Having already chosen my theme and confirmed it with the group, I went on ahead to produce some starting sketches with basic ideas. At the start, I produced some initial starting sketches exploring both chosen themes, each containing at least 3 key changes of state that would appear within the animation. Although I was already leaning towards the snowman theme, I still wanted to experiment a little bit with the other theme to confirm that this was the right task for me.
Ignoring the experimental frog sketch in the bottom right, the above image shows a basic tadpole shape, a middle preliminary stage of a frogs growth, and a lose illustration of a frog. I decided that going from this style of drawing, it would be very time consuming and drawn like this may be hard in some areas to animate to the same standard. With this in mind I scrapped that idea there and then and continued to explore the same 3 stages of cycle for the snowman animation; its stood form, semi-melted, and mostly liquid. With this illustration I saw that the character has a much more loveable appearance and a slightly comically tragic result could be acquired as an end result making it potentially more successful for me than the frog. Although a build-up/something to set the scene will be needed for the action to take place, with the more simplistic approach of character, this should not come to be a problem and not add too much time onto the making.
After some thinking I also decided that the build up would best work as the parting of clouds/the sun rising, giving the snowman the means to logically melt.
Creativity Casket Illustrations 