A Test in Flash

Neil and I are worried about getting the animation done in time. With this in mind we decided to try Flash to see if it would be easier to animate and save time. The original idea that we had was to line test taditionally but not only line test, ink over it, take to illustrator, live trace then take it to flash to colour. However since we only have 5 weeks, that process would take too long so we decided to do everything on flash. I've uploaded a video to do a test, we're just messing about with the basics. However if we get to good grips with this, then we will use that to get the animation done. Neil is doing a test himself so I'll see how that gets on.

A Message from The Big Man!

Hi, I hear there is some confusion over the audience animation. For the wide shot of the audience I just need a single 3/4 view of the characters facing left. For the shot from the back of the audience I just need of the characters from the back. The close up shot of the audience is the one you need to animate to.

Their are six different emotions.

1. Clapping the prof.
2. Laughing at the prof goof
3. Nervous at the prof selecting a member of the audience.
4. OOOOing and Ahhing at the Prof
5. Shocked at the prof
6. Worried at the prof

Animations need to be no more than a second long each, filmed on twos so that's twelve drawings. Also the animations should be repeating, i.e. they end where they start. Hope that helps. All the best. Daryl

Rough Storyboard Ideas

Hello there! Here are some rough story board ideas for our short...emphasis on the ROUGH part. It starts off with blot sliding onto stage. He approaches the turning dial and begins to spin it. Blot then zooms to the other end of the stage and pulls out three knives. Blot throws the knives, He the proceeds to speed past them and jump on the board and miss all of the oncoming knives. Blot then leaps off the board and poses for the crowd. Blot the shows a box, and then pulls out a saw (which I am thinking of changing to an axe). He hops into the box and cuts himself in half. When he leaps out of the box, he has been split into two halves. Blot is shocked and then squeezes out another set of legs. Blot then glances over to his old set of legs which begin to grow a top half, thus giving life to Durg, Blot's idiotic counterpart. Blot is shock as a exclamation point appears over his head. Durg steps forward and falls flat on his face which causes the audience to laugh. Blot is filled with jealousy that Durg is stealing the show. Blot grabs the exclamation point over his head,and clubs Durg with it.

Yeah the endings a bit week so I have to figure out what should happen instead.

A llittle tweaking!

Hey all, here's a little design for the story that Neil and I are coming up with. Here we have my design for the main character, who I have kept relatively close to the hillbilly duck design except now he is a little more classy. Gone are his buck teeth and dungarees, hello to handsome smile and showman's bow tie. I also decided to dabble with Neil's design for the ugly duck. I have kept in mind that we will have to hand animate this. Knowing this I simplified Neil's design as I thought it was a little too complicated to draw (we will have to draw these guys like 900 times). I also decided to test out some names, Blot is the showman and Durg is the ugly duck. Let me know what you think of the names. We need to go full steam ahead with storyboards soon!

Last of the audience.

Hello, this is the last leg of my audience designs. Daryl told Neil and I to design ten and then pick five or six from them. The first character that I designed was a red headed creature that I imagine would be of some relation to the professor, which is why I coloured him yellow. The second character was a pigeon, however I didn't want to colour him grey because I thought it would be too dull so I decided to colour him peach. I also decided to make him a professor fan boy, hence the t-shirt...I like the pigeon. For the next design I decided that the audience needed a bit of ethnicity so I decided to draw a dude with a fro. I didn't want to colour him in a human like skin tone so I decided to take a 'skeeter' approach and colour him green. Finally for my last character I chose to create some sort of turtle. I had already coloured my Afro dude green, so I decided to go against traditional turtle colours and went with a blue. Overall I quite like most of the designs, some are weaker than others, so I'll doubt they'll make the cut. Now I have to think about the Lewis/Neil movie.

URGENT MESSAGE FOR NEIL!

Neil, we only have six weeks to do this, so we need to have all the character designs done by Tuesday, so we can start animating the audience on Wednesday. We need to get the audience done as soon as possible, so we can give it time to learn toon boom and give it to Daryl. Then we need to get started on animating our Duck Movie!!!!!!

The Plot

For our film, Neil and I have decided to have the audience observing a one man show, starring the cousin of my duck character. The duck will be trying to do tricks that take two people to do, by himself. After sawing himself in half he splits into two ducks, one is a dopey version of himself.

I don't know if Neil is cool with this, but I thought it would be funny if the dopey duck starts ruining the acts and stealing the show, so the other duck tries to do away with him. Let me know what you think!

HuuuH?

I don't know why that happened but one of my pictures uploaded as a negative. URGGGGH! :(

Wacky Audience Characters Ahoy!

I'MMMM BAAACK! For this project I will be helping out with the animated short "Insane Science Seeking With The Professor", alongside my partner in crime Neil (he is my Robin). For this animated short, Neil and I will be designing and animating audience members, who will gasp, applaud, and do many others things. However, this is not all. The audience that we will be animating will also be featured in mine and Neil's new short...which has no name yet. Anyway here are some designs for the audience. Daryl told me to be wacky and that these characters do not have to resemble any sort of creature at all. With that in mind I drew a boy with a fedora for a head, a blue slob, an old bogey man, a hillbilly duck, a stuck up eel and a new yorker baked bean. I don't like the old man so I don't think I'll use him in the audience. There's more to come...