major project 17

time for some radical re-thinking and editing if im going to have something to hand in on time.
the flash animating is just taking too long some im going to glue together what ive done in a new composition

not what I wanted but im just out if time and ive still got some P,P to do. really regretting changing my project a month in, if I had that time I could be finished by now

major project 16

I think i may have underestimated just how long this animation is going to take, this is about two seconds of film and it took me a day to get the frames right

th

major project 15

god it takes ages to get animations to look right

         

major project 14

time is running out now so im starting to feel the panic.
animated all the cutouts but it took way longer than I would have liked

all the gifs are too big for here so ill have to upload them as movies to youtube

major project 13

today has been a very tedious day of going around my character sheets, cutting out, and separating each part out into a different layer ready for export into after effects. with that and the general sprucing up of the colours and fixing any errors in the ink finish, today has just been a lot of busy work.

Major Project 12

you have no idea how long this took to figure out.
firs I had to figure out how to make a page move in a stop frame animation, easy enough

then I had to figure out how to import a gif so it played in another animation, this presented a problem, although everything played fine in the flash preview renders, as soon as I exported the files the gif stopped playing.

after an entire bloody day of looking up online articles and experimenting I finally got it to work, you need to first import the gif into a symbol, but it has to be a graphic symbol not a movie symbol. It makes no sense what so ever but at least that stress is now over

seriously, go to hell Flash

Major Project 11

GIF tests

Major project 10

rest of the character sheets

Major project 9

Finished the first character sheet today, loving these new inks, very nice crisp colours, don't have to be too careful about staying in the lines as they will all be digitally cut out anyway. 

Major project 8

a little more about the technical aspects of the animation.
there are 3 distinctive styles taking place in my sequence, the first is the book itself, the motion of the pages as they turn, this will have to be done last due to the need of the first and last frames of the other animations to be manipulated in photoshop.
the second is the flash animation of the creatures in motion, and the third and final is the medieval style scenes.

there are so many ways I could animate the pages turning, a few effects in FX and after effects amongst others, rotoscoping film, using 3d models, but for the traditional look i want for the animation I will be using the good old fashioned frame by frame approach. i've chosen this way because I belive it gives me full control over every micro-detail of the animation, and although time consuming it is again, in my opinion, the most fitting way to get the feel I want from the final product.
that isnt to say I havent looked at the other ways of doing things, in fact some if the resources have been very helpful in planning out the frames.
a few noteworthy resources:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTOEM8bKx_Y
• http://www.photoshop-plus.co.uk/learn-how-to-create-an-open-book-in-photoshop/
• http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/javascript/archive/flashhacks.html
• http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/cool/openbook.html

as to the animal flash motions, the greatest resource ive found is the gigantic reservoir of videos of them on youtube and streaming sites (david attenborough has played no small part in providing them). but also I found this wonderful database of animation tutorials, including many animals movements broken down and explained, this was of particular help for the Leviathan. pinterest boards are also great for getting a multitude of images of animals to study.

• http://www.cloverdesain.com/art-design/how-to-draw-animals-dolphins-whales-and-porpoises/

another good gif of animal motion was this one:

for the medieval styled animated section I have been looking at old Diorama theaters like this one

this is because i'll be doing essentially the same process but in after effects and how their puppets are rigged. i've also been looking at retro computer games like mario and sonic because they use a technique called parallax scrolling to give the illusion of depth with the motion, this will be most useful with the animation of the sea in two of the pages.

for an animation about mythical creatures, ive sure learnt a hell of a lot about how real world animals move. reminds me of that saying about how everything in fantasy has its basis in reality.