Orcs Must Die! Gauntlet Animatic

It’s story time on how Orcs Must Die! Gauntlet came to be. One of the art directors at Robot Entertainment asked me to storyboard some Orcs Must Die! (OMD) logo ideas. The requirements and direction was essentially keep it short; keep it simple; comedy via orc violence; get the OMD logo on the screen. Some other logo animations were already complete, but he wanted to look at different options, perhaps a different direction. Six seconds was the maximum length established from the completed logos. Because some artist time had already been spent creating a usable (and great!) logo the time frame for the one I would create was short: Not including storyboard time, this would be done (animation, render, sound, etc…) in a week with minimal effort from the art team; 3d animation and reused assets.

Of course, my mind started blowing up with ideas that didn’t fit within that requirement. (Thanks brain, you’re awesome.) So, I storyboarded those ideas over the next three working days. Unfortunately, I saw these as short animations rather than just a straight up logo, which is probably why we didn’t move forward with any of my ideas. As such, I was trying to tell a small story with some (2), and others do exactly what the art director wanted (3). I finished a total of five. As I said, none of them were chosen and we went with the already completed logo. One animatic/idea, for me, stood out above the rest (above). I wanted to see it to completion. You can view the final animation here.

That’s how Orcs Must Die! Gauntlet started out. Below are the other animatics I did that aren’t going to see any further work.

Gauntlet Gets GIFs

I made this nifty little gif animation of the looping portion of the Orcs Must Die! Gauntlet video. Right click the image to save. If you want a higher resolution version, download it here. Enjoy!

Orcs Must Die! Gauntlet

The first official animation production from chazamation; Orcs Must Die! Gauntlet parodies the numerous trap options available in the video game Orcs Must Die! What will happen to the poor orc if the mouse trap is set up just right? Watch and see.

One of my last tasks on the Orcs Must Die! project was to create a set of storyboards for logo animation. Unfortunately none were chosen, but I really loved the animatic I did for the animation above; as, in my mind, it stood out from the rest. In my spare time over the span of four months, I was determined to see this animated. Hard work, and many free time hours later, it’s complete! I hope you have as much fun watching it as I had producing it. Enjoy, and please leave a comment telling me what you thought.

Animation created using ToonBoom Animate Pro 2, and backgrounds in Photoshop.

Not entirely necessary, but (if you’re curious) here are the credits:

• Everything but Audio (e.g., direction**, animatic, backgrounds, animation)
Charles Tinney
• All Sound and Music
Gl33k Game Audio, pulled from the Orcs Must Die! video game.
• Special Thanks
My Wife (for always putting up with my shit, and graciousness to allow me time to work)
Anthony Coffey and Juan Martinez (for critiquing my progression)

Check out Gl33k’s website, great stuff! And to learn more about Orcs Must Die!, visit the steam page.

*I could probably count how many hours I spent on this, from animatic to finalization. But that would hurt my brain. Aside from the four hours I spent on the animatic at work, all the rest of the time spent on this was spare time only; an occasional hour here and there. Starting around mid-June, and finished late-September.

**lol, I don’t even know why I list direction. I was the only one that worked on this. I’m such a nut; I directed myself.

A Gauntlet Awaits…

Soon.

ish.