Gaming Club: Episode 1

Gaming ClUb: Episode 1

This was a project that I made as an independent study in college. I was given one semester to propose and complete a project under a professor’s guidance,

Gaming Club is based on a story idea that I came up with back in 2012 about a bunch of high school nerds who open up a cursed board game that unleashes dark forces on the entire world. Things would further spin out of control and be more absurd with each episode. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to draw or animate back then, so I couldn’t take the idea far. It sat on a shelf in my mind, waiting to be dusted off.

The day finally came in 2016, during my last semester of college. I decided to end my education with something challenging and applied to create an episode of “Gaming Club” as an independent study.

My personal goal was to surpass my senior thesis project, “The Golden Chip”, which had been my best work up until that point. It’s also worth noting that I had one semster to complete this project as opposed to the two semesters I was given to finish the Golden Chip. Despite the time limit, I felt much more confident this time around, having learned a bit about both animation and drawing. The coloring, shading and line work all look more clean this time.

The biggest improvement from “The Golden Chip” is the addition of more frame-by-frame animation, mostly around the characters’ faces. Moving forward, I’m going to try to move away from tweens and automated effects. It really is worth the extra effort to do things by hand. This is also the first time i had someone else help me with voice acting. The extra variety is definitely appreciated.