Still learning the pen tool

I'm getting the hang of the pen tool now,I've figured out some of the extra features and extra ways to put it to use

Dear Blog,It has been 12 days since my last confession and here are my thoughts

      Ok with the help of one young Louie Ralph I finally managed to record something. My microphone and equipment are pretty awesome,Turns out the problems I've been having for months are all to do with my laptop. When we hooked everything up to Louis mac everything was crystal clear. I think I may have to invest in a sound card and hopefully that will be the last piece of the puzzle and I can finally start being more productive .

Busy

Dear Blog,Its been 16 days since my last confession and here are my thoughts

Been very busy lately with this being my first day off since last Sunday and it's not really a day because I have work from 8 tonight.2 jobs is time consuming but it all saves towards my masters and clearing my overdraft. I'm thinking of new ideas all the time and have written a couple more scripts, For my masters I want to do a 13 short series and hopefully have at least 2 or 3 done before I start next year, Since its all going to be one style with the same characters I think it should be very possible to get it done,If I finish at least 2 or 3 before then I'll have mastered it and that will speed things up as I wont be designing or having to do as many bgs.I need to step the gears,hopefully after Christmas things will get better,I also have 7 other thing I want to make including a private and public sequel

Merthyr Maid Logo

My friend Lee asked me to do a logo for Merthyr Maids.I made some for quick and rough ideas which was only to get the ball rolling but he really liked them and told me to basically just give him that so I tidied it up a little and here it is

Development

Here is just a stage by stage look at something I made yesterday.Still working on the pen tool and learning the best way to use it.Very happy with this drawing,Been paying attention to other artist and what I like about there stuff and trying to take bits and pieces and developing it into my own style.My DBZ influence is still in there,Just cant seem to shake it,must be the hair.I added the abs last minute and I regret it now they look just odd and the colouring I did on them was piss poor.

Stunboy Finished

I haven't coloured in photoshop in a long time and it shows,need to sort this out

StunBoy lineart

My first attempt cleaning my lines with the pen tool, A bit of a failure, I like parts but it's rather sloppy,Finding it hard to get to grips with it, and from the videos of seen of people using the pen tool really fast.....well mine took 6 hours to do these lines....so I'm not very fast. Never the less I'm going to keep at it till I get it down.

The character belongs to a friend of mine from deviant art and this is my interpretation of that character

The Pen Tool

In the middle of my first ever attempt using the pen tool to actually clean the line of a drawing.The pen tool has always confused me and I could only dream of being able to do amazing line work as I've seen produced by others......untill now!!!I have no idea what I'm doing and from speed drawings I've seen of people using the tool I'm doing it completely wrong and making it harder then it needs to be but its a learning process and I'm learning.So far I think its the best line work I've ever done and its for a completely random thing I taught I would do for a friend over on dev art.It's given my drawing a certain harm to it and its a very poorly done use of the pen compared to the experts,but hey I'll get there sooner or later. A lot of work the next few days mostly 12 hour shifts but hopefully ill get this up by wed or thursday

Private/Public/ Bully 1

I asked Mike to do a design for me and he did a couple.Here is one of 2 I am going to use,I pretty much kept mikes complete design except for changing the head shape to fit in with the private and public characters.It has the same flaw as them where its a bit to jagged and pointy but as this is more for reference I think I'll be able to iron that out as well as the P/p designs in the film

Pass the Lemon Danny

My Friend Gareth Lyons designed some characters for me,Been spending the last few weeks trying to get to grips with them and figure out how they move, Been spending most the time trying to figure the Danny character out as it has the hardest shape and design. Here is my attempt at a turnaround of the character.When I finish the thumbnails and storyboards Hopefully I'll Have mastered the design

V Log 3

A better quality upload with almost no mess up of the sync unlike my youtube version http://gale01.deviantart.com/#/d5bboz6

V Log Episode 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-MS7x8Rjaw&feature=youtu.be


Hostilities rise as V mocks Ashley's less then dashing appearance

SO much trouble uploading this, YouTube Kept UN-syncing the video so I had to unsync it myself so when it uploaded, you tube would put it back in sync if that makes sense,also the quality dipped in the video but not to noticeably when exported from premier.The sound is still not quite synced but it will have to do for now.If anyone has any ideas please let me know,I've literally re-uploaded this 13 times trying to get the sync right.The final file on my computer syncs perfectly,Its very frustrating

