I greatly enjoyed working on this animation for Crop Life. The company wanted to reinforce the education given to farmers using their products on the necessity of personal protective equipment. The tone required was light-hearted, and a copywriter had the idea of creating a character named Sarki, from the sprayer farmers use to spray their crops. I was handed an initial script and adapted it for animation.
Having completed the script, my next task was to develop Sarki. I created several sketches of the lead character. After some back-and-forths with the client, exploring form and colour, Sarki developed into the character used in the animation.
Additionally, I designed the characters of the farmer, his wife, and his two children. Initially, Crop Life targeted farmers on the African continent, which determined the family's look; however, once the project was underway, the client decided it should be adapted and deployed to markets in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, too. Fortunately, this new request arrived before I began rigging the characters, and I was able to build the different styles into each character's rig. Although this required extra effort and planning, I could simply swap the characters' look for each market by selecting it from a drop-down menu.
The project followed my usual process of creating a sketched storyboard to determine the composition and camera moves in visualising the script. A large number of stakeholders were involved in reviewing the storyboards, and reaching a consensus involved getting a deep understanding of the various approaches to protective equipment and how they are applied in different regions; with this understanding, it was possible to navigate the narrative and visual presentation in a way that satisfied all parties.
Once approved, I designed complete storyboards for animation. It was a pleasure to develop, rig and animate characters of my design, and, after spending so much time together, I confess I became rather fond of them.
This was one of the first projects where I used artificial intelligence to create the voice-over track. After some research and many tests, I settled on Elevenlabs.io, which has since developed into a highly effective tool for creating cost-effective voice-overs (although I still advocate for human talent for the best results). Given the quirky, cartoon nature of the animation, I had fun working on the sound design to bring everything together. Character animation is a labour-intensive process, but there is no denying how magical it is to see characters come to life and how effectively they can engage an audience.