Sleeping Moon

I started working on one of the scenes for the Flower Temple animation today, now that we finally have everything put together and organised and things.

One of the scenes I was allocated to work on involved a night-sky scene being put together and Aaron singing on the moon, so I took a few flowers that the others made and painted over them to make them look like gold. 

Here's what I've managed to get done so far. I'm waiting on Faye to do the lipsyncing, and then she's going to hand Aaron's rig over to me and I'll put him on the moon and animate his movements.

Videos Galore

And now onto the animations I've done.

I had rushes today, so I took the scenes that I've managed to get done so far and put them all together, adding sounds and music and things as appropriate to give an idea of how it's all coming together. I've decided I need to tweak the second part of the opening scene a bit, most likely just moving Zombie and Biscuit further down the hill to give a better impression that they're travelling and that's why Biscuit is tired.

I also tested out Tlun's new rig by animating one of the scenes I'd been looking forwards to doing, where Tlun seems to land on Zombie. Obviously it's still a work-in-progress and I still need to draw up an actual background for it, and I'm going to change Tlun's reaction after he lands and realises he didn't get anything, but otherwise I like how it turned out.

I'd spent most of the day animating Zombie and Biscuit, so when I first started working on this scene, I got to a certain part and then decided to work on a scene involving Tlun instead, since I was getting a bit burnt out animating these two. This is what I had already done when I made the decision, but when I came to work on it the next day, I ended up changing Zombie's movements completely because I didn't like how they looked and his position would've just made the rest of the scene awkward to do.

While I was first working on the aforementioned scene, scrubbing back and forth over the timeline made it look as though Zombie was dancing, according to my friends. So I made this. (I hadn't extended the frames for all the pieces properly at that point, which is why things randomly vanish.) My friends suggested I should have Zombie doing that dance in the credits.

Rig Mishaps & Silly Expressions

I have a bunch of screenshots I took of things that amused me during the process of rigging/animating, so I figured I may as well give them their own post.

Before that, though, here's some before and after shots of Tlun's rig. His first one was too thin for my liking and made him look too much like a puppet, since I'd been having trouble trying to figure out how to do his arms. Animating three separate pieces proved to be awkward, so I updated them and poofed up his fluff a bit to make him look bigger and more intimidating. Now his arms are made up of two pieces, one of which makes use of replacements.

Some screenshots I took while in the process of getting Zombie and Biscuit into the same scene, and posing them so Biscuit was carrying him by the scruff of his neck. Zombie was initially huge when I imported him in, and then while trying to get Zombie's back to go behind Biscuit's mouth, I realised it kind of looked like she was eating him. After that, I noticed it looked like Zombie's horn was going through her eye. 

Some silly expressions from after Zombie's little bath. First he looks horrified, and then angry. Then weirdly smarmy for some reason.

Recent Doodlings

I have a fair amount of stuff to update with, so today I'm going to split them into three posts, starting with some fairly recent non-coursework drawings.

First batch are some silly doodles I did in one of my sketchbooks. I didn't have access to a scanner at the time, so I had to take some pictures with my phone and then adjust the levels in Photoshop. 

Another warm-up doodle, continuing to prove that I draw some of the least threatening monsters ever.

My half of an art trade with one of my friends over in America, of her fire gecko character from the game Fallout: New Vegas.

Aaaand some silly Pumpman doodles, since he's a very amusing character to draw with those arms of his.

Progress Report

It's been a little while since my last post, but that's not to say I haven't been doing anything. I've gotten a few more backgrounds finished, as seen below:

This is the background for the second part of the opening scene. In my animatic there'd be another closer shot of Biscuit walking along with Zombie before it went to a closeup of her head, but to save on time I've decided to cut the third shot out.

This is the first background I did for when Zombie first spots the village off in the distance. I didn't put too much detail into the village since it's mostly obscured by fog in the animation anyway.

Here's a second version of the village's entrance, this time with more detail in it.

I also put together the scenes I have so far. I have a few other older versions of this, one of which has sound, but this one is the most recent. I haven’t drawn up a rig for Zombie and Biscuit walking through the snow in the second scene yet, and I also haven’t finished the scenes in between that and when Zombie goes off to play, so that’s why there’s an empty scene and a bit of a gap.

Three's Nearly A Crowd pt. 4

Been doing some work on Biscuit's rig, although I've been back home for Easter, so I haven't been able to get it properly finished just yet. Biscuit doesn't show up in the animation as much as Zombie and Tlun do, so hopefully her needing less parts will mean getting her rigs and things completed won't take too much time.

This was when I was getting the lineart and stuff done, but because the pieces weren't coloured in yet, the lines overlap each other. I thought it looked kind of amusing so I got a screenshot of it.

This is what it looks like underneath Biscuit's upper head. Got a screenshot of it partly because it's amusing, and partly because it reminds me of a similar thing that happened with the rig I made for my Onomatopoeia animation, as shown below.

I have the PLE version of Toon Boom on my laptop, so I had to use that to make sure that Biscuit's pieces and things worked okay - I'll have to redo the rigging process properly the next time I have access to one of the studio Macs. Here's another amusing screenshot from when I'd imported Biscuit's pieces.

And, last but not least, here's the rig itself and the pieces it has at the moment. I'll likely make an alternate rig for when she attacks Tlun at the end and she's also going to need some replacements so she can lower her head, but for now, this should do fine.