Ash Head Turnaround

Future projects

I have a lot of ideas going forward,I have two film ideas I need to begin developing designs for,I've written scripts and hopefully will record within the next month or so when I can afford recording equipment.I want to make sequels to both my uni films,I've got ideas for both just need to put on paper,My private and public will only take a month or 2 at the most I am hoping but trying to make all these projects same time will no doubt take plenty of time.I also plan on doing a chalkboard animation which i'm developing ideas for also.On top of everything I want to produce more V logs to keep me ticking over and force myself to keep coming up with new material and hopefully promote my writing ideas also. A lot planned but looking forward to doing them over the next year, My plan is to make 2 at a time in junction with the v Logs and chalk animation. I think it is possible,And I will get all done by this time next year

Bants Bingo and A Bear: A Potato Western

Only regret is being pressured into changing the title

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3flxf5BmbM&feature=g-upl

Animatic Clean Ups

My YouTube channel is cluttered with animatics from my film this year. Now that I'm all done I'm Planning to delete them,I only mention this because I had to upload them to YouTube to post them here so They wont be here any more. So for the 2 people who follow my blog(both me) that is what happened them

Final page count

Its the start of a small tree

bonus scene

an after credits scene for my film,It's not my fault it's as long as it is,I hand a manageable 2 min 30 sec film that just got longer with each suggestion so.Its clocking in at 4 min 30 seconds including credits so It has smashed my last films running time and is also a far more complex film style and scope wise so I have pushed my self,Hopefully I can keep the momentum with my next film 'Pass the Lemon'Yes that is an awesome name.

Title cards

Some title cards in progress by Ieuan who you can find here http://ieuanpro-illustrations.blogspot.co.uk/

Bants and Bingo redub

Had to re-clean this scene to keep it similar to the rest of the movie,Having the same problem with the stare out scenes but luckily they are all mostly one frame shots so These were all the first shots I did as I was learning how to make them more efficiently,A lot of the bear scenes while better then these still have similar problems but they have a lot of movement so its not as nearly noticeable

Bants,Bingo and a Bear

My potato western Title has been scrutinised for the use of the word TWAT! I don't really see why it's so offensive but It doesn't really matter I guess. I've decided to change it to 'Bants,Bingo and A Bear' I like the sound of it,probably the alliteration,II mean who doesn't like alliteration,Mark Hamill? Probably.

On a minor note my view count was 666...oooohhh freaky

The coloured version with the background

Take off pencil test

The first shot in my film

the music for TGTBTT

Here is a rough quick draft of the music for my film by the talented Tom Charles Sayer who has agreed to score my movie for me. This is pretty perfect to me right now so if he makes it better it will be like wooooooo dude seriously you need a better film to apply your music too i'm dragging you down,still not going to complain

Final audio and sound effects

sync trouble part 2

In case anyone is having the same problem and is wondering what to do,What I did last year was export everything as a png files then import the png as a sequence into premier.It really helped with the slow down

growing sound pains

Having trouble with sound all around,when I move my synced scenes into premier it has the uncanny ability to unsync them.I'll figure something out it's just frustrating. I had the same problem last year as well, hopefully It wont take me as long to correct it.
        On a brighter note Tom Sayer has agreed to do the score to my film,and my film badly needs a score.

A very simple walk cycle nothing fancy or anything,I just need a very small walk cycle for like a second and a half and only certain part of it will be seen but here is the full thing,The head hurts this If I get a chance to come back Ill try and fix it but its not that important in my actual film

a technical difficulty

when i did the camera zoom stuff it screwed up my sync,i chopped stuff up and moved thing forward and back to fit the weird slow down or whatever it was,I'll figure out a way to fix it before i reach the finish line

Bg Update

I want to redo my bgs or at least edit them a bit,I liked this one so I just re-tweaked  it to fix continuity problems and to add a barman who will not move,maybe blink though,His not in a lot of shots so its all good

It's a bit of a walk

another shot in the bag just needs music and sound effect stuff,If I have enough time i will also redo my background for this

Production shots

a couple snapshots from the scene im working on

Progress

Still marching ahead with animation,left mostly with the flapping head portions,want to finish by first dead line which well give me an opportunity to redo all my background the next 2 weeks and fix anything that isn't completely right

This Guy!

