Target X-mas More complicated Inbetweens

I would liketo point out that I have only done the inbetweens for these shots, so ignore any colour or clean up done  here.
The top shot was doing some smeer frames. These are sometimes my favourites as they can produce some of the funniest frames in the film, and they are usually invisible to the norml veiwer, or really anyone who either hasn't gone through frame by frame, or accidentilly stopped on one of those silly frames.Honestly i can no longer tell if the frame is exposed for too long or not, as I am almost always looking for these frames, or I am all too aware of them to not see them. This makes judging them in retrospect a tough job however I feel the top one is the most agreegious offender so I think I might have gotten it right most of the time. Its just important to remember to not have too many on a row or they start becoming noticable.
the middle nd bottom ones are examples of more complicated shots for different reasons. The middle one has more motion in three dimensions, and rotation, which is my jam, and the bottom one has a lot of people in it. However all that really moves is santa and a couple of arms, so it seems complicated but really isn't.

Target X-mas Imple Santa Inbetweens

Again as to why I don't do these individually, is because they all have the same thing to be said about them.
There isn't much to be said about these. the main thing I would sayis that the motion doesn't feel correct in some of these, I think it might be because of how I did the inbetweens. I could have done them closer to the possition of the key frames to give a better snap to the motion that would stop this unnatural smoothness that occurs, though I feel with some of them, the second one from the top is a good example, that the keys might not allow for the motion to be smooth though that is hard to tell in my possition.
I am quite happy that I know how to draw the characters, thanks to the character sheets, as i am able to draw them in possitions that can't just be inbetweened, as they are rotating in three dimentions in the shot, like when santa jumps off of the stage.
Again any colour, clean up and the flow of the hat in the sleigh weren't done by me.

Target X-mas Mob Boss Inbetweens

As a quick explanation as to why i'm Doing so many in one post, and thats because i don't have a lot to say about these individually that couldn't be said bout most of these as well.
Most of these are just simple inbetweening shots where all I needed to do was inbetween, however with some of those inbetweens I don't feel like i got the motion correct making them feel more like the inbetweens done by a computer, like in 3D animation. There are two reasons why I think this is the case, the first being that there weren't any inbetweening charts that explained the motion the Key framer was thinking, the second was that I didn't really try as hard to understand the motion. if I was to do these again I would do the inbetweens with the motion in mind, instead of just doing key frames half way inbetween each key frame's point of motion.
A thing that I found, especially with the Mob Boss, that, as an inbetweener I need to fix some mistakes the key framer makes, or make little adjustments to the key frames and their possitions to better suit the motion, as a key framer cannot always get it right as they cannot see it when they are drawing it, whereas I can.
Also as another little aside, i haven't done any of the colouring on these shot. Infact only really take into acount what the tital of the post says as what i have done.

Target X-mas Key framing

Key Framing could have been better, and I wish I could have done more of it. I usually try to act out the movements before I put it to screen, but sometimes I should use more live action references as it does help.
The top one's movements are the best I feel more because of luck than skill, however my thought process to get that swagger in with the shoulders. And I think that swagger does help the niceness of the movement, as well as the swinging of the beard.
The bottom one's surprise movement works very well, I just feel the steps could have been longer and more exaggerated, however there is a time limit to these shots and I shouldn't be going over them. If I was doing this again, I would add that extra bit to the step and if it was too much the director can say so, other wise I would think it improves the shot.

Target X-mas Inbetweens Lips sync

Doing the inbetweens for lip sync is basically the same as just doing the lip sync, however sometimes I did get lucky when the keys were exactly right and there were enough of them for me to just do inbetweens without worrying too much about getting the shapes correct.

The hardest part was getting similar mouth to what everyone else would do as there was no designs for the seperate lip sync possitions.

