Schedule

Week 1- Create Premise, Rough out character designs, rough draft script
Week 2- Finalized script and character designs; rough out background designs
Week 3- Background designs complete, input into Photoshop. Rough out storyboards.
Week 4- Finalize storyboards and last details on backgrounds. Start roughing out key poses.
Week 5- Animate: rough out key poses.
Week 6- Begin breakdowns. Start looking for sound and/or music.
Week 7- Begin clean up and coloring.
Week 8- Color
Week 9- Finish coloring and being editing the clips together with sounds.
Week 10- Final touches, and present to class.

Class 19

So I've been at this building everyday for the past week/2 weekends, and haven't left earlier than 2 am. Just this past weekend I didn't leave until 4:30 am every day at least. I gave myself Thursday night to recuperate with 11 hours of sleep. Since then, I had 4.5 to 5 two days, and two last night. The only two things I worked on were comic book scripting and Concept. Especially Concept. I have a C in that class and have to get B's on everything in the flatbook in order to get a B in the class. I can't afford to get anymore C's since Winter quarter. I figured I could totally bomb the final in comic book scripting and still keep a B. For this class, however, I have no idea. I currently have an A because I had everything needed for midterms. However, for the final animation, I honestly don't know if I can even get anything done. Since my scripting final is due today, I no longer have to worry about that and can focus on this and Concept. I will try my absolute best to have something decent and complete by Wednesday, but it will be a stretch. I'm going to talk to the Professor to see what I have to do to keep a B. I have an A right now, but one bad grade can easily turn that into a C, so I need to know what I have to accomplish to keep a B, that's the important part. I hate that it comes down to grades, but there isn't much else I can do at the moment to change that.

Update

I am very very very behind. I have maybe a second and a half of animation. I'm going to have to cut out at least 3/4 of what I originally planned, because there is no other way I can finish this. I could pull a whole slew of all nighters and maybe get it done, but I'm not going to do that to myself again. I will get at least 4 hours of sleep a night; I just can't function like that again. My mermaid is okay, but I know I can do better. I probably won't clean it up either. I kind of like the shaky effect. I'll clean it up, but I don't think I'll have time to color much of it, unfortunately. so I'll probably change my backgrounds to match that. Maybe make it look like a kid colored with crayons or something.

Update

Yeah... So here is one of my backgrounds. I might change it. I probably won't though, I'm fairly happy with it. And these being my first digital paintings EVER I think I did a fairly decent job. I also have the close up for when you see the flower next to the rock. I want to add a few more things, to it, but it's mostly finished.

Update

Okay... So I think I've figured out if I animate at least 3.5 hours a day on this project, I can get it done. I spent at least 3 to 4 hours last night figuring out the rest of my quarter, by the hour almost. It's going to be crazy, but I think I can pull it off and stay sane if I follow what I've outlined.

On a complete side note I turned 22 last Thursday. I think that can go down as the best birthday to date; I've never had so many people tell me happy birthday and/or get something for me or do something for me. Beat out the 21st, too (which really wasn't all that hard to do, because not a whole lot happened that time). Anyway, I felt loved. =) Unfortunately, though, it's taken me Friday and Saturday to kind of... Adjust. Which sucks, because I was really expecting to get more done this weekend... Or hoping to at least. Oh well, shit happens, right?

So... Without further ado... On to that massive pile of homework!

Character Turn Arounds

Okay, so here are my turn arounds. I know I don't have the back views. Part of that is because I ran out of space on the page (it's on animation paper), and the other is you aren't really going to see them from the back and it seemed kind of redundant at the time. If I have time I'll make one. I also have some potential facial expressions for the flower. I just drew the center part, though. I think my flower monster looks pretty retarded, but it's the best I could come up with. If I somehow think of a better design before it's due, I'll change it. Anyway, here they. Comments?

Storyboards (Completed)

So I thought I had posted these earlier today, but I guess I didn't. I finally got my scanner working again, so yay! =) I also completed my turn arounds as well. I'll post those as soon as I can. Anyway, here are the boards. The monster looks kinda weird, but oh well.

The reason there's a blank space is because I decided to leave that cut out after I had already drawn the others, and I didn't want to have to redraw those.

Eyes

So I woke up today and my eyes felt like they were on fire... This sudden change to dry weather is killing them, lol. Not to mention the skin around them in very dry, and stings when I put cream on them to try and keep them moisturized... My contacts are also getting harder to wear longer, too. And by the evening, it gets harder for my eyes to focus.

The good news is I have completed my boards! I finished them on Monday. I also have already chosen which scenes to cut incase I run out of time. I'm also almost finished with my character designs and turn arounds as well. My scanner doesn't want to though, it seems so I'll post them as soon as I can. I'm going to try and get the (luckily few) backgrounds completed on Friday as well. So, it's finally coming along. =)

Now back to sleep...

Storyboards

Currently working on drawing storyboards. I'll post them as soon as I scan and complete them.

