December character animation challenge..."The Gift"

Hey guys,

Well some people wanted to do box pushing or something character-based for the december challenge...and other people wanted to do a holiday themed animation, so I've tried to merge them together for the new challenge.

Let's cut to the chase....

Theme

Due to the fact that Christmas is usually the time of year for presents...your challenge is to animate a character interacting with a giftbox (generally speaking, a good old square box with ribbons and a bow on top...but it can really be any shape/size you want it to be).


Guidelines

-Your animation should be no longer than 600 frames (20 seconds). A good rule of thumb is to keep your animation around 10 seconds.

-Your character may eventually open the box, but does not have to

-You may have more than one character...but try to keep it simple (thus, one character is probably your best bet)

-If you want, you may incorporate dialogue into your scene

-You may use any premade rig that you like, or you may make a new character. Check the "resources" thread for pre-made rigs for most applications

Ideas

-Character shaking box, trying to figure out what's inside
-Character trying to move HUUUGE giftbox, but is unable to (maybe the present is a fridge?)
-Character tries to pickup giftbox, but it's too heavy
-Character opens up giftbox, only to find something shocking inside
-Character is carrying giftbox, accidentally drops it, and we hear all sorts of glass break from inside the box...character is sad that he broke his present
-Character presenting box to secondary character
-Character tries to peek in box, only to be scolded by secondary character
-Character opens box, only to see that the gift is lousy. Character is left unhappy
-Character doesn't like Christmas, and angrily disposes of the gift
-Character discovers that the giftbox was actually a mailbomb

Your Thread

Label your thread like this:

The Gift: <Your name>

...so someone like "Mike Wilson" (;)), would have a thread like this:

The Gift: Mike Wilson

Deadline

You have until the end of December to finish your entry!

If you have any questions pertaining to the challenge, feel free to post them in this thread!

...Now get cracking!

Woot! Excellent challenge T! Really gonna get cracking on this one tonight!

Yes, I might try to squeeze a short animation out myself

I'm on it.

Hey T, can I go 2D on this one using flash?

Sure!

Everyone has the weekend to get their finals up in their threads....voting thread goes up Sunday night!