Happy Thanksgiving!

It has been five months since I have last posted, and that has been five months too long. However, I am back now. After such a long hiatus, I have decided to start showcasing my artwork again, and not neccessarily just animation, since I haven't had so much time for that since graduation. So, since it has been a while, a little life update is probably in order. I have been working part time at Kmart to pay the bills while I look for more creative things to do. I haven't found an art related career just yet, but I have been working on some creative projects. I am doing some illustrations for a children's story my sister's friend wrote. I don't know how much he wants shared with the world, so I won't post anything about that right now. Something that I have just whipped up today that I can share is the Christmas card I am making for my mother to send out. I hadn't worked with colored pencils in a while, and it was good to get them out again. I still need to decide what sentiment to write on the inside of the card, but here is the drawing:



Also, I have had my animation website up for a while now. It is www.sandybouman.com if you are interested in checking out more of my animation and other portfolio work that I did in college.

Post-Class Updates... and a poem.

I don't think anyone looks at this anymore now that digital cel is over, but I figured I might still update every now and again just for fun. I just got a Cintiq of my very own (its the 12 inch one, but it still works the same way), so I want to get back into the swing of animating on a regular basis while I continue to work on my reel and portfolio and try to look for a job. Also, I wrote a poem. I am thinking about illustrating it, especially now that I got my Cintiq. Here it is, for the enjoyment of anyone who might still check their blogs:

Patapillar the Caterpillar
By Sandy Bouman

This is Patapillar the jolly, green caterpillar.
He lives in a tree with his Mom and Dadapillar.

One sunny day, on a Tuesday last spring,
Something happened -a horrible, terrible thing!

On his way to meet his friend Jeff at the zoo,
Patapillar noticed that he had lost his left shoe.

He looked here and there, and he searched far and wide,
But he couldn’t find it, so he sat down and cried.

While Patapillar sat there sulking under a tree,
Along came a rather glad looking bee.

The little bee stopped when he saw the sad fellow,
Who looked up at the bee all happy and yellow.

The bee asked, “How can you be sad on a day like today?”
“The birds are all singing, and the sky is not gray.”

Patapillar replied, “This day could not get any bleaker!”
“I’m late for the zoo, and I’ve lost my left sneaker!”

“Well,” said the bee, “I think you’re in luck.”
“Look at that over there, in the mud, nice and stuck.”

“My shoe!” exclaimed Patapillar, “thanks Mr. Bee!”
“Would you be so kind as to help pull it free?”

They grabbed on to the shoe, and they held on tight,
And they pulled and they yanked with all of their might.

Then, all of a sudden, with a loud squelching sound,
They got that left sneaker up out of the ground.

Patapillar said, “Thank you for finding my shoe!”
“Would you like to come with me to meet Jeff at the zoo?”

“Sure thing!” said the bee, “That sounds like fun!”
“But you’re already late, so we’d better run!”

So, off ran Patapillar and his new friend,
And now all that is left to say is: The End.

Final Reflections on the last Day of Class...

Here we are, it is the last day of class. My project is finished and in the drop box. I feel relieved, but also a bit sad. As I always do at the end of a project, I wish I had done more. It would have been nice to have a bit more time to perfect my project. Don't get me wrong, I am happy with my final product, but I am a perfectionist, so it will never live up to my expectations.

I think I did pretty well for someone who had never used Flash before this class. If I could go back and do it again, the biggest thing I would fix is my character design. I like the character of the cactus, but he changes from scene to scene. I should have been more careful about that.

Also, if I had had more time, I would have loved to have animated the whole thing frame by frame. The puppet animation was easier and still worked fine, but I just prefer the look of hand drawn, frame by frame animation. I think using puppets is almost like taking the easy way out.

Overall, I think that this class was a fun learning experience. It has given me the great new skill of being able to animate in Flash. I am excited about that, especially since I am about to graduate in a few days and won't have access to the 2D animation capture stations here at Montgomery Hall any more. I liked the class, and I liked my project, so I think this quarter was a success.

Also, I would like to thank everyone who gave me feedback on my project along the way. I really appreciate it!

My Senior Project is Finished, Too!

