Catherine Fox 7 years, 6 months ago-
Posts
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Hi Everyone,
Starting a new thread now I’ve decided on the challenge – more than anything else I’ve been wanting to make animations for fun (and later profit). Feldenkrais lessons are a much bigger project and I need something simpler to start with.
So I set myself the challenge that I will “make an animation that tells a story or expresses an idea”. And if I run out of time I will at the very least create a comic / drawn version to tell the story.
It will teach me how to create workflows for anime studio pro that I can use in future projects! this is how I will make things feel fun for me
Week 1 progress :
I came up with an idea for a story that’s broken into 3 parts maybe more, that could end up being a sequence of mini videos or comics. It’s called “Creatures of Habit”. The idea is to tell stories about various Creatures of Habit set in a random animated world. The 2 clearest ones I have so far are “The Story of Bob, a Creature of Doing”, and “The story of Lucy, a Creature of Feeling.” (who happen to be brother and sister and don’t get on that well). The third creature is the Wild Self creature of Presence.
I found a free storyboard software called “The Plot”
I got Jeff’s old Wacom tablet and got it working win 10 tablet. And I started creating my first every storyboard
Week 2 Progress
I finished creating the storyboard for “Bob – a creature of Doing”. Already I’m seeing how much work this could take an no way to do the whole series in 4 weeks!
Today I went back to Anime studio pro for the first time in months and made the first scene, roughly, with audio I recorded straight into my computer – can get better audio later but i need something for the animation to go with.
Can’t be perfectionist as not enough time to do so!
I found an free audio site (or £10 donation for ever which is great) to get some music and sound effects!
And here is 7 seconds of draft animation/first scene.
This is SO AWESOME! I can’t wait to see where you take this. Even if you are able to finish only a 30-second or 1-minute video clip, this is so inspiring and has so much potential. Thanks, too, for sharing these resources. I have this vision of creating an animated superhero story for each section of my ecourse, but I haven’t been sure how I could make that happen. This is a great option to consider. How long did it take you to create this 7-second animation? Do you think it will go any faster moving forward?
Hi Laura, I’m using software called Anime Studio Pro 11, although the latest version is called Moho 12, it’s on 40% sale right now. I’d say you have to have a real enjoyment of the creating animation part for it’s own sake as it IS time consuming to learn and to create and get the timing right. However, I can say that the workflow will get faster as I get better with the software. It’s designed so you essentially create character puppets and lots of reuseable parts so if you are using the same character say a superhero once you’ve made it once you can re-use in lots of different scenes. The other challenge is learning animation principles to make it look alive. I’m still very much a newbie!
To set up “Bob” with the movable eyes, eyebrows, mouth too me probably an hour. and then to make the scene itself not too long actually – but I did loose track of time because I was enjoying myself. I will pay more attention going forward.
As to my project – I’m going to have to shorten the storyboard as it’s too long! If i can get a 1 minute story I will be really happy.
LOL I love Bob. He is so sweet and cute. I wanna know what Bob does now.
Curious what you are using for your microphone Catherine?
I got one on Amazon that was less than $100 and it’s really good if you want a name.
Stoked that your’e enjoying yourself so much @catherine_wildfox. I can see you having lots of fun once you learn this art-form!
Fantastic video Catherine! Really good job! I am messing around with animated video myself so I know how time consuming the learning and putting together of it can be. You’ve done a great job and I LOVE Bob!
That is so cool, Catherine!!! I’m really excited for your stories!
Awesome and wonderfully strange 🙂
Progress updates and I DID IT
First up – I started my 4 weeks on 13/14 April so my 4 week deadline was for tomorrow!
And it’s been quite a journey but I made my way there, and not quite how I thought.
I realised in week 2 or so that I had a lot more to learn with anime studio and the level of learning and frustration was rapidly becoming a heart sink of overwhelm
So somewhere in week 3 I decided to take another approach, which was get my sketch book out and at the very least create a Bob comic. I’ve not done hand drawn comics for years! It was a lot of fun.
In week 4, I scanned in, cut out the images and but them in a video editing software. I also recorded my voice with a better mic on my phone, and faffed around getting the audio from my phone to my computer but I made it!
And today I finished putting it together. I know it’s not perfect and it’s a bit of an experiment, but in the spirit of the game of just getting something out there, I’m doing it!
The original concept is that there is a series of these stories which end up tying together into a bigger theme about habits and ways of being in the world, eg doing/feeling/wild. I wanted something short and do-able and here it is!
Definitely I’d change the timing for the audio for some parts but this was a good first experiment and I found myself enjoying putting it together.
@catherine_wildfox this was so fun to watch. I wanna see more about Bob. Being a little bit of a bob myself, i wanna hear how he turns his life around so that he doesn’t have to RIP forever. C’mon Bob, I’m cheering you on.
I loved the whole hand drawn cartoons and the way you pieced it together.
And way to get it in on week four too Catherine. This is a really exciting turning point for you and your creations.
I could see the Bob stories going along with an eCourse you create that helps people go from Do’ers to Be’ers and each lesson could be introduced by a short Bob story.
Perhaps you have a different topic/theme, but I really see the potential here.
Way to go!
Excited to see what you create next and congrats for completing this. I hope you share it with your friends and network. I bet they’ll love it.
Hooray!
Yes I’ve been sharing and getting a good reception of funny and a bit thought provoking. People are sad about Bobert’s early demise. As you said though I think there are other versions and stories to tell and interact with.
In week 1 initially I had 3 different stories to tell about Creatures of Habit. Got a story about “Lucy the Feeling Creature” who has the ability to change her whole reality based on her feelings… I think Bob and Lucy might be siblings and don’t get on that well. There is also emerging the story of “Wyld the Presence Creature” and I think all kinds of interactions possible.
What was so good for me and this challenge was to get SOMETHING “completed” even if not perfected, and to see it all the way through. ALSO to allow myself to do something passion/fun which for me is in comics and animations.
I love so much that you can see the potential! These characters came to me in a spark of inspiration and I think there is more to unfold from them, and I’d love to link it up with the wild-self ecourse / an ecourse.
I’m not even sure if it’s about not being a Do-er but more that we have “Creatures of Habits” in ourselves and that how they can help and balance each other out?? Thank you for your encouragement!
Sorry about the sad ending for Bob, and don’t worry there will be more. Do I get my ring of destiny now?
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