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Deviation Actions
Check out "Pageant", episode 08 of The Awesomes, over on Hulu! I was privileged to choreograph and key out a little bit of fight action for this one... 50 seconds (1200 frames), 20 characters, no camera cuts, all for a background joke. So worth it.
Most of the show uses traditional vector puppeteering (though we did a LOT of in-house drawing, maybe 60/40?), which is more-or-less the standard now for TV animation. The original boards on this shot called for a classic old cartoony cloud-with-fists fight. That would have been easy to loop in, but not really in the style of the show. They haven't been tapping that sort of trope up to this point and it would have looked pretty strange to go there 4/5 of the way into the season.
But this is where puppet animation is often most limited... working out a good, physical action scene kinda requires straight-up, old-school, frame-by-frame skills. Puppets can't do it without either a lot of sacrifices or a LOT of pre-planning. Even drawing the action frame by frame, I used most every trick I knew; loops and cycles, copy-pasta and shifting as often as I thought I could get away with it.
Still, there's really no way to have a character slide into scene, fire off a slingshot three times, cartwheel over an ally kneeling on the ground, spin around in mid-air and slap a three-foot gopher in the face with a shovel that she pulls out of her purse, then use that shovel like a quarterstaff to take out a half-dozen more gophers before leaping into a double-spin-kick and being thrown to the ground unless you draw it. Never mind when the umbrella comes into play.
This is the problem with keying out big action sequences, especially those containing lots of characters (and this was not my cherry pop on multi-character actions shots); in order to set up good timing and make sure nobody steps on anyone's moves, I just can't leave a lot undone. I find that by the point where I've gotten all the timing and motion worked out, I've rarely left more than a 3-6 tweens gap (6-12 frames) on any one character, and with all the characters moving around that means something's happening on pretty much every frame even when it's just the keys. I guess that's normal, certainly no-one has told me otherwise, even if it means taking a lot of hours to draw.
In practicality-motivated heresy I pushed for the framerate to dip as far as the fours (at least whenever it slowed down), pulled characters in and out of the scene, inserted holds wherever practical, and still ended up drawing a few hundred frames per character. I'm indebted to my man Josh Durst at Bento for riding alongside and drawing the tweens that smoothed it out, not to mention all his Z-depth network wizardry that made a pack of gophers dogpiling a sumo wrestler look halfway coherent.
I also keyed out a half-dozen other small shots in episode 08, but if I did my job right you'll never know which ones. That fight scene though... such a beast. So many hours. So much fun. I'm glad they let me do it. If I could, I'd do it all the time.
On that note, I'm sad to say that my adventure with Bento Box has come to a close. I had some expectations that my time there would end with the traditional post-production downsize (the nature of the beast, unfortunately), but the show was a great experience, I got to try out some new stuff and I made a lot of friends that I hope to see again soon. Bento was a great studio to work at.
Thankfully I kept active in publishing, and it's probably better that I take the hit, rather than any of the guys who depend on their steady studio employment to survive (oh, regular checks, I shall miss you). I've just wrapped a 7-page bonus for the collected edition of a particular webcomic (more on that when I get the clear) and for the next couple months I'll be throwing myself fully into Words of Radiance (finally!). As we move further into "The Stormlight Archive" that series just becomes more fun. I think you'll love some of the things we're doing with Shallan's pages, plenty of new stuff to see. And if you were lucky enough to attend Crafty's playtests at GenCon this past August, then you might have also glimpsed a preview of their "Alloy of Law" supplement to The Mistborn Adventure Game. This also has a bunch of my work in it, and I expect to put together some more before the book is done. Illustrating in the Alloy world is almost as much fun as Stormlight, with its slightly Weird West flavor. I'm totally going to be an Allomantic Lawkeeper this Halloween.
So it's back to illustration for the near future, and full-time freelancing whatever storyboard, comics, design or animation gig comes along. Working on Stormlight will keep me fat and sassy for a couple months, anyway, and we'll see who books me next before that wraps.
Most of the show uses traditional vector puppeteering (though we did a LOT of in-house drawing, maybe 60/40?), which is more-or-less the standard now for TV animation. The original boards on this shot called for a classic old cartoony cloud-with-fists fight. That would have been easy to loop in, but not really in the style of the show. They haven't been tapping that sort of trope up to this point and it would have looked pretty strange to go there 4/5 of the way into the season.
But this is where puppet animation is often most limited... working out a good, physical action scene kinda requires straight-up, old-school, frame-by-frame skills. Puppets can't do it without either a lot of sacrifices or a LOT of pre-planning. Even drawing the action frame by frame, I used most every trick I knew; loops and cycles, copy-pasta and shifting as often as I thought I could get away with it.
Still, there's really no way to have a character slide into scene, fire off a slingshot three times, cartwheel over an ally kneeling on the ground, spin around in mid-air and slap a three-foot gopher in the face with a shovel that she pulls out of her purse, then use that shovel like a quarterstaff to take out a half-dozen more gophers before leaping into a double-spin-kick and being thrown to the ground unless you draw it. Never mind when the umbrella comes into play.
