Stalkermobile Part II -this time it's serious! (Four-Fur State-The Boxing Lesson)

stalkermobile (Four-Fur State-The Boxing Lesson)

Nothing too exciting today. Did work out the bike in motion...now working on the stalkermobile (you'll see why later). Used my sister in law's cute cooper. The furry texas is incorporating the logo from The Boxing Lesson's Fur State, the album which I am animating selected songs to. The Boxing Lesson really needs to make some danglythang Fur State car ornament/air fresheners for their promo swag.

test run -bike in motion (progress of Four-Fur State-The Boxing Lesson)

I'm learning little things through these past two projects. Blurring can give a greater impression of movement and speed than drawing many frames of the specific movement. I had originally put more work into many frames for the peddling but simplifying it made it more successful. So here is a sample test run of the frames with the blur effect. I will be jazzing up the image a bit but here is the basic idea.

some purdier stills for the holiday (Four-Fur State-The Boxing Lesson)

A small sample of more stills. Have a great Thanksgiving!

Un Temps Péri-Guest post

I have not had access to my home computer for a few days but have been working out future frames for this project with pen and paper. Hopefully I will have something new to post by tonight or tomorrow morning.


In the meantime I though I would link some work by a young talented filmmaker I met online through a fellow Hospod from across the Atlantic. I was first struck by some photography of his, (I don't know if the subject wants me to link them so I will refrain) but here are some short films by Johann Bollenbach. I really love the cinematography.

12 hours for 12 seconds...

Worked on a frame in Photoshop layers all day (about 12 hours) today. (By working in layers I can get motion effects.) Planned to run errands, walk etc. but kept thinking "just one more fix, one more add".  After editing for speed and good transitions it was cut down to about 12 seconds. It will yield more frames tomorrow though. Getting to the higher action cartoony stuff soon so that should be quicker to process.

Time to walk away from this and animate my ass. Oy.

and more stills (new animation)

I'm not going to share so many as to give away the story, but here are a few stills.

Finished a portrait..

John 20"x20" oil on canvas Really interesting model, too. I enjoyed the sessions.

more stills

Just wanted to mention the Topo Chico cats are returning in this project. Not starring, just featuring--sort of a Jay and Silent Bob appearance. I couldn't resist.

some flower imagery

For the starring flower in this animation (I'm not giving away how it stars), my portrait model (who is a landscaper) suggested the King Protia to base it on. I want to get one for a still life painting, too.  I'm thinking of supplementing the animation work once it is complete with a separate set of paintings. We'll see.

some sneak preview pics for second animation

I will try to resist posting too many pics for second animation project...I want to leave some surprises.  Getting close to a minute completed so far.

Goodnight (for me)/good morning (for you)

Basis for first clip of movie completed

Here is basis (I will be adding some elements to it) to the opening scenes to the new animation. This rotates.

That (just now) gave me an idea of an ongoing format for the rest of the whole video. Ooh. Love those middle of the night ideas.

There are some conflicts with my time that I was hoping could be all worked together into this animation. I thought about making more hand drawn on paper images (there was a starting element to that in the previous one) so I am not constantly on the computer, and to keep a connection to my other work. After attempting that, I found I became very impatient with the process. When I am creating  many frames I find that spending  time making a regular painting for one frame slow the flow down of the project in other ways besides the obvious one...I lose thinking of how it moves in time, the use of  multiple elements (that are created more on the fly) that can become an ongoing visual theme.

I am not ruling out hand drawn completely. I may use hand drawn on paper simple lines for the cartoonier aspect of later scenes.

I may need to just portion a couple of hours a day for non animated work, so I don't lose the different sort of energy and attention that painting and drawing on canvas and paper requires. This story is pretty much mapped out, (as opposed to my previous project which changed as I created it) and now I have an idea how to use and not fight my software so I expect this project to go faster than before. I hope.

I will try to share images without giving the whole thing away. I put a lot of examples up from my previous project on Facebook, but only because The Boxing Lesson could see my progress, and about 70% of the rest of my contacts don't really look much anyway. (shrug)

Doing some prep work for next animation

 My portrait project session has moved again, but I hope to share the results of the completed painting by this weekend.

I've been researching some imagery for the next animation for The Boxing Lesson--a deep space hypno mind control alien sex romp involving some plant life. I took a few preliminary pics for some simple drawings, will be calling in a few favors from friends for other pictures, and doing a little searching online. Thought I'd share this. Oooh. Ahhh. Purdy.

 galaxies with black hole centers