Animation and Video Life

Partial Image from 'Character' by Nigel Ng. Nigel Ng's animation, Character, is different to the animation I usually feature in this blog in that it is a more conceptual style of animation and story telling. Designed to elicit an emotional response, it uses music to set the tone, and juxtaposes short animations to create a narrative. Animators tend to move towards this kind of sophisticated, conceptual storytelling later in their careers, so I was surprised to learn that Nigel has only been animating around 4 months.

Final character art, scene one. Continuing to work on my Infinite Monkey Theorem animated short , I had hoped to have finished the entire final draft storyboard by now. However the holiday season being what it is, I didn't get as much time to work on it as I had hoped. Despite that I can show you the entire process of me taking the character (loosely based on myself) in the opening panel of the storyboard, from rough sketch to the final artwork that I'll use in the animation.

Infinite Monkey Theorem. Back in my last Project Update post I mentioned my Infinite Monkey Theorem, Animated Short that I had begun working on that was designed to showcase, Reddy, my first color monkey character for CrazyTalk Animator 3. Up until recently I had been working a little bit on the project every weekday, however the project fell by the wayside in an effort to get my Mar-Rey Sue, Desert Scavenger finished by the end of November. Now that character is finished, I think it's time to get this animated short back into my work schedule.

Mar-Rey Sue - Ideal for your next 'Force Awakens/Last Jedi' parody. Desert Scavenger, Mar-Rey Sue, is now available to buy in my Reallusion Marketplace store for your next CrazyTalk Animator 3 Star Wars parody (or any desert based animation really). The character is a single side angle, G3 character that comes with a range of options and accessories.

CTA3 Bone Editor Preview. If you've been following my posts on creating my CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3, Desert Scavenger Character, Mar-Rey Sue (note the revised spelling of 'Mar-Rey' from 'Ma-Rey'), then I hope you'll be excited to learn the main character rig is finished. That's right, all of the sprites are complete, the bone guides are in place, and I've imported the character into CrazyTalk Animator 3.

Ma-Rey Sue - Now with 100% less head scarves and googles. Work continues on my Desert Scavenger, Star Wars parody character, Ma-Rey Sue. Last post I gave you the character's development background and current status. This week, I've continued to work on her and made some real progress.

Since I hadn't talked about my upcoming CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3, Desert Scavenger Character, in any great detail (and because finishing her is taking longer than anticipated) I thought you may be interested to look at the project in a little more detail.

TET - Bitstrips Avatar. I'm really great at starting projects and, because of that, a lot of projects end up on the back burner or forgotten about entirely. So as not to allow that to happen, I thought it was time for a complete update on all the animation projects I've started in recent years (yes, I said years ) and have still to finish or discontinue. I'll work backwards from newest to oldest.

If you're a one person team or you just need a video presentation done yesterday a tool like Render Forest can be a real time saver. Render Forest is a free, cloud based intros, animations, slideshows and music visualizations creator. They provide professionally designed templates to which you just insert your text, photos and videos, add licensed music (that doesn't sound awful) and your video is done. Free videos are watermarked. If you want to remove this you can purchase a monthly or annual subscription to have them removed on all videos.

Good Storyboarding software is hard to come by at the low end of the market. So when I heard about Wonder Unit's Free Storyboarder application I was immediately interested. Springboard  has been my work horse storyboarding application for years. It's the cheapest, fully featured storyboarding software I know about, but it's getting old, and hasn't been updated since before I started using it. Storyboarder is an all new application put out into the world for free by Wonder Unit who say the market for their software is too niche to make money from selling it (I beg to differ but only very quietly because I like free stuff for creatives). Plus they make money from making movies so... there! (Sorry, there's an attitude of quirky jabs within this software and its documentation that's infectious).

Reddy the Color Monkey. Now available. Reddy, the Color Monkey, is now available to buy in my Reallusion Marketplace store  for your next CrazyTalk Animator 3 production. It's been a long journey that began way back in 2011, when I first tried to create him as a CTA, G1 character . Then again in 2014, I attempted to create him as CTA2, G2 character . Each time the process or life in general got the better of me, but with CTA3's G3 character rigs the process of creating characters has become a lot more achievable and, most importantly, less tedious (though I'd say it's still challenging if you want your character to be fully featured)..

Motion Den claims to be the world's simplest video maker of intros and slideshow style animated videos. I needed an animated slide show to promote my etourist Skateboards online store , which I planned to make myself with one of the many video editing applications I have, but, after being directed to Motion Den by a spammy, completely unrelated comment on this very blog (which I've since deleted), I thought I'll give them a try. The site is free to sign up and make videos with. Any published videos will have the Motion Den watermark. If you wish to remove this you can purchase individual videos or sign up for one of their plans, which give you a certain amount of credits each month to purchase videos with. Note that you can't actually do anything with a published free video other than view it in your account. There are no share options and you can't download it (making the watermark almost pointless).

