Project Drago, pt. 1 (probably)

It's looking like I won't be finishing this thing until after winter break. I was planning on talking about it when it was done, but what the heck!

Here, have the first page of the storyboard. Yes, he's about to bite the ball in that last square.

I'm cleaning up the first twenty frames right now. If I'm still not done with this a while after school starts up again, I might post the second storyboard page. Stay tuned!

Project Simplify, Cont.

So as I was saying...

This was my first time using a light board, so I wasn't expecting to make anything you could consider "long". I only animated half of what I'd storyboarded, in fact.

I hadn't used After Effects in almost a year, so I got some help from my teacher. (You know, I hope there are programs out there that aren't as confusing to budding animators - it would suck if not being computer-savvy was keeping people from getting their stuff out there.)

Oh, that video? It's... it's nothing important to me at all. I'm totally not saving up for a new bike for it, nope.

And now, without further ado: my very first traditionally-drawn animation!

It's funny - when I saw the finished product, I swelled up with joy. I know it's not even three seconds long, but I just wasn't expecting it to come out so smoothly.

I'm probably just being emotional. Welp, on to the next project!

Project Simplify

Long time no post! I'm pretty tired, so I'll make this one short and sweet.

Before I get to the good news, have some concept art. I'd been mulling over ideas for my first project of the year for a week, but I couldn't think of anything I could actually see myself completing. Then one day, I drew two circles and a line connecting them on a whim. A pair of rectangles for legs, and I was in love.

I was thinking of abandoning the tablet and making something the traditional way - you know, paper and a backlight. To make sure I didn't take up the whole first semester, I wanted the simplest muse possible, so this little circle-ostrich thing was a godsend.

My time's almost up. I'll post more tomorrow!

Walk Cycles and Dinos

So it looks like this'll be my first post in a while and my last post for a while. Let me start with that walk cycle I mentioned last time.

I think it took so long because I felt the need to overcomplicate it. I started with the legs' "bones" in black, then covered them in "red" muscles, and then drew the final "skin" in purple.

After finishing this, I started thinking about starting one last project for the year. This is the last day of school and it's still in the storyboard stage, but I'm glad to have worked with an idea I was confident about.

You might recognize this little guy if you're into a certain Japan-only video game. Yeah, I'm that kind of nerd. Don't worry, I was gonna give credit had I finished. Anyway, I wanted to animate something that took as few strokes of the tablet pen as possible - this egg-shaped baby dino seemed to fit the bill.

The animation was going to consist of him getting bopped on the head with a shoe and proceeding to chew on it. Nothing major, just another test of my skills. Who knows - I might pick it up again next year!

Tablet Practice

    I've been figuring out how to use a tablet in Photoshop. I couldn't draw a straight line when I started, but two months later and I'm working on my first presentable walk cycle!

    This is a little test I finished a few weeks ago - It took a while to make, believe it or not.