hideyholin till project's completion

I'm going to be holed up working to the finish line on this project. I think (for the moment anyway) I will refrain from showing any more preview stills until the animation is completed. It should be finished by the end of this weekend.

 BTW--meet Stella, Jaylinn Davidson and Paul Waclawsky's (of The Boxing Lesson -- the band I am animating this project for) youngest and most entitled furling. She has a fiercely protected maze of boxes and bags under the kitchen table. She likes her Topo Chico box, just like her older sib, Poppy used to.

I based the three kitties which ended up (surprisingly, I hadn't planned it...but the whole project was a stream of consciousness experiment) starring in One (and are occasionally featured in more structured Four as a sort of Silent Jay and Bob style aoppearance  http://jeannehospod.blogspot.com/2010/11/more-stills.html ) on P-Pops, her sister Cassie, and Mr. Beans. All had passed away separately last year related to some hazards of outdoor life. Paul and Jaylinn took in and cared for many cats who are/were feral and/or were used to a life both in and outdoors--so it was the life the cats insisted on and quite loved, despite the risks and tragedy.

Since then, Stella has been raised from kittenhood to be an exclusively indoor pampered princess. She still has adventures though.  She takes her box, passes through walls and goes on space flights after everyone goes to bed. She docks her topo ship to the trio's own, says hello and  then wrestles with her siblings in other dimensions.

I know I've posted this elsewhere on the blog, but I will link again my first attempts at animation (not counting college a million years ago) with One by TBL, starring the three felines.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMpYG2bHkPw

snippets of stills near ending

I'm not showing the entire frame, but just a few sections of them. These are also out of order of the sequence for the sake of some surprise. Perhaps it is better to wait until the entire animation is complete before these previews. However, I find sharing a useful tool to stay accountable on progress. I hope it hasn't spoiled the soon to be end result for you! BTW, please feel free to share your thoughts on my efforts. I'd really appreciate it.

waking up

I'm going to scramble the order of the next few scenes in the upcoming posts, to leave some surprise to the soon to be released video. Here are two clips I prepared.

the flower

it is both evocative and ambiguous and that's all I'm going to say about it. I will share more sparingly in the next few days, as I'm near completion.

multi panel action stills

I think there will be one more set in this format at the very end.

closing in (stills to animation)

about the blog..I was trying out some gadgets and design stuff & it seems that I inadvertently signed out everyone who had signed in. I don't know what the difference is from "followers" but feel free to sign in again or just follow.

BROADCAST- PAPERCUTS (inspiration for final segment)

I think this multi box retro approach would be an interesting and efficient way to convey the action in the final peak segment of my project. There is a lot of detail to get over in a short period of time.

RIP Trish Keenen

hide and seek/ peekaboo

the chase (animation stills)

 

results of guest artist's "confession" project.

I mentioned a little while ago a request for confessions to be anonymously used for another blogger's art project. See the results: 
http://elizabeth-inkyhands.blogspot.com/2011/01/typed-sewn-confessions.html


I will be uploading the progress stills of the garden chase sometime today.

improving old clips /last of the interior clips

The duo have left the building. I will be showing their chase in my next entry. Suggested motion blurs (as above) of the figure have such a better flow of movement than if I drew out each step of running which (unless you have a team of animators to spend on every 100th of a second). Your mind fills in the blanks of information. A "more is less" lesson I've picked up working on these past two projects.

changed some previous stills...this one has changed from a more cartoony but rubbery face of bicycler before he gets swept into tornado. Uh, looks better in the motion blur of it all. The other one annoyed me.

and I improved the topo kitties reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. The lights helped. I like bright sparkly things, what can I say.....
I also shaved off another 10 seconds today. The more clips I finish, the more I edit the previous ones.  As things are high action at the end, the dreamy beginning in relation to it could stand to pick up the pace a bit. I'm also reserving 30 seconds for the most important section of the video. (I've already prepped some of it.) I did storyboard this project.  However, more inspired ideas/revisions come to me as I work. Ideas also pop up when I get out and plunk myself at a coffeehouse with some notes or go walking.
Tomorrow I will show progress of the garden chase. At this point I have about 10 seconds to get across all I want to.