In case you were wondering what else I have been up to, I also took Senior Project II this quarter. The Digital Cel final and my senior project kept me pretty busy for the past ten weeks (along with my screenwriting class). So, for your viewing pleasure, I am also going to show you my senior project. Here it is:

Final Project = Complete!

Here it is!!!! This is my finished final project. I decided to call it "Happy Birthday." Yay!

finished!!!!

I have finished my project!!!!! I am fairly pleased with the way it turned out. Like every perfectionist animator out there, there are a lot of things I would go back and fix if I had more time, but I am happy with what I have. I tried to upload it here, but the file is too big. I will try to make it smaller and try to post it again. I am just happy to be done!

alarm clocks are not our friends

So... apparently, I set my alarm clock for PM instead of AM last night, so by the time I woke up today, it was too late to go to class. Luckily, I am almost finished with my project, so I can afford to lose a little bit of work time. I am pretty much finished with all of the animation. There are a few spots I want to fix a little bit, and then I'll be done. Then, I just have to make the opening title and end credits and then put it all together in After Effects. I should be completely finished by Monday. Hopefully.

progress

I didn't get finished this weekend like I had hoped, but I am almost there. I have all the way to the balloon pop finished. Right now, I am finishing up the last scene. Then, I will do the credits, fix any little things in the animation, put it all together, add music, and be done with it. Here is the part where the cactus hugs the balloon before it pops:

updatesssss

I have just completed scene 14! Now, he just has to hug the balloon, the balloon has to pop, and then he has to get sad. I think I should be done animating by the end of this weekend. Then, I can go back and tweak and fix some stuff and do the credits next week and be done with everything.

Here is scene 13, which is more interesting than 14:

Scene 11

I have just finished scene 11, which is where the cactus starts to hop. I will probably go back to it and tweak it when I am finished with everything, but I like it. I got to use the information I learned in the jump tutorial. It came in handy. Well, here is the hopping cactus. It looks pretty similar to the one that I did earlier in the quarter.

Scene 9

Here is scene 9 of my project. It is one of my favorites so far. It is sort of representational of all of the other scenes that I have completed thus far. It has the cactus and the balloon together in one shot. I will probably go back and tweak all of the animation a bit at the end. The video quality isn't that great, but it will be fine for the final product.



P.S. I am finished with scenes 1-10, and am halfway through scene 11. I am still ahead for the week according to my original schedule, but I am beginning to slow down a little bit. I won't get much done this weekend since my sister is visiting, but I intend to try and crank out the rest of the animation by the end of next week. I want to spend the last week or two polishing everything and not having to pull any all-nighters.

Updating time

So, I am currently working on scene 10, which means that I am almost a week ahead of schedule, which makes me happy. I want to keep being ahead, so that way I can finish early and go back and tweak anything that needs it. The animation is much simpler than I am used to doing, but I am fairly pleased with how it is turning out. I still am not sure how to get a still frame out of flash, but I will keep trying. If not, I might just post a scene or two up in the next couple of days to show some of the progress I am making. Well, time to get back to animating!

Progress-making

Hello out there in blog-land! I have made some progress on my final project over the weekend. I have finished the first two scenes, and I am working on the third right now. I am not 100% happy with scene 2 (the yawning cactus), since I decided to do it frame by frame, but I will come back to it at the end if I have enough time. I will try to figure out how to get some still images out of Flash and post them at a later date. Until then, I bid thee farewell.

Animatic

So, I finally picked a song that fits, and I put together an animatic to see how the timing will work. It will be exactly one minute long. It is kind of rough since I just cut out my storyboards, but it works for what it is. Here it is.

Music

Currently, I am trying to pick the music that I am going to animate my final project to. I usually animate first and find music that fits later, but I decided to have my music chosen first so that I will know how long the piece will be and get the timing down quicker. I have it narrowed down to about 4 songs that my roommate found on this thing called Sound Miner over at the film building. It is all copyright free and free for students to use. So, if you can't find any music, I suggest making friends with a film or sound person that can show you how to get it at Hamilton. Once I pick the song, I will make a quick animatic using my storyboards so I can get the timing figured out. After that, I animate!

BG #4!

I did it! Here is background #4. And before you start trying to tell me that my perspective is off, it is supposed to be wonky like that.

