Making this film has been a great experience. The idea I ended up with was not the idea I planned on going with. I wanted to do something more colourful and detailed. Instead I ended up with a largely black and white piece with little detail, save for the backgrounds. The only reason I chose this piece was because it's story was the most developed and I couldn't think of anything better.
I'm glad this was what I had to work with though. I didn't know how long it would take me to accomplish certain tasks. When asked "how long does it take you to animate an easy shot and a hard shot?", I wouldn't know what to tell you. And I dreaded the idea of clean-ups. Keeping your character uniform all throughout a shot is hard, and I was certain it would take me forever to do them. That's why I'm glad that for my first film my character design was simple. Now I have a pretty good idea of how much longer it would have taken me to clean-up a character with buttons, or even an outfit for that matter! Now I have a good idea how much longer it would have taken me to colour something more complicated since the only colours I had to deal with where mostly white and then gray and several shades of crimson.
I was really surprised to find that I can animate pretty fast. Well.. certain shots still take me 4-6 hours, but simple shots are no big deal. I actually came upon some real "animator doubt" this year. It wasn't too bad, but it made me believe that I wasn't suited to be an animator and that I should just stick with storyboarding and character design. But work had to be done, and that meant I had to animate eventually. I tried animating one day and it looked like crap. It was like I had forgotten everything I was taught. I was angry that whole day. But the next day I decided that the feeling of anger wasn't helping me animate, so I deleted it and took things really slowly and re-learned how to animate. And now I know how to animate.
I can't wait to start my next film! I don't have an idea yet, but I know I'm adding lots of colour and detail.
I'm glad this was what I had to work with though. I didn't know how long it would take me to accomplish certain tasks. When asked "how long does it take you to animate an easy shot and a hard shot?", I wouldn't know what to tell you. And I dreaded the idea of clean-ups. Keeping your character uniform all throughout a shot is hard, and I was certain it would take me forever to do them. That's why I'm glad that for my first film my character design was simple. Now I have a pretty good idea of how much longer it would have taken me to clean-up a character with buttons, or even an outfit for that matter! Now I have a good idea how much longer it would have taken me to colour something more complicated since the only colours I had to deal with where mostly white and then gray and several shades of crimson.
I was really surprised to find that I can animate pretty fast. Well.. certain shots still take me 4-6 hours, but simple shots are no big deal. I actually came upon some real "animator doubt" this year. It wasn't too bad, but it made me believe that I wasn't suited to be an animator and that I should just stick with storyboarding and character design. But work had to be done, and that meant I had to animate eventually. I tried animating one day and it looked like crap. It was like I had forgotten everything I was taught. I was angry that whole day. But the next day I decided that the feeling of anger wasn't helping me animate, so I deleted it and took things really slowly and re-learned how to animate. And now I know how to animate.
I can't wait to start my next film! I don't have an idea yet, but I know I'm adding lots of colour and detail.
