'Bear' Animation Week 11

The question on everybody's lips: has she finished the outlines yet?

The answer: not quite...

But close. Very close. I finished 15 shots this week, which is yet another record. Woop woop!! Though they still keep coming, one after another. Even though I’m getting a lot completed it still somehow feels never ending. But, I am having a lot of fun and I feel like as the outlines are drawing to a close, I've a new injection of energy and feel really spurred on to get to the next steps: the backgrounds and the colouring/ shading. They kind of feel like a reward for having the outlines completed- something to work towards. The colouring does especially- it feels like I've a quite relaxing (but labour intensive) task ahead.

I'm also a bit nervous at this stage in terms of how will it all come together? And will it look good and tell the story I want? I've put (and will continue to) a LOT of work into it thus far and I just want it to turn out as expected. I suppose all I can do at this stage is give it everything I have and that's all I can honestly do.

Once the outlines are finished, I've allocated a week to allow me to develop both the background and colour style, so I know exactly how I'm going to do them: what brushes to use, what colour palette, whether to add any texture and if so how and where, what program(s) to use and which will be the most efficient ways of doing all of the above in the time I have available. I’ll do a post about that development work here as and when it’s complete. I'm quite looking forward to having a mess with the footage to see how I can finish it and doing something which isn’t outlines!! The temptation to start already is strong and I must admit that I've already played around a little bit with potential colour ideas, but I'm not jumping into it fully until the backgrounds are done. It’s a bore being this disciplined, I tell ya!

Progress grab below as per…

'Bear' Animation Week 10

Want to guess how many shots I completed this week? I’ll tell you: 14!! 7+7. FOURTEEN. Best week so far. The timeline is filling up super nicely and it feels fantastic to be making so much progress. It really feels like I’m on the finishing stretch now for the outlines- something which several weeks ago seemed years off!

This week I was able to dedicate almost the whole week to working on my film thanks to not having any photo editing to do. It felt quite nice and relaxing that I was able to do so, though I did miss the photography side of things. But a break is good too and it did allow me to make BIG progress on ‘Bear’. Manchester Animation Festival has now opened submissions for this years competition, with the decline being 29th July. Which is therefore my deadline for this- it’s a brilliant festival (and fairly local), making it a great date to aim for.

If I keep going at this rate, the outlines should be done in a few weeks- though like I mentioned last week, there are some fairly tricky shots to come. I know I mentioned the end of May as my target, though I might be a week or two out. If this is the case, I should still be able to get the backgrounds, colour and comp (i.e. finish the thing!!) for said end of July deadline.

Here’s the screen shot for this weeks progress:

‘Bear’ Animation Week 9

Last week I mentioned I had a 156 frame shot to complete and this week, I managed to finish it, along with 10 others, making this week my highest achieving week in terms of shot completion yet!! And that was working only 4 days- I still had one day where I mainly edited photos. I am so, so, soooo pleased with my progress and it just makes me want to keep going.

I’ve passed the halfway mark (which is mega exciting) and the end is definitely in sight- or at least it is for the outlines. Though I do have a number of tricky shots still to do- trust me, it’s not all plain sailing from here. I’ve been saving the harder ones until I really have to do them. I think that’s a good decision though, as when I started the project I doubt I’ll have been able to tackle them, or not at least as well as I’ll be able to at this point in the process. It’s taken a while to get into the flow of the character and what details to include and so on. I feel there are going to be a few shots I’ll revisit for a bit of a touch up- the earlier stuff isn’t as complex as the current stuff, so I think I’m going to go back in and add some more lines on some of the shots. I think that goes with the territory of animating on a long project like this. Maybe for future projects, I’ll do some ‘warm up’ shots first to really get the mannerisms and style locked, so it will appear more consistent. That’s not to say that this looks all over the place (it doesn’t), but there are some shots I do want to adjust.

But I suppose that’s just evidence of me growing and developing as an artist anyway- whenever I look back on previous work, there’s always things I’d do differently if I were to revisit the project…

Back to what I was saying at the top of this post about finishing a quite lengthly/ difficult shot, I’ve collated a couple of ways in which I tackled it (for anyone reading this and in the same boat):

Firstly: to work on it for a short amount of time daily. Anything between 30 minutes to 2 hours can really make a difference and sometimes 30 minutes was all I was able to handle a day for this particular shot. But because I chipped away at it each day, I got it finished. Working on it in this manner made the shot feel not as daunting as if I were to say section off 7 hours in a row to work on it. It would have put me right off and perhaps even lead me to avoid working on the project altogether. The smaller chunks were much easier to handle, so would highly recommend this if you’re stuck on something.

Secondly, to work on it when you have the most energy/ can’t make any excuses for not doing it. Which for me is first thing in the morning. Mornings are when I work best and my energy slowly depletes throughout the day, so I tend to schedule all the hard tasks first thing, ending in easier/ more relaxing ones in the afternoon. If you don’t know when you work best, try out several different times and I’m sure you’ll soon find a pattern which uses your energy in the most efficient way.

That’s all for now, so will leave you with this timeline screen grab update (so much orange on there now)!!

2022 Reel Update

I've updated my showreel for 2022:

I definitely think it's my strongest yet and I'm really proud of all the work that features in it. Let's hope it leads to good things!!

I've also added the word 'director' to my title card. Something I've never considered before now, but I definitely feel confident enough to put it in- after all, I direct all my work which urm, kind of makes me a director, right?! The more I say it, the more it becomes real...

'Bear' Animation Week 8

This week was a little more productive in terms of shot completion than last week: I finished 4 shots in full, with shot no. 38 (a biggie: 156 frames) almost complete too, with another (shot 43) started (and almost finished).

This week felt great, due to having got over such a hurdle last week finishing the super 250 frame shot. It was nice to work on a few easier and shorter ones this week and see more progress evolve on the time line. It definitely feels like it's really coming along now and the end might be in sight?! I don't know if I dare say that out loud!! But hey, yeah I'm going to go with it! I think the outlines might be finished by the end of the month if I continue as I am. Football season is well and truly drawing to a close and I think I only have two matches left in which I plan on photographing in full. She says. So after the next week, I can turn my full attention to animating 'Bear'.

Not loads more to write about regarding my progress this week, so I'm going to do a little shout out: series 2 of 'Undone' has dropped on Prime Video just recently, which I highly recommend! If you love rotoscope or animation for adults in general, then this show is fantastic and honestly worth a watch. There's so much to it in terms of both story and visual elements. Series 1 is also on there, so if you've not watched that yet, then binge that and then head straight series 2- you won't regret it!! I love it when a really creative series or feature comes out, especially when it's rotoscoped, so will forever be flying the flag for the smaller things which might not get to the forefront of the algorithms. Plus they're just awesome! If I haven't convinced you already, then watch the trailer below: