A lot of progress has been made this week. After officially starting the project at the tail end of July, the ideas and artistic styles have mutated so much and are finally starting to take hold and lay foundation for the rest of the story and visuals to come. So far, everything I have done(which isn't 100% in order) clocks in at over 12 minutes; which doesn't sound like a lot until you think about the effort it goes into each shot. The longest single shot is about 1:45, without the camera moving. A shot like that takes 2-3 hours of animation (that includes lip-syncing), and about 3 hours just to encode into actual video. Of course, this isn't counting the time it takes to write and record it. And that's just one shot- within a scene comprised of many shots.
The story takes aspects that are already familiar to the Stan, Satan, and the Old Fashioned Gun universe(http://oldfashionedgun.smackjeeves.com). The cops, Frank and Marty, play an integral part... especially Marty, as we watch his life spiral out of control and take a nose-dive.
Some major characters I have yet to include, such as Rochester and The Old Man With No Eyes (although each make a brief appearance), but I'm simply waiting for the right time. At the start of the comic there were just Stan and Satan; the other characters came later. That seemed to work well for everyone and I you never feel like anyone gets left behind.
When I was originally designing the art style of the project, I wanted each frame to be hand painted with a white ink border after the inking process. The process was just way to expensive and time consuming... so instead I just went with a single black border. The intent was always to have color be a huge factor, for each character to be composed of one or two colors each. That's expanded to maybe 3 colors each, but everything is very simple and colorful. The backgrounds are drawn, inked, and scanned into photoshop where I color them with varying layers and opaque brushes to make it seem almost painted. Some come out better than others.
Each scene has it's own color scheme. A barn scene is composed mostly reds and black. In stans house, everything is greenish. The scene in the opera house is all deep reds. Color is a huge part of recognition in the human brain, so my goal is to have everything memorable and have a cetain feel to it, sometimes even nastolgic.
These two shots on top and bottom of this paragraph is in example of getting caught re-using a background for different scenes. It may not look the same, but the top is a far more contrasted and has higher levels of color than it's brother below. I never said I didn't cut corners. Hell, I've even used a lip set from Lunchbox Duck Does it Right episode 2.
Most of the animation is uncomplicated and easy. I'm going to rely on the drawings, the style, and audio content to deliver the story. The lips sync, and people will move their arms and eyes and stuff like that, but don't expect anything above, say, South Park in terms of realistic animation and movement.
This sequence above with Stan and Marty was a challenge in that it needed to have many camera angles, and each drawing had to have 2 versions- a normal one, and one with light cast on it. When moved very fast, it gives the illusion of gunfire.
Above here is another instance of cutting corners. I realized I hadn't made a background for behind Frank and Marty, so I stole one from myself from the opening scene in the second episode of Lunchbox Duck. it sort of sticks out as it has more colors than anything else in the scene.
I'm sort of running out of things to say.
I show pictures and not final product for a few reasons. One is that I don't feel like anything is final. There are still little SFX that are missing, and a few of the vocal tracks need to be edited to not include breath hitting the mocrophone. Another reason is I don't want to be ripped off. Not that I really think people are watching me waiting to take my ideas, but it would suck. The other reason is I just like being mysterious. Someday I will show you some video, but for now, you'll have to settle for that dance sequence that I put up on YouTube. (try a few posts down)
So there you have it. By Christmas I hope to have 30 minutes done. Maybe I'll compile a trailer or something then.
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