Script

Okay, here's the script. I think I did this right. Let me clarify, that this isn't a shot list. I combined some of the actions, but this is how I would break it up if it were storyboards. Some of the lengthier ones would probably end up being two separate boards all together, but still in the same shot. If that makes any sense. Anyway... I'm sure some of these could be condensed, and I'm already picking out shots that I can toss aside if I run out of time. So, this is the final product. Now I just have to board it, give turn arounds for the characters and stuff, and make the backgrounds... These next three weeks are going to get rough... >.< Also I kept having problems posting the script in it's tabled format... It's like that in the word document, but I couldn't get it like that one here.

Sound Effect	Action
Some kind of soft music playing in the background	Titles Screen
	Zoom in on Mermaid, laying on a rock
	MS of Mermaid looking up to the left, then down to the right
	Mermaid moves her hand out to boredly inspect her nails
	C/U of Mermaid, sighing heavily and resting her chin back in her hand. Her eyes look down.
	C/U of a Flower at the base of the rock.
	Cut back to the Mermaid, who is now excited at having noticed the flower.
Flower being picked	C/U of Flower as Mermaid reaches down and picks it.
	C/U of the Flower, eyes appearing on its face.
	Flower’s eyes widen in terror as he’s being lifted up by the mermaid.
	Cut back to the Mermaid, who now sitting atop the rock
	Mermaid looks at the pretty Flower
	C/U of Flower, looking nervous
	Mermaid reaches for a petal
	POV of flower. Mermaid’s giant hand, slowing reaching forward.
Yelling	Flower screams and flails
	Mermaid plucks out the petal, tossing it aside
	Mermaid reaches for another petal
	C/U of Flower, two petals together, praying
	Flower opens its eyes just as Mermaid picks out another petal
Yelling	Flower cries out and flails again
	Mermaid tosses that petal aside and reaches for another.
	Flower cries as she picks the third petal.
	Flower’s eyes narrow in anger.
Roar	Cut back to the Mermaid, tossing and reaching for another petal when a loud roar is heard
	Mermaid looks at the Flower, which begins to grow
	Flower becomes a giant, menacing monster
	Mermaid stares in horror
Roar	Flower roars, blowing back Mermaid’s hair.
Snarling	C/U of Flower monster looming closer
Snarling	C/U of shadow passing over Mermaid, who’s cowering in terror
Growling, Screaming	Flower monster’s jaws open wide, Mermaid screams
	Cut to Flower monster with Mermaid’s tail sticking out of its mouth
Slurping noise	Flower monster sucks in the tail
Belch	Flower monster belches out seashell bra

Tentative Storyboards

I also sketched out some tentative storyboards. I'm not sure if I going to keep this exact thing... I'm sure things will change once I start animating them. They always do. Anyway, here's what I have so far. Any comments? Or suggestions for that matter... Anything is welcome, because I'm still trying to work it all out myself here.

Character Concepts

Okay, so I've spent some time trying to come up with some character designs... I don't have any turn arounds yet, however... I think I might do that after the boards... Which seems backwards, but oh well.

Oh yeah, and before you say anything, YES I know her hair looks like Ariel's. Why? I made a character a while back and randomly sketched her hair and it came out like Ariel's, except more rounded... So I kept it. Sooooooo... I decided to use it again. It won't be red, however. Maybe blonde or black. I could sweep it the other way, but this works better with the natural direction I draw in. Also... I figured, why not? Make it a parody if you really want to think about it that way. *shrug*

I felt this first one was waaaaaaaaay too complicated...

So I tried sketching some more...
I particularly liked the one on this page up in the right hand corner.
Tried making a full body one with the face and everything.

Thinking of posing more in terms of the scene in the animation...
Tried breaking it up into simple shapes and then seeing if that could be easily duplicated...
Unfortunately... I realized there was a slight similarity to Skydoll... Completely unintentional since I've only seen a few pictures...
Tried a turn around... I might go ahead and use this one, actually... Put it on non-lined paper, of course, and refine it.

So yeah... Any suggestions or ideas? Critiques?

Mermaid Story

Okay, so I think I'm going to stick with the lame mermaid story, because that's the best I can come up with for now. It's easy enough to write out, I just need to make the character designs simple and I should be fine. I hope... I'm hoping I can keep it to 30 to 40 seconds long. I plan on making a schedule up as soon as possible so I can get this all figured out. I'm not sure how well I'll stick to it, though... Any schedule I've ever made, I've never stuck to... Nor am I really good at estimating about how long it'll take to do something, because you can never factor in how many mistakes or screws up you're going to make or that're going to happen. Anyway, I probably won't really be able to get started until this weekend. I'm going to try to get my script up as soon as possible, since that shouldn't be too difficult to type up.

For some reason getting up at 8 am is really hard this year... School is really hard in general to get motivated for. I'm not really sure why... Like, by now, I would have already had my schedule lined up for next quarter, since I register tomorrow, but I don't... Maybe it's because "senioritis" didn't hit me in high school so it decides to get me when I really matters. Go figure. Well, regardless, I've really got to get in gear. These next couple weeks are going to be fairly rough once it gets started. It was funny, yesterday, in concept when he told us in the next three weeks we had to have full character turn arounds, complete layout designs, color choices, etc. everyone's eyes were wide and they were like, "Holy crap..." and I'm sitting there thinking... Yeah, it's going to suck, but I've been through worse so I know I can get through it just fine. I've had to have twice as much as that done in 3 weeks, so I know it can be done. Just need to keep that attitude and I should be fine. =)

Story Concept (Premise)

Okay, so here's my attempt at a story on the fly. It's just one idea for now.

