Sushi Samurai
A short cinematic animation about a poor samurai who shows off his sushi cutting skills to lure in customers
Summary
My goal for this project was to create an interesting and unique animation. One made to resemble Overwatch highlight intros, but in a choppy animation style.
Goal
Specifications
6 Weeks
Solo Project
AutoDesk Maya
Process
This project was made during my second year at The Game Assembly
This project started out as a 2D animation that I made a year before working on Sushi Samurai.
I really liked this animation but I had never gotten around to finishing it. So I had the idea to create a spiritual successor to the initial animation.
I wanted to keep the fluid feeling of the character, A fighter that weaves in and out of combat to create a more interesting fighting style.
I started by modeling the sword and blocking out the important parts of the animation.
I then started focusing on making the character move fluidly throughout the animation, making sure the sword had the same weight throughout.
After some feedback I realized that the attacks came out to fast, not letting the viewer digest what just happened, I added more room between the attacks to make the animation feel and look better.
I felt like the viewer might have not have had time to fully digest the animation. A short part in the beginning and in the end was added to give the view time to understand what just happened.
Then came the time where I had to figure out a background for the scene.
As my friend was showing me where they found their background I spotted a house made of sushi, Made by Neos Nelia. My friend suggested that I could use that as a background.
And I thought it was absolutely brilliant.
Old Camera
New Camera
I made a camera that would with multiple cuts throughout the animation, Both me and my classmates thought that it didn’t showcase the animations to the full extent. I changed the camera to move throughout the scene, which the whole scene benefitted from.
And lastly adding the finishing touches to the animation such as adding multiple arms and higher quality VFX and lighting to highlight the animation. This was the result.
I was incredibly happy with the result of this project and I hope to work on something similar in the future.
Without Camera
Smear Frame
Thank you for taking the time to read this breakdown.
