What Women Want

I don’t believe people really think about the practicalities of the things they off handedly request for Chirstmas. Having said that I don’t think people really want the things they say they do.

At about 2.40am yesterday morning I had the urge to animate a little.

16 hours later and I finished, only taking short breaks for eating and to use the toilet. More impressive (to me anyway) is the fact that I hadn’t slept since the previous day.

Despite the fact that there is still some colouring that I would have liked to have done, I don’t think it’s too much of a problem in the grand scheme of things. The main thing is that the joke comes across.

First thing I did was make a background. I then animated stick men straight ahead using the pencil tool, this was the quickest part of the process. I then went over this with the brush tool very loosely and coloured santa red.

Interestingly (to those that are interested) I recorded the audio about 14hrs in then spent 5 minutes on rough mouth movements which do the job well enough. I then spent an hour on sound and an hour putting it all together.

Wierd way of doing things.

Although I would not reccomend this method of working I find it amazing what a person can achieve when they’re on a roll. However as a result of going to sleep after awake being awake for 35hours my eye sockets hurt and part of my brain still isn’t responding yet insists on hitting itself against the inside of my skull.

Josh

Flash to Photoshop – Importing Flash Animations Into Photoshop

I have made a really basic no frills guide to getting animation work from Adobe Flash into Photoshop.

Why?

Here’s why…

Both programs have their strengths and weaknesses: Flash is easy to use, quick to animate in and it’s simple to change the timings or order of images around. It only has two ‘brushes’ the pencil tool and the brush, giving only a few options in terms of the lines you can get if you include the four or so style options the pencil tool has. In Photoshop you can use brushes and create your own if you want, there are unlimited possibilities. However animating in photoshop is a clunky and doesn’t flow well.

Here is a way of combining the best of both worlds.

One can use Flash for the basic animation; whether this is just simple shapes or really rough drawings, like in the 1st or 2nd stages of the character development in image below.

When one is satisfied with the animation exporting a png sequence and importing it into Photoshop is simple. Once in photoshop there are any number of options from brushes, colour or textures…and more! (I can stress that enough) For instance a just going over the rough work with a brush tool (taking the character to the 3rd stage as seen in the image above) makes a hell of a difference, just experiment.

The guide I have made HERE simply shows you one way of transferring work from Flash to Photoshop.

Josh

Nothing’s Original – The Aftermath of My Initial Pitch

I just did my first pitch for my FMP (last week), I think it went well, I got some great feedback and have lots of things I can work on. There’s no way my film is going to look anything like the key scenes I made though, they just look too cute and shiny.

I want mine to be rough, violent and edgy. In fact I want the whole animation to be as super violent as possible.

Emmanuel reccomended that i watch this vid, Galactic Mail by Asterokid.

I think it’s pretty bloody good.

I don’t really like looking at stuff that is similar(if not the same) in content to what i’m making when i’m making it because it throws me off (obviously something i need to work on). I start thinking ‘bollocks, it’s already been made, doesn’t seem much point in me doing my film now.’

However this time i thought ‘Hang on Josh, don’t be such a silly billy, defeatist, grumpy-pants. What you’re doing is (almost) completely different, besides nothing is original. Furthermore yours is going to rock the socks off every man, woman and man child making it will bring happiness laughter and maybe slight sexual arousal to any that see it. You’re doing the world a service by creating this beast of a film’.

Well ladies and gents, i hope i’m right.

Josh