Viking and Tentacles

So I've just finished up the Photoshopped model for Beardyman. Will probably need to go back and make some alternate versions, (such as a wartorn Beardyman) but I'm impressed with what I've made. I've done several handshapes and a few eye symbols to show his expression. I've also equipped him with a sword and a shield featuring the design of Wonchomp, a character created by ages ago by an online friend based on a mispelling of my name, turning out to be a cross between Wonchop and a Chain Chomp from the Mario series.

Considering the scenarios he's going to placed in, I've also thought about how to change the colour scheme to apply for various scenarios, such as the nighttime octopus battle or the fire sumo showdown. Here, I've done a little tinkering with saturation and colour filtering to accomodate to certain backdrops. I apply it to each part by using Photoshop's Actions feature to record an action and then replay it for each layer. Also, if you're wondering why there's only half a guy in each of those, it's because for certain bits, such as the limbs of the eyes, I only make one thing for the side, which I can then duplicate and mirror once I get it into Flash.

Next, I'm having a crack at getting the Ninja Octopus down. Regardless of whether I go with the style above for the Viking, I certainly wanna try representing the Ninja Octopus in as epic a manner as possible. Using a technique I learned during my brief stay in Gamer Camp, I used Photoshop's animation feature to draw out a four-frame animation for the tentacle, which is probably more industry like and whatnot. Nonetheless, it looks swell.

As for the unpaid hired help, I've contacted Devin Mack (Arrgh Idol) about doing some voices and he appears interested so I've sent him the script. I'm just waiting to hear from my missus. Speaking of which, I'll doodle up some more designs for her tommorow.

Experimentation (Photoshop characters)

Okay, so concentrating on my Beardyman animation for now, and getting to a point where I should get to animating it. Should be asking round for voices at this point, I'll probably ask Devin Mack, who voiced the pirate in one of my previous animations, Arrgh Idol, to do the voice of my beardy man. I'm also considering asking one of my internet friend's fiancee to do the voice of the wife (who I still need to do a proper design for).

So trying to decide on an animation style for this, I am once again reminded of my general train of thought concerning the past two years at uni.

"ALL MY ANIMATIONS ARE NOTHING BUT F***ING FLASH!!!"

It's a bit late in the day to think of learning new programs for the sake of completing a one minute short withing two weeks. So, I'm trying to think of a method of making this look like I actually tried. I have thought about sticking flash animation in After Effects for some of the scenes, but then it'd still be obviously flash animation.

It is then I am reminded of a FLIP festival lecture from a couple of years back, held by Boulder Media, the animation studio who was working on various animated series such as Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and El Tigre. I remember them showing off some FLA files of the various shorts they worked on, and constantly reiterating the same thing:

"When we make stuff digitally, we want it to look as less digital as possible"

Or something along those lines. Basically, this boils down to taking standard vector stuff and adding a lil photoshop magic to give it a less digital look. In one of the FLAs they showed of their short film, Carte de Visite, they showed how they had animated the thing in Flash, but made it so it was composed of several little photoshopped bits to make it more realistic, such as the shading style you simply can't make in vector without chucking in a crapton of blur filters.

Going on this train of though, I decided to have a little crack at making a model of my Beardyman in Photoshop that I can export into Flash.



This is my progress so far. I have made each part on a seperate layer, so that they can be individually animated in Flash. With good ol' tweens of course. They were drawn at a resolution of almost 4x times the resolution of my animation (standard PAL Widescreen, since I realise now that animating something in flash on a 1080p canvas is stupid)so that I can get some good close up shots without causing any unsightly pixellation. The plan is to draw several different layers to make up the different hand shapes, eye expressions, etc.

With the model I have made so far, I have done a test animation in Flash. There is also the option of animating it in After Effects, but Flash seems to be the more comfortable option.

http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/100510/47_pscharactertest.php

One of the more notable changes of the general design I have made is the replacement of the mouth with a giant moustache. This way, I can simply squash and stretch the moustache to make mouth movements instead of wasting too much time on lipsync.

I'll be working more on this model, designs for other characters and heck, maybe I'll actually get off my arse and animate it. Still waiting to hear from the Level 5 lackeys.

Animation (sorta) Completed

It took a few nights of consecutive all nighters, but I managed to get something handed in in time for the competition deadline.

Click here to watch

It was a madcap dash to the finish. I didn't even have a final storyline until right near the end. A large amount of support in this regard came from my dad, Steve Smallman, a children's author and illustrator famous for books such as The Lamb who Came for Dinner (which appeared on the show Bookaboo), Smelly Peter the Pea Eater, and the illustrations for the Raggy Doll TV series.

I plan to make some presentational improvements to this before handing it in to uni or releasing it on Youtube or stuff like that.