BugBombed Keying Shots

After all of the work that went into learning the design these are the last two shots I did for BugBombed. It's annoying as I had to put a lot into just getting shots to work on then i only get a couple. now this is written in retro spect, but i feel the problem was a result of working on multiple films where BugBombed was overly protective with their design forcing a lot of work onto their director and lead animator, not giving them enough time to help people get to the level they want them to be at, which means less people are working on the film, which means they have more work to do. And the other film trusting me with the shots given to get them wright, handing them out at least five times faster than BugBombed.
the bottom one doesn't have enough movement for it to warrent too much critisism but, its smooth and it works.
the top one looks a little too much like an animatic, though my thought process was more, 'all the inbetweener needs to do is just inbetween'.
Admittedly i could have added timing charts, though i don't think that was necessary for the bottom shot.

Inbetweening for Target X-Mas

Now I would usually do these as seperate posts but there isn't much i can think of to talk about individually. Now I would like to point out that I have only really done the Inbetweens meaning all of the keys and colouring was done by someone else. However what I have to say is that my liffe as an inbetweener for these shots was made really easy by the the key framer using timing charts and putting in a lot of key frames, leaving me with at most eight frames to inbetween per key frame. And all i can really say as to how i've done is that i have just drawn inbetween the onion layers.
Now i think i could get these done in a couple of days where i think ths took over a week to complete, colectivly.

Scotland Yard Spin

A rough animation of the Scotland Yard Police station dynamic camera pan. another one of my camera spins that only had a couple of seconds to be done in. This was an interesting test but I think I managed it. If i had more time, i would have gone over it in more detail and done clean up.

Writing from hindsite a shot like this was a little too complicated to do as it required multiple of the high detailed background peices done for it making it probably one of the most labour intensive shots for at best two seconds of animation. And given the time we had to work in this simply wasn't a worth the time and effort, so it never really got passed this level of detail.

Santa Test animations

these are a couple of test animations for Target X-Mas. The point of them is to visualise current ideas on how things would move allowing for changes that would mke the film better.
The Talking test was a little too rigid in the facial features meaning later adaptations allowed for more mustache movement.
the walk test was a failed attempt at how santa would walk. my thought process was that because he was such  large guy he would waddle, and i didn't take into consideration that the arms would move independantly to allow for better motion. in the end my walk test wasn't used at all, and Santa doesn't even appear to walk at any point during the film.

Bug Bombed test animation

Done as proof to the director that I can animate with the characters to the degree that they are satisfied with.
Another test set by the director to see if i can be trusted to work on their film. whilst I can understand the need to make sure everyone is on model, I feel like they are adding a little too much to see if they can trust us. I wouldn't mind so much if it wasn't for the lack of character guides making it hard to actually draw the characters on model.
For me the movement works, I went a little overboard with eggman rolling towards the camera but i can't help myself. If I was to do this again, I would make the movement more snappy and smooth.
I would have a faster start to BC getting up with a slower followthrough and i would attempt to get the distance rolled by eggman consistant

Layouts For Target X-Mas

The Bottom three are character layouts whilst the top one is closer to a place holder background layout. The idea is to have the characters in the area and in proportion to the enviroment and any other characters in the enviroment making it easier for the animators to draw the characters with out having to worry about size and placement of the characters.
thankfully i had a lot of character guides to work with allowing the characters to be as on model as I could get. They could be better, which means I shoud have done more character practice like i've done with the Bug Bombed Characters.
The Background Layout, whilst mostly a place holder, all that'll be needed to bring it up to propper background art is more detail and colouring and shading. which i will do at a later date.

Bugged Bombed Character Learning

This is my attempt at learning the character designs for Bug Bombed. I had character reference but no actual character guides that told me how they were constructed. This was changed when I had done these, and even when the guides where brought out, they weren't the best in describing how to draw the characters. This combined with the preciousness the directors had for the design made it hard for a lot of people to be trusted to actually start working on the film.
thankfully I managed to get my head around the design, afterr asking what shapes the characters were composed of and more on ow to draw them.
I should have done them more rough, or not gone the extra mile by adding colour or clleaning up the lines. if i had done them in rough i could have gotten more done and sooner allowing me to work on the film sooner.