Just Horsing through my film now,I want to be done by my first hand in and then use the next week or 2 for improving any problems and making better backgrounds for where ever needed

Work in progress

All the pages I have used so far and im only half way through

production tests

my background isn't very good in this,work is pilling up but I need to make time to up my bgs to how I want them

Brother bear production test

a production test,what of it bra.

Ok I changed it this is the final ultimate image

More Variants

Ultimate Image

Ultimate Image variants

last one i promice

this is seriously the last one,unless i decide to add a cat scene....because i love cats

God illing this will be the final animatic

Its still rough in spots but it gets the idea across,Music still to be added which should enhance the whole thing espicially the shoot out

fighting the bear production test

title card concept

just an idea,forgot to add a nice gradiant oh well

wrestling pencil test 1

Sound Sorted

Recorded my sound tuesday and after an initial day before panic to find voice actors for it,It went really well.My nonsence talk is now crystal clear and it sonded amazing in the studio surround sound system,if nothing else I pray for a glammie nomination just to hear in the cinema,thats all i would want. Drew Sewell is my sound guy who sorted it all out for me and his doing the music aswell,if I even do a halfway decent animation job it should be pretty epic and blow away my last years film which wouldn't be to hard in fairness

Vulture flight cycle test colour

hand drawn,coloured in photoshop and compiled in premiere

The vulture

The vulture in my film,

layout animatic

Saloon BG

Saloon BG for my third year film

production test

Animating underway

Ok well ive finished one really simle scene colours and all and im working my way through another,animation is go

Toon Boom update

Gave toon boom another go,bit more successful,My little experiments didnt really work so ive had to go back to toon boom,i might still try and colour everything in photoshop tho

2011-12 Showreel

A quick pencil test of a scene from my movie this year makes an appearance in here,A practise showreel before i put together another one at the end of the year(uni year)

Toon Boom

Had my first gander at toon boom n about 2 years and Its terrible horrendousness has come flooding back.It crashes on  whim,its aqward and very un user friendly so im hoping to figure out a better way to do my film.I am more then willing to pay each frame in photoshop,its just finding another program to compile the frames how i need them so alot of expermentation is ahead

Why Improv

         I redid my "script" fully once again, part of the problem with improv.My current script only retains traces of the origional script.With each new take I tried to hold on to my favourite lines but as I did more and more drafts I found myself having to drop alot of things I was fond of,The only remaining joke I have was maybe my Duggan suicide gag which survived each incarnation and in lots of versions expanded to be a running joke but then got cut back down for story purposes.I now understand why writers don't like writing exposition and it's proved a problem for me.I wanted a very natural sounding film as I find in most cartoons and movies, characters talk so well and so elagantly it doesn't seem real,you never hear an 'erm' or an 'am' or any line fudged whatsover.Uneducated characters speak with more grace then politicions or spokesmen, only with a traditionally lower class accent to let you know there less educated then the others.
         One of my favourite shows Home Movies for its first series at least would have only an outline of an episode and would just let there actors talk and see what came out and make the show out of that.Even in later seasons they when they had scripts they would let the actors go off track or on tangents and make mistakes and they would keep it in and when you watched the show it felt like exagerated, but real people talking.
         My film has to be under 2 minutes so its hard to let lines breath and jokes kick in. So far it feels like a race to connect everything and move the miniscule plot along and thats with me cheating and going almost 3 minutes instead of 2.I like my current draft and while my first few were rushed I think given time they could have been perfected.7 Minutes to me is a solid time to tell a simple story and make some jokes but its hard to do justice in 7 minutes and even the best stuff has a hard time keeping peoples attentions when we live in a world of quick juvenial fart jokes and jackass shock humour which I'd be lying if I dedn't say I am guilty of enjoying too,Maybe 2 minutes isn't so bad

Backgrounds

some backgrounds for my film

Private and Public in 'Train Molestation'

Tom Is a neurotic little boy waiting for his train home when a stranger sits beside him and invades his personal space.Private,Toms inner taughts expresses how the public Tom Really Feels about his situation but is unable to express out loud.Last years Film Before I begin production on this years movie

Final Business Card

Decided to go with this one in the end,I liked the watch conept but didnt think I pulled it off very well,might keep it in reserve for later once of tweeked it better

Business card ideas

Some ideas I was working on for my business blog