Walk on....

Wow.

So work has been crazy...or have I been lazy? Take your pick. In any regard this thing is about to pick up speed yet again. I wanted to post my attempt at pretending to know how to animate.

I drew these keys for a reverse walk cycle, 3/4 no less. This isn't my forte by any means but it was good to challenge myself again. Drawing is fun when it wants to be. Kelly Jones(she rocks it) is in the process now of fleshing out the cycle and conforming the character. Gonna be a nice touch to have some traditional animation mixed in with the AfterEffects puppeting.

More to come. Maybe some backgrounds even?

Hands.

Hands used to be a bitch. Now I like the challenge.

I had drawn some for the King and Worker character rigs but after looking over the animatic decided we needed a lot more. And, here they are. Gotta paint them now but that's just a necessary evil. Drawing is the fun part. Will add more if necessary.

Etsu. Master.

A designer friend of ours is helping to shape the overall design aesthetic and is taking on most of the interior backgrounds. They heavily contrast the exterior by design. Works beautifully to me!

Thanks Etsu!

Mystery Mist.

What is it? What does it mean? You'll have to tune in and find out. Effect created and composited by Rob Powers and Jeremy Sawyer, respectively. Looks fuggin sweet to me.

I like. You?

I think I'm diggin' this. There is potential for the characters to get lost since the hue is so similar but I think we can work it out. We'll shift saturation and contrast here and there to make it work. I like this. Oh, and yeah, the title is "Ramshackle".

Color.

A fun little color study to differentiate the skin tones and clothing colors for the team of workers.

I love it when things come together.

Here is the final "worker" design, fantastically painted by Miss Kelly Jones. I couldn't be happier with how these designs are coming together. There will be 8 of these guys/gals all distinguished by add-on features like the hair as well as subtle color adjustments. This way we only need to build one rig.

Also, an opening background I've been feverishly working on to nail down some degree of style.

Animation to start in the next couple of weeks!

Almost two years in...finally happening.

Been quite a while; but for good reason.

The film is actually underway thanks to the good fellows of One Stuck Duck. A lot of changes have occurred to the original script but all for the better. I feel really good about where this thing is going and it's cool that others are sharing my interest in completing it. Anyway, on with updates.

The animatic is done. The sound design is currently underway as well as the music composition. The main characters are in different stages--King being set up and rigged for animation while the little Worker characters are being aesthetically polished. All this along with some incidental character design, the animatic breakdown, and some animation tests which will begin next week.

I'm now taking on the daunting task of developing the world where the characters will exist. I'll post more of that as I go but in the meantime, here are some final character designs along with some background line art and color tests.

Back with more soon!

This is FUN!

Wanted to post the final design of the King with a bit of a turnaround.  I've been boarding the thing for the last week or so and feel like it's really coming together.  I'm to that point of no return; past the hump of "getting started" and now it is kind of realizing itself, which is very cool.

Talking to some friends with whom I've formed a production team (OneStuckDuck) this week and am going to try to get them on board with helping me to produce the film.  I'm going to show them what I have of the board and hopefully they will be sold.  Exciting!

I'll try to post some board panels or maybe the whole board as an animatic if I can figure out how to post video files.  Back to work!  

Just finding a moment at the diner to put down some action poses.  I want to draw the character as much as I can to really understand him.  These also inform me as to how he will get himself into certain poses.  These aren't really on model; just studies more than anything.

It has happened.

After rummaging through a blog I ran across last night-a cartoon modern site that celebrates all of the fantastic art of the 50's UPA style and others influenced by it-I found my way. Finally.

I noticed the simplicity of design within the characters. Many are seemingly based on solid shapes that make up the entire character. It's an excellent way to think of character design...as if a shape was laid down and a character was derived from it. This makes the character so much more self contained as opposed to a head with arms and legs...a bunch of different parts that are almost designed separately to make up a whole. This is perfect for what I want to do. I think it will make the animation much more efficient and deliberate. And, I've always been a huge fan of this type of stuff just never thought to draw inspiration from it. Silly. I'm pretty happy about nailing this guy.

Onward.

Motivation...I still have it somehow.

So, I've begun another regular job-type job and income is--again--part of my life. It's a good show also, which makes it even better. However it will detract a bit of focus from this project but I'm keeping with it. I'm attempting to become a better time manager. Time can be so unruly, you know.

Anyway. Here a some more exploratory sketches. Still trying to get a solid sense of where I'm headed. These are some of the few that were done with a PEN on--get this--PAPER! It's a strange thing since I don't really do that anymore. Something kind of liberating about it though. Having no UNDO button frees you to just make a choice. Every mark stays so I think these are better examples of "working" drawings...proof of me finding my way around. Especially with the interior layouts and props. This king is close...particularly the face. It's simple and expressive.

Next to come will be turnarounds of the characters so I can move on with boarding.

Confusing myself.

So this was supposed to be my final design/turnaround for the KING. Obviously, didn't quite pan out. Stylistically, I'm just lost at the moment. I draw something I like aesthetically, then think "animating THIS guy will be impossible". It's like I stop myself from even getting started. Foolish. Anyway. It's good to just draw. So I started doing that and not thinking so much. I do respond to the last thing I drew here--the guy with no crown and clearly different construction overall. Maybe I'll move in this sort of direction to see what happens. Maybe I should stop forcing it.

