More Toonbooming

Yep I've been doing more run cycles. This time from more challenging angles.
The one below was really hard. It took a while getting my head around the poses and perspective. I used a Eadweard Muybridge book to give me some help







Here are some examples of Muybridge's photography work. These are photos taken of the pages from his book "Animals in Motion"



They clearly show the motion and rhythm of the dogs when running and pacing. The grids behind the dogs also give me a rough idea of where to place the different elements of the dog's body in each shot.

ToonBoom Time

I officially love Toonboom! I have been using it so much this term, and I have thoroughly enjoyed using it!

The way I did it was by watching some youtube run cycles and videos of beagles running, and then roughing out the sketches of the legs and the body to get the motion right.

Here are some of the clips I used:








Okay here's my little walk cycle I finished:






Here's a progression of how the dog run cycle is going:



I decided to turn the run cycle around, because of the direction the VW Camper is going in the clip

Character Designs and the Little Miss Sunshine clip

Here are some further pictures I've done for my dog character. I chose to design a beagle, because they are a loyal and happy breed of dog, and it's character would help level out the family's unstable personalities.

I used some pics from google images to help me get to my finalized designs.



ALSO.....

There is a chance this might not work. :S



This is the scene I wish to animate over for my project. I'l be uploading my storyboard shots shortly.

Storyboard Panels For Little Miss Sunshine

Here are some very simple sketches I did over the top of some film screenshots. I wanted to make sure I knew which parts I need to animate, so this was a good way of singling out the shots I needed.

I drew out where I planned the dog to be in blue. Hopefully it's clear enough for you to see, sorry if its a bit too faint.

#1 Dog following family's feet as they start to push van
#2 Dog comes into view completely.

#3 Rear shot of dog walking behind family
#4 Dog decides to dart off to the right side of the car

#5 Shot from front. Dog runs beside girl (Olive) giving encouragement
#6 Dog runs in between van and Olive glancing around trying to keep up with.

#7 Olive steps on to Beagle's back in order to get into van. Dog stumbles. Mother (Sheryl) gets in car successfully.
#8 Olive gets into car successfully. Dog recovers from stumble. Uncle (Frank) tries to get into car

#9 Frank struggles to get enough speed. Dog bobs in and out of shot.
#10 Dog headbutts Frank and pushes him into the van

#11 Dog bobs in and out of shot fleetingly as boy (Dwayne) clambers into car
#12 Dwayne leaps into car. Dog runs beside car

#13 Dog makes a leap into the van
#14 The beagle disappears into van as it veers on to the road.

I think this is gonna be very challenging in parts, but I think I can manage this. I might have to cut some parts if I think it's going to be too much for me to do.

I'm going to do a few run cycles, so I can repeat those and edit them to my liking. It would be nice to have the dog looking up at the family members during the cycle to make it look a bit less repetitive. I'll see how much time I get to try and do this though. I might have bitten off more then I can chew with this project. :S

My first Idea For The Project

Hey sorry for my lack of updates. My group project has taken up a lot of my time.

Here are some sketchbook scans of some ideas I had for this project. I did some development by mind-mapping various ideas. I came up with some films that I could use as a source for animating over.




In the end, I came up with the idea of animating over the Somerfield scene in "Hot Fuzz". Here's a link to the youtube video of the whole scene. HOT FUZZ SCENE I took some screenshots from it and wrote the script and actions underneath them. Here they are below.




After some thought, I decided that the cuddly monkey in the film would make a good extra character. I managed to find an image of it on the net to use as reference. I then did some character drawings of him




Below is a study of how the cuddly monkey could make the scene better. Making the monkey cowardly opened up some humorous opportunities, and that's the route I decided to take.


Here are some of the storyboards I drew out. I wrote the directions of the monkey next to each shot. I really exaggereated the monkey's expressions.



After a talk with my tutor Steve Crocker, it was decided that the Hot Fuzz sequence would be too difficult to animate to. The camera moves around too much and the shots are very fast paced. We both agreed that it would be better if I picked a different sequence to animate to.

In the end I decided to animate a pet dog into a scene from the film "Little Miss Sunshine". I was torn between the scene where Olive comforts Dwayne after he finds out he can't be a pilot, and the scene where the Hoover family push the VW Camper to get it started for the first time.

In the end The 2nd idea was chosen, because it had more scope for challenging animation and interaction with characters. I wanted to add a pet dog to the family, because it would mean that I would have to do a four-legged run and walk cycle, which I havent done before.

Here are some character design and mind mapping scans




Here are some reference pics I found from google images