Critical Review

I finished the animated comic strip and showed my client.

Animated Comic Strip

The animated comic strip came out very well in my opinion. The creation of the scenes was interesting and came out very well in my opinion. The good parts of the animated comic strip was the drawings, they captured all the action needed and the everything that was put in the script was presented in the images. The music that was given to me was good, it captured all the emotion and atmosphere needed in the animation and script, combining both the images I created and the music created an amazing aspect for all to enjoy. The only problem I had was that I think the script could have been a lot better then what it was, it was good but I think that it could have been improved, I think it would have been better changing the words used. I wanted a lot more time to be able to create a better design for all the background I am happy with what I got but I wanted it to be a lot better with more detail and this is only due to the fact of inexperience in the photoshop and with my Cintiq but if I had more time I could improve the drawings and backgrounds given. I showed the client himself and he said that he liked it but he wanted me to change a few things. He wanted me to change the credits and to fade out the music, which is easy to do, i was able to remake the credits in aftereffects and to fade the sound i had to bring it into the premiere, and using the pen tool on the audio to make it fade out at the end. Overall my client was happy and so was I. 

I have personally gained a lot of doing this project. I have improved my drawing and painting abilities I now know how to paint and how it make a good background with depth just using photoshop. I have learnt a lot more in Photoshop, I have learnt different techniques and different aspects of photoshop that I didn't know, I worked out how to create the right brushes that I needed and how to make it more like a air brush, I was also able to learn how blend the colours together and to make it look like it has depth and shadows. This project has given me and great insight to working with a client getting me ready for the real work, it was a good experience and I have been lucky enough to continue to work with this client for years to come. I really enjoyed creating a animated comic strip and I am happy I was able to experience creating one and I will use this technique in the future.

After Effects and Speech bubbles

Once all the images were done I then imported them all into the aftereffects to put together. The after effects process are the same as the animatic and lucky enough is was easier because I had done it before.

I had to continue the adding extra settings like changing opacity on each scene to fade in and out. To make the characters move into the scene I had to create a motion path to make the movement of the character to enter the scene and make they appear in the right place.

The main problem I had was getting the speech bubbles in the scene with no background so they could fade in and out. normally i would save them as a PNG for other software but a normal PNG wasnt working. I spoke to my tutor and he showed me a different way of making them a PNG and to make them work in After effects.

I had to save it in a different way.

I had to go to save for web and make sure that is a PNG 24, I dont know why but it worked, so I was able to import the speech bubbles and make sure the they can fade in and out at the right time that I needed. After being able to do that it was all easy from there.

Final designs in photoshop

When creating the final designs I just put a JPEG of the animatic scene and as a template on the page so I can draw on top of it.

I started with the final scene of the animated comic strip like I mentioned before I am going to start with the last scene first.

Using the brush window and the brushes that was mentioned on previous post, and with this I was able to create the painting of the background. I decided not to make it too realistic and more in between cartoon and comic to make it work with the characters.

I had problems from create the realistic effect of water, I looked into real life pictures to help me make it look right, and following the real life pictures I can see that the water reflects what is above it, so I decided that I would make the grass and stuff from above to with lighter colours to show it is a reflection.

This is what I came up with and it made it look more like water but not enough, and I need to add something to help. I decided that I would put in a rock in the water with a reflection to maybe help with it all looking like water.

I personally feel that it helped and made it look a lot more like water. I created all of this using the same brush, I am new to photoshop and it was the only thing I really knew but I personally feel it works.

I added to characters to finalise the scene and I like it I believe it works and now I know that I repeat this to create the other scenes, the dark green as the background and shadows, the green for grass. The clothing is all the same colour without, using the brushes I ended creating another scene like this.

I continued to use the same brushes to create all the other scenes.

Storyboard / Animatic

Today I started on creating my storyboard and animatic. I decided that I am going to create my work on photoshop using my Cintiq. I also decided that I am going to work on my hardest scene first and leave the easiest scene to last.

Scene one:

This is the first scene of the animatic, this scene was easy to do and easy to sketch out.


Scene two:

The second scene is of a close up of the man looking angry.

Scene three:

The entrance to the forest then the head of the man bobs in with his speech bubble then the girls head and finger with her speech bubble.

Scene four:

The forest is bright and normal and then the opacity drops with a darker version coming through and the characters running through the forest.
when creating the darker scene I realised that I could do one dark scene for the section in the forest, as you can see that one is better then the other, so I have decided that I will use the second one, it has a better design and will work better in the situation.

Scene five:

This scene you will have a gap in between two trees and the two character will fade in and out looking through the gap, this is one of the best scene, it was really easy to do.

