color chart, fyi...

No, the characters will not be just outlines. I just haven't colored anything in yet because I think it's more pressing right now to finish the animation first and color later after picture lock. But just to put your minds at ease... enjoy these informative doodles:

You guys...

I have been an inbetweening BEAST today. Intro will be done tonight. I can't help saying that it's beautiful. It is. Had some tricky issues with getting a camera move + rotation of character + zoom all at once so I just cut it. Do that later on in a few shots anyway (which is what I was working on on Wednesday night to get rid of a nasty jump cut), so it's not a total cop-out.

There are very few actual Flash-made "tweens," but I did put one in the intro. There just wasn't any avoiding it. I actually like the wobbly lines that come with manually inbetweening, gives a little more life to the world/characters. They're supposed to be doodle-creatures anyway. so it makes it even more fitting they should shake a bit.But really, doing the big pan/zoom reveal by hand was just not something I was looking forward to and I decided is time better spend working on another scene.

I'll render out a quick clip after dinner. Time for some well-earned tuna salad!

EDIT: here we go! still need to put the title over the city and animate the mask that will make it seem like it's being drawn in front of us, but I have early class tomorrow so am going to call it a night. You'll also see the redone transition where the jumpcut used to be between 2-2 and 2-3.

birds that swoop and fish that... bloop?

pieces from 5-4. man that bird was fun to animate! it's tricky coordinating all of the pieces in this scene. lots of layers of characters... been alternating throughout the day going to the gym and working on this scene. maybe that's why everything's so dynamic :P

still in progress:

how very purple of you

Thought I'd show you one of the final BGs. This might be my favorite shot. Very moody even though there's basically no animation. There's a very slight and slow zoom, but I'm a fail at having backgrounds in Flash so I'll probably just do that it AfterEffects.
So here's a frame from 3-1:


As far as animation goes, all of Act 2 is roughed, there are just a few awkward frames that I sorely need to touch up. That'll be my Tuesday.

Act 1 is still the same mechanically as it was before. Not worried there.

Act 3 is underway. You saw a frame from that above.

Act 4 has bits and pieces done. I should start putting that together.

Act 5... is daunting. But I can do it. I can! Definitely a weekend project. Needs a good few uninterrupted hours. If I keep it well organized it should run smoothly, I just know that one shot will have A LOT of layers...