Various Other Doodlings

And now for some drawings unrelated to robots. 

There was a post floating around on Tumblr about how you could tell when a shark was actually aiming to bite something, as they'd thrust their jaws out. The above picture was shown, and it looked so silly to me that I couldn't help but do a doodle.

He's the happiest shark in the world. :> So happy that he... apparently wants to bite something. Oh dear.

More TAC stuff up next. I'd been thinking about Tlun's species, and decided that he's actually pretty scrawny compared to the average. His pack ended up abandoning him as a result of it, and he ended up seeking refuge in an abandoned village and hasn’t really left it since. He got used to solitude, and so wasn’t very happy when it was disturbed by Zombie’s arrival during the events of TAC.

I don't think even Zombie would want to mess with the big guy on the left. (Biscuit probably would, though.)

Biro doodlings of some of my monster characters. I still haven't thought of a name for the weird dragon/mermaid hybrid.

With the newest series of Pokemon out, I couldn't help but doodle my new favourite final starter evolution, Chesnaught. What's not to like about a chesnut-themed bearded armadillo knight?

I found this saved on the laptop I usually use when I'm using the Cintiq and I can safely say I don't remember drawing it. I must have been so blinded by its beauty that my mind couldn't take it and repressed the memory.

And last but not least, a drawing of myself as a pepperoni pizza because why not. 

Three's Still A Crowd

It's been several months since I completed "Three's A Crowd", but I'm still frequently drawing the characters and their world. Zombie, Biscuit and Tlun all started off as completely separate characters with nothing to do with each other, but bringing them together for the purpose of my final film was a great decision and I'm thankful to my friends for giving me the idea. They all just work off each other so well, from their personalities to their colour schemes, and the TAC world is not one I've forgotten.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I got to try out a Cintiq, and this was another thing I drew with it. I wanted to muck about with perspective and stuff, and I'm happy with the results - so much so that I wish I'd been able to draw it earlier so I could have used it as a poster for the degree show! Ah well. Apparently, Zombie hasn't learned from the last time he pissed Tlun off.

Felt like drawing human Tlun for some reason, so I did. I think he needs to be more top-heavy and have white hair instead though, since he doesn't look enough like Tlun for my liking.

Zombie and Biscuit naptimes. Sometimes I feel like their horns are less like horns and more like ears.

Finished Products

Whoops, been a while since I last posted. In that time my deadline's come and gone, so in this post I'll be sharing my finished animations.

First up, we have my final third year film, Three's A Crowd. The majority of my progress on this was documented by blog posts, but as the deadline began to draw near, I ended up just focusing on working on it, figuring that it'd make the parts I didn't post about more of a surprise.

I had a lot of fun working on this project, and I'm kind of surprised I managed to get so much done, considering I didn't have any second years to help me and so had to make all three character rigs and backgrounds and things by myself. I learned a lot of things in the process of making it and my animation skills improved too, which I feel becomes apparent the further into it it gets, considering I mostly worked on the scenes in chronological order. I also stepped out of my comfort zone quite a bit, especially with the backgrounds, which I don't normally have much confidence in doing.

From concept through to finished piece, this took about 3 months to produce. The programs I used were a combination of Paint Tool SAI and Photoshop for backgrounds and rigs, Toon Boom Harmony 10 for the animation, and Adobe After Effects and iMovie HD for editing.

Next up is the finished music video that my friends and I created for "The Flower Temple". While I only animated a few scenes, I contributed a lot of ideas while in the storyboarding process, and created several set pieces that could be used to put together backgrounds. I also created and rigged my character for the credits, made the end title, and helped with final editing.

The scenes that I did animate are both of the night sky scenes (shown in the video preview), my character's movements in the credits sequence, and the movements of the flowers in the end title. 

The aspect of this project that I enjoyed the most was the style we'd chosen to use, where everything looked home-made and practically was, since we'd bought lots of felt and buttons and things and used them to make various pieces in Photoshop. It was also interesting animating the hands, what with them being photos and all.

This isn't necessarily an animation per se, but a presentation I put together for the final part of my course, and it details the process I went through to develop and make my final film. I had to make it on my laptop using Adobe Premiere Pro, and it didn't quite export properly so some parts aren't on-screen for as long as they should be, but otherwise the important stuff's there.

Aaaand last but not least, here's my updated showreel, comprised of my best works from my three years of studying at Staffordshire University.

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.

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.

What's That?

Got a few little scenes done today of Zombie's reactions to spotting the village off in the distance. Hopefully I'll have the village entrance drawn up soon so I can put them between these scenes.

Zombie's first reaction to spotting the village off in the distance. I'm probably going to tweak the facial expressions at some point, since at the moment he kind of looks more confused than curious.

Zombie looking back to make sure Biscuit isn't looking. His expression after looking back at the village a third time will be more mischievous and eager looking.

Also, some expressions in between keyframes that I found amusing enough to take screenshots of. :P

Some Minor Adjustments

I ended up doing a little test to see how it'd look with the background from the first scene, but I found that it made the snow look really flat in comparison to the other background.

