Side Project #3: Hand Drawn Animation

Being between paid gigs means more time for me to do some real time consuming side projects for fun. Plus, I saw Fantastic Mr. Fox (twice!) and was inspired to do something with some physical animation. So, this week I thought I'd get out the 'ol light box and ball point pen and take a stab at some hand drawn animation. I always have fun--but rarely have time for--working out how things are going to move by hand instead of with the computer. It's crazy satisfying. Check it out:



I drew this guy on printer paper and shaded it on the computer. Maybe someday I'll find the money to do an entire short in this style. But seeing as just that shot took me almost three days of work, I don't see that happening anytime soon. Want to fund a couple months of me making a cool short? Eh? Eh?

But seriously.

Oh, and I am still thinking about the music video that will utilize that stop motion dolly from last week's post. Here's a little animation test I did on the computer really fast to take a look at the animation style:



Now, imagine if each of those little images was a physical cut out of paper. And that instead of one move it was a full choreographed dance with multiple dancers cut out of different colored cardstock. Now imaging that they were all placed frame by frame like a domino rally (or a growing time-catapillar?) and shot with a nice digital SLR moving with dolly shots. Because that's what I'm thinking. I'll do a sample shot soon. Possibly by next week...?

And I'm still looking for a modern dance choreographer for that. Know somebody?

And because this post seems to be playing on the test animation theme, I'm going to put this old one up that still makes me laugh. It was my first experiment with lip synching in After Effects and was from a longer script. Enjoy: