So, as promised, I'm posting all of my pre-production stuff on here in one big, composite post so that you can see the whole process from beginning to end.

The Premise:

I’ve always been a huge fan of the French artist Edmond Kiraz. He’s an illustrator that occasionally draws comics. I’d like to take one of his comic strips from his work and animate it in Flash. One I have in mind is of a girl that won’t stop dancing during and after a party, and gets herself and her boyfriend thrown in jail when she twirls a policeman’s moustache. I’d animate it and use “Linus & Lucy” by Vince Guaraldi for the background music.

The Script:

Title Card

Scene One

A high-class party. A man sits, playing the piano. His girlfriend is draped over his shoulder, watching as a girl dances playfully on top of the piano. The girl’s boyfriend also stands with the couple, watching and drinking a martini. Fade out.

The dancing girl and her boyfriend have left the party. They are walking outside. She is still dancing. Fade out.

Scene Three

The couple continues walking. The girl continues dancing. They pass a police officer. The girl reaches out and plays with the policeman’s moustache. He is not pleased. Cut to black.

Scene Four

The couple is in a jail cell. The man sits on the bench and sighs. The girl continues dancing. Fade to black.

End Credits

The Schedule:

Basically, my schedule is simply to work on the assignment in class. The only real solid dates are as follows:

>5/3: Create Characters and BGs in Photoshop
>5/6: Complete Scene One
>5/10: Complete Scene Two
>5/15: Complete Scene Three
>5/20: Complete Scene Four
>5/27: Final Film

The Storyboard:



Backgrounds:






Lastly, the notes on sound:

Basically, I'm just going to score it with "Linus & Lucy" by Vince Guaraldi.

And here's the finished product:









Conclusion:

Overall, this was a pleasant experience. Flash is a program I've been wanting to learn for a while, and despite the fact that I've only scratched it's surface, it's good to know that I now at least now how to produce SOMETHING with it. Obviously this would look very different if it were hand drawn, in that the quality of the animation would be higher (simply because I'd know exactly what the hell I was doing) but oh well. As for doing anything differently, I guess I'd try to take more time ON the animation and get it really stellar, and probably rework some of the puppets to work better aesthetically. But outside of that, I'm pretty pleased with the end product. Anyway, that's it for me. See you in the fall. Maybe. Probably.

At Long Last...

Huzzah! I've finally finished my Flash animation for DigiCel, and here it is. There will be one final post that mushes the final video, script, storyboards, etc. into one lump package after this. But for now...

Ok, so I've got the third scene complete, which is the second to last, as well as the second most difficult. Scene four is currently underway and coming along nicely, but I don't have much to say about that. Anyway, here's the video for scene 3. I admit, it's kind of hard for me to look at, and is far inferior to anything I'd (like to think I'd) produce with pencil-and-paper 2D, but hey, I'm still learnin' Flash. lol. I do enjoy the program, though, and hope to get better in the near future. But without further ado:

Finally, an update. It took me forever (which is why I haven't been updating) to figure out what was wrong with my movies when I exported them. They kept pixelating real badly, but I just exported them uncompressed and that fixed the problem. So without further ado, here are scenes one and two of my "film."

I'd love to update this with a video of my first scene, but when I exported it as an .avi it was super-heavily pixelated, so instead I'm going to ask anyone if they've also had this problem and if so, what they did to fix it. I can't remember if the professor gave us any real specific settings for the videos or anything that I may have missed, and if so, any info would be very appreciated. Anyway, I'll keep trying to figure this out and try to get some updated footage.

Here's a shot of my slightly-redesigned first scene, still including only 3/4 of the total characters. I still need to create the puppet for the dancing girl, but that'll probably be something I do over the weekend.

So, there's not much to be said for today other than I'm working on my project at a slow-but-steady pace. I talked to the professor last class and he did inform me that it would be a wiser choice to at least change the character designs in some way so as to avoid any type of plagerism-based lawsuit by Kiraz, and I have to admit it is the right decision. Unfortunately, that means that most of the work I've done so far was kind of for naught, but at the same time the fixes aren't too terribly large. Body types are pretty generic, so I think I can get away with using Kiraz-style bodies and just trying to come up with new heads and faces for the characters and I should be all right. I'll post more work later this morning when I've made some changes.

So I've got my backgrounds finished for my final. Now I'm working on generating the characters/puppets I'm going to be using. I've got 3/4 of the characters needed for the first scene. So far, it's looking a little something like this:

Here are some more videos of in-class Flash stuff. Nothing too impressive, but hey, it's an update.

Here are a few videos of the Flash work I've been doing in class. Nothing too special, but we're supposed to post 'em.

So, there's really not much to say today. I haven't really done any work on my project since last class. A few sketches here and there of the characters, but nothing has been scanned for posting. I'll try to get them up soon, though. I'm definitely trying to decide how close to the Kiraz designs I should stay, or if I should alter them in any real way. Personally, I think they look great and are just the right style for a Flash animation, so I guess it really boils down to artistic integrity of sorts. Anyway, that's pretty much all I've got to say on it right now. I'll be sure to get those sketchbook pages up soon so I can get some feedback.

New Idea!

So, I've got a new idea for a project. There's an artist I mentioned in one of my previous blogs named Kiraz, and I've fallen in love with one of his illustrations (see below). It's a bit of a short comic that chronicles a couples' misadventure one New Years' Eve. I was thinking I might just try to animate this. No real dialogue to speak of, but I think it'd be an interesting study in facial expressions and character animation. The background music would be "Linus & Lucy" by Vince Guaraldi.

Revelation!

So I've finally decided on a project. It will be short and sweet. I've been doing a line of comic strips for a while now in which my character (who is me) approaches random women and gets burned by it. I think that this might not be a bad idea for a short. It would involve me when I worked at Target dealing with the issues of approaching customers who are trying to buy personal items. It would be very one-character-one-environment, except for the fact that there will be two characters, lol: myself and a woman. We will be in the condom aisle, while she is purchasing some personal hygiene products. No one in retail ever wants to help anyone in that aisle because it's just awkward as hell, but a customer is a customer and you have to. So in the short, I'll cautiously approach and ask if I can help her find something, and she will proceed to flip out and call me a pervert. I don't want to go into much more detail than that because I don't want to ruin any of the punchlines, but that's the overall jist of it.

Premise

Well I've been doing a lot of thinking about what story I may want to tell with the project in this class, but unfortunately have not come to any real conclusions. I know I'd like to do something silly, something that will entertain people, and that's about as far as I've gotten in terms of anything decisive. I'm tossing around a few ideas that involve some characters I've created a long time ago in high school and that I use pretty regularly in my comic strips. They'd simply be interacting and perhaps spouting some dialogue. However I'm also contemplating branching out and creating some new characters in a more absurd style that may better suit flash animation. I'm not positive. When I make up my mind, though, you guys will be the first to know.

Here we have some examples of artists that I find highly influential, and that I think could really be great inspirations for my Flash animation project. To start off is the great Shane Glines. A character designer that worked on Batman: TAS, Superman: TAS, Batman Beyond, and many more, he has a very retro look to his characters with a specialty in gorgeous women. I love the babydoll proportions of the faces as well as the hyper-hourglass figures. I think his stuff is just great.


Next, we'll follow it up with a healthy dose of French illustrator Edmund Kiraz. Perhaps one of my most favorite illustrators of all time, this Parisian is famous for his beautifully delicate and playful depictions of, well, female Parisians. Often seen in Playboy, his stuff is downright gorgeous.


Below is an illustration by Amanda Wissel. I don't know much about this artist, other than that I was introduced to her by Shane Glines. Very reminiscent of Mary Blair and the Golden Books illustrators, I love her use of color and design.



Lastly, we have Sean Galloway. Most notable for his character design work on "The Spectacular Spider-Man," Galloway's stuff has loads of personality and tons of energy. His use of color is also exceptional, as you can see how much it can change his simple linework into a fully volumetric illustration. Great great stuff.

Self-Portrait

We're supposed to have a self-portrait on here for class. I chose to draw myself fighting off a zombie.

Favorite Animations

Here are a couple clips of some of my most favorite animations of all time. My flavors of the week are just that, so I didn't want to include any of that on here. This is stuff I'll be willing to watch until the end of time.

For starters, I mean, how could this NOT be on someone's list?



And then, I don't care if you like anime or not, this is one of the finest works of entertainment EVER.

Hey.

Hello, everyone. I'm Yale Stewart, a third-year animation student over here at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). I'm starting up this blog as a class requirement, so don't have too much to say. I like to think of myself as a pretty easy going guy who enjoys a good smoke and a better woman. I spend a lot of time up at the park basking in the sun and drawing people frolicking about. One of my passions is capturing everyday situations in a humorous light, not unlike "Seinfeld" which may be my strongest comedic influence ever. I also really enjoy "Penny Arcade," but hey, who doesn't, right?

Outside of the whole art thing, I'm very much into sports, music, and all sorts of entertainment. Being from St. Louis, baseball is a huge passion of mine and every year I look forward to the Cardinals making their run to the post-season. Musically, I'm inclined to happier, more upbeat stuff that you've probably never heard of, as well as a heavy dose of good ol' classic rock. I feel like telling you all of this is kind of pointless though, so I think I'll stop.

I guess that about wraps it up from me. I've never been good at writing about myself, since the best way to get to know someone is to ask what it is you WANT to know. So if I've piqued your curiosity, which I doubt, then shoot me a line. 'Til next time.

Yeah, I said it.