So, I made a few little tweaks to the snow that comes up when he lands, and swapped the backgrounds round again. 

Even Monster Kids Love Snow

Scene 5 is pretty much done now. I’m not sure I’m happy with the background, though - the one I used in the test seemed to work better, but I’m not sure I can get away with reusing the background from the opening shot. I'll have to get some feedback from my tutors on that.

In any case, future tweaks aside, Zombie’s movements and things for this scene are complete. I added in some snow in Toon Boom for his impacts, although that might need tweaking a bit as well, since it blends in with the background a little too much.

This is the background I drew up for this scene. The backgrounds aren't really the main focus any more, so I didn't spend more than a few minutes on this. I'm thinking I might have to use it for something else instead (most likely during the opening when it's slowly zooming in on Biscuit carrying Zombie), since at the moment it doesn't really match the current scene, to me.

There's Snow Day Like A Snow Day

It was suggested that I add a snowy effect to the first scene to help set the mood a bit more. It's something I'd been thinking about, and my initial plan was to save it until I'd done the animation, but I figured there was no harm in doing a bit of experimentation in Adobe After Effects. Adding a snow effect was really simple, and I like how it looks. I'll probably be using it for most of the outside scenes, although it'll likely be thinner and a bit less noticeable in the village scenes.

Did the same with the scene in which Zombie plays in the snow, and worked on the animation a bit more, too. It’s still not complete yet (there are a lot more movements I have yet to do, as well as secondaries and follow throughs and whatnot), which is why his mouth vanishes partway through. The background’s also still a placeholder for now, but other than that, I like how this is shaping up so far.

I had a bit of a mishap with background placement at one point while working on the scene, which made Zombie go behind the mountains and made him look huge.

And then I sort of ran with it and made this very silly animation. Giant Zombie attack!

To finish things off, here's an amusing screenshot I took before I'd moved Zombie's eyes to the correct positions when he turns his head.

Some WIPs

Here’s another test for the opening scene - this time I’ve changed the camera movements and added a bit of the soundtrack to see how it goes with the opening. The title is a placeholder, and there’s likely going to be a cross-fade transition into the next scene, so Biscuit’s very basic movements shouldn’t be too noticeable. 

I’m also thinking of adding something flying across the top of the screen in the distance, since it seems a bit empty at the moment.

And here’s a WIP for scene 5, in which Zombie is playing in the snow before noticing the village in the distance (although I haven’t gotten up to that point yet). The background’s just a placeholder for now, and I put a bit of a blue overlay over it to unify the colours a little more. I’ll likely be doing this for all the scenes.

Continuing my tradition of posting amusing rig mishaps and silly faces in between keyframes, have these, too. Zombie and Biscuit are now giants, apparently.

Walking In A Winter Wonderland

Got the background done for the opening scene. The backgrounds after this probably won't be as elaborate since the focus will be more on the characters, but this is going to be a landscape shot to give an idea of how vast and empty the setting is at the beginning. Considering scenery and landscape isn't something I usually do, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.

This was a little test animation I did with it. This was mostly done to see how the different pieces would look when moving together - the camera movements in the actual thing will be different and most likely slower. I'm planning on having the name of the animation on-screen for a few seconds, before having it fade out and then having the camera zoom in to where Zombie and Biscuit are, who'll be just coming over a hill in the middle part of the background.

In order to add the trees, I drew a few pine trees with several series of strokes, and then made each one into a brush.

Here's what I have for the second background. I had to make the trees coloured instead of black so that the outlines of the characters wouldn’t blend into them, but I’m not sure I like how it looks just yet, so if needs be I might have to change the colours a little.

Aaaand here's a test I did for the second background, although it won’t really need to be animated, since I ended up changing my mind about what I wanted to use it for. My initial idea was to use it for both the closeup of Biscuit being worn out and the scene before Zombie runs off to play, but I think I’m just going to use it for the closeup instead - which means most of the trees will be hidden behind the characters, so there might not be a need to tweak the colours.

The third background for after Biscuit drops Zombie will likely be more snow-y and less tree-y, partly so there's less work to do for the background (since Zombie and Biscuit are the main focus anyway).

Three's Nearly A Crowd pt.3

I had to leave the studio before I could properly finish this, but I exported what I had anyway so that I could show it during rushes, which is why it seems unfinished/some parts don’t move and also why he’s so small and misaligned. 

I’m not happy with his arms - they make him look too much like a puppet at the moment, and they’re very awkward to manipulate. I'm probably going to redo his arms and make them one piece with replacements like I did with Zombie’s legs instead, to make him a little smoother and give less parts to have to animate. It'll probably be better in the end, since I can have different angles of his arms as well, and I can draw them as I want them rather than having to arrange pieces.

Three's Nearly A Crowd pt.2

For something more recent, I'm currently working on Tlun's rig. He's the character who'll need the second most amount of parts, so once I've finished him, Biscuit's will hopefully be a little easier to do.

Here's a progress picture and the finished pieces for the rig. There are still a few things I need to make, such as different eye shapes, but I can do those in a separate file and add them in a little later. Like Zombie, he doesn't have any mouths drawn up, since I'll be drawing them on in Toon Boom so that I can get a better range of shapes.

He has a complete head underneath his headgear, and there are replacements on some of them so that they can be shown lifting up more easily. Right now I'm getting the individual layers into their own groups, and in the next few hours I can hopefully get him rigged up and tested out.

Three's Nearly A Crowd pt.1

I've been a bit behind with updates, so I think it's time to rectify that.

Now that my animatic's finally finalised, I'm getting to work on the character's rigs. Since Zombie moves about the most, I decided to start on his first, since he'd likely need the most pieces despite having the simplest design. These were the initial sketch pieces I started off with...

And this is what I finished off with. I was really unhappy with the initial lineless test, as it was far too simple for my liking. A lot of the character's details kind of got lost, so I decided to go with lines again and make use of the deformation tool like I did with Percy's Breakfast Adventure, although less so since I'll be making use of replacements and things this time.

I don't remember how many pieces there are in total, but there are well over a hundred. This is a general use rig - I'll probably be making separate, less elaborate ones for poses that only show up in a single scene and whatnot.

Here are some screenshots from when I was putting his rig together. His eyes were bugging me as they didn't really work with his head, but I decided to leave them as they were for the time being and get to work on a test animation.

 

This was the first test animation I did with Zombie's new rig. I didn't have much time until the studio closed when I started this, so that's why it's so quick. I also had some issues with pivot points messing with the replacement parts in one of his legs, but I was able to get that sorted.

When I got some feedback on the rig, the general consensus was that the eyes didn't really work with him - they made him look a little soulless, which shouldn't be what I'm going for considering he's the puppy of the story. 

I was able to make a longer test animation afterwards, and edited his eyes a little, but I'm still not happy with them. The softness of the shine doesn't really work with the line style, so I think I'm going to redo the eyes completely and make them more rounded, as opposed to oval-shaped.

And really, what's a rigging process without a few amusing mishaps?

Boing

Did a little rough test animation for when Zombie jumps up onto Tlun’s head. This was done to get an idea of how he’d move and what sort of replacement pieces I’d need for the jumping rig - in the actual animation itself, it’s likely there’ll be more usage of keyframes to help space it out a bit more. He’ll also be landing behind Tlun and running off, not disappearing off the screen as he jumps.

He's Got No-body To Go With

This was a very rough test animation I did to get an idea of how to show Zombie's head turning to the side. This version won't be in the final rig - I made the head pretty quickly just to see what sorts of problems would arise when trying to get him to turn his head.

At the moment, the eyes are a little too complicated with them being made up of four pieces, and some problems arose with moving the horns about, so I might have to make use of replacements to try to help solve those. Otherwise, while I'm not happy with the bark animations, I think the head turning is good enough. 

Yep, Three's Still A Crowd

Got my fourth (and hopefully final) animatic done today. I was also in the sound studio providing some voices for my friend's animation, so I decided to take the opportunity to use the remaining time the studio was booked for to record a few more sounds, mostly for Zombie. I'm still probably going to have to use sound effects from the internet for most of the barks and things, but it's nice to have a few sounds of my own, too. For now though, the music and a bunch of the sounds are just placeholders.

Anyway, I completely redid the middle section and added in a few new things. Some of the same gags from before are still present - like Zombie jumping onto Tlun's head - but hopefully the scenes in between those make the whole thing a little more seamless. I made use of some suggestions I got during rushes, such as having the tail have a life of its own when it's detached from Zombie, and having Tlun and Zombie seem to make up a little at the end, and I think it's pretty close to being finalised now, if not already.

There are a few things I'll want to change a little bit in the actual animation itself - mostly things like a few camera angles and whatnot, and after Tlun seems to jump on Zombie, I'm probably going to make it so it turns out he'd just grabbed shedded skin (since Zombie is essentially a lizard puppy). That was an idea I got when I'd already imported everything into Storyboard Pro and adjusted it accordingly, so I won't be calling the animatic completely finalised, since I know I'll be tweaking things and coming up with new little ideas while I'm working on the final thing.

Doodlemation

A very short little thing I did that could probably be construed as the animation equivalent of doodling, I guess. I haven’t used Toon Boom in a while, so I pulled up Biscuit’s old rig from my onomatopoeia animation and did a little test thing with it, to get back into the swing of things. 

I’ll be making a new rig to use for my actual final animation instead of reusing this one - the legs being split up into three pieces makes it very awkward to reposition them, so I think making use of replacements when I make her new rig will make the animating process a lot easier.

I didn’t really have a specific thing in mind when I animated this, but with the addition of a sound effect, it is now Biscuit barking and then being surprised when a squeak comes out instead.