WIP Fractures

[BenEcosse]

Hi, here are some clips and still from my animation.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Well, I see a number of problems (why do I have to always be the first? Because I'm passionate about thin line drawing animation.)

In the first clip the bird's legs have no relationship to weight, space or motion of the body. They flail about but don't walk. My advice is don't try so hard to make them work the way you think they are supposed to. What do you see when you study birds in nature? You can't keep track of what their running legs do, just like pre-Muybridge observers were stumped with horses' legs. My solution in such cases is to draw what they SEEM to be doing. They pump up and down and are mostly barely visible and that's what I draw; little sticks pumping up and down and no one can catch what they are doing because I'd draw sometimes three legs and at other times just one. I also wouldn't give a hoot about their claws. If I'd draw them at all, they'd be tiny, barely noticeable but once in a frame I'd throw in the real thing...folded if mid-air, flat if grounded.

In the second clip I like what you did with car. This is pure line art animation because surprises are elegant when done this way, except yours doesn't work too well only for the reason that the car is too fast. If you have set the rule by your actions of the bird that this is a pretty realistically moving world, you have to stick with it. I can see bending this rule at times; the car can be a little faster than real but not this fast.

The 3rd clip is really problematic. I don't get the purpose of the hand and even if there will be an explanation down along the way, I still don't like the way it is not tied in with the scene. It looks contrived and comes off as being pretentious. The landing in front of the car doesn't work either because you left out too conveniently the moment when the paper passes CLOSE to the car. I know it's a lot of work, but not THAT much in light line work. If you keep it this way it looks like a bad cut. If you don't want to get so close to the car, then you should end up with a paper that is much smaller and then cut to the CU.

The 4th clip I presume is part of the sequence even though it's in color but it would work much better if after the messy lines to indicate an ECU I wouldn't place the bird further back, I'd place the paper further back and have the bird hop back to it from the camera (because the bird was carried away by the wash of the tires (ha-ha-ha).

And finally, I'm not sure if your choice of brushes work as a counterpart to the line drawings. I believe it's a mistake to create this disharmony just because in this sort of film anything goes -- it's an experimental film so just live with it dear viewer. I'm a firm believer in setting rules of logic for yourself and your world and no matter how loose you think you can be and get away with whatever you please, you can't. Like keeping musical instruments in tune and keeping a matching color palette, the elements of your world should have harmony even within its own chaos.

There are more problems but I won't touch upon those and will cross that line only if asked. I am a compassionate soul, after all. I hope you do stick to the direction you have set yourself upon because once these crumples get worked out you are going to be mighty pleased with it in which case, so will the viewer.

[BenEcosse]

Hi Paul,
Thanks for the comments.

[Paul Fierlinger]

But about storyboarding: TVPaint has the perfect module for this kind of work! Have you checked it out closer? You can setup panels, which you can then turn into an animatic and from there continue on into full animation, and the whole time you can instantly playback and check your timing.

Anyway, I hope I didn't give you the final shove off your noble intentions, but if I had done that, it just means you had already reached the tipping point anyway.

[Soom]

Can't see them - Vimeo tells me that cannot embed video, cause it's a Vimeo plus feature...

[slowtiger]

No, Ben just needs to get his settings for the videos right ...

[idragosani]

Strange, they were all working before...

[Paul Fierlinger]

I think Ben gave up completely just as he said he would and withdrew the clips himself. If this is the case, I can't blame him for doing so. This can be the pitfall of publishing one's WIP to a mostly anonymous public forum of experienced animators such as this one. You have to expect the off chance of receiving a real critique and if I was too harsh, well, I treat myself and my own work the same way, otherwise I would have never reached the level of experiences I have today.

Right now I am working on a commissioned film and have decided last night to throw out everything I have been drawing for the past three weeks because it doesn't look right. I would have never wanted to present my work at such a stage out here or anywhere else until I was completely satisfied with the results myself. If I felt I needed help by hearing another person's opinion, I would turn to someone I know very well and respect for their opinions. In such a case I would be prepared to get honest and direct opinions.

Ben was prepared for what might happen and was apparently ready to toss it out, which he did.
@Ben: I think you have the right sensibilities of telling stories in an engaging way, so the talent is there. It would just take you a couple more years to get where you had thought you would be much faster. If you keep at it, you will not be wasting your time -- if that is something you really, really want to do badly. If that is not the case, I am sure you will find something to satisfy your creativity in another direction and wish you all the best.

[BenEcosse]

yes, I had made the posts private as I was a bit embarrassed by them in the end.

[Paul Fierlinger]

This is good news. I would like to put in a word of caution though; as much as I have always admired your abstract works and I particularly like the two examples you present here, and of those two the second one I admire especially, because of its colors, these examples happened through a number of guided accidents. But this is why they will not come to life in 2D animation which requires a large degree of certitude to give motion a purposeful walk ... one measured frame at a time.

I like that you say you haven't given up on those little pencil characters -- hopefully you imagine them moving around in an environment of the present two illustrations; one carries the thought and the spirit and the other carries the story. Thought, soul, and story make for good animations.

Saul Steinberg went that way but a bit in reverse. In his life he started off with ideas full of little surprises, carried by simple characters which became instantly so successful as to become dangerous for another artist to admire too much because it then becomes hard not to imitate. But all his life he wanted the world to recognize him as a fine arts artist and when he couldn't even force the media to give him so much as a nod in that direction, he began to paint , albeit rather late in life, rather beautiful story telling illustrations in which even Steinberg couldn't escape from imitating himself and ended up with perfectly astonishing paintings which included line drawings to carry the thought to its intended place.

[CartoonMonkey]

I actually missed your work in progress / motion tests. Could you post them again? Good to hear you're still experimenting.