There are some areas where the quality is lost in some of the images, and my 11 sec club clip is really pixilated. So there are some things I wish I had time to troubleshoot before class today. Hopefully I will be able to fix it quickly before it goes to HI Animation Studios, I really wouldn’t want to turn it into them without the fixes!
I also may need to tweak my dog and Sindi run some…
Click here for swimming animation
This needs some more work of course… there are some problems with it still, like it would be better if I put in a few moving holds in a few places to give more thought processing time, I also need to take longer on the head turn.
Worked on the surfacing shot… the underwater stuff isn’t different yet. Working on that…
Well I am a slacker on my animation this week, click here to see where it was at... which hasn't changed since my last post, shame on me. Poor time management, I gotta stop taking design jobs... but I do need to pay the bills somehow...meh.
Anyway I did finish up my Maquette, she's ready to bake pending one more once over for minor imperfections.
And a character turnaround to help with animating her, I think I was stuck on working on the animation the past few days because really needed to make this before I continued on. I also need the proper chuncks of time to work, noone of this 1 hr here...1 hr there which was like my whole weekend... 
Anyway things will flow more easily for me know that I have a clearer vision of what she looks like and how she moves. I guess I'm still figuring out what the best work flow is... and stop doing thing backwards... model sheets first... then rough animation... then work it to perfection...
Sealy: A short film about a little girl named Michy who doesn't fit into the usual classroom mold, and finds her own way of learning through her "imaginary" friend Sealy.
I will be using the swim sequence I'm working on now in it, as well as attempting many other fun things like surfing... this is adapted from a children's book my mom wrote and illustrated me in 1985.
Awk so much work I didn’t get done on this that I wanted to before Monday. Had to help my cousin move into my place so she’s not out on the streets this weekend… I also still can’t figure out why my last keyframe is not exporting >.< I will have to make up for the lost time on Tuesday.
Well I got a rough of the timing better, although it needs work. I’d like to have her tread water, I want to make that into a cycle so I can have her do that a bit longer. I Also might do a different shot at the end of them surfacing.
And I also have to make sure I keep her head consistent, I see some “growing” happening…
I'm working on getting a connection down with Michy and Sealy... I think I may cut to a close up or different camera angle to show emotion in their faces... and/or have a shot of them surfacing above the water. I'm still undecided....
Well I had to tilt her up for balancing purposes, I may need to drill a new hole so and move her to get closer to the position in the drawing. I also have smooth it out more and finish hands & feet.
Here are some studies I've been doing, the character turn around sheets and stuff lower I've been drawing through the semester so far. I do need to do new turn around for the girl character, she needs to be simplified. The movement studies are recent, I've been swimming a lot trying to get a better feel for the movement. I have my keyframes drawn and will be posting them shortly =)
Check out my friend Voltaire’s website, he’s an awesome animator, musician, comic book artist… sheesh there isn’t much he doesn’t do. I was a fan of his since 1997 since I’m a former goth child (even though I am quite happy all the time), and got a chance to meet him last summer when my friend KTUH DJ Nocturna brought him out here for a show.
His comic book is going to be made into a feature film! =)
Whew 120ish hours later… lost track of time working on this. But I did accomplish the look I wanted, now I see I forgot one KEY thing, adding the “snap” sound effect at the end. But I think the 11 second contest rules say not to alter the sound anyway… so I guess that should be ok. I’ll add the snap sound in when I put it in my reel. I also wanted it to crop from the bottom more and not the top… but my technical skills in premiere are not that fabulous yet so I lacked time to troubleshoot that before the deadline. – another thing to fix for my reel…
Fabrice has a fun look to him, since he's buff but wears glasses. So I chose him. This is a rough turn around. I'd like to to a cleaned up version before I do my model sheet of movements. But my time was spent re-organizing my mixed up 11 sec drawings >.< gah
11 sec - Remote Power v3 (not finished!!!)
Well I had not enough time to accomplish the last 15 drawings I gotta do. And I’m seeing things I need to fix. Like his shoulders when he says Jelly, I think what I was trying to do goes by to fast and i should ditch the movement. And perfecting the lip sync… been looking at it to long that will require fresh eyeballs!
Here’s the x-sheet I made, it will print on letter size paper just make sure it’s scaled 80% in the print settings. When I print it out I write one drawing for 2 frames to make the 24fps 12 fps. After looking at the Futurama X-sheet I think I need to improve it a bunch. There are 2 black versions
Download here the x-sheet I tried to write out the dialogue on. Keep in mind the words are centered in the boxes so its not totally accurate, you have to look at the wav file break down Linda gave us to see exactly where the sounds start within the frame breakdown I put the words inbetween. I can pass around my print out in class today if that would help.
Hehe. This chase scene was created running around the art building at UHM. When I was working on this I ran into Hapi drawing the stairs, she was wearing a striped sweater that when I drew her it was reminiscent of Freddy Cruger. So I imagined she got a knife and chased me to the elevator... as I glanced back in horror... ah but I wasn't fast enough! Damn slow art building elevator!
Awk this is not a real finished rough. I have a LOT of inbetweens to do. *hangs head in shame*
Also wrestling with Premiere on compression, and export settings. So it looks like CRAP in this size. I’m going to just bring the file in on a thumb drive. I spent several hours just getting my premiere settings right for editing at 24fps. Ah I love the editing capabilities but it takes rocket science to figure out how to get the darn video exported.
I will just need to get a Lynda.com subscription to learn how to fix these tech issues.
Here’s the link… crappy crap crap quality
So I was racking my brain to come up with a cool but efficient way of getting the dark film nor look I wanted. So I did a test on one of my screen shots, it’s grainy but I may get away with it because it makes the image look old.
Here’s what I did:
I used the smart sharpen filter in photoshop to make the lines pop more. Then I used a curves layer to darken up the image, I used a mask on the curves layer so his hand, face and shirt would be light. I’m going to tweak this some more, maybe make his face lighter. But it should work, I can drag the curves layer onto each frame and do a quick mask on each frame. I also saved the sharpen settings so I think i can automate that in a batch process on each frame.
This is plan B. Plan A was to scan in each image and to an alpha channel in photoshop & premire. So this is the plan if I don’t have time for plan A. Gotta have a backup plan to meet that deadline!
Still working on scanning in drawings from our last 2 sessions. On my scanner I have to scan in the drawings in 6 parts to get everything in. I've gotten the process down to about 45min/drawing if I don't mess up the scans. Maybe it would be faster if scanner wasn't 10 years old ;) But hey it still works good! I'll be having a scanning marathon tonight to catch up.
These are my 3 favs from the Convergence dancer session:
So my key frame animation work in progress is here.
Awk to many freelance jobs going on this weekend. Hopefully I’ll have more time to go over this before Monday =P
Here are the keyframe roughs I did before doing it on Animation paper, just a screen shot from my webcam for now, I gotta scan this in properly still:
He Fears / what’s at stake - non-existence
Back-story
Lucifer is the polar opposite of God, he was created at the same time God was, for before the two of them split up, they were one. Lucifer –meaning the bringer of light. Was born out of God’s consciousness… the very moment God had an idea, God in turn was also born out of Lucifer’s consciousness.. at the very same moment. Thus shooting out into space there was Lucifer… light. And God –the filler of the darkness, God considered itself more powerful because of its mass. God began to do this splitting process over and over again, making more beings like it. Lucifer was very much like God, so it also to began to create the same ideas. On and on they went creating more and more complex beings who in turn, would also make ideas. One day their creations began to ask questions and wanted to know who, in fact was the first idea. Both God and Lucifer, being of independent thought had long forgotten that they were once one space… just nothing. So they began to argue, who was first and all powerful.
Then there was a rift between them, a war over their creations, both frustrated with their beings because they could not control their will, each one losing their creations to the other side of thought.
