Back to the drawing board...

Well, I had an intense Thursday sesh. I have to do a lot of redrawing and rethinking for the projects I am working on. Here's a brief summary of what I need to do:

THE DEEP
The story and personality of the penguin has changed, so I need to redesign him to fit his new persona. Instead of him being cheeky and more human, he is gonna be acting more like a penguin, and slightly more inquisitive.

SMITTEN
My animation tests have received a lot of critique. Dan told me to avoid impulsively animating anything (He didn't like the end bit of the animation test, too "MC Hammer"!) and to concentrate on looking for reference (Waltz and fencing videos in particular). I have to keep animating. I should play with timing, and try and really get into the character.

THE RAVEN PROJECT
The shots I did were good, but again they were not what Sophie was looking for. I think our communication of what we both envisioned for this shot was lacking, because I should have drawn the beefeater inside looking out the window, but the camera is outside looking up at the window. However, after much discussion about lighting etc, I am simply going to have the Beefeater looking towards the window, with the camera looking at him from behind, inside the room.
Sophie also told me that the shot depicts a war time scene, so there needs to be explosions in the background and stuff

*D* *M* Ballet!

Just had a major art frenzy. By gum. Drawing Ballet dancing is just so fun! I love it! It's like doing life drawing all over again. I have LOADS of pics to upload, but for now, here's the vid that inspired it all

EDIT Here are the doodles I did!

*D* *M* Penguins Swimming

*D* Storyboards - Epic Beefeater Shot

Yiggity Yooo Ya Yay!

Well, these are some little shots I've worked on for the Raven Project. Sophie wanted some pics drawn of the Raven master silhouetted nicely, his action being taking his hat off and holding in front of him in a regal pose. This is the first pic I did.

A few problems with this pic is that he is standing with his arms beside him, which makes him look a little awkward in my opinion. Also, Sophie checked it out and said she preferred it if he were inside and infront of a window.

Here's the result of this new criteria that Sophie set me:

I feel much happier about these shots. I think the wall is slightly out of perspective, but I think the shape the sky forms around the Beefeater's head works really nicely. Having his arms behind him like thata strikes the right pose for his character, too.

I have a feeling that the bg may need changing again, but I will see what Sophie says. :D

EDIT:  The shots weren't quite there. Explained in more recent post showing redrawn panels

*D* Animation Tests - refining keys

I've been having trouble getting Toonboom to behave itself as I get futher with this animation. Whenever I try to drag the pointer through the timeline to review my work, it jumps frames. It's very frustrating! Hopefully it will cease its irritating ways for when I continue tomorrow.

So here's what I've got done despite the issues I've had. I'm fairly happy with it, though I keep seeing more and more glaring issues.

I'm not sure whether you noticed, but I took out the spin, because I realized he was spinning in the opposite direction the the way he is crouching on one knee, and I could see that this didn't flow too well. So I have him doing this sweeping motion instead. I'm not sure whether this is much of an improvement, because it looks a little unnatural. *sigh*

Oh well, I'll continue or start a new practice test. This has been fun, I have to say!

EDIT: TOO MC HAMMER!

*M* Ed Reference Sheet EDIT Old Ref sheet

Expression sheets to come!

EDIT: Revised red sheet can be seen in more recent post

*D* Don Juanova animation test

Hurrah a rather unfinished test that will hopefully be finished soon!

Here we see Don Juanova doing a little dance. Yeh he isn't really waltzing, but I just wanted to get used to drawing him some more. Plus I've always wanted to see a knight do a little knee shuffle thrust dance move.

Okay maybe I'm exaggerating

Right well there's certainly a lot of room for improvement. Some of the perspective is a little off, and he looks a bit too big at the end. I find it kinda hard to keep the size of things the same size throughout when animatiing. Also, the animation goes off the top of the screen, which is irritating. I'll need to check the dimensions and make sure the whole animation is seen. The part where he spins around is giving me a right headache. Gonna have to look at reference material for that. I think my line quality could be better.

Other then those things and a few other glitches, I think this is going down the right path. The keyframes are fairly good, and there is a good flow in general. The timing is okay, though I could edit it a bit, so that there is more of a rhythm. The cleanup looks pretty cool as well.