Scene six:

The last and final scene will be the hardest one to create, I feel like painting this is going to hard and annoying. it was also annoying because I didn't know what I would draw because I had to create a nice and lovely background. I was able to come up with this but I realised that it would be the hardest scene to re create, which made me think of what scene to do first and what scene to do last. I have decided that I will create the last scene first and then the third scene, scene four, scene five, scene two and then scene one. By creating the scenes this way will be better for me, I will be able to get the hardest scenes out the way.

Once the rough scenes were created, I then went into After effects and created the motion and the animatic. I had lots of problems when it came to exporting at first the sound wouldn't export but I went through the render settings and saw that there was a box with Audio output so I ticked that and that solved the sound. Another big problem was that the file wouldn't play after I exported it, I think this was because the file was too big, the file was 9 GB so I then exported it again but at a lower resolution, the size dropped to 1 GB, and then it played. I will have to keep this in mind for the final export, I am going to try and finish the movie a day before. Drawing the animatic was easy and not a problem at all thanks to having the Cintiq. I also had a problem with creating the speech bubble. I created them in photoshop but I could get them in to aftereffects on their own, and I wasn't able to fade them in and out like I wanted.

Animatic

I sent this to my client and his reply was that

"The rough outline you created for the strip looks really good, I can't wait to see how it looks when its fully complete.
The fading in of the speech bubbles is best especially for the last scene."

Sketch designs

My Client and I have worked together before so having the design aspect of the characters has already been done. 

These images show the character designs and finished comic strips that I have done with the same characters before. As you can see that there is continuity between the characters and the colours used, and this will be the same for this animated comic strip. The last image above is shows me trying out the different styles, it shows the normal style, comic style, manga style and cartoon style.

I recently obtained a Wacom Cintiq tablet, this will save me the time of drawing and inking on paper and then scanning in the images. Now I have the Cintiq I am able to draw, ink, colour and paint straight into Photoshop so with this I have been practising on creating a character and testing out the quality of work.

As you can see there is a difference between the images from before and after me obtaining the Cintiq. The production process is now a lot easier and at better quality. I have use many different tutorials but Digital Tutor's gave me a course with a series of lessons on painting, sketching and inking. The tutorials also helped me learn more about photoshop itself, I learnt how to use the brushes properly and how to create my own brushes.

As you can see the screenshot, this is the brushes window, I learnt what different sections mean the main two I have ticked is Shape Dynamics and smoothing; I think I would use the Transfer section when I am shading, to help it blend. This new way of creating the background and the characters is helpful for my work. This was an amazing test with great results, and I can't wait to create all the scenes this way. 

Mood board 2

While doing some sketches I had a thought that my previous mood boards were for comic art styles and font but comic strips are different, so I decided to create a mood board on comic strips as well.

Straight away this is very different to the previous art style mood board. This mood board is all about comic strips, and as you can see these art styles are a lot more simplified, there isn't as much detail like the comic mood board in the previous post. These comic strips are not using a lot of colours and shades, they are also very small in size. Most comic strips are drawn quickly as they go into newspapers daily.

I will be sending this to my client and the other one to ask his opinion.

Script and Audio

I requested for a scripted and he was happy to do that.

 In grandmas home, will be in the living room so will have a sofa and picture frames in the background.

Dad "where should we go today" dad is looking happy 

Lisa "I want to go home" Lisa is looking grumpy 

Dad "No were going out" Dad is looking frustrated. 

Cut scene to the entrance of a beautiful looking forest. 

Dad "alright which way should we go" dad is looking happy. 

Lisa "umm that way" looking happy she points to the left. 

This goes to a scene of a dark haunting forest, large trees twisted in to strange shapes, with even stranger leaves on their branches.Dad and Lisa is running through this forest. 

Lisa "Follow me daddy" she is smiling 

Dad "OK" he is smiling 

The next scene is from behind them and shows them peering through the trees and small bushes. Dad and Lisa are now holding hands. This scene is still quite dark but has a light shining in from the water.

Dad "You see the water" 

Lisa "Yeah" 

The last scene is bright (sunlight) with a sort of angelic glimmer to it. Dad and Lisa will be standing on top of a hill. Below them is clear water all around in the center there is a rocky island with some trees and bushes on it. Further over is the other side of the river bank which has large but nice looking trees. 

Lisa "we made it" 

Dad "yeah" 

Lisa "its a beautiful world" singing. 

The image than fades out with the singing.

Here is the script. With this I can now make my own storyboard. The script is good and has given me the creative freedom. There will be a contrast of different shades and colour due to each section, for example while they are in the forest i will make it dark with lots of shadows, but when they emerge in to the final scene i will make the lighting bright giving a sense of sanctuary and peace. 

I wasn't just given the script a few days late I was given the audio for the animation. 

Originally I was going to create an animatic for the client to give to his producer for the music but it has been done the other way round now and he has sent me over the audio.



Audio





I think the music will go very well with the animated comic strip. The audio has all the emotion that we want and creates the right atmosphere. This music will match with what I was saying early about the script.