Attention now returns to the HMV dooflip. We are getting assistance from the Level 5 students in this matter, which should come in handy. I wasn't particular sure what I was supposed to do during that session, but I got approached by a couple of dudes who might do some backgrounds, and another dude offering to make CG models of the cyber penguins, which should make constructing an army of them much easier.

Maracas Monkey

Okay, crunchtime is coming. I've got until Midnight PST tommorow (or today, considering the only people reading this will most likely have normal sleeping hours) to complete this idea and it was only yesterday that I actually figured out a script to tie all this M business together.

The story goes that the monkey finds a magical wand that comes out of nowhere, and finds shaking it magics M things. As you do, he goes mad with power and ends up magicing more than he bargained for.

I am getting there with the animation, about 33% of actual animation, and I'll be allnighting this one to get it in time for the Aniboom deadline.

Btw I started added some stuff to my Aniboom page, which you can find here.

Here's a sample animation of the monkey dancing with maracas. I looked around at a couple of animations, such as one with Sonic characters, but in the end I ended up basing the routine on a fad from a Japanese website called Nico Nico Douga. I ended up setting a seperate minivid set to said fad cos I dunno.

M is for...

MONSTER!

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/98d6e02285e62762ab412eeacb4f0c42

Based on an old flash test I did a while back.
http://wonchop.deviantart.com/art/Monstah-Does-A-Wave-72295561

Developing the Monkey

So as I thought of my 'M for Monkey' thing, (I have to try and think of an alternate title so it doesn't clash with Dexter's Lab's segment, 'Dial M for Monkey'), I did what noone in uni thought I'd do...actually develop several designs. =O



I went and tried various styles, some involving cubish looking characters, some with rather cutesy figures, and others slightly influences by the fact I was watching South Park at the time. However, the one that stood out the most in the end was this one.


The insanely happy motorbiking monkey! His style was something that was striking and original, yet still had a hint of 'me' in there (it's gotta have at least some of that. Asking me otherwise is like getting David Firth to draw anime.) So as I opted to go with this character, I continued to sketch him, thinking of various ways to adjust him, such as trying him out with different M activities (magic, maracas, etc.), showing different expressions to trying not to give him a face that would scare small children.




After about a billion of these sketches, I drafted up a CG look, this one being done in Photoshop.


I had contemplated using Illustrator to make some assests, drawn with a pencily/brushed outline like you see on shows such as Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. However, I can't figure out the best methods of drawing (it is not freehand friendly) and I neither have the time nor the patience to learn. So it's good ol flash for me.



Here is the model I eventually came up with, currently avaiable in cowlick and biker helmet flavours. There's quite a few layers going on here, and various symbols, such as the eyes, mouth and chin, have multiple keyframes that I can change on the fly.

There are particularly specific specifications for the competition, wanting it to be in NTSC 1080i (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution at 29.97fps (since the ultimate goal is to get this broadcast on TV), meaning everything will have to be drawn quite big, and at least have an outline that'll stand out once shrunk to a smaller Youtube friendly definition. Face details were drawn at 200% zoom with a size 3 brush, before going over the outlines at size 4 to give them some girth. The other aspects were drawn at size 3 at 100%, so I can easily add stuff on the fly.

Not quite sure of the best way to animate, but here's an early test. The starry eyed expression was also kinda influenced from Samba de Amigo (or more specifically, it's characters victory pose from Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing).

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/34a40475101b1424dd7ead39a7e3a25a

Now to work work work.

Monkeeeeeys

So for this Sesame Street competition for which I'm basing one half of my project on, I've decided to go with a compromise for not doing anything with the Wonchop idea; monkeys.


Let's face it. Who doesn't love monkeys? Y'know, besides people who are over protective of their banana collection. Stupid people, that's what. Monkeys are awesome creatures and more or less essential viewing on any visit to the zoo. The way they move about is just awesome, with each motion seemlessly moving on to the next. They've been a big part of my childhood and are mainly what brought me to my simian online alias.


And that's not to mention how they've appeared in animation. Several cartoons spring to mind, such as Coconuts from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Monkey from Dexter's Lab, Abu from Aladdin and Mojo Jojo from Powerpuff Girls, as well as recent examples like the Jamie Hewlett's Olympic monkey.

And of course, monkeys have made their mark in the videogame industry. One of the main monkey-oritented games I played during my Playstation Fanboy days was Ape Escape, a game that involved catching variously humourous monkeys in a bid to stop them messing with time. Other noteable monkeys in gaming history include Diddy Kong from Donkey Kong Country (Donkey Kong technically doesn't count since he's a gorilla), Amigo from Samba de Amigo, AiAi from Super Monkey Ball, and the various monkeys that featured in Timesplitters 2.

So what do monkeys have to do with Sesame Street you ask? Well, the criteria has various categories including numbers, letters, etc. I decided to go with letters, specifically the most delicious letter there is. M. And what's the first thing you think of when you think of M? Monkeys! Pure science at work! Here's an example of one of Sesame Street's letter-based animations.