BG Number 3!!!

Well, this background making business is going swimmingly. I did not expect to get two done in less than 2 hours! I might even be able to get one more done by the end of class. Here's background #3.

Updates a.k.a. Background #2!

I am happy to have finished all of the tutorials on time. I am a few days early with those, actually. They were a lot of fun to do, and I learned a lot about Flash. I am excited to get started on the animation for my final, but I still have a few more backgrounds do do first. And... speaking of backgrounds... here is the second background for my final project!

Background #1

I have finished the first background for my final project. This was the first time I have really used a cintiq computer for really drawing something. It was fun. I'll be using various close-ups of this background for other scenes in the project. Here is the first background:

Certain Death.... Oooooo

Well, I have done it! I have completed the fifth and final tutorial! This is the lip sync assignment. I found a sound clip from the movie "Labyrinth." It is the two doors trying to confuse Sarah. I created very simple door characters with simple mouth shapes. The swap symbols tool in Flash is actually very simple to use. I think this is my favorite of the tutorials that we have done. The only thing that moves is the mouths. Eventually, after this class is over or if I miraculously get some spare time, I may try to go back and animate their eyes or something, but this will do for now. I am pleased with the results. I hope you enjoy it.

Production Schedule

Here is the breakdown of how much time I think that each part of my project will take. Due to life being life, it is probably going to take more time than I think it will, but I should still be able to get it all done.

Time Breakdown for Final Project

Backgrounds:

Scene 1: 2 hours
Scene 2: 1.5 hours (use for scenes 4, 6, and 8)
Scene 3: 1.5 hours (use for scenes 5, 7, 12, 14, 15, and 17)
Scene 9: 1.5 hours (use for scenes 10 and 11)
Scene 16: 0.5 hour

Total Time: 8 hours

Character Puppets:

Balloon: 1 hour
Cactus: 2 hours

Total time: 3 hours

Animation:

Scene 1: 1 hour
Scene 2: 3 hours
Scene 3: 2 hours
Scene 4: 1 hour
Scene 5: 1 hour
Scene 6: 1 hour
Scene 7: 1 hour
Scene 8: 1 hour
Scene 9: 2 hours
Scene 10: 2 hours
Scene 11: 1 hour
Scene 12: 2 hours
Scene 13: 1 hour
Scene 14: 1 hour
Scene 15: 2 hours
Scene 16: 2 hours
Scene 17: 1 hour

Total Time: 25 hours

Credits:

Credits and “The End” Drawing: 2 hours


Total Overall Time: 38 hours

I have split up the workload over the course of the rest of the quarter. It is subject to change depending on if I get ahead one week or fall behind and have to catch up. My weekly schedule for this project is as follows:

Weekly Schedule

April 19- April 25
Backgrounds
Create puppets
Choose music
Make an animatic

April 26- May 2
Animate scenes 1-5

May 3- May 9
Animate scenes 6-10

May 10- May 16
Animate scenes 11-15

May 17- May 23
Animate scenes 16-17
Make credits
Make “The End” drawing

May 24- 28
Catch up
Put it all together
Bask in the glory of done-ness

Walk Cycle

Here is the walk cycle tutorial that I did. I created the character using colored pencils. He sort of looks like Abraham Lincoln, but that was unintentional. I had a hard time figuring out how to make the loop and using different scenes, but I think I got it figured out. Here it is:

Storyboards!

At long last, here are the storyboards for my final project:

Updates

Currently, I am working on the storyboards for my cactus project. I have them finished and scanned in. Now, I just need to clean them up a little bit so I can post them. I have also created a character for the walk cycle tutorial. When I finish the walk cycle, I will post it, too. I am feeling a little overwhelmed lately by all of the work that I have to do. I feel like I am behind a little bit in this class since I have been primarily focusing on getting my senior project finished so I can graduate. I really want to do well on all of these assignments, but I am starting to feel the time pressure for getting stuff completed.

Rotoscoping

Our latest tutorial is on rotoscoping. Basically, rotoscoping is tracing over video footage for reference purposes. The first one is from a weird, not really working very well walk cycle. Here it is. I am not that happy with it, because I didn't really get time to make the character look cool. It is just a boring blue man walking very briskly across the screen. I am currently working on a second rotoscoped piece using footage of my roommate doing this weird bird walk thing. It should be interesting.



