I've recently moved over to Melbourne to work on some kids show about a boy and his ass who hang out and have adventures. It's pretty goofy but it's good to work in a studio with some old friends oh and it pays the billz. Last years work was a little light so a long contract is what I need.
A loopdeloop to the theme of Black and White
or
Another cat video for the internets
I was finally able to attend a loop de loop since it's screens here in Melbourne. Oh and it actually won the best loop for the month which was nice. I also got to meet a whole bunch of rad animators which was fun.
I liked the theme of black and white. It brings up some new rule I made for myself and that is to never use straight black and white always use slightly off blacks and whites. The reason being that black and white are your 2 major colours that draw in your eye so by saving true black and white and using it only on specific things you have more control of your image focus. Also not using true blacks and whites and using off colours means the textures and lighting shows up nicer. You can also play with warm blacks and whites or cool blacks and whites and mix the 2 in the same image (eg skin is warm clothes are cold).
The other little trick I tried out on this short loop was the idea of using shapes to plan my inbetweens, secondary movement and keep a consistent volume.
I tried something different of using shapes to plan my inbetweens, secondary movement and keep a consistent volume. Since the shapes are quite simple with Toonboom and flash you can use the onion skinning and see quite easy that everything is travelling through nice arcs and how your spacing is working.
Since the shapes are quite simple in Toonboom and flash with the onion skinning on you can see quite easy how everything is travelling through nice arcs and how your spacing is working.
The tradeoff is that you are adding another pass to your animation which would slow you down a bit. So I think I would only use this technique for specific shots rather than for an entire film.
You also got to watch that you don't lose the energy of your original drawings by being to mathematical like this. So you got to not blindly follow and trace the circles and make sure the lines you draw have power and guts to them.
Anyway that's the fun of loopdeloops. Trying out ideas and being pretty relaxed about it. I've actually got a whole folder of unfinished loops of ideas that got out of hand or that I ended up not feeling.
At the moment I'm storyboarding and planning a new video clip for a pretty awesome track and slowly working away at a
I watched Spiderman on Tuesday and just seeing him move and swing through the city inspired me to draw.
My first sketch I did while out at the Zoo
Second sketch done on my iPad
After a few scribbles I felt like doing a simple fun animation.
Just watched the new Spiderman movie and felt compelled to animate something.
I really want to do more with Spiderman. I also just watched the latest Batman so maybe I'll do something with him.
Oh as for my last post on what happened with my oil painting, there was a lot of swearing and cursing as things stopped working out but I did complete the painting. I'll update that soon. Even though the painting is hanging on the wall I might touch up a few areas before it's finished finished.
Here's my loop submission for this months loopdeloop
I've been reading a bunch of X-men comics lately and I'm pretty sure you can tell by looking at this haha
It wasn't my initial idea for this theme. I just woke up one morning and just started pressing random buttons on Garageband ipad and came up with this goofy song loop. I then animated loosely based on/inspired by the music straight ahead in toonboom animate.
It turned out to be a fun experiment animating 2d effects. When I was animating the effects I tried to feel the effect more than to plan it out. I tried to force myself to draw big confident strokes and solid shapes and not over work the drawing.
The line I used for this was a square brush with pressure. I really love the feel of that line! It feels like paints or ink and it's great to work really bold and messy.
The character design I wanted to keep really pulpy with flat colours and black. I worked in shapes and details that would help define limbs as I knew there was going to be that rotation but also so you can see what's going on when she gets really small in the background.
You can head over here and give it some star ratings today and tomorrow... 350 star ratings so I can win hahaha
You definitely should head to the website though and check out the loops this month there's been over 50 submissions and lots and lots of really great ones.
I've been getting around to doing a quick post on my latest loopdeloop entry that I surprisingly won a shared runner up on. This loopdeloop theme was Condoms to coincide with world aids day.
You should definitely check out the winning entry by Daniel and Marta's one who also was a runner up. Oh and Dean's one of messed up madness haha
This be my film though
Here's my animation frames
I actually was using my cintiq as a light table for this one. I created a new folder and opened it up and expanded it so my screen was white. I have a couple light tables but they've got a bunch of stuff on them and I was feeling pretty lazy that day haha.
