Animate/After Effects route for creating characters, which are from the video game Night in the Woods (2017), and a talented furry animator on YouTube known as Adler the Eagle.
Image references
Mood board 1
Balto (1995, US/UK, Dir: Simon Wells)
Balto character sheet (property of Universal Pictures)
The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales (2017, France, Dir: Benjamin Renner & Patrick Imbert)
Bird Karma (2018, US, William Salazar)
The Dam Keeper (2014, US, Robert Kondo & Daisuke Tsutsumi)
Desert Critters (2016, US, Dir: Li Wen Toh)
Feast (2014, US, Dir: Patrick Osborne)
My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999, Japan, Dir: Isao Takahata)
"Troy ref" (drawn by Sirod of Fur Affinity)
Mood board 2
Adler Animates - Episode 2 - “Window” (2018, US, Dir: Adler The Eagle)
Animation Hotline: Inside Out (2015, US, Dir: Dusty Studio)
Mental ray lighting tutroial from polygonblog.com
Monsters University (2013) concept art by Daisuke Tsutsumi (property of Disney-Pixar)
Night in the Woods (2017, Australia/Canada/US, Dir: Alec Holowka)
“The Road to Rio” (2016 commercial) concept art by Colin Bigelow (property of Art & Grath)
“Sketch plane taking off black background” (drawn by Tetiana Morgunova of Dreamstime)
Teddy bear house concept art by Colin Bigelow
“Wolf Howling moon Silhouette” (from publicdomainpictures.net)