Finished Backgrounds

Now I have finished the animation I have been spending all my time inking the pencil frames. I enlisted the help of Jacqui Davis to make my backgrounds look beautiful.

These are the finished articles!

Rough Thumbnail sketches for Backgrounds

 Very VERY rough sketches...

                                           Opening scene

                                           Clucky's house

                                           House side view

These are the rough backgrounds I used as layout sheets whilst animating. I Have scanned and handed over these sketches to the very talented Jacqui Davies.

I have asked Jacqui to use references from animations such as Looney Tunes, Wile E Coyote cartoons in particular. A lot of the inspiration for my animation came from my own personal fondness for the old Warner Bros. cartoons. Jacqui is an exceptional artist so I am very excited to see how they turn out.

Here are a couple of images which show the particular style I am aiming for.

What have we been doing then?

Well well well! It seems I have neglected my blog for a while... naughty naughty! It has been such a busy couple of weeks what with trying to complete the animating. It is a very different process to my usual stop motion medium. But I have enjoyed doing something different. I am coming to grips with the process now and actually feel quite comfortable with 2d medium.

As I said I have been concentrating on the animating side of things. My usual animating times tend to be from 9am til 7:30pm... here is a photo to prove it.

Once the lengthy process of animating is done I look forward to putting my film together and making it look lovely I would not have got as much done had I not made use of the studio being open until late.
I have updated my animatic with the line tests I have done.

http://vimeo.com/38390105 Click here to have a sneaky peak!

I have had fellow animator Elodie Markwell assist me with the inking side of things so I can put all my effort into getting the animation done and dusted. We make a good team and I wouldn't be on track without her.

Scanning my clean inked frames was something I had fallen behind on, so I speant a good afternoon this week scanning all the nice frames in.

Here is the first ''little'' pile of inked frames that were scanned...


Still a way to go, but there will be more updates later on in the week. I shall try not to leave it so long this time.

Feeble animated colour tests

As I am very new to the 2D animated process I enlisted the help of the lovely Elodie Markwell to assist me with some colour and ink tests for my animation.. Elodie was kind enough to hand ink my pencil frames. These are just a couple of the finished colours (minus the backgrounds, they will be done by my fellow animation student Jacqui Davis.)

 Getting to grips with Harmony animation software.

Elodie doing some much needed inking. Markwell by name Mark well by nature... hahah...ugh.

I am growing in confidence with the technilogical side of the process and with more practice I can't wait to see how everything will be when it is all put together.

More updates coming soon!

Feeble running test

I have many tests on the linetesters at uni, this shot was a very quick one so I could sort it at home. I have completed about 4-5 shots so far... But I need to press on! I am starting to feel more confident with the method of 2d tradtional animation. I think it is starting to suit my way of working. I don't have many 2nd year animation students but I have my fellow 3rd years such as Elodie Markwell, Lauren Dorling and Jacqui Davis to lend me a helping hand where needed. 

I am also on with looking for music for my animation. I have found quite a nice jazzy piece which sounds very 1940's/50's cartoon. So this is very good. It is royalty free and I just have to credit Kevin Macleod from http://incompetech.com/

Very useful!

More sneaky peaks on their way soon!

Posters... The search for 2nd years.

After I did my presentation to the 2nd years last Tuesday, I thought I might have had quite a few people wanting to help. I remember being a 2nd year last year and I wanted to help as many 3rd year students as I could in the hopes that I would get credited in more films, thus boosting my experience. The 2nd years this year do not seem to have grasped this... perhaps they are just a bit timid.

Anyway the next plan of action to rectify this is to create posters.

And then here is a bigger version of the doodle I did for the poster... I think it shows me a happy kind person to work for. Lets just hope that reels them in!

Fingers crossed!

Feeble and Clucky Maquettes

Clucky's close up

Chesty Chicken, she has some serious curves going on... as all sexy cartoon love interests should.

This lady takes no crap from anyone!

Dearest Feeble's close up.

Trying for a kiss... I don't think he is going to get one.

But he can keep trying...


More updates coming soon