Reddy the Color Monkey. My new CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3 Character, Reddy the color monkey is both finished and still a work in progress. Previously I thought I might have a demonstration animation completed for this post but, after receiving some sought after feedback on Reddy with some very good suggestions I decided to refine him even further. Most of the changes were to the line work around his joints so when his limbs move the join is less obvious and looks more natural. The more obvious change is that I added some shadow to him to make him look a little more three dimensional (so he'd match better with Garry Pye's excellent characters, props and backgrounds, which do have shadows and I will probably use quite a bit with Reddy).

See how I turn this free VectorCharacters.net image  into a CrazyTalk Animator 3 Character. Creating a character rig from original art can seem like a daunting task in CrazyTalk Animator 3. Especially if, all you really want to do is put together a quick animation with characters you may never even use again. Here's how to rig a CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3 human character, with the fewest components, whilst still being compatible with G3 character motions, and having a face capable of lip syncing and character expressions. You should be able to do this in under an hour - assuming you have your artwork ready to go.

Reddy the Color Monkey A CTA3, G3 Custom Character. Last post , I wasn't sure I'd get this far so soon, but, as it turns out, creating a CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3 character is a much easier and relatively more enjoyable task than creating the previous G2 Characters. In just under two weeks I've completed Reddy, the Color Monkey, my very first, fully Rigged G3 Character By fully rigged I mean he has all the sprites needed for a full range of facial expressions and hand positions. He also has an extra foot sprite so you can position his feet either facing forward or sideways.

This sketch only took about 10-15 minutes. Using a symmetrical ruler meant I only had to draw the left side of the image.  Last post I mentioned my intention to develop an animation series based around my color monkey characters. Recognizing that just saying something won't make it happen, today I started work on actually drawing and rigging the color monkey characters themselves. It's definitely a task that comes with some trepidation and a definite sense of déjà vu as I've been here before . A few years back I attempted to rig this same character in CrazyTalk Animator 2 as a G2 character. It was a lot of work that I ended up being overwhelmed by. This time I'm rigging the character in CrazyTalk Animator 3 as a G3 character. It's less work but still not a complete cakewalk. Unlike multi-angle G2 characters, G3 characters are only single angle. In theory you could draw and rig one from scratch inside a day (including all the additional hand and face spr...

One of my biggest stumbling blocks in moving forward with my own animation has been coming up with ideas that I can get excited about. Even with using time saving animation software like CrazyTalk Animator 3 creating animated shorts is still a lot of work that you need to stay motivated for. As much as I want to earn a living from creating my own animated shorts, the higher priority is to enjoy creating them... you know, if you enjoy what you're doing you'll never work a day in your life - that kind of thing. When I got back into creating animated shorts in 2008, after discovering GoAnimate , I was clearly having a lot of fun in the years before that site transitioned from allowing anyone to create animated stories to a business explainer video creation tool. I made somewhere around 180 animated shorts over the space of about 4 years - roughly 3 animations per month.

I recently purchased two online drawing courses created by former Disney Animator, Aaron Blaise , including How to Draw Human Anatomy , and Character Design . Both courses were included in Aaron's Figure Drawing and Character Design Bundle , pack deal. My own drawing style is heavily influenced by early Disney animated classics (think pre digital animation), which you can see in the more rounded lines of my characters - as opposed to the more angular character design lines you find in Marvel and DC comics etc. I wasn't sure how much I'd learn from either of these courses, baring in mind I've already studied both topics in detail in Art School, and have been designing my own characters since I was in primary school, but Aaron's a veteran and easily out classes my animation skills.

Star Wars, Forces of Destiny Episode 1, Sands of Jakku. Disney recently began releasing episodes of its animated shorts series, Star Wars Forces of Destiny , which focuses each short story around one of the female heroes from the Star Wars Universe. At the time of writing four episodes were available on the Disney Youtube channel and they're okay. The stories are fairly simple and likely targeted at a younger audience in the 7-12 range. The animation style is fairly typical of modern, Saturday morning cartoons, with the characters being fairly faithful cartoon versions of their live action counterparts. The reason I'm making a cross face is because the first two episodes feature Rey protecting BB-8 from various nasties on Jakku. Specifically with BB-8 and Rey being chased through the desert before she finally puts a plan into action.

