Update 10: Oh wow! The ocean!

All environmental shots were done swiftly and I'm very happy how they all turned out. Now it's all colour work. Everyone now is colouring, except Will of course, who is working on his own film.

When it comes to colouring I always try and slow down the frames onto twos when the character's are still. I knew I wanted every frame to have this boil but to have it on ones when the characters are still go to quickly and it really messed with my eyes, I worried it would mess with the audiences as well. Putting the still boil on twos did create a lovely effect, almost like the characters are just slowing down and the boil is simply them breathing. It's great. Objects, like Jenny's bucket for example, don't have this boil when they are still. I did this for a few reasons, one to stop it from being to distracting, the eye should focus on Jenny and Pup, and also because an object doesn't breath, it should just blend in with the background to best of it's ability. 

So yes, the film is going at a comfortable pace. Currently as I write this we only have 20 shots to colour and between the three of us I see this being easy doing.

Update 9: Lights glisten on the salty sea

Shot 3: Animation and Background by Pat. Sea animation by me!

I've finished doing all of my core animation for the film. I took over a lot of shots that Will was set to do and now he only has 2 to complete, one nearly finished. I've now moved on to environment animations such as the sea. As you can see in the example Pup not longer looks like he's running from nothing. The low frame rate sea doesn't feel to out of place and adds an illustrated look to the film. Which is neat! I just have to keep chugging a lot in this direction for now and then I can help the others with colour work.

I also fixed shot 49. Jenny is looking much less malformed. Hurrah! It's below with some other shots I feel proud of.

Shot 30 (Pup animated by Pat)

Shot 49

Shot 58

Shot 37

Also in the world of "Not Pups" I helped Dan out with his film. He wanted some lighting concepts. He gave some some blank line work and some colour concepts and I went to town on creating ideas for the lighting. I started out in rough grey scale and then once Dan was happy I went to colour. It was a short notice job and was done over the weekend.

Version 1

Version 2

Version 3

Final Colour

Overall things are going well. Ella is continuing to colour and Pat is tweaking backgrounds and also doing colour work. Very positive all round.

Update 8: Dusting off the blog

Ugly shot 49

It's been awhile since I've posted, not because I haven't done anything but just because it's all been more of the same. Shots have been coming out smoothly with nothing special to point out. The majority of the group seem to be doing well, especially Pat, who as usual takes critique well and puts her all into every job given to her.

Will is slightly slow at doing shots but seeing as he is working on a film of his own I don't feel I could lay on the pressure on him harshly. I give him wide deadlines to compensate and he usually fulfills them. I feel due to this that my original plan to have the animation done by March may not work out. This is ok though, I don't mind going into March and any shots that Will has yet to complete by that time I will just take over. I understand Will's lack of work comes from the fact he is not only balancing a film of his own but also a recurring freelance job, so taking on the shots myself is to be expected.

Less Ugly shot 50

Ella's work flow constantly fluctuates. She seems to struggle to set her self a schedule in order to balance the work load given. I've tried giving her shorter shots to colour but at crunch time I will need her to toughen up in order to complete the film in time.

She isn't the only person colouring, a second year Rob has taken keen interest and completed a shot for me, although his work output is also slow. Another second year, Hana, also offered to help and completed one shot but hasn't gotten back to me for doing another. I have found I can't rely to strongly on the second years for help and I don't feel confident enough to pressure them for help. I do need the help but they have work of there own to produce and the colour work isn't interesting enough for them to join my team. Sadly this is probably the only area I really need help in.

This is why Ella's recent reluctance to colour is concerning and I hope she gets back into the flow soon.

Pat, like always, is on track and has done all her animation work for the film and has moved onto background work. She's doing great work and I have no current critic to give her when it comes to her commitment to the film.

Shot 19

Shot 54

I only have 2 shots left to animate, because of this I may go back and fix a previous shot, shot 49, as Jenny is painfully off model in this shot. I don't know how I ended up doing it so badly but I defiantly will go back. After the animation is done I start doing the animated environment backgrounds. It'll be a challenge but I have confidence. I also seems to of forgotten the schedule another background, shot 54, but I quickly threw one together so all is on track. I also did another background for shot 19 ahead of time to help Will understand the shot when he gets around to it.

So yeah, same old same old. All seems well! For now...

Update 7: Colour!

Shot 20

More shots are getting done, it's getting exciting to see less and less of animatic in premiere timeline. Another shot in which Pat animated Pup and I just animated Jenny (Shot 20). Shot 20 was a very subtle movement but I just didn't like her standing a blinking. She had to do something.

Next I did some shots of Jenny getting her hat for Pup, 23 and 25. These were very easy as one was just a continuation of the other shots movement.

Shot 23

Progress is going on well! Will has started his next shot after his two week break from Pups, Pat has caught up with all the previous shots. It took a lot of work but she really made the Pup shivering shots work. Ella is bashing away at the colour work, having done 2 shots so far.

Shot 25

Speaking of colour work I decided to colour shot 1. A lot of effects, splashes ect., where animated straight into Photoshop so they would be consistent with the background. I decided very early on to have the sea animated in Photoshop so this rule has to apply to the effects as well.

Bonus Blog

I forgot that I did these magpies to help with Will's film.

Update 6: Shaking off the snow

 All caught up and still ahead of time. With these shots Pat had animated Pup and I animated Jenny after the fact, in attempt to make Pup look consistent.

Also I did a turn around for Ball Pup as we seem to have move into the colouring stage of out production. Ella has completed her background work and is now chugging along with colouring shot 1.

Shot 22

Pat is working on the next shots and with Will is practicing how to make a character shiver convincingly.

Shot 21

Update 5: Quiet

Not much to post this week as I've done nothing. It was a lot of family time last week and I had to sort out coming back to Lincoln and cleaning the house and dissertation and blah, blah, blah. I'm still ahead by two weeks so no pressure.

Everyone else seems to be doing ok. Will has caught up and Ella is back on track. Pat is still on time but the shot she sent me this week was of poor quality and sadly I had to ask her to it again. To defend Pat she has been working hard on other things and more than likely spending time with her family so I can understand why it seemed so rushed. Still I hope this isn't to much of a bruise on Pat's ego.

For now the film is chugging along and I have been spending most of today working on the next shot so more work will show up on the next update.

Keep on truckin'