A Mermaid is sitting on a rock under the sea. She notices a pretty undersea flower, and being in a happy mood, she picks it. The flower immediately wakes up and looks slightly annoyed at the mermaid having picked him/woken him up. Humming to herself nonchalantly, the mermaid starts picking petals off one by one. The flower starts to get angry. Suddenly the flower grows huge and menacing, roars at the mermaid, and eats her in one gulp. Bubbles float around and then the flower burps out the mermaid's seashell bra and grins sheepishly. The End.


I think it'd be kind of fun to do. I don't know where it came from, but that was conceived in about 5 minutes, lol. Not bad for me.

Story...

So, unfortunately I still don't have a story for this class... I'm working on it... I'll have it by next week for sure (I kind of have to if I don't want to kill myself by the end of the quarter). I need to look at what's up on blackboard for ideas and stuff. I've been spending most of my time for this class on the tutorials... I know this is going to come back and bite me in the ass, but if I try my best to keep it at 30 seconds max, I don't think it should be too taxing. I'm still trying to get the hang of doing anticipation and follow through in Flash... I'm still not quite sure how to get that to work properly, and the Ease-In/Ease-Out sliders are kind of confusing as well. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it by the end of the quarter. At least I get symbols now! =)

Revised Lip Sync!

Muahahahahahaha! Behold! The Masterpiece! ... ... ... ... ... ... Well, I was proud of myself. Anyway, I really like how it came out. =) Hope you do, too!

Walk Cycle Tutorial

Okay, this should have been first, but whatever. Here's the walk cycle.

Lip Sync Tutorial

Holy shit, this was a pain in the ass... I didn't even use the symbol swapping thing, I don't think... It took me at least 3 hours to figure out how to do this damn thing, but once I got started it was easy. Sooooooooooo... You gotta love Red vs. Blue. =) I just focused on the lips for this... There's no other emotions in it, because I was pressed for time and didn't know how much I could get done in the time I had. I'll probably redo this with the facial movements and the other character (Church), because I love this scene so much. Anyway, enjoy!

Trip to the Southwest?

I am still lacking in complete ideas, sadly... But I threw out what I had, as coherently as I could given I haven't slept yet... Anyway, I had thought of doing Agua Fria Freddie for my senior project... When I gave in and decided to do Zombie Giraffe instead, Freddie got allocated to Digital Cel. One night I was talking to my dad, and he started talking about different types of cactus. It never really occured to me how many different crazy varities there are (cow's tongue, dinner plate, jumping choya, wine glass, prickly bear, teddy bear, etc), so I thought about maybe making the cacti characters. Jose suggested combining the snake and the cactus... For example, maybe the rattle snake is trying to intimidate the cactus, but the cactus sticks him with spines, and then a whole bunch of rattle snakes converage on the cactus, making a racket with their rattles. Kyle figured just stick with the southwest theme; he figured I could get some good camera shots, backgrounds, and characters out of it. Not to mention a cactus would be a stationary character, which would be amazing...

Anyway, it gave a few ideas... Most of which I probably won't expand on until the weekend... At least until I get some sleep...

Progress

Okay, time for a progress report!

Tutorial 1: Bouncing Ball
I have both of these completed.

Tutorial 2: Jump!
I have the little clown/jack-in-the-box guy jumping, but I still have to create my own character and make it jump.

Tutorial 3: Rotoscope
I did the naked dude, complete with adjusted frames. I still have to choose my own footage and rotoscope that.

Tutorial 4: Walk Cycle
Yeah... Well, first I drew this relatively complicated character... A proportionate human girl. Yeah, screw that... I decided (at the suggestion of a friend) to make her a miniature version, which has turned out for the better. However, all the multiple parts make it difficult to keep track of... Doing a multi-jointed walk cycle is a little more confusing than actually drawing one... I think I was just starting to get the general idea of how it flowed about 7:30 am. Yay, all nighter number 2 completed!

Tutorial 5: Lip Sync
This one I have yet to start... It's on the agenda for this weekend.


So... As far as the tutorials go, I'm behind, but not as behind as I thought I'd be. As far as the overall project... Yeah, I still don't know what I want to do. And I'll admit I haven't given it as much thought as I should have, but I figured the tutorials were a more pressing matter at the moment. So that means I need to have this stuff together by next week if I want to keep my sanity toward the end of the quarter. Go figure.

Anyway, I think after class I'll take a nap before my comic book scripting class. I'd skip, but I don't think it's that big of an issue. It's almost the end of the week; I can make it to Thursday with only a couple hours of sleep. I've had worse... It just takes a while to get back into this routine again. So yeah... Busy, busy weekend ahead!