Back in action

K, well I'm done sulking over the earlier mishaps and I'm slowly getting back to working on this. Which is probably a good idea, since I'm also currently participating in a 4 week Gamer Camp thingy, so yeah, best make the most of my free time.

I more or less finished up the storyboard (which may eventually get scanned...I don't have a scanner hooked up to this laptop so er.... yeah). I've revised some bits, such as the debate over whether the 'girlfriend' should have a plate of dinner at her table or not. I've also cut out a good chunk at the start, since I'm running short on time. Initially I had this whole 'preparation' build up thing, that also doubled as a title sequence, with credits imprinted on shampoo bottles and the title coming out of the drawer (think something along the lines of those mysteriously appearing text in games such as Grand Theft Auto IV or Splinter Cell Conviction.) A simple title card, however, will suffice the audience.


Right now I'm drawing up the characters digitally in Flash, to get their final look down. Starting with my still currently nameless dude right here. There I drew his body, 3 views of his head, a zoomed up head with some features and shading added to it, and another one using lineart and gradient fills, which I probably won't use since it'd take too long to animate, but it makes for good comparison. I then garnished it with a few oddbod poses and expressions, just to get a feel for how he'd be acting.

I decided to give the guy this curly hair look (see below posts for other haircuts) since I felt it would stand out more compared to all your generic scruffy people (one of my habits being I tend to draw stuff with lots of corners, etc.) and would look nice in animation. Since it's a rather modern day romcom, I decided to forgoe your typical tuxedo/bowtie combo and go with a nice shiny purple shirt. Namely cos my Dad used to wear a purple shirt and it kinda fit the dork nature. As for the eyes, as a change of pace from my usual Cartoon Network sized monstrosities, I'd go with nice small circular ones. A recent example of me using this would be my September animation, "Arrgh Idol".

Watch Arrgh Idol here.

The main question is the type of animation style I should use. Frame by frame (traditional) or motion tweening. Personally, I want this to look good, and want to go for that fbf look, but again, it's one of those things that are time permitting. Then there's the matter of how to go about the backgrounds. May need to get myself a decent camera and get some shots that I can trace over in Photoshop or Art Rage or something. As for music, I've got a fair few contacts I can ask around for some musical accompaniment. Who I ask depends on how the animation (or at least the animatic) looks. Oh yeah, and apparently I need to write a script or something. >_>