Another Completed Shot

Hand: Lined

Just posting some WIP since I have been rather inactive lately.

Funny After Effects Animation

I can't help but laugh.

Making More Improvements

Doing some more fixing with the animation I did previously.

 Her walk looks a bit jerky here, and the turn is a bit too quick and rushed.

Here, I re-animated the whole walk cycle to it looks smoother. I also re-animated the turn-around part to make the action look more obvious and convincing. I added more frames for smoothness and better weight transfer. I hope this will convince the lecturer that I can animate but I just rush sometimes and don't do a really good job...

The shoulder pops in this scene and the movements do not flow really well.

Fixed the shoulder and drew more frames for better movement. I think I drew a lot of walk cycles, run cycles and turn-arounds for this animation.

Ok, the problem is very obvious with this one. I drew too many frames and now it looks like they're moving in slow motion.

So here I have drawn the walk cycles again to make them walk in normal speed. I also omitted Farahilde's hand gesture towards Klaus, as I felt it is unnecessary. 

Improving Animation

Now that I have animated everything and still have some time left, I have gone back to do some improvements and fixing in the previous shots. Here is an example.

OLD animation:

NEW animation:

I added a lot more frames and made sure the sense of weight is conveyed better... I think it was worth the time since it looks much better now.

Processes

Here are more WIP gifs. This is when Farahilde grabs Klaus' hand and he helps her up the pipe. The rough sketches are above.

Clean up and line work.

Coloured and completed with background.

Exit to Freedom

As our heroes advance towards the exit to freedom, I also shift closer to my release from animating...

Scenes to Fix

I am nearing the end of animating and since there is still some time left I need to go back and review every shot I have done and decide whether to fix it or not. There are certain shots where fixing is mandatory. Here is one example of a bad shot that I will need to fix later.

Sketched out shot with key frames.

As it is obvious here, I have added too many frames in-between the key frames and thus causing the characters look like they are walking in slow motion. The solution would be to delete the additional break-downs to speed up the animation. I laugh when I see this because it looks like the characters are trying to push through water or an invisible substance is pulling them back.

Almost...There...

Just a little further to go...Maybe a week or two? I still need to go back and fix some older animations.

Sketch

Line art

Finished shot

More GIFs

Rough sketch: Farahilde jumping down to help Klaus

Completed

Boosting Klaus up

Shock

Lined

Finished shot

Guard comes running after them

He shoots at Farahilde

Coloured shot

WIP: Half Way Point

I think I am finally at the half way of my animation. I don't mean to bombard this blog with all my animation WIP, but it's all I have so far. Also it is a way of documenting my progress, and will help me with my Exegesis after.

I changed the story a bit more. Here is a new animatic with a few completed shots of the motion comic.

A few points to support my decision of changing the story this way.

- It is more realistic for Farahilde to distrust Klaus at first. They are strangers to each other and therefore makes more sense for her to act cold towards him in the beginning.
-This then justifies her change of attitude towards him. After he helps her, she realizes that Klaus is not merely a burden for her.

The old story flips this around where she goes from trust to distrust, a bit harder to relate to and not as convincing emotionally.

The moral of the new story also makes perfect sense: help others when they are in need and they may repay you back. In terms of this story, if Farahilde had decided not to help Klaus out of his cell, she would not have made it out on her own.

WIP Art Dump

Here are more gifs from my motion comic. I'm sorry about the recent inactivity, my internet is down.

Turn Around WIP

Again, starting with rough sketches I make sure the animation looks right at this stage. I first plan on paper then draw in the key frames, followed by the passing poses, the extremes, then in-betweens.

After the animation looks good, I line every frame in with a small black brush; I always have a reference layer at the bottom when doing this so the character's size and volume is constant throughout the animation.

I then colour every frame in. A friend taught me a faster way of colouring by adjusting the settings of the paint bucket tool in Photoshop and it saved me a lot of time. Before I was using the brush tool and colouring every frame stroke by stroke, now I can finish one large area with a few clicks.

Steampunk Animals

I drew some animals in steampunk attire. I like animals and I like steampunk.

Dr. Chinnychilly (Chinchilla)

He is a zoologists and a workaholic. His memory and physicality is deteriorating due to old age. To compensate for that he needs to wear a memory shocker on his head to help him remember things and hold up his glasses. He also carries the most advanced and light-weight coffee maker on his back at all times. But he keeps forgetting to bring his coffee cup. 

Lady Elena Shrewd (Elephant Shrew)

She is the widow of the late Duke Francis Tarsiel. After the death of her husband she inherited all his possessions and also took up his love for adventure- an interest that she previously loathed. Now she is running a large industrial company specializing in aviation transport.

Prof. Quakadoodle (Mandarin duck)

He is an avid researcher of electricity. He believes it is some sort gift sent by God to humans to create a better future. He even invented several gadgets including the electric toilet that grades your excrement by weight and a electric backpack that would keep your lunch warm. Lately, he has been struggling to get further funding from his sponsors.

Duke Francis Tarsiel (Tarsier)

He is not staring into your soul, it just runs through his family. He loves adventure and flying. He made a steam powered jet pack once which lead to his tragic death. The jet pack was successful but the Duke got distracted by his wife yelling at him and he crashed into the clock tower. 

Final Treatment

Farahilde is picking the lock to her cell door. She manages to open it and she escapes. While running down the corridor of empty cells, she notices a boy in one of them. The boy sees her too, and beckons her to help him out. Farahilde hesitates. She turns and is ready to leave the boy, but turns back to help the boy. She opens the cell door with a hairpin. The boy walks out and reaches out his hand to Farahilde as a form of thank you. She ignores him and hurries along herself. The boy scurries along behind her. They come up to a tunnel rather high in the wall. Farahilde climbs up first, disregarding the boy; who is not strong enough to climb up himself. As Farahilde is about to walk away, she hears the boy calling her. She gets rather annoyed, but jumps back down to help him. After she boosts him up, the boy spots a guard coming after them in pursuit. The guard begins firing his rifle at Farahilde. She quickly runs and hides behind a wall, avoiding the shots. As she looks up at the tunnel, she sees the boy backing down. She grimaces in frustration, but the boy appears again with rocks in his hands. The boy uses the rocks to distract the guard, giving Farahilde an opening to strike. She pulls out the scalpel in her hair and stabs the guard’s neck. She finally climbs up the tunnel and gives the boy a smile of approval. They then finally find the exit. Farahilde walks up to the door and opens the door. But she steps aside and offers to let the boy pass through first. The boy smiles and go out, followed by Farahilde.

Theme of this story: You help yourself by helping others.

Moral of this story: Farahailde would not have escaped successfully if she had not decided to help the boy.

Character development: Farahilde is at first annoyed at the boy for tagging along. She is even unwilling to help him in the beginning. However, after she realizes the boy is not all a drag, she is glad she helped him. Her attitude towards him changes from nonchalant to rather caring. It is seen in the first two situations that Farahilde only begrudgingly helps the boy. She unlocks his cell because her conscience made her feel obliged; and she is irritated that she has to go back down the tunnel to help the boy. She is angry when she thought he left her on her own. Her character is quite selfish in the beginning. But in the end when they reach the tunnel, Farahilde becomes a bit more altruistic, and lets the boy exit the door first.

I feel like this story is much more convincing in terms of characters and their motivation. The protagonist is strong but not perfect. I think this character is more relatable. I also got rid of one of the guards, as it would be a pain to animate two of them; there is no reason to have two guards anyway. The new story establishes the characters better and creates a more in-depth development. Hopefully my lecturer feels the same way.

Here the frames in Klaus' running animation.