Getting a bit further on. Created this 'mask' of sorts as a guide for the facial features.
Watermarking my shit now to get the word out my broke ass needs help!
Not as much progress made during this time, but enough to lock down at least.
At 5/31/24 12:24 PM, Narratorway wrote:Gonna hafta rework the bangs. They're way too small.
It's looking really good, you improved it a lot from the 1st phase. I'm curious though, what are you drawing on? 2s, 3s, 4s? Also, how long did the pause last in terms of frames? I'm trying to figure out timing for my own stuff.
At 6/2/24 03:11 AM, YummyWhiteLiquid wrote:It's looking really good, you improved it a lot from the 1st phase. I'm curious though, what are you drawing on? 2s, 3s, 4s? Also, how long did the pause last in terms of frames? I'm trying to figure out timing for my own stuff.
I'm animating on 2s at 24fps. Haven't counted the frames between the pauses. That was all done by eye during the very first pass and then polished up as time went on.
Everything after this point became clean up, which is very time consuming with not much to show for it more than simply cleaner lines to work the shadows and highlight passes off of. Right now, I only have one part left to clean up before starting all that.
At 6/4/24 03:31 AM, Narratorway wrote:Everything after this point became clean up, which is very time consuming with not much to show for it more than simply cleaner lines to work the shadows and highlight passes off of. Right now, I only have one part left to clean up before starting all that.
If you could give the roughest of rough estimates on time frame for a project in terms of percentages, from start to finish, what's the % time spent on:
- storyboarding / figuring out the abstract motion path of the overall animation
- sketching out the keyframes and in betweens
- cleanup
- color
- lighting
I saw you first posted this (I dunno if you also started this same day) on 21st of April so it's been... a month and a half since, give or take. I'm sure it varies with project to project for you based on lots of factors like complexity of movement, perspective, number of characters in scene and runtime. There's gotta be a semi consistent % time allocation though between projects, no?
At 6/9/24 08:01 PM, YummyWhiteLiquid wrote:At 6/4/24 03:31 AM, Narratorway wrote:Everything after this point became clean up, which is very time consuming with not much to show for it more than simply cleaner lines to work the shadows and highlight passes off of. Right now, I only have one part left to clean up before starting all that.
If you could give the roughest of rough estimates on time frame for a project in terms of percentages, from start to finish, what's the % time spent on:
I saw you first posted this (I dunno if you also started this same day) on 21st of April so it's been... a month and a half since, give or take. I'm sure it varies with project to project for you based on lots of factors like complexity of movement, perspective, number of characters in scene and runtime. There's gotta be a semi consistent % time allocation though between projects, no?
Possibly, but I've never bothered to pegged them down and I wouldn't trust myself with set numbers. It's very much an attitude thing. I enjoy the exploration of the rough stages so it goes by quickly for me while I consider clean up to be the equivalent of eating your vegetables, so it feels like it takes a dogs age. Exacerbating the problem is that roughing out animation typically takes less time than clean up regardless, so separating reality from personal bias becomes even more difficult to discern.
Pressed for percentages...I'd say clean up/inking take up the largest space of time. At least up to two thirds of a project. The big thing is my computer is so old, it can't handle anything close to HD resolutions as I'm actually working on the piece, so I need to ink in vectors that can scale up to those resolutions when I render them out, and inking with vectors is incredibly time consuming as ya futz with vector points instead of just drawing the line. It's a slog.
Coloring's nothing. It's just clicks with the fill tool.
None of that may apply to this current animation though. I've mostly been doing loops that don't exceed 24 frames, but this sucka is a straight ahead and twelve seconds long! I also had to readjust my work/life schedule while in the middle of making it, so who knows where this one will lead.
At 6/10/24 02:22 AM, Narratorway wrote:At 6/9/24 08:01 PM, YummyWhiteLiquid wrote:At 6/4/24 03:31 AM, Narratorway wrote:Everything after this point became clean up, which is very time consuming with not much to show for it more than simply cleaner lines to work the shadows and highlight passes off of. Right now, I only have one part left to clean up before starting all that.
If you could give the roughest of rough estimates on time frame for a project in terms of percentages, from start to finish, what's the % time spent on:
I saw you first posted this (I dunno if you also started this same day) on 21st of April so it's been... a month and a half since, give or take. I'm sure it varies with project to project for you based on lots of factors like complexity of movement, perspective, number of characters in scene and runtime. There's gotta be a semi consistent % time allocation though between projects, no?
