2D Reel

Here's a collection of 2D bits and pieces I've done. It shows Flash scenes from "The Mr. Men Show" and traditionally drawn scene from my short films, plus Harmony scenes from "Hoop & Yoyo" using vector art.

Animating in After Effects for 3D

I own a version of Toon Boom Animate and have worked with TB Harmony.  Both have 3D multiplane features.  TB Animate has planes that you can separate into layers but Harmony has planes you can rotate and lay flat if you wanted.  You could build a little 3D house and move around it, which is what I want to do.  Well, I own TB Animate and an upgrade to Harmony is too rich for my budget right now.

So I was a surprise to learn After Effects has this 3D function.  I've been learning to animate in this program and it's pretty straight forward.  You can do some nice hinged puppets by adjusting the pivots and parenting flat artwork together.  There is a way of doing the equivalent of scrubbing through a nested symbol like in Flash or Toon Boom to do lip sync.  This is done through importing image sequences, and you can use it to do a more traditional style drawn animation, but I'm finding it's very hard to edit, but it does have this 3D function like Harmony that I've mentioned.

I thought this would allow me to get the 3d effects I want and save me the cost of upgrading to Harmony but I must be doing something wrong.  I took some artwork from a past personal project and a future piece I'm working on and set them up in 3D using After Effects.  Even in the program as I scrolled through the animation I got planes dropping out or jumping levels.  I thought it might be a graphics card thing but even rendered the planes popped in and out.  If anyone knows a fix for this I would love to know.  It may be a format setting or something because the look is totally different from a rendered TB scene.

First test in After Effects with dropped layers.

Sec test using After Effects with dropped layers.

Test using Toon Boom Animate with AE floor

I think I have a work around by rendering my 3D elements, in the black and white scenes, it's the wood floor moving in perspective, using After Effects and bringing the sequence into TB Animate where the other elements are separated into planes that use depth only.

Update:  I did get the scene to work in After Effects without layers dropping out.  I had to insure there were not intersections where one layer momentarily penetrated another. 

Christmas Time is Here Again!

Laying Pipeline

I am thrilled and challenged by the reality of having essentially a virtual animation studio in my home.  It’s been a cyclical journey for me trying to reach the look of ‘Golden Age’ animation. 

Having worked in traditional animation during the late 70s the amount of resources needed was considerable starting with reams and reams of punched paper.   Factor in the acetate cells, paints, camera, and an area to house all this including workspace and I can’t even imagine the expense.   

Now after 30 some years I have all the tools at my fingertips and no trees were harmed or houses mortgaged.

I'm in the process of making a pipeline for a short personal film and have decided to use an 8GB thumb drive to transfer project files between platforms; a PC with Wacom Tablet, and a Tablet PC with Wacom technology for cleanup animation.   I’m using Flash for quick and dirty animatics and color studies, ArtRage to do final backgrounds and Toon Boom Animate for principal animation.

I did a combination storyboard\animatic that was broken out into scenes using QuickTime Pro so I know my shot lengths and the sound tracks were extracted from each scene.  I made folders for each scene that contains the scene animatic QT, audio file, ArtRage BG file, and ToonBoom work files so everything needed is in it’s own folder.

Here’s a low resolution scene showing the steps from storyboard, to layout and pencil test, to finished color.

What is so great about this is I can go in and make changes even after the fact without having to re-shoot or use more materials!

If you want to do animation, there really isn't any excuse not to now that it's all in the box.

Balaam and His Donkey

I wanted to do a contemporary retelling of Bible stories to make them relevant today. Something layered that could be enjoyed by a wide range of ages like "Bullwinkle" which worked as satire for the adults and entertainment for youngsters. The style could be easy to replicate using Flash and driven by dialogue allowing the reuse of artwork. I thought it was something I could do alone without help

I can't say this was successful, and I think the poor production qualities like sound and music, plus the recycling of artwork, and the length of the story worked against me.

Anyway here it is for better or worse. And yes, I did all the voices too.

Ruby Rocket Again...

I found some old files while cleaning my computer. Here are some scenes from Sam Niemanns' "Ruby Rocket" adventures.