attempting the new background style

here are a couple of images of me trying to get the correct art style for backgrounds. i have been able to get the houses and the sky relatively well and could actually work for the film, except for the sky which was immediately  decided to be changed after i showed it to the art director... wasn't me.
the snow is where i am struggling, primarily because i'm getting a overly saturated versions of what is needed. this could be because i'm pressing too hard with the pen, but thats because i am not confident ive done anything to the image when i use it as it comes out invisible. what i need to do now is keep trying it and hopefully i will get it right eventually.

background concept

these are a couple of early background designs, which will be dropped when actual pre-production starts, probably because the number of lights in the buildings is too ridiculous to do for an animation. the designs that are actually being used cut the number dramatically opting for a more side on view which is actually better and more suited for the film. my stuff looks good but takes too much effort to create than the results it provides.

Storyboard Panels

so here are some fun storyboard panels for the Santa Assassination film, or Target Xmas in the later renaming. the first rough version was for the first rough version of the storyboard. it was a little too detailed or that versions with colours and all but apparently it was good enough for the pitch version of the storyboard. it is only now that i realized that the colourised pitch storyboard panel. it works for being a colourised storyboard panel created for the purpose of showing off the film. the slay is different in style because the design for the slay changed from the reference image to the actual design. its alright but still holds the marks of me not fully knowing the style yet and there not actually being any character tern around, or i just didn't know about it.
the bottom left is the best storyboard panel used for the same reason as the top right image, however this was a clean up and colouring of Jamie's storyboard image meaning it was always on model and i was given a bit of advice for it making it as good as it is.
the last one is besed off of a really bare early storyboard image, as i was still trying to fully understand the art style it isn't as gorgeous as it could have been.
maybe if i went back over them now they would look really good.

Holiday styling

I've just beentrying to come up with interesting art styles that I could use. I've been using a pencil tool to get that effect , and I think it does work.
The first one was me going for a minimalist approach to colouring whilst the colour doubled as shading. It mostly works for the large areas but anywhere that has too much detail looks clustered & like l couldn't be bothered to properly colour it in.
The second one I tried lowering the opacity of the pen to get a more pen & paper feel. I did this with the shading & highlighting, and it turned out well, but it was the one I spent the most time on.
The third one was block colours. This was meant to simplify the design & also reference propergander posters with their sharp snappy designs.
Over all I think if took the pen & paper feel of the second one and combined it with the block colours of the third it might just work. Also loose the heavy highlighting of the third one.

Papa Poule - The Lizzard Chronicles: Part 4: The Egg of a New Beginning

with this one i was tasked with just inbetweening, as you can see the green i use to inbetween. it seems everyone just keeps moving me to inbetweening for some reason, its probably because i don't find inbetweeing to be that hard, but then again it isn't really that hard of a thing to do. maybe it is the fact that i am happy to do it, and other people are more vocal about wanting to do more glamourous stuff, like keying or colouring, which both look alot better at the end.

Papa Poule - The Lizzard Chronicles: Part 3: Betrayal

so for this one i was tasked with inbetweeing and clean-up. one thing i keep forgetting to bring up is that i keep forgeting to do those little flourishes on the tail and the neck, before this wasn't really a problem because i was keying and the fact that theu weren't there didn't really change anything, however due to the way people colour in TV paint, it'll make their lives alot easier if i did all of the lines for the clean up. so as per usual i had to back over it adding the flourishes and handing it off.

Papa Poule - The Lizzard Chronicles: Part 2: The Fate of BLizzard

i was again tasked to key this shot, and again the same problems arose. however the shape was alot more difficult due to the angle, however after much anguish and many rub-outs i was able to get a working versions.i have become quite good at drawing the little arms and i can definitly feel myself getting better.

Papa Poule - The Lizzard Chronicles: Part 1: Blizzard Rising

i was asked to Key the lizzard for this shot. they made it out to be really difficult, but i didn't find it too be that much more difficult than the average keying for a shot. the only real problem was getting the shape right. getting the shape right was a little bit of a pain, and i did get the size wrong, but those are small problems that were solved almost imediatly. if i had to do it again, i would find it easier because i have gotten quite used to the Lizzard's form.