Here's a still from the finished animation. Not much to see here - just Big S in the sled. This one was more of a technical exercise. No real opportunity to do any animation other than what's needed to progress the story. It does the job.

Finished Space BG

Here's the finished BG for the takeoff into space. I kept the smoke - and the shot cuts happen so quickly that any continuity issues hardly matter (thanks again for the support to leave that in). I wish there was enough time to pan up slower, I like how it turned out. I have animation for the smoke rising, some twinkling stars, and rotation of the bright alien planet.

The character animation for this one shouldn't take too long - It's just the reindeer and sleigh in (mostly) silhouette.

SPRINGTIME WALK

This is an animation still from a scene completed December 12, 2004. The little boy is taking the Alien out for a walk (or I suppose in this case a "hover"). This was a fun scene to do - and it is one of the first scenes that showcases the joyous relationship between the characters. There is some faked dimensionality with the sidewalk and homes as they walk towards the foreground. All 3-D effects are created with 2-D techniques. Have a good Thanksgiving everyone, I'll be posting next week after I return from a Canadian holiday!

Off the wagon a little this week with family and other things - but here is the thumbnail of the current BG. This is a long pan up into space, originating from the North Pole. These big camera moves end up being very taxing to paint since the end resolution for the screen is 1920x1080. At some point the computer always gets boggy - even doing simple things. Anyway, this one is well along and I hope to finish soon. Just trying to determine what should an overlay to build the dimensionality. I also have a question on the subject of continuity. There is chimney smoke in this scene that I must have drawn to enhance the layout. Seemed like a nice element - drifting upwards as we pan up. Problem is I didn't have a Chimney or smoke in any of the other BGs. I don't mind some continuity problems, but what do you think about this one? If anyone has an opinion, i'm happy to hear.

FISH ON THE BRAIN

This is my departure from AFC this week. This image stuck in my head recently so I decided to jot it down - and try another loose paint approach. I think the robot may be trying to convince his "customer" to relocate into his nice, spacious cranium. It looks like some kind of deal is being made - like a car salesman for fish.

Santa's Takeoff - Animation
Finally finished this one. Here are a couple frames from the animation. I'm contemplating adding a rack focus here - but when I tried it the first time, I removed it - something didn't seem quite right. I'm sure I'll go back and forth a bit more, playing around with the tints and motion blur - and maybe settle on the same decision :)
Jasmin asked how the animation is painted. Some is drawn and scanned, and some is drawn directly in flash off of rough poses or layouts. All the character animation is painted in Flash. The backgrounds are a combination of Photoshop and Painter, with Painter being used only for the things Photoshop doesn't do as well, like the textured canvas and some of the brushes. I'm still using Photoshop 7 - so maybe there are some upgrades that make Painter less necessary.

Giraffe - for another day

Here's something I did a while ago that works with another idea I have. The brain works faster than the hand - so much stuff has to sit waiting for the right time.

EREN BLANQUET has given me a ton of inspiration as of late - I'm so glad to have been introduced to her work (thanks Steve). Check out her interview on the Character Design Blog:

Here is the BG to the scene that I'm animating now. Check out the Nov. 8 post and the Oct 6 post to see other images related to this environment. I was going for a cold look here, and I messed around with the warped perspective on the buildings quite a bit as I worked on this. It's not a complete match to the layout of the building a few scenes prior - but hey, it's a cartoon - and you'll only see this for a few frames. I liked the silhouette of the buildings better this way.

ROCKETBOY

I'd really like to animate in this style someday.

This one's for you Kevin Barber!!!!

Santa takes off - Storyboard

My wife arrived from LA this week - just finished a job out there. I'm so happy she's home!!! So, production has slowed a bit for some quality time... Meanwhile, here is the next scene - I'm working on the background for this right now. Here you see those 8 reindeer I was dreading to animate, but with good ol' Flash - I should be able to turn 1 into 8.

Round Two ---

Here is the Reindeer Barn Interior shot with additional reindeer and some color tweaks. The 2 extra deer make a BIG difference when they all come to attention. Now it feels more like an army than a small crowd. Thanks for all the comments on the previous related post.

THE WEATHERMAN

Did this one today just for fun. No real meaning here - it just came out. Is this some kind of odd trade taking place? Or is it some kind of symbol of Jealousy? Hmmmm. Back to AFC tomorrow!

Reindeer Barn Interior - Animation

This one took a while to finish - you know - Star Wars movie came out on DVD plus a new game to play - it all adds up. Anyway, here's a still from the final animation. The next one's gonna be a killer - Why do there have to be 8 Reindeer ?!?!?!

FROG DISSECTION


Since I posted the animation less than a week ago, it's not too late to show the bare bone beginnings of this short project. I was fairly shocked to see what I originally scribbled - here it is for you to see!

When I heard the sound clip, I roughed out this page. These are the first thoughts captured on paper before I began to flush out anything else. For whatever reason, I decided on frogs. I must have just wanted to draw frogs at the time, but there were some design elements that lent themselves well to Flash animation design and simplicity (such as the thin "stick" arms). There were no other storyboards done - this was enough to go by. You can see some idea of what was to be animated - but everything is much subtler here. One interesting thing to note - I was originally going to place the big frog behind the Therapist frog (Leo). You can see a big rough shape in the first panel. It was going to be more of a surprise, and he would notice that the guy he was talking about was standing behind him the entire time.



Here are the first character designs for the female frog (Katharine). I don't explore too much. You can see that the first and second designs on her are somewhat similar - the second only having tweaks. I gave her a thinner body to contrast the male frog better, and opted for more expressive eyes that could contain some purple eye shadow. The hat was changed much later to a lillypad design. I also considered having these frogs in a crouched leg position - but I threw that idea away when I knew the frogs needed some easier mobility. Standing on 2 legs would also push them closer to the human side.

The Male frog (Leo) was meant to be short and dumpy. His initial sketch didn't change much at all. The eyes were pushed closer together - in the sketch he's a little walleyed. Also, here is a ruff open mouth pose and a quick sketch to help me work out the yell near the end of the dialogue.

Lastly, Here is the design of the big purple frog at the end. I hesitated on the out of focus effect - not wanting to loose the detail of this adorable guy. In the end, I decided the focus should be on Leo, and leave this guy in the distance listening in. I'm not sure if I made the best decision - I would have liked to see more of this fellow.

If you'd like to see more from the pose/animation stage, let me know!