Another Preview (and it's more than just one second this time)

Here's another little sneak peek at my short. It's Shot 17 (out of about 65) all roughed out and ready for cleanup.

It's a dialogue shot. One of many. The dialogue shots are usually the ones I hold off on, but nonetheless, this was one I really was looking forward to doing because of how juicy the dialogue was. Maybe I went a bit over the top with the physical acting, but I enjoyed doing it.

All the rough animation was done in Flash, and all my cleanup is being done in Toon Boom, which is a really great program. I'm gradually switching over to it from Flash, and for the better too!

Randy's voice was done by my friend Joshua Tomar, and he did a really spot-on job. Check out his website and take a listen to his voicework: http://tomamoto.com/voice/.

Movie Bar Codes

Ever since I've started using Tumblr, I've come across some cool art/film blogs. A really neat one I recently found is called MovieBarCode. Each frame from a movie is stretched and compiled into one long "barcode". You can see the entire movie's continuity as a whole, like a color script.

Some movies look pretty uniform and it's hard to pinpoint certain scenes, but some are really easy. Looking at them all, the easiest ones to point out always seem to be the animated films.

Can you tell what movie this is?

Give up? Look again:

The key scenes really stick out, and in some instances, there's a noticeable flow into a new color scheme.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) - Overall pretty uniform color scheme. A lot of earthy colors.

Dumbo (1941) - A lot of contrast. Definitely a circus film! Scenes really do stick out here, especially "Pink Elephants", "Roustabouts" the scenes where the clowns are behind the tent, etc.

Alice in Wonderland (1951) - Very colorful. I don't know why, but this Alice one feels almost like paint dripping down a canvas. It has a very surreal feeling to me, which fits the movie perfectly. A lot of pinks and magentas.

I've noticed a more uniform "banding-like" effect in these two, which are both very recent animated movies. The sequences and their colors are more defined here:

Kung Fu Panda (2008)

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

Whoever makes these barcodes is really creative. Sadly, it's hard to give proper credit, since the creator's name isn't up there to see. There's a lot more on his/her site, and an index to make things easy to find. I suggest you seek out the ones for The King's Speech, The Matrix, and Speed Racer. http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/

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Also, I don't know jack about color, but Oswald Iten sure does! He makes very thorough studies not only about film color, but on filmmaking in general. He just did a really neat series of posts about Fantastic Mr. Fox that's definitely worth reading. Go check his site out too: http://colorfulanimationexpressions.blogspot.com/

A Bird in Someone Else's Hand is Worth Every Penny

My Canadian friend Audrey Kare did a commission that was so amazing that I had to share it!

First the lineart:

Then the flats:

Throw on some shading:

And some extra bits and VOILA!

The best part about this was I watched her make this completely, from initial sketch to final color (except the shading, which came the next day). I definitely got a lot for my buck.

Audrey's artwork is simply astounding. Go check out her deviantArt gallery HERE. And while you're there, consider commissioning her for a few bucks. It's totally worth it!