Not going so well =(

I'm up to my lip sync and facial expressions now. I think the whole "challenging myself in flash" thing was a bad idea. I'm pretty sure this is the worst animation I've ever done...I wouldn't even call it an animation at the moment. =( I definitely need to learn more about animating and flash and better ways to set up my characters so that it's easier to animate because I think one of my main problems is that I didn't set my characters up so that they're versatile enough for what I want to do because I'd animate and then I'd get to a part where I can't do what I want because of the way my character is set up. I don't know.

And I think I find the whole limited/cut-out animation thing hard. I prefer hand drawn, frame-by-frame because I can do so much more and put so much more expression into it. It's not so static. But maybe I just need to learn more about Flash and animating in Flash to be able to do this kind of thing.

Anyway, must get back to this last bit. I hope putting the facial expressions and lip sync in would make it look better.

Progress on final project

Ok so my final project is coming along coming along. I have completed all my characters as well as all the backgrounds and I have a pretty final sound mix for my animation (might add some more sounds in it if I think it needs it after I've finished my animation).

I made some changes to my backgrounds that John suggested to keep the continuity of the story. At the beginning there's an establishing shot of the busy, grey city and there willy be a dolly in to Bun walking towards 'Happy Days' the shop where he wants to buy a jar of fresh air. Then to establish the shop and what it is without doing a room pan inside the store, I will have a shot of the shop window which has posters on it advertising the different things the shop sells. Then you hear the door bell as Bun enters the shop, and then this cuts to an establishing shot inside the shop, setting up the two characters and the environment they're in. So to keep the continuity I had to make sure that the shop window was visible in all these shops to keep the flow. I tried my best to fit it into what I had an I think it works pretty well. Not so sure about my perspectives but I've kind of ignored the whole perspective thing as it is flash and one of the flash aesthetics is that perspective is often ignored. =)

Also I had to change the size of my backgrounds from the original by extending it because I'd been using storyboards that were the old size and forgot about the whole 1024x576 thing (can you believe it?!) Haha, it's mainly because I was making the backgrounds bigger than the canvas so I had room for moving and zooming etc.

This is the city establishing shot at the beginning. The two buildings in the foreground will part as I dolly in. There are a few different layers so I can dolly in nicely with the different layers moving at different speeds.

This is the shop window shot. I might just zoom in a slightly on this one. I'm not sure if it's too plain, but I think it gets the idea across and the style of my animation is simple. It sets up the shop and also uses colours from inside the shop which links the two together and also shows the contrast to the city.



This is the original background for the establishing shot between the two characters inside the shop. The characters are in there just to give a sense of space and location. I had to move around the pot plant because it made too much of a wall between the two characters and if the character moved in front of it it could look odd. I also had to extend the framing because it was too square (old school ratio) and I had to work in the shop window for continuity. John suggested putting it right behind the characters in the background but I decided that it would take too much away from the coziness of the shop and it didn't really suit the original shop plan I had in mind. So I decided to put the window behind Bun instead so that you just see part of it. Now the background also has a nicer flow and sense of movement.


This is what I have ended up with after all the changes.

Putting the characters in the background also gave a good indication of whether the characters work with the background. I changed the colours from the original display frame I had, and with this new frame I had to change the colours of Bun a bit so that parts of him didn't get lost in the background.

This was the colouring for my original display frame. It was a bit too drabby and dark for my liking. I wanted the shop to be warm and inviting and hippy, so you can see how it has changed from the original to what I have now.





These images are the basic backgrounds I have developed for the closer shots of the two characters. I used the background from the establishing shot and just tweaked it to fit for these shots. I made them a bit bigger so it gives room for various shots...close and mid, and I can easily adjust it as needed as I animate without worrying about redrawing stuff and spending too much time fixing it. I've made the background slightly blurry too, to give a sense of depth and to give focus to the character.

These are my final character designs. I've just changed Bun's colours a bit since these model sheets (his jacket and shirt) and I need to make his hands less banana like. =)




















Now I am ready to hit the animating!
I know I've probably spent too much time doing backgrounds first as they're not as important but I find it easier to get them pretty much done first so that if the animating takes longer than expected I can just focus on that instead of worrying about then having to do the backgrounds! And if I have slight changes to make to the background to improve them I'll have time to do that at the end.

I have lots of lists to keep me on track with animating this next week. I can do this!

Peace out!