I can't say I was completely happy with how this one turned out as it wasn't exactly how it was in my head, which was a lowfi, interpretive dance, theatre play sort of like the one in The Big Lebowski. After the curtain closes there was going to be a shot of the actor up close super detailed smoking a cigarette. The stage hand comes up and asks the actor “are you ready to go again?” he replies “si”
Mannn that after effects created spotlight was terrible haha! It was done really late at night and I forgot to mask the stage lights so they're in shadows. Oh and that curtain opens with like 1 inbetween and I reused it for the close despite that they should be the complete opposite in how they move haha. I was so not into animating it at this point. There was also meant to be some large sperms on sticks that were meant to move up and down in the background when he was running and it would have made it clearer as to what was going on (I know a few people didn't get it)
Although when I put the music (made in garage band for the ipad) and sound effects together in it made me smile. I heard it go a big laugh so it's all good in the end.
I pretty much just allowed myself one day to get it done since I'm at the business end of trying to finish off this videoclip. Hopefully my next post will be about the clip
Bacon Bros came about when I was out eating breakfast with Roseline.
They made me laugh so I made them my loopdeloop animation for this month. The loopdeloop theme was 'masks' and that cracked me up that they were these masked guys that eat bacon and do squats on the beach.
The animation was done once again with a toonboom photoshop combination. I used toonbooms textured brush for the linework to make it look like pencil work. This works pretty well (as an end result) but you sometimes have to go over a line to darken it and I also suffered losing real time playback (this also could have been due to the photoshop background and some effects that I had going on)
The first bacon bro looks a bit like the original (I just forced his proportions a bit) the second one I wanted to make a little bit stranger mostly because I didn't want to animate the same thing twice
I did choose the most conservative one out of the 3. Mostly because I liked the moustache.
The little bit of music was done once again using Garage band for the ipad but all the sound effects and voices were from my film 'Existence' sound library. Adrian Tolman (my go to sound guy) recorded a ridiculous amount of sound effects that I've been having fun misusing for all my stupid animations of late.
Well I hope you got your funk on and now want to eat bacon (there's vegetarian bacon I've been told), do some squats (there's vegetarian squats as well) and maybe even take a walk on the beach.
I wonder what I'll animate next month... and if it will also have nipples on the characters.
I made this yesterday for the website loopdeloop. Looopdeloop is a monthly challenge by word (this months word was 'monster') website to create an animation loop.
I made the silly tune and voice in Garageband for the iPad (I honestly just randomly pressed buttons). Then I drew the whole scene in photoshop with the exception of the squid girls hand and the dancing monster dude. The monster dude and the squid girl hand was animated in toonboom using a textured brush (looks quite nice). I added a few effects in toonboom like adding a tone to the monster and making his jelly body see through and glowing a little. I was able to add a little focal depth and parallax to the background that I might be over using but dam it looks good.
Once all the toonboom stuff was done I pulled it into after effects and pushed those lazers a bit and added a blur and a dark circle mask to the edges.
annnnnd tada! A day spent animating something stupid
So last weekend was WAMBAM, a 48hour competition run by Wanimate to produce a short animated cartoon based on 3 words.
My team from last year was sick, busy and interstate. This was the film we made last year
So this year I decided to try and make a film by myself using toonboom.
I did have a story idea that Rose and I were kicking around for the operahouse Graphic competition and I thought what the hey, "2 birds one stone" and they even shared the same deadline. Both had theme words the Graphic comp had the words 'escape' and wambam had three words 'photograph, blue and love'.
So here's the film (it looks pretty great at 1080 over on youtube)
now here's how it all went down...
On friday night I was late to the event where the words were drawn (the event happened in Joondalup which is nearly an hour and a half drive from my house. As far north as our freeway goes). So I missed all the speeches and the organisation of groups. I could have joined a group which was an all female team but I kind of liked that they were an all female team and I wanted to see what they came up with. I was also thinking about this 'graphic comp' and since I was late I didn't want to try to take over another group and push them in that direction.
So I got my three words and I thought about the story Rose and I came up with and how the words could fit into it. The original idea was there were 2 soldiers in a 'terminator judgement day future'. One was a girl and one was a cat. They fight their way to a time machine and travel back into the past but they inhabit their past selves bodies. So the girl becomes herself as a baby (the baby was based on Roseline's niece 'Sophie') and the cat soldier as a devolved cat (based on a stray cat that we looked after in Hobart named 'Milky'). The idea is they still have the same memories just not the intelligence or the same motor controls as their future selves.
