This first cartoon is lower resolution, but has the opening and closing credits. The second cartoon is a higher resolution cartoon.
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This first cartoon is lower resolution, but has the opening and closing credits. The second cartoon is a higher resolution cartoon.
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After looking at the first take of the cartoon, I determined that the title credits didn't fit the style of the cartoon. I wanted to create something that really pulled the audience's attention from the very beginning. I really like the look of the opening to Garfield and Friends where Garfield pops out of the square.
When I had a rough finish to my flash animation (I will go back and edit it, I am not sure if I will have time before the end of the semester though), I wanted to add a very basic opening and closing page. I started looking at various cartoons and how they opened their cartoons. Now, I know I don't have time to create a great opening sequence like they use in the Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, But I did want to make sure my opening credits featured the title of the series, as well as the creators name. I used Adobe Premier to create the finished strip. I was able to add some basic background music which I bought off of iTunes. It was a stock music CD, so I thought it would be okay to use and then share. I also got some stock sound effects to fill in the background. Overall, the video is pretty good. I see I have some timing issues and I was asked to consider changing the mouth sizes of the characters so it is a little more evident who is speaking. I think that is great advice, because until that moment, the only people who have seen my animation were people who were familiar with the characters. The movement is pretty small though, so I can see how people who are not familiar with the characters may have to really focus to figure out who is talking. That can take some of the enjoyment out of the comic. Anyway, here is the rough 1st draft: In the original comic, Pete's vacuum has a cord that trails behind him. I wanted to keep that aspect because I thought it would be a great way to show the movement; that and having the wheels roll. My problem was, I wasn't quite sure how to animate it appropriately. I didn't want to randomly draw the cord and just have it go all over the place. I started doing some research online and finally ran into the PERFECT webpage.
http://phet.colorado.edu/sims/wave-on-a-string/wave-on-a-string_en.html Sometimes I think I want to do things that are just not in my grasp yet. When it comes to how my characters were talking, I really wanted to animate them to have specific mouth movements that correspond with the words they were saying. The problem was, because I chose an HTML 5 style for the animation, I couldn't actually stream my audio. This made it impossible for me to actually line up the particular mouth movements with the text. I suppose I could have tried to create each sentence, but it still would have been difficult to line up. Instead, I ended up creating an animation that randomly went through various mouth shapes for different sounds. I think it works pretty well, although if I had more time, I would still love to try to create an animation where the mouth lines up with the actual words the character is speaking. One of the Flash books I bought at the beginning of class "How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CC" has a chart on page 168 that shows the various mouth shapes. But, I also used this image I found on Google:
While the blinking is timed by the sprite, I did try to make sure the characters blink at different frequencies so they don't look like robots. I was actually kind of glad that Lauren's character was wearing sunglasses so I didn't really have to worry about his eyes.
My biggest challenge lately has been creating the walking cycle for the characters. I wanted the cycle to look realistic, but I also wanted to keep the cartoon look. When I researched on Google, the cartoon walking cycles were so overdone, that I was afraid people would get seasick watching my cartoon.
I finally found the above image. It is an old series of photographs that show a walking cycle of a man. I believe this was used in one of those wheels with the slits in them... when it is spun and you look through the slits, it looks like a movie... which, IS PERFECT for what I want to create. What I started to do then, was to draw the cartoon outline on top of the image of the man walking. While the illustrations are not completely accurate, they are close enough to create a realistic looking walk cycle for the character. Of the three characters, only two of them need walk cycles. Lauren's cycle is done, now I just have to finish Pete... Well, last week I got some great lessons on how to create a basic animation in Flash! I can't wait to start my animations. I have asked Sabrina, the artist of the original cartoon to create a few character movement sketches that I could use to help draw the animations. While I am waiting to get those sketches back I have decided to start working on the cartoon background.
Ultimately, I am really please with how my background turned out. I think it has just enough detail to make it interesting but is subtle enough to not overpower any of the cartoon characters. My next step in this process was to find the right voices for the characters. I have a friend who teaches at a local school and she was able to get permission for me to use some of her students for voice actors. I would post the audio clip, but it isn't an option in my current subscription status.
It is incredible... I love working on projects, but I HATE coming up with an idea. For all the time I have been working as a graphic designer, there has rarely been an occasion for me to completely come up with a design idea just for the heck of it, usually, I have something that prompts my work.
Well, for my EMDA 350 class, I had to come up with three project ideas, unfortunately, my professor was not excited at all about any of them, which of course made me less than thrilled... There really seems no point on working on a project if your professor already isn't keen on the idea. So, I spent a week thoroughly stressed out... but came up with an idea that was approved: Animating one comic strip of "The Life of Lucas." Only problem is, I don't know anything about animating! Well, here I am on the path to learn something, I just really hope I didn't commit myself to something that is more difficult than I am currently anticipating. Oh, and in other bad news, my books to help me learn Flash (the program I will animate with) have been delayed and I won't get them until at least Wednesday. I am trying to work ahead in other classes so I will have more time to dedicate to this project once my book comes in... lets see how it goes. |