RE-DRAW: Calligraphy Brush

 So for experimentation I re-did my original thumbnail for this shot in ROADTRIP, and then cleaned it up with the calligraphy brush (budget style).

Original thumbnail: 

Re-drew using the calligraphy Brush. Clearer (Yes I think so...the smoothing intuit brush, forces you to draw with more commitment).

Clean up (still very loose/rough)

I then compared it to the original : 

So I think it could result in a faster boarding style (which is great in tv animation, it could also end up more dynamic). Only time will tell if I will incorporate this or not though :P)

STORYBOARD PRO: Calligraphy Brush

 I was looking at some rough storyboards by Alessandra Sorrentino and wanted to try and mimic a sort of brush that is similar to what she uses. I don't quite think I have it figured out :P But always good to think about finding new ways to shake up your process. Here was my effort at replicating it:

This is the level of detail in the first pass she showed, still very minimal line mileage but very expressive. I may try and match it in a test sequence.

As far as I can make it there is some slight transparency on the brush, so it needs to be a textured brush, so I edited one from a standard round brush.

and a couple of sketches of Bixie

ROADTRIP - Chapter 1 - Finished

 So I added some voices and audio and tweaked a couple of things to match, here's the final version.

I largely consider this a failure..who knows, maybe I'll warm to it later. But it's important to see things through they say, so at last I get a star for that! :P

ROADTRIP : ANIMATIC WIP - NO AUDIO

First pass on chapter 1. It's quite interesting since I originally came up with this as a comic book..just how much story I could get through in a comic vs as an animated sequence. I'm even more convinced now of the power of comics as a pitch to get ideas out quickly. And they can be great sources for adaption in the future.

FAKE PRODUCTION CREDITS

So fake production credits going to "DEADBEAT PRODUCTIONS":

And personally I feel this should be on every product created without the use of AI:

ONE PIECE: SCENE STUDY

 I love the economy of how they direct scenes in anime, always cutting corners, but it never confuses the storytelling. In this sequence, the 180 rule gets broken, at the start Nami is SCREEN LEFT and we'll flip late in the scene.

I just love the storytelling details, the paw print design on the door, and the closed door sign say so much without dialogue. The little dog is guarding a petshop, that's now closed because his owner passed away.

So the Mayor character is SCREEN RIGHT, he walks off to feed the dog.

But instead of seeing him prepare the dogfood...which is a lot of animation for something unimportant, we get treated to this nice Dogshop sign while he delivers some more dialogue. 

And then simple just puts the dog bowl in front, still keeping SCREEN RIGHT.

So the shot below is kind of interesting because we see him walk off to the RIGHT

But all of a sudden he's going to the left here. usually that would be a big no. But because it's done it's such a tight framing, they get away with it. Importantly, he came into the shot from SCREEN RIGHT, so he is where we expect him to be. Now we know he's to the LEFT (we changed screen direction in our head).

So in the next shot, they zoom out slowly and he comes in SCREEN LEFT (where we expect him to be).

And now they establish everybody's new position to each other in a. wide.

BIXIE: Character Design

 I'm still not 100% with this character, I may just need to figure it out as I board :P

MILK: Character Design

 I had kind of forgotten how to draw this character, so went back to the old drawings to redraw his design. I found the original drawing of him, which is quite different, not sure if I like it better or not. Either way, he's quite a quirky, fun character.

BONUS: The Guinea Pig skeleton from the opening :

Drawing cars : Plymouth Fury

I ...don't know how to draw cars! Who does right? :D See like a sucker I used to work from 1 or 2 images and try to work out what the car looks like from different angles....but now...we have SketchFab! I've mentioned it before, and I really love this easy access resource, I am sharing it again:

Since I have to draw a car in my stiory project, it comes in super handy to have a reference handy !

https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/plymouth-fury-1958-christine-draft-941b53251e0143eb811ce82ac6dfe581 

You can turn the model in the browser, so no need to download anything! How great is that! I would still always say to be careful when using reference, because you can easily get too realistic and use the gestural energy that should be in a board. Usually I draw a few angles "to study" the shape (like above). And then I'll draw it from memory.

ONE PIECE: SCENE STUDY

 To be honest, I didn't plan on dong a study, but I was watching one piece and I just love the character designs. But it also made me realise, what I love about Japanese animation is that they use camera to make their stories interesting, instead of acting/motion. It's quite limited, so they are usually more creative as a result.

I also wanted to just draw in line art, no shading! In storyboarding our time is precious, so I want to learn to draw with as little effort as possible :P I also didn't draw any roughs, what you see is what you get.

So when you look at the sequence above, it looks really interesting, even without any movement.