For this assignment, Camilla and I had initially thought about filming someone skateboarding while wearing a green screen suit and using that footage as a frame to animate within. We scratched that idea due to some logistical issues, but decided to continue with the theme of skateboarding. Camilla then asked me if there were any animals that I resonated with and I told her, the sloth! I actually used to have a mural of a colorful sloth hanging out in my old bedroom (see below):

Camilla then came up with our main character, Sloth Kong, and drew him in photoshop and exported him as layers!

We initially played with the idea of animating the kick and push of skating, but decided to stick to letting Sloth Kong coast around and do a few tricks here and there. We divided the tasks between us, splitting the animation work about evenly, while Camilla did the cover art and character design, while I did the sound design.

Below are the four backgrounds that I used, with minimal editing done in Photoshop to take advantage of usings layers for masking. This story is simply about a hungry, skateboarding sloth’s mission to get a slice of pizze before going to skate some more.

Brooklyn Bridge

Here I cut the boat out to a new layer and added a simple animated wave over the water to give it some more motion.

Best Pizza

This is a pizza place near my friend’s house in Williamsburg where I used to get pizza all the time. Really good white slice. I cut the windows and framing around it so that it would appear as if Sloth Kong actually enters the store and is behind the glass. Here’s the pizza clip art I used:

Williamsburg Bridge

This shot it actually out of place, but I didn’t it realize until too late though. It was supposed to have been at the end to show Sloth Kong skating back to Manhattan, but skate videos don’t need to unfold linearly. No photoshop work here, just some poorly done zig-zagging and 3D rotations.

Continental Army Plaza

This plaza has a statue of George Washington sitting on a horse, but it also has some really nice stairs that are pretty waxed from everyone skating there. I actually really like that this shot ended up at the end, since it synced really well with the music. You get a nice change when the chord comes in to end the song, and then a moment of silence before Sloth Kong lands the trick.

It is set to the song “The New”, by J Dilla, with sound effects taken from Gojira’s (Godzilla) Theme Song.

And here’s the video!

Sloth Kong Battles NYC