Insert Completed Project video here but for now...
I ordered a chicken and an egg online... I'll let you know ;)

Disclaimer: Page in Progress.
Storyboard

Page 1: We open with a few pans of the shelves of puppets The Pretender has in this room. They enter and take a seat at the desk in the room. n the desk sits a stage and a case holding another puppet, but this one is in pristine condition. The Pretender starts to manipulate the puppet, but this puppet has had enough and begins to resist, which angers the Pretender.

Page 2: Angered by The Puppet's disobedience, The Pretender punishes the puppet by pulling her into a stage wall with force, which knocks over her case, shattering it. Not only does it shatter her case, but the puppet is also damaged. The Pretender drops the controller of The Puppet and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The puppet looks at her arms and sees all of the damage. Defeated, the Puppet curls into a ball. However, a leaf soon brushes against her. Curious, The Puppet looks over to see an open window. With an idea, she begins to figure out how to get the strings off of her. 

Page 3: Peeking around the wall of the stage, she looks over the shattered remains of her case. Spotting a particularly shaped shard of glass, the puppet gets an idea. Picking up the shard, she walks over to the back of the stage where her strings pull her back to. With one long slash, the strings are severed, and The Puppet is freed. The Puppet takes a small piece of her strings and ties her hair up with it. Walking over to the edge, she takes a look at the drop. Taking a deep breath, she jumps down to the floor of the room.

Character Design
Meet The Puppet!

The Puppet is our protagonist in the story. After dealing with The Pretender's miserable treatment, she has decided to retake control of her fate by cutting the strings that bound her to servitude. 
The Puppet is a representation of anyone who finds themself in a controlling/unhealthy situation. She serves as a vessel to convey the deeper message of the story; escaping unhealthy relationships is possible, but it is often times difficult and very scary.
The design of the character is inspired by real life puppets and includes some details inspired by Five Night's at Freddy's Sister Location, specifically the blush circles on the cheeks of her face. 
To eliminate the need to think about her hair, I drew another version of her shown to the right of the main drawing. This aided in the streamline purpose, as there was less of a need to think about hair physics while giving her a sense of creativity in how she uses the world around her.
The Pretender

The Big Bad of the story is The Pretender, a masked figure who prides themselves in their puppet collection displayed in their emporium. However, behind closed doors, they have a secret collection of puppets they particularly love to use in their leisure time to entertain themselves. Often times these puppets suffer damage and if they try to resist, they're locked away in their case and set on the shelf to collect dust.
The Pretender has no real inspiration behind the design besides the element of the mask. This mask is dynamic; the eyes and mouth will move to indicate emotion and reactions in The Pretender.
The Pretender acquired their name because of a Foo Fighters song called "The Pretender." (If you want to listen to it here is a link: Foo Fighters - The Pretender | Lyrics). Please note I am not sponsored by the Foo Fighters nor am I associated in anyway. This bop was not made by me. However, I will note that the song can serve as an unofficial theme for this story, as there is a rebellious nature to The Puppet, our protagonist. 




Style Frames 
Each of the style frames were created in Krita; a digital drawing and animating software that allows me access to various types of tools that other programs would not have readily available. For these, I mainly utilized pencil tools, as I wanted the animation to have a hand drawn and more organic look compared to a solid outline.
There is a purposeful contrast in color palettes between The Pretender's house and the outside world. This contrast is supposed to represent how much better life becomes once a person escapes an unhealthy relationship. 

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