The weeks are starting to blur together, but I think I am making good progress.
I have finished my first shot, composited and all, and moved on to the next one. I am really happy with how it turned out, it gives me a solid idea for what I want this film to look like and I hope I can keep it up to that standard! Knowing the workflow now and how to edit it should speed the process up from here.
I decided to get the more challenging, important and complex scenes out of the way first and so now I started working on a 'forest shot'. After knowing how the 'city scenes' will look this gives me a good opportunity to find out how it will be different to the nature setting of the film. It's a lot about atmosphere in this middle part, which I want to really convey the serenity but also mystery that a dark forest evokes.
Painting the background for this was really fun, I first roughly sketch outlines in pencil, then go in with blue and grey ink and over that I add some watercolour, which makes it stand out from the colourless and dull city. I want it to feel like it is just taken out of a sketchbook (which it is...). I divided the background into 3 different elements (foreground, middleground, background) which gives a nice depth of field when composited and makes it look like a physical multi-plane background. I further animated some shine to the moon and some moving tree shadows digitally to add to the atmosphere.
Now I'm in the process of animating the character walking towards the forest. I never animated someone walking away from the back, so it is a challenge. To make it a little easier I will not make it a full body shot and only concentrate on upper body for the most part. I am also trying to get more into the habit of animating the big, simple shapes first and line test a lot to make sure the movement is right before adding any detail, something I've ignored repeatedly in the past.
I cannot wait to see the finished shot, I think it might become one of my favourites.
Planning out the shot:
I drew the keyframes and then timed them in Dragonframe. Then produced a rough timing chart to guide me (it felt gooood ticking each frame off).
This is the first pass with in-betweens:
Next I need to add the hair and then clean up the line work and composite the scene :)