BACK TO SQUARE 2
I have made some big changes in my system, and it necessitated re-scanning all my drawings. But that’s okay.
The big change here is that I now have the capability of scanning full-size animation drawings. Standard animation paper is 10 ½ x 12 ½ inches (26.7 x 31.8 cm), and until recently, a scanner that would copy larger than legal size was thousands of dollars. Then a comic book artist friend told me about the Mustek scanner, which retails for $160 or less. Check it out! (Mustek Scan Express A3 1200 Pro USB Large Format Scanner)
Thus I can now do away with my awkward system of registration crosses and align the scans by their peg holes. The ability to do this automatically I have still not mastered, despite some excellent help from Toon Boom technical support, but we are working on it. In the meantime, you can see that the output for my pencil test looks a lot different and, I think , a lot clearer. I used settings that automatically filled the figures with grey. Not perfect, as some open areas got filled and some areas intended to be solid were left open, but it is certainly good enough for pencil test purposes.
ABOUT THE ANIMATION
If you compare this video with the one from my Blog Entry No. 3, you will see that fully seventy percent of the drawings have been filled in. This scene is difficult in that it is all in pantomime, with no dialog to help with timing. (It is an unspoken secret among animators that dialog actually can be easier to do than pantomime for that very reason; recorded dialog is full of timing suggestions, and a good voice actor can make an animator look very good in that regard!)
Here we have a sturdy farm couple. The man is displaying to his wife the things he has brought back from market: first a live goose (yet to be animated), then a bag of seed corn, and finally a special surprise which he has concealed under his hat.
So far it seems to be working well. I will be adding some blinks and a couple of follow-through actions not seen here, as when the farmer steps back from handing off the goose and his arm swings to a stop: I think it would be better to let it swing to a more natural stop after his body has come to rest.
NEXT TIME
Look for complete animation of the main characters, and possibly the goose will be animated as well. After that there will be a closeup sequence involving What Happens When the Farmer’s Wife Looks Too Closely at What Was Under Her Husband’s Hat.
Then I think we’ll take this whole sequence to final color and add all bells and whistles.
Watch for it!!
Filed under: 1
