Mr. Big makes cartoons

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Madeline (?) » Sun Jun 07, 2020 9:22 am

Aramek can have a discussion with himself :ponder:

also these are v good, please keep doing them :allears:

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Jun 08, 2020 3:11 pm

Madeline wrote:
Sun Jun 07, 2020 9:22 am
also these are v good, please keep doing them :allears:
Thanks! Really having fun with this :yay:

Spent the weekend animating this:


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Re: Doing animation

Post by Madeline (?) » Mon Jun 08, 2020 11:34 pm

:lol:

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jun 09, 2020 9:03 pm



Did a clean-up of one of the shots to see how it would look. This is what I'm aiming for. I did the clean-ups on Krita because it has the textured brush I want to use (I took a charcoal brush and modified it). I then rendered it back to ToonBoom.

For the backgrounds I wanted something with texture, not wanting to use flat colors, so I took a construction paper, soaked it in water, crumbled it up then flattened, than scanned it in once dry. That resulted in an interesting texture.

Speaking of coloring, I decided to have all the characters rendered solid white, placed against colored textured backgrounds. I wanted to go for the style some older animation did in the 1950s and 1960s where they had the characters painted solid white against brightly colored backgrounds. UPA did a few cartoons in this style, but other places did it, too, like in certain Schoolhouse Rock shorts.

Image

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:02 pm



Cleaned up this shot

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jun 16, 2020 1:12 am



CLEAN-UPS DONE! For the opening scene, at least.

Test footage. Need to fix some bits (like Cat's spit flickering in one part, edge of background appearing in the beginning, etc.), but the hard part's otherwise done

Here's my attempt at editing. Added some sound effects. Still coupla places that need them, but I'm getting a hang of it.

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:16 pm

Image

Ever had one of those nights.

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Madeline (?) » Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:24 pm

As a former cat owner: yes. :-I

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Princess Flufflebutt (?) » Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:27 pm

Madeline wrote:
Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:24 pm
As a former cat owner: yes. :-I
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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:04 am



:-I

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Madeline (?) » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:05 am

lmao

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:54 am



Still animating! About halfway done with the short.

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Madeline (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2020 2:13 am

I am enjoying following your progress, and also that the YouTube algorithm recommends videos about mermaids, dancing, and Simon Cowell alongside your animation test :-I

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2020 3:01 am



Had fun with sound effects here. Aramek voiced and mixed the "Awwww"

Also a reminder that I'm posting more animation stuff on my Patreon (shameless plug because I'm hoping to make animation my bigger thing)

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Madeline (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2020 4:57 am

It’s pretty good

I wish you luck

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Jul 10, 2020 2:20 pm



This was a film I made in December 2011 during break from school. I animated it on copy paper using a Rapidograph pen and photographed it onto 16mm film with a camera I bought on eBay.

I had it up on YouTube years ago, but it had no sound. This week I finally decided to revisit it and add soundtrack to the film.

Music by Kevin MacLeod.Used under Creative Commons License.

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Jul 11, 2020 10:23 pm

Image

One of my animation roughs.

It's probably a good thing I'm doing all the clean-ups myself :-I

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 12, 2020 2:35 am



Honestly happy with how the effects came out

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 12, 2020 2:39 am

Image

I'm in the home stretch with the short! :party:

About 1/3 of the short was cleaned up digitally, but I wasn't satisfied with how the lineart looks (I'm kind of a pain in the ass when it comes to how lineart looks) so I decided to have much of the inking done on paper. Similar to "Fuzzy Princess" comics where I would print out a digitally-drawn sketch then ink on paper, I roughed out the animation digitally on ToonBoom then have each frame printed out for inking.

My printer/scanner came with an option for feed scan, where I would simply stack the drawings and have it run through the feed for scanning, making it helluva lot easier. I scan each drawing at 200dpi JPEG, then import it back to ToonBoom, vectorizing the drawings in the process.

I've been using a variety of markers, mainly Sharpie* and whatever brush pen I can find. I found one pen to give me a specific chunky line I desire. Not an expensive pen, too; just some cheap markers I bought at a store. The ink really bleeds on the paper, giving me the kind of line I desire.

I think this is one of the rare cases where ink bleed is desired among traditional artists :-I

*- SEVERAL Sharpies. Ink dry out quick

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 12, 2020 1:23 pm

Mr. Big wrote:
Fri Jul 10, 2020 2:20 pm


This was a film I made in December 2011 during break from school. I animated it on copy paper using a Rapidograph pen and photographed it onto 16mm film with a camera I bought on eBay.

I had it up on YouTube years ago, but it had no sound. This week I finally decided to revisit it and add soundtrack to the film.

Music by Kevin MacLeod.Used under Creative Commons License.
Image

Won Daily 2nd Place on Newgrounds :yay:

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Pocket (?) » Sun Jul 12, 2020 4:55 pm

Oh, Newgrounds just lets you upload video files now?

I mean, I guess they'd have to; how else would they continue existing in this post-Flash era and whatnot. Still, only took 'em a total existential threat to push them to compete with YouTube.
Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of...

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 12, 2020 5:30 pm

Pocket wrote:
Sun Jul 12, 2020 4:55 pm
Oh, Newgrounds just lets you upload video files now?
Yeah it's been that way since 2012.

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Perpetual Motion (?) » Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:18 pm

Congratulations on second place on the website spun off from a Neo Geo fanzine :thumbsup:

(No, but seriously, nice job!)

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:42 am

Thanks!

As for the short I only have two scenes left to inbetween/clean up. Then the animation's all done.

Still need to edit it together, add sound effects, and whatnot, but I'm on final stretch.

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:44 am

Ironically, one of the last scenes in the short is the FIRST thing I ever animated (the one where Kat throws a halo like a frisbee).

I didn't really animate in sequence. I pretty much animated the "easy" shots first, before going to harder ones.

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Madeline (?) » Mon Jul 13, 2020 4:13 am

It’s not far off from how any longer animated film would normally be made, because your lead animators would be assigned to certain characters or scenes so you’ll have a number of scenes being done in tandem, instead of being done in sequence.

although I don’t know how that might have been handled at smaller indie studios like the Hubley studio, or what modern animators like Bill Plympton or Don Hertzfeldt would do with their features

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Jul 13, 2020 10:24 am

I've heard some indie animators animate out of sequence. I know the guy who does "Sublo and Tangy Mustard" is like that. I also saw some of John Dilworth animating his new short (he's been documenting it on YouTube), and he seems to animate out of order, too.

I think it largely depends on the animator and how much they plan ahead. Some animators only plan loosely (if at all) and make up shit as they work further.

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jul 14, 2020 3:05 am

It's DONE. Just finished the last sequence :party:

Next step's editing.

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Re: Doing animation

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jul 15, 2020 4:22 pm



Limited animation experiment. Wanted to try animating with very minimal inbetweens.

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Re: Doing animation [EDIT: IT'S DONE]

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:03 pm



:sweetielarm: :sweetielarm: IT'S LIVE :sweetielarm: :sweetielarm:

My first animated short!

Want to thank everyone for their support during its making.

Want to especially give shout outs to Aramek for doing all the voices, and Madeline for her advice on the script (which I wrote 2 years ago, lol)

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Re: Doing animation [EDIT: IT'S DONE]

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:08 pm

:yay:
ImageImage Image Image

;) ❤️ :twasnothin: ❤️ :fancyhat:

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Re: Doing animation [EDIT: IT'S DONE]

Post by Octavia (?) » Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:37 pm

Gonna need a looping gif of the cat kneading tia
ImageImageImageImageImage

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Re: Doing animation [EDIT: IT'S DONE]

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Jul 16, 2020 6:05 pm

Octavia wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:37 pm
Gonna need a looping gif of the cat kneading tia
Image

Image

Ask and ye shall receive!

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Re: Doing animation [EDIT: IT'S DONE]

Post by Octavia (?) » Thu Jul 16, 2020 9:36 pm

Thanks! :yay:
ImageImageImageImageImage

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Re: Doing animation [EDIT: IT'S DONE]

Post by Princess Flufflebutt (?) » Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:06 pm

That was a nice lil' thing :allears:
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Re: Doing animation [EDIT: IT'S DONE]

Post by Skipper (?) » Fri Jul 17, 2020 12:45 am

This is some good stuff!

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Re: Doing animation [EDIT: IT'S DONE]

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Jul 17, 2020 1:39 am

Thanks for the kind words, everybody! :yay:

Lengthy behind the scenes stuff:
So as I said earlier, I wrote this back in 2018. I storyboarded the pre-titles sequence (with Cat and Mouse) then, too. I originally wrote the script as a pitch to an animation producer I was working for at the time, which he ultimately declined.

I remembered the script couple months back and decided to make it myself. I had the whole film storyboarded. In the original I had Cat read THREE letters, but after I realized I made enough footage with two letters plus the Cat/Mouse prologue I decided to save it for the next film (Aramek did voices for it already).

I mostly animated it on ToonBoom, with the exception of the bit where Cat throws a halo. That was done entirely on Krita (and indeed, was the FIRST thing I animated for the film). The Cat and Mouse prologue was cleaned-up on Krita because it had better brush option (the version of ToonBoom I'm using is very limited with brush customization, unless I spend more $$$ for a higher-tier version). But while I can do reasonable sketching digitally, I can't really do inking and cleaning well with tablets (combined with the fact that I wasn't entirely satisfied with digital inking. I'm super picky when it comes to lineart), so I decided to have most of the rest of the animation cleaned-up traditionally on paper, printing out the digital roughs and inking from that on a light tablet. I then scanned the drawings back in, which was made easier because I have a feed scanner.

I then imported everything to ToonBoom, vectorizing everything. I also did most of the backgrounds traditionally, whether by using construction paper or using watercolor and colored dyes. The 3rd act with "Where Do Cats Go?" has digitally colored backgrounds, tho.

A lot of the sound effects came from Sounddogs and Soundrangers. I also used the Warner Bros. sound effects collection, using sfx used in Looney Tunes. At this point I have a large sound effects library. For music I used Kevin MacLeod's VERY large royalty-free music library. All in all, what little money I spent was largely on sound, since I paid modest fee for each sound effects I bought from the sites.

I edited using DaVinci Resolve, putting all the sound effects and music track together.

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Re: Doing animation [EDIT: IT'S DONE]

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Jul 17, 2020 1:42 am

All in all, this was a learning experience. I did bits and pieces of animation before, but this is the first time I did it in earnest. I was learning as I was making it, trying to figure out what works best for me, but I had no illusion that my first cartoon was going to be "perfect", so I didn't let it sweat me too much.

I think I'm better prepared for the next cartoon, though. I also want to give animating Fuzzy Princess a shot.

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Re: Doing animation [EDIT: IT'S DONE]

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Jul 18, 2020 1:13 am

So "Ask a Cat" is technically back, I guess, but in animation form! :party:

Right now I'm mining through old strips for ideas (the letters featured were taken from old strips), but if anyone want to send me questions, feel free to leave them here or PM me

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Re: Doing animation [EDIT: IT'S DONE]

Post by Mechanical Ape (?) » Sat Jul 18, 2020 1:51 am

That was really well done. :)
Image

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