It has been a while since I have written anything, and that's mainly because my life has been totally consumed by the ANIJAM project that I haven't had the time. However, I am taking a couple of days to rest my mind before I start with the finishing touches. At first I wasn't going to post the animation before it is completed since until last Friday none of the animators working in the ANIJAM knew what any of the others were doing for their section of the film, and I am a big fan of keeping artwork under wraps if I think I can get a huge reaction out of the revelation of it. Even in the realm of blogging I have kept things secretive despite my promise to let you all see my art process from the thumbnail stage to the finished piece, which I still will, but not on pieces that are intended to surprise the viewer. Take the The Captains of Heroism piece that I am working on, only my mom knows who all five captains are that I am drawing. My friends and any one who reads these entries only know about Captain America, Captain Marvel, Captain Planet, and Captain Atom, but I am keeping that final captain under wraps until I am finished with the whole piece. I love surprising my audience.
Anyway about the ANIJAM, some of us from the group met at the DMC (Digital Media Center) at SCAD-Atlanta last week, and so we got to see the entire film. It looked great, and even Prof. Ingham said that it looked better than he had expected when the film only contained pencil tests. We had a few problems here and there in regards to the transitions from film to film, which sadly included mine, but no fault of my own though. When you start an ANIJAM the only transition that you have to worry about is the person in front of you. I had to make sure that there was a smooth transition from that animators film into mine, and that was spot on. There was no need to worry about what the person behind me is doing...unless they dropped out of the project, and that's what happened. So I have a new animator behind me, and he hadn't seen what my last frame was, which made the transition from my film to the next very noticeable, which is what you don't want. However, I emailed him a few days ago, and we got everything worked out. I was willing to do the transition myself providing he gave me the last frame of the animator who dropped out, but he said that he would do it (I had sent him my last frame just in case he wanted to do it).
The version above is the revised pencil test, which included a lot of changes from not only the first pencil test, but also from the storyboard. After hearing Prof. Ingham's suggestions on how to improve the film I made a few cuts to shorten it a bit while also trying to make sure that some elements were slowed down. The first thing that was cut was the second piece of dialogue, which I am very glad I cut because it took me forever to finish the clean up/transitions on Thursday and Friday morning that I never slept. I might still be working on the film if that second piece of dialogue hadn't been cut. I got rid of the burning tree, and there were several other things that made the cutting room floor, but the tree and the second piece of dialogue were the big ones.
The drawing portion of the project is done, which I am so happy about. Next up, is the coloring. I had originally intended that there would be a 3D element in the animation, but I have decided to forego that and practice 2D/3D compositing at a later date. So it will be all 2D animation, and I am going to combine my knowledge of comic book coloring with animation, which means I will be using color holds and colors to tell the story.
I wasn't planning on doing this, but here's the original pencil test, and so you can compare it with the revised version.
Workspaces
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| My Two Workspaces |
Final Thoughts
As I said I am taking a couple of days away from the ANIJAM to rest my mind from the stress and tension that I naturally put on myself whenever I am working on a project. So I am going to use that time to work on the second installment of the Vampire Mouse and get The Captains of Heroism out of the penciling stage.
Also, I would like to take the Vampire Mouse to another level outside of mini comics, and recently I have been thinking about web comics, but I don't know what web host would be the best to go to. If any of you have suggestions please let me know.
I doubt that I will be posting next week, and so I would like to wish my mom an early Happy Birthday.
Until next time, this is Billy Wright wishing you all a good night. So long, everybody.