So throughout the history of this current universe... and every other universe for this has happened before and will happen again… God and Lucifer collect the souls of their creations, thinking whoever collects the most will win and be all powerful. However, deep down each one is only aware at a very primal level, that one cannot survive without the other. If one ceased to exist then the other’s consciousness and all their creations would invert back into nothing.
Humans, being a creation of a creation of a creation haven’t the slightest idea really of whom is actually responsible for their existence or why they even exist so they just repeat what they are programmed to do-make stuff. God claimed it made them but they were only made after Lucifer created the sun—subsequently creating the materials that made earth. Humans had their own free will to create as well. Humans wanted to see… they wanted to have the power to crate, to have people see what they saw, moving… they made photographs and film capturing light… then moving pictures… then they wanted it all to themselves in their homes…
Lucifer is light – so naturally he tapped into this creation to observe and take back little tasty bits of the energy that was long lost in the creation of our solar system.
Who is he talking to and why:
He’s talking to God showing her his new ploy to absorb back energy from their creations. They often meet up and show each other what they are doing, because now it’s just a competition. Not about who’s going to get who. God in this instance of their “meeting” is a beautiful woman that almost resembles an even hotter Angelina Jolie. We as an audience are experiencing her point of view. They have a very intimate and sorted relationship. After all they were the very first “couple.”
For me, this is how I explain how universe was created to myself – at least from an agnostic & scientific point of view, if you believe that there was a “big bang” that is when the first split came to be. And I’m just using the words “god” and “lucifer” to give the events a character, names, something just to call them because that’s something familiar. After that it really is… the chicken or the egg… gaaaaaaaa. Who knows what came first? Maybe they happened at the same time --- KAABOOM!
So I want to do this kind of sequence:
1. Silhouette of man w/Fedora hat over a glowing TV
2. He moves up to the camera and speaks the lines, still partially blocking what is on the TV. We cannot see his eyes because the shadow of the fedora hat, only his mouth.
3. on "The power to hold the whole world..."
he moves to the side we see the earth on the TV screen ...
he lifts up a remote control and presents it "in your fist" we see his eyes glow red
4. He reaches back and turns off the TV with the remote... everything goes black
Character & story background: This is Lucifer (IE the Devil, The Morningstar, etc.) in his living room, he's showing us how he manipulates us... through television. =)
Physical Description: His hair is red, he's extremely handsome and skin is pale. I'm patterning this character after Neil Gaiman's version of the Lucifer. Who's appearance is inspired by David Bowie. But he will of course be drawn in my style.
Mannerisms: Lucifer is very suave and convincing in a sexy yet creepy way. His movement is fluid and effortless.
Talents: Music, inter-dimensional travel, morphing into a 7 headed dragon...
Hobbies: Collecting Souls, opening fancy restaurants
Pet Peeves: Not winning, and genuinely good people.
Catch Phrases:
"Muwahahahaha" (general evil laughter)
"Bawahahahahaha" (pointing and laughing)
"Go ahead, eat it!"
"Just sign here."
These were my 3 favorites from the 11 second club September Animations:
http://www.11secondclub.com/vote/september09/nP0Jid/http://www.11secondclub.com/vote/september09/jyT8PK/http://www.11secondclub.com/vote/september09/j7sPl9/
So I was having so much fun at the zoo on Wednesday I studied more then 3 animals. *Gee* I love animals! Anyway I'm not exactly putting these in the order that I drew them, because the day is a blur now and there are some that have more studies then others. I'm posting all but one drawing (which I think the elephants would like kept private!) .
Animal #1 Elephant
I was lucky enough to start drawing the Elephants when they got their bath and snack. They were doing all sorts of fun stuff like climbing over each other and rubbing themselves in the mud and dirt. The littler one also came up to the edge of the enclosure begging for snacks from the zookeeper.
Elephant movement study
Animal #4 White-Handed Gibbons
Animal #3 Kookubura
Animal #4 Lemurs!
Animal #5 Orangitangs
Animal #6 Nene Goose & other fowls
Attempt at the Tigers:
The tigers weren't really cooperating with me so I only got two drawings, I did get a leap gesture though =)
