Good, Fast, and Cheap, pick two.

I really wanted to have scene four completed last week and posted on the blog. But, if you've been following along you know that my best laid plans, fall short very quickly. I've had to redo scene 4's dope sheet, and it looks like I'll be redoing it again tonight. All the drawings have been done, I've just got to sort through the jumbled mess of numbers and abbreviations I made myself. As soon as it's sequenced and timed out, I'll post the scene. This has definitely been a learning process for me, and I really hope to take what I've learned and apply it to the next scenes.

Thanks everyone for all the encouragement, and for sticking with me thus far.

Illustrated

Here's two samples I sent my friend for his blog. Their still not finished but I wanted his opinion on the direction I'm taking. Both are very different, but I think we're going with the more realist version as apposed to the stylized one. I've never claimed to be much of a draftsman, but I do enjoy it.

In other news, I stumbled upon two blogs that are documenting the making of their respective animations. The first is Slim Pickings Fat Chances. This animated short is being produced in Holland (I think). It looks great, and I'm excited to see the finished product.

Another blog I discovered, is dedicated to the production of an animated series called 'Adventure Time with Finn and Jake'. The style is awesome and the pilot episode I watched was clever and fun.

Kirby'Sock scenes 1-4

Here's a sneak peek at what I've been working on the last couple of months. These scenes need backgrounds, shading, tweeks, and what not, but this should give a good sense of the direction I'm going. The last scene is just the rough 3d, and should give you an idea of my process.

Kirby's Prologue

these were done about a year ago leading up to production of the first kirby cartoon.

dope sheet, kinda

Some details about the image I posted last night. In the crudest sense it's what we in the animation industry call a dope sheet. The idea being that these graphs help time out the animation and line up each drawing with the corresponding drawings.

For the scene I'm working on currently, I felt it would be quicker if I separated parts of the characters body onto different layers. While there is 44 frames of actual animation not every body part moves through out those 44. If I separate say the left arm, once it stops moving I can just hold that drawing on the rest of the body for the duration of the scene.

On a true dope sheet, the time line for the entire scene would be broken down, including the hold frames. For this scene I'm just marking where the hold frames will be with an "H" or #.

Here's what an actual dope sheet looks like.

to travis

dope-sheet

Faces

If there's one thing I feel good about drawing, it's faces. Mostly cartoon faces though.

Mildly Offensive

I think now is a good time to discuss the possibility that my film may be mildly offensive. I think it would be off putting in the way that Pee Wee Herman or Ren & Stimpy was to my parents in the 80's. Not so much disturbing for adults, but possibly for children.

Now, from my point of view, it's humorous and perfectly suitable for kids. But my opinion is very different from what others may think. In the end what may make it offensive to some viewers is what makes it charming to me.

Here's a good test: If you find my infamous penis & balls sketch offensive, chances are you'll probably find my animated short offensive too.

Spammed!

Uuuuh, some lovely spam group has targeted my site for some serious Japanese ad spam. PLEASE DO NOT click on the Japanese links in some of the older comments. I've tried to clean out some of them, but many persist. Because of this I've had to moderate the comments a bit more now. It's too bad, cause I really liked the open forum.

IN OTHER NEWS:
A friend of mine has been writing a blog called PDX Dad. Its about being a stay at home dad and all the fun that in sues. He's a great writer and has asked me to do an illustration for his title bar. I'm excited to get started on it, should be fun.

Sleepy Turtle

I already have a concept for my next animation. It involves a sleepy turtle and a rambunctious bird. It's gonna be great!

The current animation continues to come along at a snails pace, but at least it is still moving.

More soon.