NEW ROTOSCOPE PIECE!!

This has been a LONG time coming! And I hope it’s worth it! According to this very blog, the last time I published any rotoscope work was December 4th 2022. Wow. Am I sure? Yes, yes I am. I knew it was a while, but I didn’t know how much of an actual while it was.

Since then, it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind to be honest- we moved house, nicer weather happened so more time was spent outside skating, work got really busy/ stressful so didn’t fancy animating as much in my downtime, I got more of a social life (moving cities has changed me!), and just stuff happening in general… ‘Life’ I believe is what they call it. And just like that it was July. But, I think the break was good (and necessary).

Being as skateboarding is very prominent in my life at present, of course my next clip would be of just that! I’ve made several rotoscope skate clips before and I always enjoy the outcomes and they’re super fun to make. Plus I think skateboarding lends itself really well to rotoscope animation.

I love when I use analogue materials in my art combined with work created on the computer, so this was made under that notion. I drew the outlines in Callipeg on my iPad, printed them out and let myself loose with paints, felt tips, biros, pencils and Letraset transfers to see where it would take me.

My approach was very experimental with this and I tried not to be too rigid. I made sure I was trying techniques I wasn’t sure would work (some did, while others not so much). I also tried media I have always wanted to use, but never got around to before. The live action reference material used here was split into three separate shots. I did this to allow myself to try more ideas in one clip, which I thought might not only look quite aesthetically interesting, but also be a great way of seeing what techniques work/ have potential for future projects.

The first section was a more standard approach. I used a mixture of fineliners, gel pens, biros and felt tips to colour in the character, alternating his shirt colour throughout to liven things up a bit (so every four frames I switched colours). The background I used gold acrylic paint. I love the look of the background- I think the paint came out really nicely, but feel what I did to colour the character here a little pedestrian. It doesn’t scream ‘excitement’! Or at least not in my opinion.

Here are four of the frames, before I added the gold paint (which I did in post):

The second section was when things got more exciting. Here, I decided to use Letraset transfers which are one of my favourite things to use(!) to create the background and then in TVPaint, I coloured the character using one of the watercolour brushes. As I only printed the outlines out on regular A4 paper, I didn’t want to use ‘real’ watercolours on it. This was because it would have risked making holes in the paper from all the water, plus bleeding/ running due to the paper not being built for holding watercolours.

I love, love, love how the Letraset turned out. I have used this before in other test clips, but not to this scale- I guess I’ve always been more reserved in my approach. Not this time. I went BIG and bold, using all sorts of shapes and characters. And I honestly think the result is great. I really like the contrast of the stark black transfers against the white of the paper. I think my only drawback to this section is that I wish it was longer! I will definitely be using this technique again.

I do like the watercolour too and feel like it compliments it nicely, but I think it would be really cool to try real watercolours, so perhaps I could look into a way in trying out those in another clip. Maybe tracing the printed outlines onto watercolour paper. I think that would do the trick.

The last section was another fun one. I used felt tips for the background to make a multicoloured checkered pattern and used pencil shading to fill the character. I really like the contrast between the colourful background and the monochrome figure. I have used check before as a background, but not to this extent and not with so many colours! I have never used pencil before for rotoscope, but have always wanted to. I used a variety of different pencil grades for each section of the character and tried to make the shading even throughout. I like to think I did a pretty good job of this. Well I don’t notice it flicker much when watching the animation. I would definitely use pencil again.

Despite not all of the results being super exciting (section one, I’m looking at you), I feel this was a fantastic task to have completed. I think it definitely has progressed my work and my abilities, whilst simultaneously providing me with several techniques I can work into my future short films. Maybe music videos especially, as those are pieces which can be super experimental. I would love to make another music again- it’s been a while!

Here’s the clip:

Ps. I’m not using Twitter anymore, but have’t deleted my account- just because it’s probably linked in various places and don’t want a load of links floating about online which don’t actually link anywhere!

I also took a couple of months off Instagram- but gradually easing back into using it again now. So if you’ve not seen me ‘like’ anything on there for a while then that’s why! I deactivated my skate account though as want to reduce as much time spent on social media for all the usual reasons, but I am still skating! Perhaps I’ll bring it back to life at some point, but currently don’t feel the need to. Anyway, I am now down to only one social media account, plus YouTube (is it social media? Yeah, kind of). So life feels a bit calmer and nicer at present.

See you in the next one xoxo