The slates at the beginning show I did the inbetweening and clean-up on a scene animated by Sam and one by B. Larsen. We were using Flash and drawing everything, animating on fours. Later we did tonal passes for highlights and shadows.

The finished look was quite impressive and nothing like what you would expect from Flash as you can see from the still image of Ruby.

Hopefully Aniboom will show all the episodes someday. Click on the title to go to Sam's blog all about the making of Ruby.

Mounties

Here are some expression studies I did for Hive FX pitch material for their tv series proposal called, "Mounties".

Although I didn't design the characters, I was asked to do facial studies and turn-arounds for all the cast. It was pretty fun and the style is kind of like what I do anyway.

I also built and animated the lead characters in Flash for a trailer that you can watch by clicking on the title or going here and clicking on the trailer: http://www.mounties.tv/




All art work is property of Hive FX

Click on images to enlarge

Style vs Style

I ran across the cool promotional video for Kevin Dart's art book,“Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7,” on Cartoon Brew.

Although the design is lovely I feel it suffers from the curse digital animation seems to promote and that is a tendency toward robotic hinged movement. It's understandable because the method is to literally cut the artwork up into pieces and assemble it like paper cut-outs. The limbs rotate from fixed pivot points and everything is flat flat flat.

The argument is an aesthetic one where the artist has deliberately chosen that look. This may be true, it certainly is becoming wide spread.

I love high styled designs in animation but I think I would have done some hand drawn animation on top for hair and clothing to ease some of the stiffness.

Stylistically the design could have been the same and treated in a more graceful way emulating traditional drawn animation. Take a look at one example of high styled limited animation from the opening of "I Dream of Jeanie" and try and imagine the World of Yuki trailer retaining the graphic style but moving like that.

Now before you get all upset let me clarify that I understand this trailer was done on a very short schedule and I think they did a brilliant job but I would love to see the same graphic style in a more lush manner.

"A Kiss From Tokyo" Theatrical trailer from Stephane coedel on Vimeo.

Sita Sings the Blues on YouTube

Here is the gorgeous film "Sita Sings the Blues" by Nina Paley in it's entirety.

The movie is available for FREE download in 1080p, 720p, and 480p!
For an updated list of download or torrent links, go to: http://sitasingstheblues.com/wiki/ind...

Sita Sings the Blues, by Nina Paley
http://www.sitasingstheblues.com

DVD version(s) will be coming soon!




Please help support this film.

ToonBoom-Bastic!

http://toonboombastic.blogspot.com/

Following quickly on the heels of my traditionally drawn test using Toon Boom I thought I would mention this site a fellow Boomer turned me onto which the above link, or clicking on the title will take you to called TOONBOOM-BASTIC!

These people are using Toon Boom for an actual production and using the nested symbol approach associated with Flash animation. This is a great reference site because they define the similarity and differences between the two programs.

A great posting was the way nested symbols work in both Flash and Toon Boom and how they behave differently. The image is from a posting about Layer organization and was super enlightening.

I'm about ready to try some puppet style animation and this site already answered many questions. Check it out.

Ruby Rocket

My buddy Sam has been running a parallel course with me trying to find a good digital way of doing traditional animation. His blog documents the process and his insights might be helpful to anyone interested in pursuing paperless animation. There are many good programs offered for this type of work which might simplify the process, but Sam is using a hybrid approach using several soft wares. I'm interested in what his final conclusions are. Follow his development here: http://rubyrocketpi.blogspot.com/

Robots Robots Robots

Here's another segment of "The Mr. Men Show" someone posted on YouTube with more of my animation. I did the sequence up until the orange diagonal wipe, and some other shots toward the end when Lazy returns with the broken robot. My friends Sam Niemann and Ben Burch juiced up my stuff with nice effects like dust and bubbles. I have a feeling CN will have these removed when and if they find out about them so check em out while they last here: http://www.youtube.com/user/dwaskemo

Mr. Men on YouTube

I don't expect this to last. Someone has posted segments of the new "The Mr. Men Show" and this portion has some of my animation in it. If you like M&M check out more before they are removed here: http://www.youtube.com/user/dwaskemo

Mr. Men Show Premier

I just got word that "The Mr. Men Show" will be on at 9:00am and 1:30pm daily and 6:00am on Saturdays on Cartoon Network, starting Monday, February 4th. Promos are now running on that network like crazy and promo time has also been purchased on Kids WB and Fox.

Working on the first season was great fun and I think it's going to appeal to a broad group of people. It's very well done and very funny.

Here is Tim Whitnall, the voice of Mr. Lazy and a soon to be revealed character.

Here is Jo Wyatt the voice of Little Miss Sunshine, Little Miss Helpful, Little Miss Naughty, & Little Miss Scary.

Here is Rob Rackstraw the voice of Mr. Noisy, Mr. Pernickety, Mr. Messy, and Mr. Tickle.

Here is Teresa Gallagher, the voice of Little Miss Chatterbox, Little Miss Whoops, and a soon to be revealed character.

Sita Sings The Blues

Cartoon Brew has the full account of Nina Paley’s offbeat indie animated feature Sita Sings The Blues. The film, which Paley started production on in 2004, is uniquely personal, tackling the story of breaking up with her husband in India, combined with an unlikely mashup of Indian mythology and 1920s American jazz. Paley made the film entirely on her own, without a producer or studio backing, and still needs $20k to create a 35mm master.
Sita Sings The Blues recently was accepted into the prestigious 58th annual Berlin International Film Festival, where it’ll be having its world premiere next month. But as Paley writes on her website, “The bad news is, she’s programmed in a theater that doesn’t do Digital Cinema. That means unless I have a 35mm print by February, her one and only World Premiere will be on, well…video. I can’t let that happen.”

She is accepting tax-deductible donations through this website. It’s a worthy cause for animation fans who have a few extra bucks to spare.

More Mr. Men

Here is a sneak peek at some of the backgrounds used in the new version of The Mr. Men Show. It’s based on the original Mr. Men and Little Miss books created in the 1970s by Roger Hargreaves, which have sold in excess of 100 million copies worldwide. The styling is great and the flat characters ‘read’ really well against these textured backgrounds. I personally am enjoying animating on this project and feel it’s going to do very well. Here’s a link to the official website: http://www.mrmen.com/

Mr. Men

We just got great feedback from Cartoon Network about the first four episodes of "The Mr. Men Show". It's going to be a pretty cute show and very funny. I think it will reach a wide range of age groups and most adults who have seen it find it funny and charming as well. Check out the site here: http://www.mrmen.com/

Messy Mouse

I probably shouldn’t post these tests. People might get the idea I’m showing finished stuff but I’m just playing. This was a test using Flash and the drawing tools aren’t very good. I do like the onion skinning though. I’m drawing right in Flash using my Wacom tablet.

Don’t sue me WD, I’m just messing around.

Sorry Frank

This needs some explaining. While I was busy on a project, a friend asked if I could find time to do a test of Liberty Meadows characters as part of a pitch for a series. So I did these rough animations overnight. Before I could show them the next day to get feedback the plug had already been pulled. All characters are the property of Frank Cho.

See the real Liberty Meadows and other cool Frank Cho stuff here: http://www.libertymeadows.com/

Rotoscope VS Reference

I wanted to do a test using live action as a reference and a character whose anatomy was different from humans. I used; I guess in this case it would be ‘Anthony the Tiger’,(They'rrrr fabulous!), because he was recognizable and I had a model sheet of him.

This test illustrates the difference between rotoscoping and reference. Snow White and most Disney features have live action film as reference but the styling and proportions of the characters make it impossible to call them rotoscoped. Rotoscoping is the verbatim tracing of live action footage as can be seen in the still images from Don Bluth’s “Thumbelina” posted below.

Other animated films with heavy rotoscope are Fleischer’s “Gulliver’s Travels”, and Ralph Bakshi’s “Lord of the Rings”.

Update:  For some reason many of my early Youtube videos don't play all the way through anymore.  Sorry for the inconvenience but it's out of my control.


Live action reference rotoscoped

Rough animation of Anthony by Joel Brinkerhoff using Flash



Live action footage and rotoscope from Don Bluth's "Thumbelina"












 UPDATE:  A sequence of reference for the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland was discovered and put beside the animation to show how much of the performance was altered by the animators.  Here it is: