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.

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.

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 Continues To Be A Crowd

And now back onto my uni work. After a bit of feedback on my initial animatic during rushes, and then subsequently on my second one (which I have yet to post) I got a few new ideas to help flesh out the story a little. Basically, I needed to focus more on the character’s motivations - why does Tlun not seem to want Zombie around? Why does Biscuit come to rescue him? Why do Zombie and Biscuit follow him into his hut? Things like that.

One of the solutions was to add some sort of scene at the beginning, showing Zombie and Biscuit traversing the snowy wilderness. This was a good opportunity to clarify that Biscuit acts as Zombie’s mother, which I'll be showing by having her licking and nuzzling him like a mother dog, and also carrying him in her mouth by the scruff of his neck.

As for why Tlun wants them out, the entrance to the village will be shown more prominently, with a few crude signs saying to stay out, etc. Most of the scenes I already had will most likely still be incorporated, but there’ll be a few new ones added too. I’m also going to clarify that it’s starting to get dark out when Tlun gives up and goes back to his hut, with a scene that shows Zombie and Biscuit looking out at the cold, dark wilderness, hearing a few howls and cries of predators in the distance, before they decide to follow Tlun.

Basically, there’s more of a motive now - Biscuit is trying to retrieve her pup, while Tlun is trying to get them both out. 

Another thing I need to do is keep the pacing of the story in mind, as my second animatic (which I won't be posting until I've made the necessary modifications) kind of kept the same pace throughout, and as a result, dragged on in places. In order to solve this, I'm going to up the pace of some of the more frantic scenes (such as Tlun chasing Zombie and later trying to get him off his head), and also make the scene in which Biscuit comes to Zombie's rescue more elaborate, maybe having her actually attack him instead of just standing her ground and barking at him.

Anyway, onto drawings - these are a few pictures of Zombie and Biscuit with their heads at different angles. I'm likely going to make little clay models of their heads in order to get a better idea of how they'd look, since my animation will call for a much bigger range of angles than I usually do.

A quick sketch of Tlun. Drawing him so many times for my storyboard/animatic has helped me to solidify his proportions - he’s pretty top heavy and usually walks around on all fours, but he can stand up as well if he wants to be extra intimidating. Kind of like a gorilla in that regard.

A bit of a rough size comparison between Tlun and Zombie (who'd probably be a bit smaller than he is here). The “fuzystatic” brush in SAI is fun to mess around with. I might see if it can get incorporated into the actual finished backgrounds.

Another size comparison, this time between Zombie and Biscuit.  I shrank Zombie and made him a little pudgier to sort of emphasise that he’s a puppy, and try to make it more obvious that Biscuit acts as his mother, since it apparently wasn't clear in my animatic. I'm probably going to alter the design of his head a little too, since I think having his eyes more in the middle of his face, rather than the sides of his head like a lizard, will make it easier to animate his expressions. I also might change his mouth shape so he can be more expressive with that, too.

Zombie's appearance in my storyboards/animatic is quite a bit different to how it usually is, and was mostly done that way for the sake of faster drawings - but I've found myself liking that design over his regular one for this animation. It seems like it'd be easier/more simple to work with, so here I was trying out a more simplified look for him. 

I’m actually not sure whether to give him pupils or keep his eyes all black as they are in the animatic, since I kind of liked how they looked, even though it was only done as a way of finishing the drawings quicker. I don't want him to look too Tim Burton-esque, though - as he is, he's sort of bearing a bit of a resemblance to the movie Frankenweenie to me, despite being a character I've had for 8 years now. The stitches have always been a part of his design, but I might do away with them for the sake of simplification. Any suggestions?

Three's Still A Crowd

Here's my animatic so far. The sound effects and things are just placeholders for now, and I haven’t decided on a soundtrack yet, so it’s still pretty incomplete. It’s only about 2 minutes too, so chances are I’ll be adding more to it/tweaking some things eventually, since the maximum length it can be is about 3-4 minutes. For now, I want to get some feedback from my tutors before I do anything else with it. I had a bit of trouble finding good quality dog barking/growling sounds, but otherwise, I'm happy with how this is turning out so far.

Also, here's a little group picture for general size comparisons.

Three's A Crowd

For my final animation for my course, I've decided to focus on some older characters of mine - Tlun, a large yeti-like creature who popped up briefly in my Tiny Planet animation; Zombie, a seemingly undead lizard/puppy of sorts who's one of my oldest characters (he's about 7-8 years old); and Biscuit, a strange dog/beaver/reptile monster thing who acts as Zombie’s mother and who also starred in my onomatopoeia animation. Zombie seems to have become a mascot of sorts for me, so it's about time I included him in an animation. :P

The basic premise is that Tlun usually spends his days looking after an abandoned village deep in the mountains. Aside from the occasional lost traveler, it’s generally pretty quiet work… until Zombie finds his way in and Tlun has to try to get the pup out. Biscuit… doesn’t quite approve of his methods.

Here are some really quick little background ideas (not terribly great considering backgrounds aren't really my forte). I tried to make it look like there was a tiny village in the first picture, but… it kind of just looks like Tlun’s toilet. Hm.

I used a ref for the second picture, which is why it looks more three dimensional and not as flat. I got Tlun’s old rig and shrunk it down to see how it’d stand out against a background like that, and he seems to stand out against it okay.

This was one I did for my storyboard/animatic, and I'm happier with it than I am with my previous two backgrounds.

These are mostly just tests for now - I’m still not entirely sure how the background is going to look, or how the village will look. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a 2nd/1st year to help me who’s better with backgrounds than I am.

They Grow Up So Fast

This is my most recent picture of Tlun, and as you can see, (issues with the anatomy of his arms aside), he's gotten pretty big now. He's just been getting bigger and bigger every time I draw him, but I think I've settled on a consistent size now.

I also added some pads on his hands, since he lives in a pretty snow-y area.

He's So Fluffy

Haven't been able to stop drawing this guy since I came up with him! Might be because I have a bit of a fondness for top-heavy characters - I tend to find them more fun to draw.

A Strange Train Of Thought

So today during my screenwriting class I was doodling as always (it helps me concentrate, honest!) and drew some weird little… bug-like thing that I made up off the top of my head. Then I noticed it sort of looked like a guy wearing the head of some sort of bird thing as a helmet or something. That then prompted me to draw a few more pictures of it, then start to give it a body…



And then when I got home... this happened.



And then subsequently, this. I'm not sure what it is, where it's from, what its name is or how and why I even came up with it in the first place, but I kind of like how it looks. I might just be drawing this guy again in the future. :P