The graphic comp had a time limit of 30 seconds so the main story was they teleport back in time into their new bodies inside of a cot (which looks like a prison at first) but so does the nemesis that was chasing them who inhabits a teddy bear. They're trapped with the teddy-nemesis and they struggle to escape the cot (being the comedy).
Now since I had to work the three words into this story "Blue, photograph and love" it actually helped a lot in the shaping of the story. I'd use blue to stylise my colour pallet, photograph meant the girl became a war photographer (added some depth to her character) and love... This actually is what gave the idea heart. They're escaping a holocaust where everyone has been killed or is running for their lives so if the girl is transported back in time and she see a lost parent, that would be a pretty moving experience.
So on that friday I had got the ideas together and I started doing some scribble ideas of design, shots and backgrounds. here's a few
One good thing about working by myself and is that I didn't have to explain jokes like some of the other teams around me were doing (this was the ONLY positive thing) and could jump right into those designs. I really liked the cats gun, it was sort of a tetris block. I was able to use that city scribble as the final design.
So with all my basics done I decided to take the long trip home (yeah I'm going to go on and on about how far it is haha). When I got home I decided to give myself a head start and draw up my backgrounds in photoshop. I was working a bit too slow on these and only got 3 done.
As I was drawing them I thought what if I used toonboom to animate in. The computers at the event had the adobe suites so I could have used them and animated in flash but I thought this would give me a good chance to skill up and play a bit more with toonboom animate pro.
My computer case is a small black box that is quite portable (it's been great when I have been travelling across Australia working) my cintiq 21 is not. There were wacoms to use there so I thought just bring my computer case over plug in and BAM! I'm away and animating.....
and....
....for some reason I could not get toonboom (and just toonboom, photoshop and flash were ok) to recognise the wacom tablet, which meant no pen pressure. I wasted over an hour trying to reinstall the wacom drivers but I couldn't win. Eff it I've wasted too much time I have to start animating and of course my first shot got over worked (animators know what I'm talking about) and a lot of time was wasted. It was that satellite image of Perth exploding (my Akira and Perth tribute).
At this point it was evening and I jumped right into the next shot. This came together really well. Doing multiplane setups in toonboom animate pro is the best!! It looks hot and the focus effect blends the colours perfectly. The animation is a bit hard to see but I thought on a projector it would work really well. I did mean to add in flashing arrows above the characters but I forgot. I tried to render that scene but it looked like it was going to take awhile so I decided to head home earlier and continue working on scenes and try to make up for wasting time getting the wacom to work.
An hour and a half later I'm home (haha I can't let it go) and I'm digging under my table and reconnecting all the unplugged usb cords (I have no idea why there is so many), thankfully everything works fine. Toonboom likes my cintiq and pen pressure is back. At this point I decided that all the future scenes would be done in toonboom and the past scenes would be done in flash (how's that for a subtle opinion? haha) that meant I could do the toonboom stuff at home and then use the 'event computers' to do the last half of the story. I was able to finish one more shot (the landing behind the box and firing focus pull scene) and then decided to call it a night. I set my alarm for 8am the next day.
The next day, the final day for the competitions I was up working on the last shot that I would do in toonboom. It started out all right but then it fell apart. I couldn't get the timing or the movement to work right, I had somehow forgotten how to animate. It's a form of writers block, it's a bitch when it happens and you just have to power through it and rely on techniques. It does cost time though and time wasn't something I had. that shot took till about 2pm so I was pretty screwed at this point and I had to think about how I was going to wrap the story up with the minimal amount of animation.
The second part of the story I had some loose boards that Rose drew when we were planning to enter the graphic comp.
Rose had over the weekend cleaned up a few of the drawings so looking at what I had I decided to end the film as I did. It wasn't great but it was done
A few 11th hour computer problems (that's just a given) but animation is all done at 4:30pm and everything is in premiere with a very rushed sound mix... Now to get it out of premiere
I've used premiere enough to know all the work arounds and I don't hate on it as much as my friends do (with the exception of that cs one that had the flash file memory leak) but I just had all kinds of crazy problems with the exporting. It randomly changing the frame width and height being my main problem, but lots of messing around and all I ended up with was an HD mp4
It is now 5:45pm I'm not going to be able to have my film there in time for the 6pm WAMBAM deadline since Joondalup is....ok ok I'll let it go.
