Making the story pop a little more!

My last day at uni before the deadline was... a little spontaneous in terms of my work. Most of the technical issues about my animations were already figured out, aside from a few small details. This allowed me to turn my attention to the way I present what's happening - the story of my animation.

Although it wasn't necessary at the start, since this module was a lot more about convincingly depicting animal motion, adding some sort of narrative to my shot was definitely something worth considers, especially that I still had a bit of time left to make it happen.

Inspired by my tutor's feedback, and wanting to give the whole scene some sense of retribution, I tried my hardest to make the guy look extra gruff, and a bit more abusive towards the horse - of course as much as the current shot circumstances allowed me for. Had I given this more thought from the very start, perhaps I'd come up with a more effective scene all together. Worth noting for the future.
This time though, the slight change in posture and look had to suffice, and sure enough it did. 

After another brief conversation with my tutor, I decided to toss in another prop into my scene. Why would the horse want to kick the man - because the man wants him to do work, while the horse doesn't... Cool, great story... Now how do I make this clear without forcing someone to read my blog to know about it. Better yet, how do I do it without spending an insane amount of time on it. How about a background visual element? Something that won't stick out, but if somebody pays close attention to it, they have a chance to see the connection. How about... a plow?

At first I tried to find a suitable one on Turbosquid or other similar websites. However I couldn't find any that would match the style, have an .FBX extension, or well... be a free product. Literally, why in the world would a model of something as specific as a plow be priced at $40+??
Regardless... I decided to quickly model one myself. It was easy enough, as it was a background prop in a very cartoony environment. I knew I could get away with a lot, and still have it look pretty good. I stretched, beveled and extruded some 4 primitives and within less than an hour I had a plow silently laying in the background, completely revamping the intricate narrative of my shot.

After that, and a few more tiny fixes to horses motion, my project was officially render-ready! Better yet, this wasn't the day of the last hour of the deadline day even! Successes all around!