Loop de Loop: Black and White

Hello blog, what is going on with you?

I've recently moved over to Melbourne to work on some kids show about a boy and his ass who hang out and have adventures. It's pretty goofy but it's good to work in a studio with some old friends oh and it pays the billz. Last years work was a little light so a long contract is what I need.

Anyway I made this for the loop de loop screening

I was finally able to attend a loop de loop since it's screens here in Melbourne. Oh and it actually won the best loop for the month which was nice. I also got to meet a whole bunch of rad animators which was fun.

I liked the theme of black and white. It brings up some new rule I made for myself and that is to never use straight black and white always use slightly off blacks and whites. The reason being that black and white are your 2 major colours that draw in your eye so by saving true black and white and using it only on specific things you have more control of your image focus. Also not using true blacks and whites and using off colours means the textures and lighting shows up nicer. You can also play with warm blacks and whites or cool blacks and whites and mix the 2 in the same image (eg skin is warm clothes are cold).

The other little trick I tried out on this short loop was the idea of using shapes to plan my inbetweens, secondary movement and keep a consistent volume.

Since the shapes are quite simple in Toonboom and flash with the onion skinning on you can see quite easy how everything is travelling through nice arcs and how your spacing is working.

The tradeoff is that you are adding another pass to your animation which would slow you down a bit. So I think I would only use this technique for specific shots rather than for an entire film.

You also got to watch that you don't lose the energy of your original drawings by being to mathematical like this. So you got to not blindly follow and trace the circles and make sure the lines you draw have power and guts to them.

Anyway that's the fun of loopdeloops. Trying out ideas and being pretty relaxed about it. I've actually got a whole folder of unfinished loops of ideas that got out of hand or that I ended up not feeling.

At the moment I'm storyboarding and planning a new video clip for a pretty awesome track and slowly working away at a Manly Show comic as well as occasionally taking turns updating that tumblr. I've also got another commercial job to do on the side soon as well. So that's what is up with me.

Stay cool blog, we'll talk again