Anonymous guy and his hot date (left)In the meantime, time for some last minute writing material.
Hot damn.The above shot is one that I've been meaning to use ever since I thought of the idea of Date for One in 2007; the 'sex' scene. This is where the originality starts to shine through. Coming up with a good way of expressing this scene was a lil difficult, given my general inexperience in both lady wooing and mime arts as of late, but going with what's popular in artsy type films (ie. gross stuff), some breast groping and external tongue touching seemed to do the trick here.
In terms of the layout and colour scheme for this shot, I looked at a flash animation called 'Jerry' by Max Gilardi. It's a series of animations about a typical guy who does menial tasks all the time, goes to bed with a few ladies, has a generally rotten life and ends up hanging himself, as well as some of the characters around him, such as his Dad, his son and one of his girlfriends.
'Jerry' by Max GilardiIn the nighttime segments of Jerry, ie. whenever he's either sleeping or pulling the moves on a lady, the animation uses various shades of blue, better representing the nighttime feeling than if I had simply just thrown on a black gradient over the top of it. Similarly, I decided to have my guy presented in various shades of blue.
'Jerry' by Max GilardiI had generally planned for my main dude (still very much lacking a name) to live in a terraced house to do his...doings in. I kinda left out any segments of him leaving a house of any sorts due to time restrictions. If I find time, maybe I'll do a shot of his house. Anyway, I felt that if I'm going to have a bedroom scene, as well as use Jerry as an influence, I might as well stick a moon in there. When creating the backgrounds using Photoshop, the 'Burn' and 'Dodge' tools became very handy at creating light sources, shown in the relevant picture. When it came to adding some shading to the character, I didn't really have time to do some light shading, like I've done with the cinema scene at the top, so instead I used Flash's bevel filter to add a bit of lighting to the whole animation.
And whilst we're onto backgrounds, here are some of the others I made for the animation.
The external shot of the cinema is one of the more landmark shots of the movie, so I had to put a little bit of effort into how it looked. My main point of reference was the Odeon cinema on Birmingham New Street, albeit heavily simplified (ie. no Ben & Jerry's sign or neighbouring Gamestation). I still used a few key features, such as the glass doors, the overhanging...balcony whatsit (I don't know what you call them), and the rectangular movie posters. A few in jokes to be found there, from left to right; Mecha Carrot, the film featured in the movie, Curly Sam, one of my early characters, a stickman with a blonde afro, Wonchop, my personal character who I was planning to animate before hand, Sexual Harrassment Wigman, whom I've featured in the earlier film posters, and Hitmantis, the guy who I animated during Gamer Camp. One of the key things you'll notice is my reliance on Pattern Overlays, which helped speed up the process, although it looks a bit crap on the buildings.
I kept the restaurant scenario fairly simple, generally using the flash animated parts as a reference to drawing out the tables, with the classic gaussian blur and Burn tools used to good effect. To make it look like I put some effort into it,I had a lil try at making the lights look decent, though they still look a little crap, the shadows look alright. One technique I tried out with the pattern on the carpet was to apply it to the layer (which Photoshop doesn't make easy if you just want to do it on one layer btw), and then use the Distort tool to give the carpet a bit of perspective.
I kept the cinema interior fairly simple, as I was more or less approaching my limit, so there isn't really any big features like arcade games or ice cream parlours or whatnot. I did, however, manage to get a good lighting effect coming through the glass doors. One particularly neat tricked I learnt whilst doing this scene was to duplicate the carpet layer, apply a gaussian blur to it, and then used a gradient mask, giving the impression that the carpet is getting blurrier the farther away it is, adding to the perspective.
Finally, to add a little more girth to my presentation, I'll just add a little bit about my general animation process.
Unlike all the industry professionals and whatnot who draw out their storyboards on paper and then scan them to make some animatics, I draw my animatics straight into flash as it gives me a better sense of what to do with the timing (although that still tends to suck if I don't have any sound to work with at the beginning, years of collabs and Weebl songs have made me feeble =(.)
Above: Sketching, Below: Final
Well, I've hoped I've managed to write enough stuff to accompany the practical element of the thing and slip through the thing. Once I've tweaked it up a little, I'll release it on Youtube/Newgrounds/DeviantArt/etc. where I'm sure it's kudos will be overlooked by some videogame parody of sorts.
Chao.
And whilst we're onto backgrounds, here are some of the others I made for the animation.
The external shot of the cinema is one of the more landmark shots of the movie, so I had to put a little bit of effort into how it looked. My main point of reference was the Odeon cinema on Birmingham New Street, albeit heavily simplified (ie. no Ben & Jerry's sign or neighbouring Gamestation). I still used a few key features, such as the glass doors, the overhanging...balcony whatsit (I don't know what you call them), and the rectangular movie posters. A few in jokes to be found there, from left to right; Mecha Carrot, the film featured in the movie, Curly Sam, one of my early characters, a stickman with a blonde afro, Wonchop, my personal character who I was planning to animate before hand, Sexual Harrassment Wigman, whom I've featured in the earlier film posters, and Hitmantis, the guy who I animated during Gamer Camp. One of the key things you'll notice is my reliance on Pattern Overlays, which helped speed up the process, although it looks a bit crap on the buildings.
I kept the restaurant scenario fairly simple, generally using the flash animated parts as a reference to drawing out the tables, with the classic gaussian blur and Burn tools used to good effect. To make it look like I put some effort into it,I had a lil try at making the lights look decent, though they still look a little crap, the shadows look alright. One technique I tried out with the pattern on the carpet was to apply it to the layer (which Photoshop doesn't make easy if you just want to do it on one layer btw), and then use the Distort tool to give the carpet a bit of perspective.
I kept the cinema interior fairly simple, as I was more or less approaching my limit, so there isn't really any big features like arcade games or ice cream parlours or whatnot. I did, however, manage to get a good lighting effect coming through the glass doors. One particularly neat tricked I learnt whilst doing this scene was to duplicate the carpet layer, apply a gaussian blur to it, and then used a gradient mask, giving the impression that the carpet is getting blurrier the farther away it is, adding to the perspective.Finally, to add a little more girth to my presentation, I'll just add a little bit about my general animation process.
Unlike all the industry professionals and whatnot who draw out their storyboards on paper and then scan them to make some animatics, I draw my animatics straight into flash as it gives me a better sense of what to do with the timing (although that still tends to suck if I don't have any sound to work with at the beginning, years of collabs and Weebl songs have made me feeble =(.)
Above: Sketching, Below: FinalI draw the rough layout, be it as part of the animatic, or if I want to draw something pretty, using the brush tool in a light blue colour, which makes it easier to trace over (even if I don't, I can just turn it that colour later). Once that's done, starting on a new layer, I zoom into double what I draw the rough in (for this 1024x575 movie, I drew it at 200%) and draw over it with the black brush, being careful to smooth out and rough looking lines with the smooth tool. For any circles I draw, such as the eyes, a draw as good a circle I can, highlight it, and press the Straighten button to get a good round circle. I most points I try to keep the brush size consistent, though for some bits where drawing too far out leads to bad results, I zoom up again to get a better accuracy. Simply put, the smaller your guy is, the harder it is to get the details right.
Once I got the lineart done, I stick in my fills and such, et voila.
Once I got the lineart done, I stick in my fills and such, et voila.
Well, I've hoped I've managed to write enough stuff to accompany the practical element of the thing and slip through the thing. Once I've tweaked it up a little, I'll release it on Youtube/Newgrounds/DeviantArt/etc. where I'm sure it's kudos will be overlooked by some videogame parody of sorts.
Chao.
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