With the official beginning of the Oddball series, I decided to have some fan interaction in the form of a competition. Oddball features a race of mechanical clock beings called Timekeepers, the aim of the comptetition was to design one of these for a background role.
To judge the competition I got the help of two classmates, Jack and Emma. The results of the competition can be found here
The entries and ideas in this competition really showed that through my streams and limited information, the fans have gained a very strong understanding of the Oddball world, even before the actual story unfolds. All in all I really enjoyed this chance to interact more with people and get a better understanding of how well I establish my ideas through limited information!
After the contest I then had a go at creating a different style of Timekeeper. The canon ones will be more steampunk influenced and use traditional grim reaper scythes, but to test out my drawing skills, I created a futuristic, gun wielding character, shown below:
In my time as an animator (5 years this year on the internet) I've started to get some attention and even amassed a small fanbase. While I'm at University I want to make sure that I keep up with my personal work so that I don't lose this following. For the past 2 years I've had a series on the shelf called Oddball. I've been waiting for the point when I feel my animation is good enough to throw at an ongoing series, and it's finally begun. The 4 episodes from the past (each radically different from the last) have all gone down well, and a lot of people were already sending in fan art and feedback.
Around my 20th birthday, I finally decided it was time to give it my all.
Starting with a series of Livestream videos that my Deviant Art fans could attend, I revealed the official "origins" of Oddball would be explained. This was received well as people were generally excited and full of questions in the streams.
Here is some sped up footage of the actual live animation process, hopefully the dedication to my own work as well as class work will show, as these streams often went for 10 hours or more, well into the morning:
As the episode went along and got more complex, Flash was having trouble coping with the file size of a 7 minute video, so I came to the decision to split it into chapters, and to my luck, fans agreed.
After two months of balancing with my University work, I managed to release Oddball chapter 1 on April 27th:
Due to the episode being split, I was worried that the 56 second prologue may be too short and disinteresting, however the viewers responded extremely well and I've yet to receive negative feedback.
I also managed to complete the second chapter relatively quickly, shown above. Below is the teaser "poster" I used to promote it on my Deviant Art page. The third chapter is currently undergoing some re-writing, but should be out in the holidays.
I can only hope now that this summer break brings a great start to Oddball!
I'm gonna put money down on the thought that most of you are aware of the existence of bronies, but for the sake of examiners and such, I'm going to sum this up quickly in the most honest and hopefully comedic way possible.
"I am a 20 year old male. I watch My Little Pony."
What I once thought was just a joke across the internet had finally piqued my curiosity. After seeing countless parodies and references in animations on sites such as Newgrounds, I finally decided to give in and watch the first two episodes. Boy, was I missing out.
Now, I'm not going to go into the obvious fanboying right now, but what I will say is this, I'm learning from it.
Stereotypes and judgement aside, the show is really well animated, and I am indeed picking up tips from it. In fact the animation is so appreciated that someone has taken the time to make videos analysing and breaking down clips:
To return to my own practice, I feel as if I've been neglecting this style of animation with my recent push towards full frame by frame Flash animation. As a throw back towards this style, I decided to follow some of these tutorials to make a short clip in the same style, which is linked here
It's a given that it's not show quality, but the important part is that I now know how to pick up tips from what I watch and learn as well as being entertained!
Well, it's certainly been some time since I updated here!
I'd love to use the excuse that I've had nothing to write about, but frankly, I forgot this thing even existed up until recently.
As the end of my first University year draws to a close, I'm really starting to reflect on how my working practices have changed and improved over the past few months. At current, I can't think of ANY negatives, my speed has increased, I'm more motivated than ever, and my understanding and practice of animation has skyrocketed to an all time high.
As some indication, before University it would take me about 2 months, on and off to make a minute and a half animation. In the past 3 weeks I've written, casted, storyboarded and animated a full 3 minute animation for class, as well as releasing the start of my own personal series, Oddball, which I'll go more into in another post.
The purpose of this entry however, is to say that I'm going to be tracking my activity this week to see just how much time I spend on what. I'm going to be 100% honest with what I post, if I take the day off this big rush to watch cartoons, you'll see it.
Without further ado, here's the first day!
As a Pokemon fan, I recently watched the latest movie, Victini and Reshiram. When I was watching this I noticed some new techniques that have been introduced in the newer episodes and I was impressed by how they worked. The show now seamlessly blends 2D and 3D elements together to create an interesting style. The 3D effects are usually limited to the backgrounds and can really make a scene visually impressive compared to standard cel backgrounds.
Below are some screenshot examples from the movie:
Despite what I said about backgrounds, I managed to actually find some characters that were animated in 3D too. Unfortunately due to lack of footage on the internet I can't show the actual movement. The gears in the background are actually spinning 3D models that fly around the screen, which is an interesting contrast to the rest of the environment and the 2D man standing in front of them, while still fitting in with the established art style.
The music machine in this shot is also a 3D model, the top unfolds and the horns squash and stretch. I find the effect interesting that more digital techniques can be applied to cel animation and go hand in hand to enhance the look of the cartoon. I've seen this tried in cartoons before, for example Invader Zim, but I often dislike it thinking it looks tacky when used in a full cartoon environment. This is the first time I've actually liked the look.
Aside from just 3D, I noticed a lot more digital enhancement in the movie. In this shot, Ash is playing around in the water. The thing I found interesting is that the water ripples as he moved around and interacts with it and there is a seamless transition between 2D and 3D when he splashes. As the water leaves the pond, it goes 2D as seen in this screenshot, any water that splashes back into it is then transferred back to digital for the resulting ripple effect.
I think the main reason this movie manages to pull off the 2D/3D transitions is because the backgrounds are made to look more realistic rather than being flat, cartoony colours. My own work has already started to get more realistic backgrounds and if the opportunity comes, I would really like to try enhancing my 2D work with some other programs such as After Effects to see the results!
