Above is my storyboard for this sequence. The character runs in from the right side of the screen, moving towards a kind of magical crystal. As they approach, they notice something’s wrong—the crystal looks like it’s about to launch an attack through the ground. Reacting quickly, the character jumps into the air and does a flip, then comes crashing down with a lightning-based attack to try and destroy it.
But the crystal dodges at the last second and retaliates. It manipulates the ground into spear-like shapes that shoot up toward the character. Just before the spears hit, the character raises their hand and fires off a massive energy blast that wipes everything out, ending the scene with them coming out on top.
These clips are part of my exploration into the weight and movement of the character. Rather than going for a full flip in the air, I decided to go with a more playful “starfish” motion mid-jump. This was a deliberate choice—I wanted to start giving the character a bit more personality and make the movement feel unique and expressive.
You’ll also see how I’m planning to have the ground deform in response to the action. There’s a close, almost reactive relationship between the character, the crystal, and the environment. I’m trying to build a sense of interaction where all elements feel connected, rather than just separate layers moving around each other.
Here, as you can see, I’m experimenting with deforming geometry in Cinema 4D. The goal was to loosely recreate the 2D animation in 3D, just to help me visualise the scene more clearly before committing to the final animation. Since I’m going to be animating this in a full 3D environment, having a rough version like this gives me a better sense of scale, motion, and placement early on.