I can't help thinking I'm going to end up with the very first KING design I came to. The triangular shaped, thick jawed wonder posted further back. There was a specific inspiration for him which makes me think maybe that's the one.

I don't know what I think about this. Back and forth. More on the side of "not feeling it". This guy needs to be simplified. Acting is going to be important to really sell his immaturity and rage so he needs to be designed with that in mind. Also needs to be simple to animate...this isn't intended to be Disney quality but it does need to connect. I gotta figure this out soon. Boarding is becoming difficult without locked characters.

Man it takes me a minute, huh?

Well, its been almost a year since I've bothered with this thing. Part of it is, I've been busy. Part of it is, I've been stressed out with work and periods lack-there-of. Mostly, it's the fact that I'm terrible at following through with things like this. Probably for fear of failure that it won't turn out how I intend. But, whatever. The story is still very relevant in my mind and actually has become a little broader in scope than it originally was intended--meaning the message may apply to a general view as well as the specific view in my head.

Anyway, onward I go into this "production". Since last posting, I've done some more design sketches as well as begun thumbing out the board. The plan now is to get an animatic locked and chat with a longtime musician friend to start thinking about music and themes. That will play a huge role in how this comes across in the end as this film will not have a large amount of dialogue. At this point there is none but there may be some required for clarity's sake; we'll see. Once the animatic is tight, I will start the challenging task of getting it animated. Grant writing will occur and friends in the biz will be approached to see if there is any interest in helping. First things first.

So here are some tidbits. More to come...for real this time.

Back on the wagon.

I'm attempting to get myself back in the groove with this project--between developing an idea for a pitch and working the ole fulltime gig.

This is another direction I was thinking for the main character. He's a little darker than I wanted originally but it was good to think differently stylistically. This geometric image popped into my head based on a circle with a long rectangle protruding from it(I know, I know--real advanced). As I fleshed it out, I was seeing that this wasnt where I wanted to go, but went there anyway. Voila!

Concepts

Been a while. So, here.

Exploring some looks.

Here are some things I spit out recently. The two heads are drawings that really just explored exaggerated details; the one led to the "snooty" version of the King.

About the other--

I want to start designing the characters along side one another to see how they react visually. A screen test if you will. This seems more appropriate than designing one....then later, designing another so that it fits in the same family as the previous. This way they evolve together and maybe one can influence the other in ways I may not have imagined. Also notice the solid color beneath the characters. I started with that and built out the line work from there. Just an exercise to get the essence down quicker. But, then I got a little philosophical with it. The character with less substance (shallow) actually turned out to be the one with less framework...and the stronger character is the one with the solid, filling mass. Could be something to that.

Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. Been busy with jobs, freelance, and babies. However, I have found some time to write out my treatment. So the first pass is done. Currently getting some feedback through passing it around so as soon as it gets tweaked, I'll start drawing some more. Progress.

Moving forward.....still.

So over the past couple of days, I've started putting some things on paper; words and drawings mostly. Originally I thought I'd be posting some writings here but something keeps urging me to be at least a little bit secretive about the storyline specifics; at least until the animatic is in good enough shape to put here. I figure this way I'll get a better indication of whether the story is working the way I intend.......or not. So I'll generalize.

The story essentially is about a monarch whose constant bullying is an ultimate means to his demise.....or maybe to his realization that he should be more thoughtful of morals. I put it this way because I'm not sure yet whether I want this character to learn and thus change himself for the better, or just sit in a pile of his own destruction. The latter was originally what felt right, but I've discovered I'm much more interested in movies/stories when they involve a switch within a character's way of being. Anyway, this "king" establishes a relationship with a subculture of eager workers who agree to create something for him...an idol of sorts. The workers eventually dwindle away due to the king's peculiarities and disregard for their well being. He is left with nothing.

That's a very vague nutshell but enough to make sense of the drawings I post. The attached are some concept drawings I've done for the "subculture" characters. I guess I'm seeing them as troll-like but more appealing. I'm not happy with these but this is supposed to be a documentation so I'm going to abstain from only posting the "good" stuff. Kind of defeats the purpose. However, the simpler drawing here (color) is one I added last minute and of course, it's the closest one to the image in my mind. So it's not all bad.

Off and running....well.....walking at a moderate pace anyway

So, this will be my place to document the production of a short film that I've been writing in my head for a couple of years but just "can't find the time" to actually work on. This blog will hopefully be that voice of guilt in my mind that forces me to just plow forward into the project. It's sure to be a long road; what, with my knack for procrastination and my A.D.D. regarding any "good ideas" I proclaim to have--but if I get myself started (hence, this blog) I'm sure momentum will take over and it will be self consuming until it's done.

I want to go ahead and post the first sketches I've done of the main character, around whom this story will revolve. They're probably nowhere near what the final design will be but they ARE that elusive start. I plan to write out a rough outline as I think of some visuals and hopefully a symbiotic relationship will occur between the words and images and magic will occur. Then boards, animatic, blah, blah, blah.