"Shrimps" — TV 2D animation show, created by me and Roman Safarov. Show is about the adventures of three best friends: Shrimpy, Dodo The Dolphin and LazyBone, living in a magical hat-house that Shrimpy wears: the minute Shrimpy throws the hat on the ground, it grows and turns into a real cool house. Action takes place in Kreble-Krable town on a back of huge whale.

Bad Guy Mollusk Man and his henchmen Sneaky and Imp The Shripm dreams of stealing Shrimpy’s hat so they could live in it instead, they won’t stop at anything to get it. Mayor Medusa is the main villain of the town. He hates music and whimsy of any kind, his dream is to destroy the “Musical Worm” shop and build a gas station on its place. Somehow though, the three friends (without even realizing it) always interfere with Mayor Medusa’s plans.

Project was entirely produced in Animate CC (Flash CC).

Participants:

Dmitry Nekrasov — creator.

Roman Safarov — creator.

Fedor Popov & "Stella" studio — production.

"Saerom" studio — animation production.

Tony Laubinger— composer.

Press about the project:
Intermedia
VokrugTV
Proficinema
Big multfest
Movie market
Suzdal festival

Pilot episode

Pilot episode, 12 min.

Target Audience of the show — 6+. Basic concept: humour, nonchalance of main child characters, light tone of the adventures.

Main characters

Shrimpy, Lazy-bone and dolphin Dodo. 

Sketches, moves and extreme poses of main characters:

Locations

Magic Hat-house at day and night.

Main characters work in Mr. Worm`s Music shop.

Music shop interior.

Chamber of musical trials.

Pilot episode title screen.

Various shots from pilot.

"Wish you were here".

Merchandise

3D-tests

Logotype

Logotype fits show design.

Logotype on title screen.

3d version of logotype as a test.

Test animation with draft lightning.

Creation process

"Shrimps" show was developed as an evolution of music clip, created by Roman Safarov in 2012. Shrimps were chosen to be main characters among other different sea creatures. The music theme was kept also, and main character became a trumpeter.

First draft — green color highlights a character but make him looks like stale food.

Making a teenager of him does not seem to go well.

Another proportions and colors.

Getting rid of sharp angles, making everything more laconic.

Replacing body color with calmer one, to avoid the view of boiled lobster. Changing the shape of the body.

New shape of the body does not have a hump on the back and is more readable.

At the end everything unnecessary details are removed, as second ugly pair of hands the cap of the hat etc.  Shapes became more simple and have closed connections for animation purposes.

All other characters are developed in same way, from ugly drafts to laconic shapes. 

Some characters have loop animations of body elements.

Background were produced in Flash from drafts.

Every character, used in pilot, has his own Flash setup:

Turn around has 7/8 front and back frames.

Walking cycles in 3/4 and 7/8.

Normal and sad lip sync has 9 sounds and emotions.

Various arm frames.

Storyboard had description of action, dialogue, FX, background number, camera movement.

Fragment of animatic.

Draft logotype versions.

An evolution.