Character sheet and a ruff test

Hi,
Working hard at animating, so took no time to post. Here's an update:
I needed to design the "threat-turning-into-comfort" figure that appears in the storyboard. It's the boy's lovely old neighbour.
Fat and happy, as they need to be :d I had been having trouble finding the right face for her. Some really awful attempts..
Luckily I came in harmony with the style chosen for the boy, so in that length I went on and came up with these:







Ruff test of a flying scene:




Onto my digital pegs, again! See ya!

And some more!

Hey,

Been pretty busy with the backgrounds. Here's another bunch of them.
I have a couple of backgrounds left to make, but I'm kinda stuck on them. From the storyboardframes where the toy-boat and pluche are taking off to the skies. I'd like them to be dreamy so maybe I'll try some pastellish stuff. Don't know yet.
The majority of backgrounds are finished so it's time to put them behind eachother and time the animation, trying to act out the scenes. No there won't be any videomaterial available of that. :-)







In the meantime I'm improving my drafting skills so I'm doing figure drawings. Haven't taken the time yet to scan them in, but I will. I'm really determined to get the skills down, cause there's so much room for improvement. Soon a figure drawing course will start in my hometown, which I will be attending. Looking forward to that!

More backgrounds

Here's two more I created after my last blogdump.





The size of the last one is 3200 pixels wide and 1800 high. I'm using it for a zoom-out shot, as seen in the moving storyboard. In Toon Boom I can make use of the 3d camerasystem and have this image pull back from the lift-off-to-flight-character in the foreground. This image took most of my time, because of the scenery. It has to look like people are living their lives in it, so I kept adding details. I'm letting it go for now, cause I've been starig at it too much!
Time for a different palet now, as we go indoors and slightly creepy. Stay tuned! Oh and dear readers: please kick me in the head with corrections, comments or other useful things!

Lay out

So the story is taking place in a normal Dutch middle class neighbourhood. It's about a little boy, playing and imagining he can fly with his pluche friend. Pluche gets kidnapped by a strange creature and is thrown in a dark pit. The boy tries to save him. The dark pit turns out less imaginative: it's the washing machine and it starts to move. A threathening shadow looms over the boy and he starts to make a run for it. The nearest closet looks like the perfect hideaway, but the evil shadow follows and is getting very close to the little boy. Screeching and scratching noises are shaking him with fear which gives him away to the dark figure. CLICK!! On switches the light! As the hands before his eyes lower to see what this is all about, he is happily surprised to find out that the dark figure is the sweet old babysitter from across the street, holding a jar of candy.

Google Sketchup helps me make the background lay-outs. In photoshop I use a mix of Paths, colours and brushes to create the right mood or picture actually, provided by my storyboard. I'm doing it this way so the shapes and forms stay sharp. Painting sharp like that is not something i'm capable of and I think it has a nice aesthetic. The inspiration for this style comes from everything really, but more notably from the golden gems. I'm trying to create something of my own based on what is done before. I think that you have to respect what is done before and learn from that. First learn, then play with it.

I have already shown the intro-panning-shot. Here are the rest of the backgrounds/layouts i've produced so far.







Now I'm not really happy with the last one.. I'm trying to show more than the storyboard panel suggests and I thought that was for better clarity. I'm not sure anymore. Maybe I'll just crop it like the storyboard. Suggestions?