Possibly, but I've never bothered to pegged them down and I wouldn't trust myself with set numbers. It's very much an attitude thing. I enjoy the exploration of the rough stages so it goes by quickly for me while I consider clean up to be the equivalent of eating your vegetables, so it feels like it takes a dogs age. Exacerbating the problem is that roughing out animation typically takes less time than clean up regardless, so separating reality from personal bias becomes even more difficult to discern.
Pressed for percentages...I'd say clean up/inking take up the largest space of time. At least up to two thirds of a project. The big thing is my computer is so old, it can't handle anything close to HD resolutions as I'm actually working on the piece, so I need to ink in vectors that can scale up to those resolutions when I render them out, and inking with vectors is incredibly time consuming as ya futz with vector points instead of just drawing the line. It's a slog.
Coloring's nothing. It's just clicks with the fill tool.
None of that may apply to this current animation though. I've mostly been doing loops that don't exceed 24 frames, but this sucka is a straight ahead and twelve seconds long! I also had to readjust my work/life schedule while in the middle of making it, so who knows where this one will lead.
Thanks for the detailed reply, man. I've been wishing that there was some miraculous cleanup methodology for applying the details to an animation in a complex perspective, or even one that has shifting perspectives, without doing as much frame by frame manual labor but instead, using some sophisticated vector shape tweening or smth to get natural motion automatically. I only recently got into animation. Rough stage takes me quite a bit of time, colouring is actually pretty fast too for me. But the fucking cleanup... Oh the cleanup...My brain is on auto pilot as I'm working on this piece now and I can't do it without listening to a podcast in the background, otherwise I'd blow my brains out.
Sounds like you're not working on these animations full time. Are you spending between an hour- 3 hours per session or more? I can't imagine if it's a side gig that you could devote more without burning out your energy levels. I can't juggle multiple jobs, a social life and sleep at the same time
At 6/10/24 06:23 PM, YummyWhiteLiquid wrote:Sounds like you're not working on these animations full time. Are you spending between an hour- 3 hours per session or more? I can't imagine if it's a side gig that you could devote more without burning out your energy levels. I can't juggle multiple jobs, a social life and sleep at the same time
More, but on a really scattered and limited schedule as it had to wrap around an equally scattered work schedule. That's changed as of last month, so I have full days connected to each other to dedicate to this and adjusting to that has had hiccups, but now I can and do commit full days to animating now. Turns out this can also bite you in the ass. Decided to really commit and did a twelve hour stint and busted out my upper back cause I'm too poverty to use ergonomic equipment. So...not gun do that again.
Gonna double post to show another update though!
It's a clean up pass in prep for the lighting passes.
So now we're into the lighting passes. Gonna keep these focused on shaping the elements over their final color staging.
Prolly gonna take a break this week to focus on housework, but I think I'm getting there.
Prolly won't like clean up though...
Turns out I had to take a bigger break cause temps got past the 110 mark...and they're doing it again this week when I'm getting scheduled for 12 hr days. So...yeah, this'll be the last update until all this bullshit passes. Sorry.
Now that things have finally cooled down, I can get back to work!
Started on the hair and it ended up being just as much of a hassle as I'd feared.
I've moved on to the inks and colors now on my platforms, but here's what the last sketch stage looked like:
Working on my very first commission. Up to inking at this point, but I'm fighting to figure out one character's hair.
Feeling damned near complete with the shadow pass, but looks can be deceiving. Still, I hope to have this finished before December.
At 11/24/24 09:42 AM, Narratorway wrote:Feeling damned near complete with the shadow pass, but looks can be deceiving. Still, I hope to have this finished before December.
Whelp! Missed that goal post, but whatevs. At least now it's pretty much done.
And done!
Now to get back to business! Specifically, some unfinished business I need to get done before I start on any new projects.
Forgot to update on what new animation I'm working on atm:
At 8/31/24 03:14 AM, Narratorway wrote:I've moved on to the inks and colors now on my platforms, but here's what the last sketch stage looked like:
Finished the loop I was working on and put it up on my Pat/Sub platforms. Gonna start on a new loop soon and also getting back to this monstrosity.
Finished the previous loop, which is now available as early access on Patreon and Subscribestar.
Starting a new loop.
