Animatic Update

The latest version of my animatic. The animation is almost complete so I will be moving onto colouring within the start of next week.

This version also includes the latest rough soundtrack provided by composer Lee Miller and the vocals for both man and dog performed by Rory Jackson. This is fairly roughly edit but still I'm really pleased with how the elements are coming together.

a short clip

i though I'd post a little clip to let you know what I've been up too. its been a while since my last post because I've been busy animating! almost finished now!

anyway this is a shot that took me quite a while. its a key scene, which shows the moments before the man snaps. I've gone for a handy cam-stylee approach too imply we're involved in the action and to emphasise the hectic, scatty nature of the dog and hide some of my dodgy animation.

Animatic Update

-this includes most of my recent work and a new soundtrack more in line with what i have in mind. this week i have also been in contact with a voice artist and a composer to get the sound side of things moving.

latest animatic

...with full sound, unlike the last one. hopefully going to be bringing some of my rough keys into this soon and a new soundtrack. anyway here it is for now,

backgrounds... zing!

so im glad to say i have my backgrounds drawn up! was a lot of work but managed to bash them out in just one weekend. still not totally sure about how im gonna paint them yet, but its good to have all my layouts. next thing, start animating!

variations

Thought I would quickly share my thoughts on some of the various ways of painting my character. I initially thought of doing my whole cleanup and colouring within photoshop to avoid any issues with alpha channels and also to play with the software a bit to give an original look. I'm having some concerns over the amount of time this will take with my man character so above are some variations using lines painted within photoshop, original line art and no lines at all. its a bit of a headache, but not a particular urgent problem.

update!- below is just an animated test trying to put some of these styles into practice, although they may appear a little crappy on this blog player. I'm feeling the first two styles for their boiling fun look. the lineart on the third is way too heavy but equivalent of what I'm using for the dog. maybe lineart can work but looking at these quick test I'm thinking more towards the messy, suggestive colouring, hoping that the movement will still be readable.

Aesthetic Mock-up

ok this is basically the kind of look I'm going for. the idea is a loose painted style with the lineart fading towards the background. As you can see it is quite a messy picture which is my reaction to the traditional clean and controlled aesthetic of much animation. the background and the texturing on the characters is my attempt to bring a richness into the aesthetic.

this is kind of a compromise between a more abstract painting which lost the lineart detail and a colder 'block colour' style of traditional animation. in this instance the lineart is possibly too light compared with the heavy black lines of the dog, thicker lineart may give a more coherent look but could possibly detract from the animation and make the scene too 'heavy', more tests are needed.