Game, Animation & Simulation Design
Artist Biography: Abigail Bean loves sharing stories that come from her own life experiences. One of the main themes in her work is overcoming one’s struggles. From traditional drawings, digital painting, 3D modeling, rigging, and animating, these techniques give Abigail the tools she needs to bring her stories to life. If there is anything she wants her audiences to get from her pieces, it’s a sense of familiarity, and from that familiarity brings her viewers joy. A big reason she decided to go into animation was from taking her siblings to animated movies. Seeing those movies with them always created many fond memories for them, and that made her realize that she wanted to be a part of an industry that brings joy to so many by telling stories with stunning visuals and fun and relatable characters. One of Abigail’s biggest influences in her art is Glen Keane, who was responsible for many films she saw as a child. Like Keane, she strives to use art and animation to create smooth and fluent animations and create fun and relatable characters. Abigail has lived the majority of her life in Stuttgart Arkansas, and from an early age she has loved to create. Creativity is something that is always encouraged in her family, and that doing what you love is always important. She later realized that not only did she have a love for creating paintings and drawings, but she also had a love for animation and the way it can bring stories to life through the power of art. She currently studies Game, Animation & Simulation Design at Southern Arkansas University to pursue this fun and interesting art form.
Abigail's Work
Art Nouveau Character
This was one of my 1st big projects I worked on, it started out as just a rotation sheet for a character that was based on the art movement Art Nouveau. This is one of my favorite art movements and I looked to Alphonse Mucha’s work for the main inspiration. Like Mucha, I used many natural decorative elements such as vines and flowers for her original design. I then took this project further and I gave some thought to where she would live, I instantly imagined a beautiful and lush forest for her to reside in. I began to see her as a mother nature like character and a reflection of my love for the beauty that nature gives us. I took this character one more step further and 3D modeled her from her more updated design. This project was a lot of fun and was also a learning experience in character design and modeling for me. Since then I have taken the tools I learned from this project and have put them to use for my other projects.
Dancing Animation
This project was one of my 1st big 3D animation projects where I got to choose the subject. I decided to collaborate with my sister who dances and work with her to choreograph an original dance. To me, animation is one of my favorite things to do, I love the whole production of it. I started out with researching and filming my sister doing various dance moves. I then went into storyboarding and blocking in the basic movement of the animation. After that I fleshed out the movement to make it smooth and fluid. I then added an environment and lighting that gave the animation a setting, then I added camera movement to give the whole piece more complexity. Animation is a great tool that can bring your original ideas and characters to life and this has inspired me to go on and create more animations with my own characters I designed.
Project Mochi
Project Mochi is one of my biggest projects I’ve created to date, and I’m still working on it to this day. This project follows the story of an adorable and mischievous kitten named Mochi who was rescued and raised by humans his whole life. His days are spent being cute and curious and attempting to get the family’s older cat Sammie (who wants nothing to do with him) to play with him. Since he was separated from his birth mom and raised by humans, he lacks some skills that causes him to be a little bit clumsy, but he doesn’t let that stop him. One day he is separated from his comfy life and finds himself lost. He then finds help from a more street savvy cat named Tory. Eventually Mochi finds his way home with the help of his new friend and learns new skills along the way. This project consists of my character designs, story concepts and 3D models, and for the future of this project I intend to make it into a 3D animation. This project is defiantly one of my favorite ones and I am excited to continue the project and see where it goes.
