The apprentice monkey king's cave

[lapprenti roi des singes]

I just realized that, as old member I could be, I still didn't have a thread here !

Let's just correct it now !


Moody day in Taipei

[Elodie]

Woh, super sympa, j'aime beaucoup =)

[ZigOtto]

good work Lapp. , and lovely model !
from photo, live reference, ... or from memory ?
... and how long did it take ?

[lapprenti roi des singes]

Elodie : Thanks, I appreciate.



Zig : Totally imagined (I wish I could have a model like that). Let's say that the girl is a mix of all the pretty young ladies that I've randomly drawn in the streets or the subway of Taipei ^^ (and trust me, there were a lot ).
The only reference was the heavy rain of that day (we were in the middle of a Typhoon).

It took me something like 2 hours.
I actually didn't draw any line, I've done everything (except the lines for the eye, nose and mouth) with the filled stroke tool with all the very basic colors, and then only used the special brush in color smear mode to blend them together, adding sometimes some red and deep blue strokes here and there. It's the 1st time I'm working with this method (I'm much more a line man), so I was feeling a little incsecure at first, but it's actually very refreshing. Feels more like sculpting colors than drawing.
I also wanted to see if I was able to draw in the "Benjamin style" (a pretty famous modern chinese comics artist with a very special style). Seems like I'm not too far from it anymore

[ZigOtto]

... It's the 1st time I'm working with this method (I'm much more a line man), so I was feeling a little insecure at first, but it's actually very refreshing. Feels more like sculpting colors than drawing.

and do you think this kind of color rendering could be "animable", I mean without too much shaky colors ?

[lapprenti roi des singes]

I've never tried it yet, but check these little animations from Oda, from Catsuka.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcy6cp ... t_creation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.catsuka.com/interf/forum/vie ... &start=285" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcbvca ... from=embed" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;[img]
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xd0qq9 ... 2_creation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think there are some very interesting ideas in there, and I'm quite sure that it's possible to blend the 2 styles together.
But I also think it would need a lot of time (keep in mind that the character alone took me more than one hour to draw, even if I guess that by repeating the process, it would take much less in the end), so not really "rentable" ^^.

If you really don't want it to shake, I guess it would be probably more convenient to draw each part of the body on separate layers, and then animate them as a puppet (by the way, is there anything like a puppet control in the upcoming updates ?), combined with the wrapping grid (on a merged layer ?).

[slowtiger]

On first reading this sounds like "another technique much too timeconsuming for animation" - I, for myself, don't aim to be Aleksandr Petrov II.

But if the story needs this, you certainly could do it this way. Interesting that you ask for puppet controls. TVP doesn't have this, but I use Anime Studio for all animation in cutout style (provides a skeleton and all I need), and I constantly exchange files back and forth.

One (of many possible) workflow could be this: start in TVP with blocking the main shapes. Create basic face features and shadows. Export these as separate parts (face, body, hand, whatever) and animate them in cutout fashion in AS. Re-import this to TVP, maybe stretch it in time to get some simple transition effect between frames. Paint over this, duplicate all levels and merge them, then apply your brush smear technique as a finishing touch.

This is definitely not a style for me, but I like to watch the results. Don't forget the power of layers, it makes a lot of stuff really simple to do, and it can be a way to boast more work than you've actually done. And bear in mind that the charme of "animated painting" lies in the imperfections - if it's too smooth, it looses its soul.

(Have a look for german painter/animator Jochen Kuhn (http://www.jochenkuhn.de/, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jochen_Kuhn), he's done this for a lifetime but still completely analogue.)

[Fabrice]

It reminds me "benjamin"

[ZigOtto]

I've never tried it yet, but check these little animations from Oda, from Catsuka.

if I am correct, Oda from Catsuka is nothing less than our beloved Mathieu.s here, on the forum.
a discreet, but very talentuous TVPainter, indeed !

you certainly already know his (student) film "Déluge", they use mixed technics for this "painting" animation :

[lapprenti roi des singes]

SlowTiger : Not sure if I understood every details, but I do get the point. I'm pretty curious to try it out (but I don't have animstudios). Nevertheless, I think it's still possible to arrange something combined with aftereffects as well. I'll definitely try it out ... once I've got some spare time, which is obviously not in the immediate future.

Fab : Comme mentionné plus haut, j'avais justement envie d'essayer quelque chose qui s'en rapproche, même si je suis encore très loin de sa sensibilité au niveau des couleurs.


Zig : Pour Mathieu S. je connaissais son pseudo, mais pas ses films de fin d'études...
Et bin, mon cochon...
Le moins qu'on puisse dire c'est que ça tabasse ! (par contre son film bas les masques m'a beaucoup rappelé "Je te pardonne" réalisé par les talentueux Pierre Mousquet et Jerome Cauwe, fondateurs d'IMOV studios, 2 anciens potes de la Cambre. Hasard ou "hommage" ?).
http://www.imovstudios.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Elodie]

C'est vrai que je me suis posée aussi la question quand j'ai vu le film =)

Mais une chose est claire, c'est qu'il a un sacré level en animation et ses petites animations fantaisiste de combat de Street fighter sont véritablement scotchantes =)
J'espère voir bientôt ses nouvelles animations =)

Et toi d'ailleurs, où en es-tu niveau Anim ? rien à nous montrer ?

[Hervé]

par contre son film bas les masques m'a beaucoup rappelé "Je te pardonne" réalisé par les talentueux Pierre Mousquet et Jerome Cauwe, fondateurs d'IMOV studios, 2 anciens potes de la Cambre. Hasard ou "hommage" ?

Ils utilisent aussi TVP, ce n'est donc pas vraiment un hazard.

[Fabrice]

Sauf erreur de ma part, "Bas les masques" est antérieur.

[Elodie]

Il me semble aussi =)

En tout cas, c'est çuilà que j'ai vu en premier ^^

Si ça se trouve, ils ont été réalisés quasi en même temps en fait =P

[ZigOtto]

pour info, et dans l'ordre :
- "Déluge" = 1er semestre 2008/2009 (fin > janvier 2009),
- "Bas les Masques" 2eme sem. (fin > juin 2009).

en fait, je pense qu'il a dû faire quelques retakes sur "Déluge", aprés la prod de "Bas les Masques".