This is the problem with keying out big action sequences, especially those containing lots of characters (and this was not my cherry pop on multi-character actions shots); in order to set up good timing and make sure nobody steps on anyone's moves, I just can't leave a lot undone. I find that by the point where I've gotten all the timing and motion worked out, I've rarely left more than a 3-6 tweens gap (6-12 frames) on any one character, and with all the characters moving around that means something's happening on pretty much every frame even when it's just the keys. I guess that's normal, certainly no-one has told me otherwise, even if it means taking a lot of hours to draw.
In practicality-motivated heresy I pushed for the framerate to dip as far as the fours (at least whenever it slowed down), pulled characters in and out of the scene, inserted holds wherever practical, and still ended up drawing a few hundred frames per character. I'm indebted to my man Josh Durst at Bento for riding alongside and drawing the tweens that smoothed it out, not to mention all his Z-depth network wizardry that made a pack of gophers dogpiling a sumo wrestler look halfway coherent.
I also keyed out a half-dozen other small shots in episode 08, but if I did my job right you'll never know which ones. That fight scene though... such a beast. So many hours. So much fun. I'm glad they let me do it. If I could, I'd do it all the time.
* * * * * *
On that note, I'm sad to say that my adventure with Bento Box has come to a close. I had some expectations that my time there would end with the traditional post-production downsize (the nature of the beast, unfortunately), but the show was a great experience, I got to try out some new stuff and I made a lot of friends that I hope to see again soon. Bento was a great studio to work at.
Thankfully I kept active in publishing, and it's probably better that I take the hit, rather than any of the guys who depend on their steady studio employment to survive (oh, regular checks, I shall miss you). I've just wrapped a 7-page bonus for the collected edition of a particular webcomic (more on that when I get the clear) and for the next couple months I'll be throwing myself fully into Words of Radiance (finally!). As we move further into "The Stormlight Archive" that series just becomes more fun. I think you'll love some of the things we're doing with Shallan's pages, plenty of new stuff to see. And if you were lucky enough to attend Crafty's playtests at GenCon this past August, then you might have also glimpsed a preview of their "Alloy of Law" supplement to The Mistborn Adventure Game. This also has a bunch of my work in it, and I expect to put together some more before the book is done. Illustrating in the Alloy world is almost as much fun as Stormlight, with its slightly Weird West flavor. I'm totally going to be an Allomantic Lawkeeper this Halloween.
So it's back to illustration for the near future, and full-time freelancing whatever storyboard, comics, design or animation gig comes along. Working on Stormlight will keep me fat and sassy for a couple months, anyway, and we'll see who books me next before that wraps.
2014 Animation Reel
Look, it's a new animation reel!
Examples of animated content produced from 2005-2014. Mostly new footage, but there's a few old bits I just can't give up. :D
In all of the traditionally-animated sequences collected here I served as Key Animator, if not full Animator. Often that's included the choreography and layout of the action as well a drawing the frames. Scenes for The Awesomes were produced in Toonboom Harmony, all other sequences animated with Photoshop and composed in AfterEffects (sequences prior to 2007 produced with finely-ground minerals pressed into pulped and pressed wood shavings).
For Darksiders II I acted as the Cinemati
The Rithmatist premieres this Tuesday, May 14th!
If you're in the NYC area this coming week, you might like to come down to Books of Wonder, in Manhattan on 18th between 5th and 6th Ave. There you can meet Brandon Sanderson as we release his newest novel, The Rithmatist... and what the heck, you can meet me too, if you're into that sort of thing. We'll both be signing from 6-8PM, and who knows what happens after that? Nothing too crazy, I hope... I gotta catch a plane early Wednesday morning, and get back to Bento and The Awesomes by lunchtime.
The Rithmatist is the first novel that I've worked on exclusively with Brandon, and in an generous move (not uncommon for him) he suggested that we
Animator Once More
Hey all, I've been busy, but we're fine here, we're all fine... how are you?
For 10 years (2001-2011), I was what I referred to (against wise advice) as a "garage animator". I worked for a small house, and we made small projects... lots of commercials, short subjects, pitch pieces, and the occasional music video. There were moments in which larger works were attempted, but costs and a lack of talented manpower were obstacles we just could not overcome. I worked on a lot of cool stuff, but it was hard work and low-paid and ultimately, I tired of it. I couldn't see a happy future anymore.
And so I sort of let it go... The world I thought I w
Current Projects and updates
Hey all,
Currently on the table:
> Wrapping the map on Brandon Sanderson's The Rithmatist, due out this May. Interiors and ornaments for this were finished back in October, and if you'd like to check out a sneak peek of those (along with the first couple chapters of the novel) you can head over to the excerpt at Tor.com
> Illustrating scenes for the tabletop RPG based on Larry Corriea's excellent Monster Hunter novels (not relation to the videogame, this is paramilitary urban fantasy about finding those things that go bump in the night, and shooting them repeatedly with .357 hollowpoints). All full-color work, something my portfolio is des
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Glad to read. Interesting to hear you talk about animation. Good luck on your new projects.