About cel animation (flipping,colorizing,camerawork,etc..)

[Paul Fierlinger]

I don't like this attitude towards artists chained to a production line and completely disagree with your conclusion that

Correcting manually take as much time as coloring a whole drawing. So if you don't need to correct you double you productivity.

Allowing artists a few minor individual choices can do more wonders to their productivity than turning them into zombies by treating them as zombies.

[grumbleboy]

Paul--in regards to this, I'm curious about Sandra's coloring techniques. Does she use the fill and then touch up by hand, or some other method?

[Paul Fierlinger]

Paul--in regards to this, I'm curious about Sandra's coloring techniques. Does she use the fill and then touch up by hand, or some other method?

Sandra never touches the bucket; I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know about the healing feature, or perhaps she once knew but has long since forgotten.

Sandra paints everything on separate layers below my line drawings and hardly ever uses just one layer per character -- typically she will use 3 to 6 layers. I animate in two's and towards the end of our feature film she was only about two or three weeks behind me in finishing up and that included at least 600 backgrounds which she painted using anywhere from 20 to 50 layers. I draw fast; she paints rather slowly and works fewer hours than I do.

[grumbleboy]

Paul--in regards to this, I'm curious about Sandra's coloring techniques. Does she use the fill and then touch up by hand, or some other method?

Sandra never touches the bucket; I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know about the healing feature, or perhaps she once knew but has long since forgotten.

Sandra paints everything on separate layers below my line drawings and hardly ever uses just one layer per character -- typically she will use 3 to 6 layers. I animate in two's and towards the end of our feature film she was only about two or three weeks behind me in finishing up and that included at least 600 backgrounds which she painted using anywhere from 20 to 50 layers. I draw fast; she paints rather slowly and works fewer hours than I do.

Very interesting. I love the results of her techniques. I particularly remember a scene you showed from 'Tulip' that featured a red, double-decker bus coming down the street (I hope it made the final cut). I know from friends who are traditional artists how difficult it is to get a good rich red color without it seeming too kitschy or something. Hers was perfect.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Thanks -- I'll pass the words. Here's a link to the trailer for that film:
http://mydogtulipfilm.com/movie%20clips ... pFINAL.wmv" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It's low res and grainy, but notice how each frame of the dog is colored as a separate painting with many strokes. Sandra treats those paintings as individual water color paintings, therefore uses several layers the way one would layer strokes of watercolors.

[D.T. Nethery]

Thanks -- I'll pass the words. Here's a link to the trailer for that film:
http://mydogtulipfilm.com/movie%20clips ... pFINAL.wmv" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It's low res and grainy, but notice how each frame of the dog is colored as a separate painting with many strokes. Sandra treats those paintings as individual water color paintings, therefore uses several layers the way one would layer strokes of watercolors.

It's beautiful work. That's why I love TVP. I don't want to be stuck just doing the same old retro "cel paint" look with flat areas of color . (although if that is what is called for sometimes , if a client wants that look, TVP can do click-and -fill coloring , no problem, but it's so much more versatile than that.)

[Paul Fierlinger]

If you want to see what we are up to now, here's a link to a sample reel of our WIP:

http://www.oldanimator.com/video/2victor/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

WARNING: the sample reel is a *.wmv and weighs in at 348MB because it runs 17 minutes. It took me 13 minutes to download on my smaller computer, but others have had to wait up to 30 minutes. The illustrations (about 40) are 1080p BMPs (I think) so it'll give you a pretty good look at how Sandra paints.

I just realized that there are a few samples of her work where she painted flat colors because they are to resemble turn of the century (19th to 20th) magazine color print. Even those Sandra hand painted "because I just like to paint", as she put it. I am convinced that assembly line painters also like to do more than just click and fill.

[isd]

But if the ultimate goal is to have "point-click-fill" coloring that can be done by a monkey or a robot then I don't think you'll find it here.

I wonder if one problem you are experiencing with your fills is that your scans are not scanned at a high-resolution ? I find that if I scan at a high resolution (at least 300 dpi) in B&W mode , then run Scan Cleaner FX on the drawings I don't have any problem with Flood Fill coloring.

I wouldn' be more pleased if I could find a robot that point and fills correctly. Unfortunately humans are still the only who can do it, and they don't even do it correctly all the time(lol)　
I will try with a higher resolution thank you for the advice ^^
In fact for the coloring tests I was drawing directly in TVpaint and as was using the resolution of the screen (but in fact we produce in 720p for the moment which is about the resolution of the screen)

[isd]

I don't like this attitude towards artists chained to a production line and completely disagree with your conclusion that

Correcting manually take as much time as coloring a whole drawing. So if you don't need to correct you double you productivity.

Allowing artists a few minor individual choices can do more wonders to their productivity than turning them into zombies by treating them as zombies.

I won't enter in a discussion about the dark side of the taylorisation. Noone would give any liberty to a colorizer that's crazy, period.
The job of the colorizer is precisely to NOT do personal color choices. I guess that is a difficult job for humans but imagine John Doe colorizing the left chair of your car blue instead of red just because he thought it was prettier. In the animation production there is no difference, there is a design that was reviewed many many times by many many persons and that is rock solid, and the colors are precisely determined for every part, that's nonsense to give the liberty to crush this previous job don't?

Moreover, as a personal opinion, if I was making my own animations I would absolutely like to have such "zombie" features for zombie-like work (and there is a lot in animation). You have to place your energy where it is the most useful, not in correcting the work a robot should have done correctly.

[isd]

Thanks -- I'll pass the words. Here's a link to the trailer for that film:
http://mydogtulipfilm.com/movie%20clips ... pFINAL.wmv" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It's low res and grainy, but notice how each frame of the dog is colored as a separate painting with many strokes. Sandra treats those paintings as individual water color paintings, therefore uses several layers the way one would layer strokes of watercolors.

TVpaint is good for animating with full color drawings ^^

[Paul Fierlinger]

By saying to "allow artists a few minor choices" I had selected unfortunate words. All I meant by that was that in my view it's OK and even beneficial to allow colorists to search for spots left out by the filler and to touch these up manually with pen strokes, giving them the feeling that they are not complete robots. Frankly, your cavalier attitude towards these people is highly offensive to me.

[isd]

I just realized that there are a few samples of her work where she painted flat colors because they are to resemble turn of the century (19th to 20th) magazine color print. Even those Sandra hand painted "because I just like to paint", as she put it. I am convinced that assembly line painters also like to do more than just click and fill.

Personnally I want a good point and fill feature at least for myself. As well as for my work.
Even people who want to do more than that could use it like a good base.
There are also a lot of people who love the cel rendering and appreciate the simplicity and beauty of such drawings (which have just been point and filled).

[isd]

By saying to "allow artists a few minor choices" I had selected unfortunate words. All I meant by that was that in my view it's OK and even beneficial to allow colorists to search for spots left out by the filler and to touch these up manually with pen strokes, giving them the feeling that they are not complete robots. Frankly, your cavalier attitude towards these people is highly offensive to me.

Sorry I think you mistook my views. I am not taking any attitude towards any group of people.
First of all I am included in this group and as a colorist I would like such a feature. I wouldn't want to correct imperfections with the hand.
If you like to call that a "robot work" this is fine, I want to be a robot for this task and not drain my energy on such work.In fact I like automatizing all sort of things, and it is for artistic purposes. Where you put your energy is also a personal and artistic choice.

[Elodie]

@ISD : I've split the subject and move your message into the French part.

[isd]

Oh thank you. I didn't know it was English only here.