Animation 166.2

So it's Animation 166 again. Technically, ARTDM 166-Animation. Since I'm repeating the 166 class, I've added the .2 to my drawing above. I always start a new sketchbook with a comic book/magazine-type cover since I love logos. The 166 group of advanced students have a different plan than the beginning students but, since I've already taken that, I've asked the instructor if I could customize my game plan for this semester. One student had done that last semester and there are two of us doing this for the Spring semester. But, with the extra freedom, there is the temptation to not push and get much done. So I've set up some goals for this semester.

My goal is to give my presentation for THE TIME MACHINE another pass and refine it. I don't want to turn it into a victory lap or a rehash so I've got some different things to add to make it interesting. Here's the plan:

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:
I did much of this already last semester but many of the secondary characters were not fully developed. So I'll be working on developing them.

CHARACTER TURNS:
I'll assume that the instructor will have the advance students work on some character turns again. I already did that with my primary characters so I plan to do some new ones with the developing secondary ones. I might also go back to one of the primary ones and refine it. One of the knocks, rightfully so, on the turns last semester were the stiff poses. So I might try a new more interesting (and less symmetrical) pose and, literally, give that a whirl. I think I want to add more angles/frames to smooth out the turn. And then maybe some color too.

STORY BIBLE:
The instructor will be having the advance students work on their Story Bible throughout the semester. I banged out mine last December and may just make a few tweaks here and there. But, for the most part, I'll just be adding to it and not doing too much. That extra time will be spent in the next two areas.

ANIMATION:
I didn't even get close to finishing my final animation last semester. Part of me is already sick of looking at it. But I should get back to it.

BACKGROUNDS:
This is the new development for me. Since I probably don't have that burning desire to animate but do to illustrate, I want to try working on some background illustrations. Part of these will help for the final animation above if I get that far and also add to the Story Bible. But I also want to learn to paint digitally in Photoshop. So I'm armed with a new book on Digital painting as my text book and a Bamboo tablet I've yet to crack open in over a year so this will be that new thing to keep me interested.

And that's the plan. Beat Boards and Story Boards are all done. Quite a bit of work has been done on this project. So the plan is to give it another pass and improve it. I'll need to be focused though. Not just for the discipline with the extra freedom but because I have some goals away from the class that I need to get to make make progress with and the class could easily be a distraction from those things.

One Week Left

Progress on animating goes slow. I should have about two of the shots out of 14 done for tonight with a week left. I also have my story bible to wrap up. However, I am making progress in other areas like designing a logo (above) for my presentation. I doubt I'll have my pencil test completely animated for the final so it will probably be a hybrid between the Animatic and the Pencil animation but I'll be using iDVD to add some music to the presentation. Other than that, here are a couple keyframe drawings below.

The First Second

Well, it ain't much and I certainly hoped to be farther along with this than where I am but Life Happens, ya know? Anyway, I'll be having around 14 different cuts to animate. This is about #12 in the process but I wanted to start with the Morlocks reacting to the matchstick light. I have another second of animation to add to this where, once his arms block his view, the eyes open a little more. And when all of that is done, I'll be tilting and zooming with a motion tween for effect (see my animatic for that).

So why this little snippet? Well, I wanted to see if I'm on the right track. Originally, I had planned on animating this on the Twos (each drawing getting two frames) but the look was too slow and resembled more of a transformation rather than a quick reaction. So while I'll still animate on the Twos for 24 frames per second, I'll be dropping it down to Ones if need be. Essentially, whatever is appropriate to make the animation right as long as it all runs on 24 frames per second.

Misc. Morlocks and Weena

More misc. drawings of the Morlocks and Weena from my sketchbook.  Although I'm already locked in on what drawings I'll be doing for my final animation, this is more of an effort to just draw the characters often to really get them down pat.

Morlocks Gone Wild!!

To break up the same ol' Morlock drawings for my animation, I decided to do some cartoons of the Morlocks in some different settings. We never see this side of them in the novel and movies but maybe they have social lives? Maybe the working Morlocks have union rules on breaks? Maybe they drink beer and do the "Pull My Finger" joke? Probably not but it is fun to imagine.

Storyboards: The Traveller meets the Morlocks

Assignment: Storyboard your animation.

Unfortunately, I'm pitching my TIME MACHINE animation as a feature film and not a 7 minute short. So there is no way I can possibly storyboard the whole ding dang thang without a lot of time and pain. So I mapped out the story to 40 story beats and decided to pick a couple out to expand as shot-by-shot storyboards.

Here is Story Beat #23 where the Time Traveller ventures into the Morlock's lair for the first time....

Finally! Some Animation Turns!

All animated at 9 frames per second using about 8 images per turn.

Morlock Turn Around Images

More Morlock Drawings!

More character drawings with some facial expressions during class time. I think I was probably just procrastinating on doing my turns and corrections. But it helps me loosen up. It also allowed me to do things the proper way: sketch in blue pencil and correct in the red. I cleaned up most of my errors but I still see a few more now a few hours later. For one, this Morlock is much taller than my previous designs where they looked more squat with smaller legs.

I did enjoy the facial expressions. However, I doubt I'll be using the "Happy" one in the upper right. But you never know? Maybe a Morlock cracked a joke in the lower caverns and they do have a sense of humor?

As the Morlock Turns..........

I've been working on my turns this week. In animation lingo, that is a series of drawings that rotate the character as to be seen from all angles. I started with what turns out to be one of the tougher characters in my cast: A Morlock.

These are the blue line pencil test drawings. In theory, I should pencil sketch in blue, clean up in red pencil, then ink the final line.

I did do half a turn last semester with a group project but this is my first full on turn and it was much harder than expected. After constructing all the drawings together in Adobe Flash, I could see the errors I made before I make the final inks. And I do have corrections to make. Unfortunately, every time I try to make a Quicktime movie of my animations in Flash, I get problems and therefore am never able to post my actual animations here on the blog. I'm looking for something to rip the Shockwave file into a Quicktime though.

Until the animation is ready, here are the drawings used for the turn. Just the most simple turn with only five drawings and then I flop a couple for the other side of the turn.

The Time Machine: The Morlocks II

Another Morlock design. Originally, I could not decide between the two (with hair on the previous post and sans hair) but why not use both? Not all Eloi look the same. The skin is looking a little dark here. The creature should be paler but the darker hue might be how one would see the creature with less light underground.