TET Moho Avatar. It's nearly 2 months since I last posted to this blog so I thought it was way beyond time I made the obligatory 'I'm not dead, check in with anyone wondering where I've been and what I've been up to' post. Looking back at my two last update posts, the first from March 2016 and the second from July 2016 I'd like to say the reason for my lack of posting is different but no, still Animation 4 Business  client projects have been a factor.

The  Parblo Coast22 21.5" Graphic Drawing Tablet Monitor is the largest sub AU$1000.00 pen display monitor I could find that met all my other criteria. When it comes to drawing surfaces I believe the bigger the better, hence my choice. I know there are bigger displays but my budget didn't stretch that far. I also know WACOM pen display tablets are generally better quality products but I didn't want to settle for the 13.3" screen of the Cintiq 13HD , the only one of their tablets in my price range. It should be noted that this is my first Pen Display monitor. Prior to this I was using a WACOM Intuos 4 Drawing Tablet (which is no longer available but is similar to the Intuos Pro Tablets ). This was a factor in my choice not to stick with a smaller WACOM display tablet. I figure, what I don't know I won't miss. Even if a WACOM 13HD is better for drawing - I'm not going to know. That said, I can still compare the Parblo Coast22 to my WACOM Intuo...

As mobile phones become more powerful with bigger screens it just makes sense to utilize these devices as a sketchbook. Chances are, your mobile phone is nearly always within arms reach anyway so, instead of carrying a sketchbook everywhere, why not just use your phone? My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5, running Android 6. It's fairly powerful and has a relatively large screen. Prior to that I had a Nokia, Lumia 720 phone running Windows 8.1. It has a smaller screen but I used it a lot for sketching ideas and characters. Generally most modern phones with a capacitive touch screen (the kind that you can use your fingers with) should be fine for sketching.

So you've bought Smith Micro's Moho Pro 12 along with the Moho, 10 hour, 104 Video Tutorials Add On pack so you can get learning right away... only you can't. For whatever reason, the video tutorials aren't sorted into any logical order of progression making them hard to follow. Yeah, I've been there, only I've done what Smith Micro should have done and sorted all the video tutorials into a logical order of natural progression for you. That is, each tutorial builds upon what you learned in previous videos and you won't suddenly come up against some feature you've never used before, unless that feature is what the video tutorial is about.

Applying a Smart Warp to a Raster Image. All of the points can now be key framed. It's hard to believe I made it to the last nine tutorial videos for Moho Pro 12 but here we are. The final nine. These videos focus on all the new features added to Moho Pro 12 that you won't find if you bought the cheaper Debut version. So, to find out what you're missing, or to see what you have (if you did or are buying the Pro version) read on. Read the previous post here .

Pin Bones - Moho 12 It really has been a marathon of video watching and at this point I'm down to the final 18 Moho tutorial videos that came with my software purchase. These videos focus specifically on the new features of Moho Debut and Pro 12 . I'm eager to get through these as quickly as possible so, let's get straight to it. You'll find my previous post here .

Continuing on with my quest to learn Moho Pro 12 . Can I get through the final twelve advanced tutorials this post? Will I make a start on the final run of 'What's New in Moho Pro 12?' tutorials? Can you believe my attention span has lasted this long - oooh shiny! The list below are the tutorial titles that I've completed for this post and my summaries of each follow after that.

It's hard to believe I'm still going with my quest to learn Moho. It's definitely been an up hill battle but I'm determined to get to the final run of video tutorials that will teach me what is actually new in the latest release of the application. Unfortunately that's not going to happen with this installment which continues on with the Advanced Moho Pro Tutorials from video 28. In this installment I've drifted through another six tutorial videos and am finally starting to discover some of Moho's more useful features.

Reallusion's CrazyTalk Animator 3 or Smith Micro's Moho Studio Pro 12. Which of these 2D animation applications is right for you? Regular readers of this blog will know I'm a strong supporter, and fairly proficient user of CrazyTalk Animator since version 1. It's a great piece of software for producing 2D animations from purchased content quickly and, with version 3, is easier than ever to create animations from your own art. Lesser known is that I first purchased Moho Studio Pro 12 (then known as Anime Studio Pro 9) back in October of 2012 and have been upgrading it to the latest version ever since because I believed in it as an application for creating great 2D animation to TV quality standard. As such, it's a much more complex application than CTA3 that I only got around to learning properly late last year. I'm still in the process of blogging my progress . Despite this I feel I've learned enough of Moho to compare it to CTA3 to help you determ...

A brief look at 6 more of Moho's Pro Video tutorials in my continuing series following my progress of learning SmithMicro's animation studio . Of most interest here is the ability to create and import 3D objects. To me that's a little beyond the scope of 2D animation software but if you do want to combine 2D characters with 3D environments it is nice that you can achieve that without having to leave the program.