This is it!
It is February and I set a goal to be finished the keys (key drawings) for my film, CROSSING THE LINE, by the end of the month.
Why did I pick the short month anyhow? Should have gone for March during a “leap” year.
I usually work away in my studio…and sometimes, I start to drive me, my wife and the birds outside crazy with my energy. So then… its off to a local cafe with pads of paper and pencils and pens to animate “on location”. That’s exactly what I did a couple of days ago.
How do I animate “on location”?
Easy. I do tons and tons of thumbnails. The other day it was pouring rain and my blank white paper was in the back of my CRV…so, I improvised. I took my yellow legal paper and went to it.
Lately instead of the really, really small thumbnails- I do larger one- close to the size of the final drawings….but, really, really ruff. Then, I take them home and tape them to animation bond and use my web cam and FLIPBOOK software for a quick pencil test. Maybe, it is a bit of the immediate gratification thing…and, it works!
When drawing the keys, I try to be really, really ruff and really, really exaggerated. I begin with the torso and “push” the spine, then I anchor the leg or legs and continue from there.
I love it when you are “in the zone’ and just slashing and burning through the drawings. The MOST important element is to not be too invested in any one drawing. Most of the time I just draw axis lines around the head to indicate a certain direction or head tilt that I want. The “body attitude” - the graphic of the whole body should tell the story and communicate the emotion I want.
I don’t worry too much about proportions or any of the normal stuff- I want ACTION drawings and the spontaneous creativity that seems to flow from my pencil.
I will put up some of these raw sketches from my yellow pad later- as soon as I learn to make the images larger.
By the way, my little stint in the cafe yielded almost 50 keys in a little under 3 hours. I was in THE ZONE!!!!
Until then, here is an article from the local newspaper, The Savannah Morning News. They are doing a focus on jobs and I was interviewed as an animator.
The cool thing is that the online article includes some selected clips from my last film, OUR WORLD
http://savannahnow.com/node/215785
Still Animated!
