Last Day, Last Page

This is it. The end of the red book. I have mixed feelings about finishing it, but I'm happy with the work in it. I am excited to start a new book.

Time's a Wasting

Back at it, drawing the individual frames of animation that is. Last night as I was working a little OT on the project, I started doing the math. I tried to calculate the amount of hours a week I work on this project and then multiplied that by the amount of time I have left until myself imposed deadline. I then calculated the amount of work needed to be done, and how many hours it would take to finish. It quickly came to my attention that I'm going to need about three times the amount of man hours, that I currently have myself scheduled for.

This came as a shock to me, but I'm glad I found this out now, early in the process. So, today I'm coming up with solutions to either speed up work flow, or get myself more time to work. To speed up work flow, I've decided to start using more actions in photoshop. I learned a lot of great actions working for primal screen, and need to implement those into my routine. I've also decided that I'll have to dedicate even more time on the weekends, and possibly more during the week. Another idea, is to get Allie to help me out with the drawing. Although I have not asked her yet, nor have I worked out the logistics of it, she has been a very useful resource in past animations. Also, she does already have a "creative director" credit in this film, why not add another.

Once again, I have no new imagery to show. So, once again, I will be posting something from another blog. It comes from 1111, a blog by Ben Prisk. He's a great illustrator and art director, that I worked with long ago. Although we have not kept in touch, I still follow his blog, and am inspired not only by his images, but his words as well.

Finally, a big shout out to my THIRD follower who just sign up today. Thanks for watching.

Monday Monday

Yikes, where did the weekend go? Well, it's monday, and I'm happy to report that all 3d animation has been completed, pretty much. I have to figure out a transition between two scenes. I may just have to combine those two scenes into one. It's funny how these problems only present themselves, once you actually start putting together the nuts and bolts of a project.

So, once again I have put off drawing any actual frames until the 3d motion is done. That means I have no new imagery to show today. But, I'm braking from one of my general rules, and will be posting links to things I've seen on other blogs.



I discovered United Fakes Reel on Motionographer this morning. I loved their work so much I had to watch this twice and then root around on their website for more. It made me want to move to Barcelona and work for them.

Also, I had a request from one of my two followers, Michelle who started a blog Called The Muse Factory. She describes her blog as follows:

A blog about my life and ambitions in 2010. I've set 100 goals for myself, this will follow my progress as well as any humorous, introspective or interesting things that happen to me on the way.

Michelle, asked for a cat picture, and although I attempted my own, I felt this one on my buddy Mark's blog far surpassed anything I could do.

In Other News

I have less than ten pages to go in my red sketch book. This is momentous for me, because when I bought this book, the idea was to do one drawing a day, everyday a new page, for 300 days (amount of pages). Now it's been a year and a half, and although I did not draw on a new page everyday, I still feel that it was a success.

The Book, has a nice chronology, not only for my style of drafting, but is a great example of the evolution of an idea, as well. At first I didn't know what that idea was, however the further along these drawing progressed the more of a common theme I saw through out. The idea of study this book seems to follow is language. Not only the written word, but icons, glyphs, and my new favorite term a "visual language". I didn't intend to produce a book about language, it just seemed to manifest itself. Of course my study of mayan glyphs that started about the same time as the book probably helped. Enough babbling though, here's some examples found through out the work.

Two More Shots

I have just two more shots to animate in 3d, then I'll have every scene animated. Already, I'm finding that some of these scenes will have to be redone or at least adjusted. Still though, I'm excited to have a base of animation to work with. With any luck the last two scenes should be done in the next few days.

I'm excited to get back to drawing on top of the frames. After finishing the first scene, I stopped drawing so I could concentrate on animating in 3d. Like anything with a lot of repetition, assembly line style is the most effective way to construct animation. If you concentrate on one process at a time, that process becomes faster and easier to produce.

Animation Progress

The animated short is coming along nicely. All the props have been constructed in 3d, and I only have four more scenes to animate. I'm starting to think that the total running time is going to be over 45 seconds. After watching what I have play thru a few times, it seems like a lot of the action happens to fast. I'll have to slow some shots down a bit more.

As far as story line goes, I've been keeping that a bit under the cuff. I think for this animation to work, the viewer has to watch it without knowing what it's about. The premise is so simple, to explain it would be giving away the punchline.

Nicknames

I've had a lot of nicknames in the past. Mr. Snoops, is probably the least offensive out of all of them. My buddy, Tyler even drew me a visual. It's me, kind of.

Happy Friday

I have not posted a Friday Happy Hour post in a while, so I thought it was time. Coors Light was the first beer I ever got drunk on, which was far to long ago that I hate to admit when it was. Since then I have become what others have deemed a "beer snob". While this may be true, I'm not above having cheap beer when the setting is right. There is a dive bar not far from my work called Dockside. Their clam to fame is that the evidence to convict Tonya Harding was found in their dumpster. My co-workers and I have a standing tradition of going there on fridays, to have burgers and a pitcher of coors.

Thankfully, I woke up early this morning and finished my hour of animation before work, because friday evenings are no time to try and get any work done. Allie suggested I get up early, and I think this is a great idea. This week has been tough trying to get everything done that goes on in a regular day, as well as spend an hour animating. I may have to start getting up early everyday, which if you know me, is not exactly my strong suit. But, I'm willing to make sacrifices to get this thing done.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Producing an Animated Short

I'm the kind of person who loves the process of how things are made. When I used to paint, I was more into stretching canvas, mixing paints, and brush strokes, than actual concept or theory. Those things just seemed to get in the way of the bliss one receives when you're lost in the act of making something. With animation its the same way. People go on and on about theory and purpose, when all I want is to take an idea and bring it to life.

For this particular project my method is something I've wanted to do for years but have yet to fully realize. The idea is very simple, make a basic model in 3d, animate it, then draw on top of the frames to produce the final look. This is not a new idea, Disney experimented with it in the late 80's/early 90's. I've also seen this method executed extremely well in an animated short called the The Pearce Sisters. The idea of rotoscoping has been around since the inception of animation.

So I don't claim to be developing an entirely new way of animating. Rather, I see it as taking an established method, and applying my own style to it. Of course this "style" is an amalgamation of things I've seen from other animators through out my life, so the idea of ownership of this creativity can not be mine alone. I'm starting sound like one of those theorists, so I will digress.

The tech-specs are as follows: I'm using a copy of Autodesk's Maya to create the 3D. After that, I take the frames rendered with Maya into Adobe's After Effects. Each scene is timed out, and then a Photoshop file, per scene, is created with each frame on a separate layer. Next, the frames are drawn on using a Wacom tablet and Photoshop. Finaly, the files are brought back into After Effects for the final composite.

It sounds complicated but really it's not. It is however, very tedious. Currently I have 25 seconds of animation finish in 3d. That sounds like a lot, but when you consider that it's taking me around 30 minutes to paint each frame, you can see how the tedium kicks in. I'm hoping though, that the more I practice the quicker these frames will be produced. I do enjoy it, which makes the effort rewarding.

More about the short film

With production in full swing, I'm taking a minute to inform my loyal reader about some details of the up coming short. Firstly, I hope to top it out at around 45 seconds in length. The style will be very similar to my entry for cut & paste, this time with more detailed drawings. This will hopefully create a more frenetic look. I'm giving the animation team (consisting of myself) four months to complete the project. I plan to spend one hour a day during the week and 3-4 hours during the weekend days, working on the film. I'll keep you posted with more details as they become available.
Wish me luck.