Getting shots done in Who did it 2 (Patreon)

Lots to update on in regards to next cartoon. I'm in the final tweak editing stage now so will have Who Did it 2 out this coming week for you all to see before public release! 

I'm very hyped to show you all this cartoon, it was a mess of a production just given how certain bits had to be remade at a late stage and also finding time to do it all - will definitely be assembling a team for the next one. 

Given the messy schedule I haven't been good at also doing the social media updates along the way, so I'll be posting process shots and other bits and pieces over the next week as a sort of catch up now that I'm not scrambling to get it made.

Here we have Porkchop finishing his dinner whilst also respecting crime scene rules and regulations. 

I always start with a super rough animatic which I use instead of storyboarding since I feel it's pointless boarding stuff when it's mostly just for my eyes initially. I use this to get a sense of what is happening in the shot, the timing isnt super important yet

In the next step I define the character lineart a bit more and give the character some more animation, I actually had a load of shots that had the line thickness of the second example gif and had to redo them to look like the third gif with thinner lines since they looked pretty crap on full screen. 

I also have a proper layout of the background from step 2 onwards that gives me an exact impression of where everything in the scene will be for reference, combine this with the new thinner lines in step 3 and we have the animated shot minus the colour

Step 4 and 5 are all block coloured, I mostly go for cell shaded style so any shadows in the bg are block shadows here. the colouring is just clicking the paint bucket tool on each spot that needs colour, it takes ages and is very much a chore lol

Have a shot of the timeline at the end there just to show how all these steps end up stacking up as layers in the final thing. The face is on it's own layer as are the pupils, I have the face as an asset that can be edited at any time which means that because it's on it's own layer I can very easily mess with the direction the character is looking and the way their face is animated without having to touch the body art.

Not sure how interesting this is, I'll post tomorrow with another scene that is more action heavy and perhaps focus more on the animation principles at play and try to include some interesting visuals that help explain the thought process.

As I said, very hyped to show you guys this cartoon, it's pretty much a full tv cartoon show episode in length and I'm hoping it has plenty of rewatchability. 

More tomorrow!

Cheers :)