These two images are the scans of the cards I will be using to create my first animation, which will be a metamorphosis that begins with the cat. I plan on having the cat walk a few steps to orient it in the middle of the card (as the cat is off to the left of the card). The cat will then blink, and most likely will sit down with its eyes closed. I then intend on having the largest of the monoliths quickly sprout up from the groud, which scares the cat, sending it flying offscreen as it jumps upwards to get away. The cat will then land in the position of the smaller stone monolith and, after a bounce upward after its fall, will land and quickly transform into that smaller monolith.

I am not entirly certain if I will decide to stay with this concept, but in preparation to make my cat begin walking, I have studies the way that cats walk by finding youtube images of cats walking on treadmills, which was able to give me a good indication of how they hold their bodies as they take a few steps (such as lowering the head to be even with the shoulders and usually raising the tail upwards). I am hoping to be able to capture the fact that my cat is scared by widening its eyes and making its movements much more fast and jerky, as opposed to the beginning movements, which will hopefully be lazy and slinky.

Another concept I thought of was reversing the role of the monoliths - the smaller one will first pop up right underneath the cat, sendng the cat flying upwards. The cat will then land and stretch upward and outward to become the larger monolith while maintaining a somewhat terrified expression as it views the awkward changes to its body. I tend to be leaning towards the first concept, however, because I am uncertain of how my attempts to squash and stretch will cause the animation to progress, as well as the fact that the larger monolith had more defined features, which may prove a problem when translating the cat into the monolith. I am most concered about maintaining the small scale of the cat at well, so this idea will not entirely suit my purposes.

My intention with this animation is to capture the idea that a little cat may well be very terrified as it transforms into stone. I plan on using widened eyes, jerky movements (as previously stated), as well as taking a look at the reactions of startled cats to get my timing and movements as close to realistic as I can.