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.

Another Few WIP

So here are more of what I do. Animating like there is no tomorrow. Also juggling other assignments and internship work. I re-wrote a treatment which I will post tomorrow. Hopefully everything is in place this time. I am also almost finished with my side project. Updates will be up later.

A Finished Shot

So here I have a completed shot of the motion comic I have made. I am not sure yet whether or not to let the panels slide in the frame or just have them being highlighted or dimmed. Which one is more effective? I personally like the one that slides in, but it is more time consuming to make and watch.

Animation Update

So here are more animation frames I did. As you can see it's at the point where the two main characters finally meet for the first time (sort of). Notice that in the lined artwork I have added a bit more exaggeration in Klaus' reaction to create a better read emotion. Spiky hair is so hard to keep track of...why have I chose this design?

Rough sketches

Lined artwork

Completed sequence

Farahilde Escape: Re-do

So I finally got around to re-do this scene. And honestly, it does look better; I think. Well, the weight transfer in the character looks a bit more convincing than the first. I still didn't shoot a reference footage because I (again) was rushing... I know it's really not a good idea, but there is a lot of shots to go through so I'm doing the best I can.

Rough sketch animation

Lined

Completed animation

Old version in comparison

The newer sequence is more consistant in terms of the shoulders, hips and legs. Farahilde also turns her head to face the direction where she is running on screen. She also takes a bigger stride out of the cell in the newer one. I'm glad I was able to improve on this shot. Now on to the next scene!

Comic Update

I did more of the comic! Here are pages 4-6.

p4

p5

p6

Klaus Run Cycle

I am back in full time working mode and here's a run cycle of the male protagonist, Klaus. I have changed his name to Klaus because it is of German origin rather than Hebrew (the origin of Zion). And the meaning of this name is victory of the people. I find this quite appropriate as the two protagonist represent the people fighting back. Also, the origin of Farahilde's name is also German, and it means travel or battle. I chose these names specifically so that they suit the characters.

Rough animation. 

Line art

Completed with colour