I wanted to at least make the screening and see what everyone else made (there were some great groups so I was pretty excited) so as I was leaving home I set the film uploading to youtube and drove over to Roseline's house to bring her along. It of course took too long to head out to Roseline's place (no luck today) and we quickly made our way off the Joondalup (sigh)... there was something nagging me...something I was meant to do. We reached Joondalup and there was roadworks and a detour. We then get lost into that black hole of a suburb.... DAM YOU JOONDALUP!
We finally work out where we are and reach the college that the event is at. This is one of those colleges that is environmentally conscious and doesn't waste electricity... IT WAS EFFIN DARK THERE!!! Rose and I walked around for awhile, but we were there very late and we were starting to see people look like they were leaving the screening so we gave up (also since Rose was recovering from a bad flu, I didn't want her getting too cold) and decided to go home.
Rose saw I was feeling a bit down so she said that we should go check out the latest Harry Potter movie. I thought that sounded like a good idea... I still couldn't shake the feeling I was forgetting something. We went to the Inaloo cinemas and grabbed something to eat at retro Bettys. While we were sitting there I remembered what I forgot. The dang Graphic competition! I tried with my new phone to work out how to submit my film (all I know what to do on my phone is play sims 3 and take photos and tweet them) but I was dammed if I could work it out. Well no big deal... after the movie I'll submit it at Roseline's place on her computer.
Harry Potter... that movie was crazy. The wizard war thing was mental. Giant spiders, stone statues come to life, giant ogre things, wizards doing the pew pew with their wands. I've always found it funny in Harry Potter everyone is amazed when they do magic or when they watch people who do magic. It never comes natural to anyone, it's always "Holy shit I can do magic!" "Whoa you totally did magic!". Also all the magic is pretty impractical, there's a scene at the end that sums up the entire Potter world (don't worry it's not a spoiler) with this guy trying to sweep up a giant amount of rubble with a normal broom. hah it will probably make more sense when you see the scene. It was enjoyable though and great to complete the Potter films.
After the movie we get back to Roseline's place and I decide to check the graphic comp andddddd I have missed the deadline. 11:58pm sydney time. DOHHHHHHH! So I killed myself all this weekend and missed both competitions.
hahaha goddamit oh well. I made something new and there's some ideas in there that Rose and I are thinking of developing. So not a complete loss but definitely not a win either. So no birds but something that looks like a stone.
Well that was my adventurous weekend of animation...
...
...
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...and Joondalup.... we are not bros
I haven't really animated something of my own for ages. I've done some scribbly things using my iPad but nothing planned and executed. This short is part of an ongoing series that I want to do throughout this year but it is also part of my convoluted test film for a test film for a film.
Apart from the points listed, it is also to learn the software Toonboom. To understand how far I can push it, getting used to drawing and working fast in it and how to mix it with other programs. Also a big non software/technique point is to become a better filmmaker.
Oh one thing that I did before this film was to try and improve my drawing confidence. Surprisingly working in commercial animation I've found my drawing skills had dulled. I think that comes down to mostly working on symbol pushing flash shows where at most I'll draw a hand or an arm or adjust the eyebrows. Also staying on (very strict) model means I do the bare minimum most of the time and that doesn't push artistic growth. So to boost my skillzzz I invested my hard earned $1 into a scribble pad. I've tried to draw a little picture each day using no planning and work straight onto the pad with a felt pen. I really feel that this worked fantastically and I encourage everyone else if they want to improve their drawing skills the $1 investment is a good one. You can see my close to 100 drawings on my twitpic
Ok back to the above short. It has some obvious weaknesses (number 1 is it should be funnier) but I never regret a film or drawing that I've made. I figure at the time I made it that was the best that I could do. I learn from it and try to not make the same mistakes on the next ones. It was easier to learn from my earlier films as they would screen in festivals and you could sit amongst the crowd and listen to when you have them and when you lose them. Online films are harder to judge as a facebook like button doesn't tell you what was liked. From what little I could tell, things that worked were the scream, the expressions and the look. So that's something to build on for the next short.
Now I'm going to write a few things about working and using Toonboom Animate pro so that might be a bit boring to non animators or 'never going to use toonboom' animators (you were warned).
Drawing
Ok compared to flash, it's a dream to draw in. You can set the brush tapering (0.5 and 6 or 8) and the smoothing (I set this very low so low it doesnt really do anything) to pretty much emulate your natural drawing style and you can draw a hell of a lot of lines. So yeah, it's fun to draw and your lines don't look amateur when you use the brush tool.
At the start spend a lot of time setting and labeling your colours, probably the only chore. That said, once it is set it is quite powerful. It becomes really easy to tweek or even change the colours across the whole animation. My workflow with this is to do all the colours in photoshop then to eye drop and manually transfer the details into toonboom. I don't know if that is the best way though.
It also has one of my most favourite features the rotate canvas (you hold ctrl+ Alt, you can push shift x to reset the view). It's so hard to go back to not having this feature.
Every single line you draw is an object that you can click on and delete. this makes editing you lines really easy. It's good to flatten the lines once you're happy with it though as it saves memory.
When you draw you draw without anti-aliasing so it looks a bit rough. This probably allows the large amount of drawings. Also you also have to each drawing 4 layers to use. An ovelay layer (good for highlights) your line art layer, your colour art (I dont use this layer as it puts a weird lines around the colours... I should probably find the option to turn that off) and an underlay layer (where I do my colouring).
With the animation I just do the line animation first and once that is cool I do the colours. You can see with my lines I was able to add in some line details like shading hints. Something I can't do that in flash. Like at the moment I'm trying to do a loop animation in the same sort of style and I get that draw one line everything disappears thing and those little lines just morph into a blob ON MY SECOND FRAME!!!
I do my colouring under the line art in the underlay layer which is great because it means my lines dont have to be closed and can be quite rough. Also when you erase you don't affect the other layers (unless you turn that option on). When I was colouring I worked out that if I started with the little overlay things like highlights and shadows then (with the brush set to paint under) do the block colours. I think this is how old cels were painted. With this style I was able to add a white highlight as well as a shadow. I think it's a nice touch, better than using just gradients for shading.
It has some cool things with the shortcuts as well. Like to change to a tool you have to hold alt (ie alt + b switches to the brush) but if you just hold down the shortcut you can use it for a brief time till you let go of the short cut key (ie hold down 'i' for the eyedropper or' k' for the paint bucket for quick use while drawing). It also has some great options for selecting and fill bucket by drawing a lasso line over the areas you want to select or paint. That makes more sense when you use it, but dang it speeds things up. Oh and I had to dissable the 'z' shortcut key as that was doing timeline things (that I didnt want) as well as being the zoom shortcut (weirrrrd).
Each of your main layers (ie paleguy) is like a flash symbol and every new drawing is saved into it. You can cycle using '[' and ']' to go back and forward between the drawings. I didnt really use this much but it's pretty handy when doing lipsyncing.
Background and depth
My background (as I said in an earlier post) was done in photoshop.
Now if you want to do this and keep your layers (especially for doing camera move parallax stuff) each layer needs to be put into it's own folder. Those folders when they come into toonboom, become their own drawing layers. A cool thing is that all the layers in a folder when brought into toonboom become frames on the timeline. So if you wanted to add in an animated element, or a bunch of hands or mouths that's how you do it.
So yeah, a cool thing is the addition of z space. 'Depth'
Now once in toonboom you can bring up a side view and after pressing Alt-6 move each layer back to approximately the distance it would be from the main action without changing the scaling. A nice touch is it has a visual representation of each layer at the top that you can click on to select making it easier to chose the right layer.
Oh a cool thing was that I created a focus module and attached to the main action and depending on how far (on the z axis) the other layers were from the main action would affect how much they were in focus (blurred). Its a cute trick that could lend its self to some concepts.
You can also micro nudge layers back and forth on the z axis by clicking the layer and pressing Alt + Up arrow = go back in space Alt + down arrow = go closer to camera. This is great and fast for character interaction with props and other characters.
Exporting and After Effects
I've had problems exporting video out of toonboom like it crashes at 90% or something hair pulling like that. Doing frame sequences however are pretty good though. Since I was going to take this into after effects and I wanted some control over where the effects would be I wanted to export layers with alphas. Apparently any format with a 4 at the end means it has an alpha (4 meaning the amount of channels). The tga4 file didnt work but the old faithful png4 did. I really like png files, they are clean and they render fast in after effects. When I export out of After effects to go to premier I use Tga files as it seams to be the only stable file premier can handle
So this is a nice visual representation on what I did in after effects. I made it a lot warmer, changed the tree leaves. I had to create a specific mask to keep the glass looking like a glass and not lose that blueness. The grade was mostly about balance and tone. There was a version where there was a heat ripple on the scene. It looked great but didn't really suit the feel I was going for. I also moved the output view between my computer monitor and my cintiq to try and make sure it looked good on both screens (I should really properly calibrate these screens).
Bits and bobs
I did the sound mix in Audition and I used a lot of sounds that were recorded from my film 'Existence'. With the sound, it had to have a unique feel and it was great that my sound designer (Adrian Tolman) recorded all kinds of things for 'Existence' that I had a whole bunch of things to choose from. Real recorded sounds are 100 times better than sound cds and stuff you pull off the web. Oh I had a horror theme going when I first started the soundmix, but that was craaaazy. I did the voice acting because I was too lazy to get anyone else to do it. That scream was based on Raiden from Mortal Kombats flying headbutt yell (the most ridiculous yell in videogames haha)
I'm trying to get better at adding in effects into my animation, things like flares, speed lines and in this some water. My effects stuff moves a bit too quick so I need to add in more frames and think about exactly what is happening and do a simple pass first and then do a detail pass. I'd love to be a lot more stylised with my effects like this guy though.
I wrote in my notes 'varied frame rate'. If you're wondering it means working with different frame rates rather than doing everything on 1s or 2s. I think you can get away with this as long as the drawings are funny/over the top and sometimes it can add bit more weight to the movement. When working on some of these tv series I would find myself laughing at my blocking but not laughing at the finished animation. The extra frames were softening the impacts. I know a lot of my animators friends have a strongly different view to me on this and love their disney sleek but if I'm animating these films for myself I'm not going to kill myself drawing hundreds of frames to not find it funny anymore. Eff that haha
I took a lot of inspiration from the character styles, poses, expressions and animation style from the Lupin tv series that I've been watching. Those guys behind that are crazy and it's going to take a lot of hard work to get to their level.
Well that's the overall film breakdown. I'm going to try and get the storyboard done for the next film done soon but this month there's a whole bunch of work happening, which is good since I like to have money coming into my account sometimes.
I made this last night while I was waiting for a movie to download. In case you're wondering it took about 2 and a half hours to do, it was done in flash with a quick after effects pass. The blurry background is the exterior of Perth train station, although that has completely changed now.
It is an animation of one of my fears, 'the automated ticket gates'. I get super nervous every time I go through them that this might happen..... and it has happened. So that makes me more anxious.
I have another animation that I've been trying to finish but it depends if I can get all my work done this morning. It feels good to finish an animation, even if it is a silly one.
Well I surrendered to do this on time and I surrendered on colouring this picture a few times but eventually I got it done and here it is.
Here's the pencil work as well
A big reason I was late getting this done was I've been playing with this add-on for twitter Twiflip. Where you can make flipbook animations. It's quite fun as there is a limited amount of lines you can draw.
Oh in other news (for those who dont read my twitter) I've started learning oil painting. My grandfather was pretty good with oils (I'll try and find a picture he did). I've never really spent much time with paints but it is something I've always been talking about wanting to learn. Rose wants me to learn REAL painting so I can stop with all this digital crap! Haha I dont get good feedback from her about these pictures.
I was looking for some other embarrassing old work by me and I came across a folder titled "stupidassanimation" and that title is apt. Stupidity, violence and cheese.
This is my first go at embedding swf files into my blog. I think I'm succeeding. Sorry that this page wont work on your iPad... I doubt it will work in facebook either. This is good because it means less people will see my crap from 10 years ago. haha
(*updated* I switched the hosting to google sites, hopefully less white boxes)
(push the button)
(you need to right click these files and select play)
(despite it saying loading it may already be loaded, just right click and select play)
Here's one based on Doug TenNapel's "The Neverhood". He's drawing a pretty cool web comic at the moment you can read that here
and this is the most cringe worthy for me. It's sooo cheesy. This was a test for a world I was creating. I think I have a feature film for this world stored in one of my drawers. The whole world was inspired by Ted Mckeever, although my drawings are way too conservative. I really love Mckeevers work, I wish I had that brain to come up with the stuff he does. Ok enough delaying....
Well this is my punishment for not drawing anything new. haha
I really liked some of the designs I did for this, I also liked having fun with the noodle arms.
This guy was originally meant to be a writer for childrens television and I was going to have the cowboy give him a present box but when he opened the box he found the cowboys fist which then knocks him out. As a christmas animation I thought maybe that wasn't the best idea. In the last scene there was going to be a close up of the wanted sign saying something like "for crimes against children" but once again I lost the negative aspect out of the animation
I really love this horse. I've been drawing crappy horses (well Zebras) on my zoo trips so I was thinking about how I could avoid drawing a horse but he just couldn't be a cowboy if he wasn't on a horse. I also like the hole in the Cowboys hat, it's such a cartooning cliché that I had to put it in, that and the wilhelm scream.
This was my first mess around animation with my copy of toonboom so I'm still learning stuff. Making colours is a bit of a slow process but colouring in and changing colours is excellent. I'm also learning how to bring files across from photoshop into toonboom and it seems to handle the large images really well. I also need to learn the graphs as well, probably the reason why nothing has an ease on it. I used toonboom studio on the series 'Wakkaville' and that had an easy ease section where you could just type in a number, I cant find that option in animate. There's a few effects on this animation mostly glows and layer styles which work pretty good. I did originally create a 2 tone (highlight and shadow) on the characters but it didnt really suit the style I drew the characters with their heavy black (Koike/Mignola stlye) shadow.
Working with toonboom you use what is called the network. A spider web of lines that at the start is confusing but the more you use it, the more practical and linear it is. All you have to do is follow the lines and add things (glows/blurs etc) to the line paths, you also can attach (parent) objects together, so move one and you move the other exactly the same. It's actually a lot of fun to play with, you really work your problem solving brain.
This background was based on a lego Sheriff station. That one was bright pink, I thought about keeping the colours and making the film end with the colours from the Thai film "Tears of the black tiger". This is also from the worst camera move I have ever done! haha man it is terrible, you even see the holes in the background of areas I didn't paint. The animation from this scene and the one after I had to rush to finish before I went out for my christmas dinner. I really had fun doing the lipsyncing of the sheriff (even though premier unsynced everything and randomly removed frames) I really love this sheriff, he's like the worlds worst sheriff haha. There were a whole heap of different lines I recorded for the end "this is the true meaning of christmas" "I now believe in santa" but I chose the stupidest most confusing one "You will make a beautiful butterfly" haha.
I did grade and adjust the exported frame sequences (dont make movies out of toonboom, frame sequences are more reliable to render out) in after effects just to give it a bit more polish. After effects is probably my favourite piece of adobe software as it just adds that little bit extra to your film.
It's funny doing a write up for such a short rushed cartoon, but I really liked the design and using toonboom to make a quick animation was a good learning experience. It was a nice test film before I make 'Simon' oh and 'Simon' is a test film/series that I'm making before I make 'Dash dashing'. I'm trying a bit of forward planning with my animated films :P
Well what a great weekend. I sent the locked off vision of "Porcelain" to Adrian to begin the soundmix so that meant for the first time in a while (like 5 years) I could have a guilt work free weekend.
So I spent most of my weekend playing Noby Noby boy. I managed to get my world rank up to 178 and I collected all the trophies. Looking forward to see what happens when GIRL reaches the moon.
Of course after too much video gaming I started to feel guilty so I made this
Roseline did this crazy sketch and it made me laugh so I had to animate it.
I hope it makes you laugh as well.
Well now I have Delta Force to watch. I'm pretty sure its going to be awesome just based on the cover.
So Rose and I went to the Tasmanian beer festival this weekend. We caught up with some of our work friends there. After we tried some beers we decided the next best thing to do was to go and get a good steak. All was going well until ... well this:
I'll have to see tomorrow who survived but Rose and I are ok.
Rose has even found some time to draw some pretty sweet new pictures. Check them out