And here is the second one. It is my roommate, Theresa, pretending to be a bird. I colored her yellow and orange like Big Bird. It isn't too pretty, but I understand how to rotoscope and use frame by frame animation in Flash.

*I re-exported the video, and the little boxes have gone away!!!

Critique

So, we did little group critiques in class today. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to write about it in a post or comment on each other's blogs. I figured I would post it here, and if the people in my group read this, then I won't need to comment on their blogs. So, our group consisted of me, Sara P., and Stephanie. We all feel that our projects are going to be simple enough to complete in the time we are allotted while still being interesting. All three of our projects are fairly straightforward and none of us really had any questions about what we are going to do. Sara and I already have our character designs figured out, and Stephanie's is stream of conciousness, and she pretty much has her shots planned out already. I think all three of us should be able to get everything done on time and done fairly well.

Look at that jumping cactus!

I have successfully made a cactus jump. I did almost exactly the same thing that I did with the clown, except the cactus has a few more moving parts because of his arms. I am glad to have done this tutorial, since it will make the jumping part of my final much easier to do. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is my jumping cactus:

Cactus Model Sheet

Well, here he is! I have created my cactus character for my final project. I put in some color, but I don't know if it will be the final color. I also plan to use this character for the second part of the jumping tutorial. Here is the model sheet:

Jump, puppet, jump

I have completed the second tutorial! I have made the creepy little clown puppet jump! Here is what I did.



Next, I will create my own little character and have it jump the same way. I think I will try to make my cactus, since he has to jump in my final project.

Follow the bouncing ball...

I have officially animated in flash for the first time ever!!! This first one is the one I did based on the Professor's tutorial using the ease in/out slider option. I call this one "Bouncing Red Ball." It is very epic and profound.



This second one is the one I did using the custom ease in/ out graph box thingy. I call this one "Bouncing Green Ball." I feel this one is slightly less epic, but quite a bit more profound.




After successfully completing the first tutorial, I feel fairly relieved. Maybe this flash animating thing isn't so scary after all...

Script

Here is the script for my animation. There is no dialogue, but there are a few sound effects. I created it as a table in the word document like the sample the professor gave us, but I don't know how to post a table on here, so I did it as bullet points instead.

• Establishing shot of a house with a birthday banner above the door, a balloon tied to the mailbox, and a cactus in a pot next to the porch.
• Shot of the cactus waking up and stretching. (Sound effect: yawning)
• Pan of the cactus’ point of view, stopping on the balloon on the mailbox.
• C/U of the cactus’ face.
• C/U of the balloon.
• C/U of the cactus with the balloon reflecting in its eyes.
• Shot of the cactus reaching out towards the balloon and falling over. (Sound effect: thud of falling cactus)
• Shot of the cactus picking itself up and starting to hop to the mailbox. (Sound effect: flower pot hitting driveway as cactus hops)
• Shot of the cactus untying the balloon from the mailbox.
• C/U of the cactus smiling.
• Shot of the cactus giving the balloon a hug.
• Shot of the balloon popping. (Sound effect: balloon pops)
• C/U of the cactus being sad.

Premise

The piece that I want to do for my final animation is simple. There will not be any dialogue and very minimal sound effects. I want there to be music in the background. Hopefully, I can get my sound designer roommate to create a piece, or at least find something without a copyright that will work. My story is fairly straight forward. It is as follows:

There is a house with a happy birthday banner hanging above the door. There is a cactus in a flower pot sitting next to the porch. A single, red balloon with a happy face drawn on it is tied to the mailbox. The cactus wakes up, stretching and yawning. It looks around at the new day, only to notice the balloon swaying in the breeze. It becomes fixated by the balloon, wanting it for its very own. The cactus reaches out for the balloon, but falls over in its pot. It picks itself back up and hops over to the mailbox. Once there, the cactus unties the balloon. Happy with himself, he gives his new friend a hug. Then, all of a sudden, POP!!! The balloon is no more, and the cactus is left sitting heartbroken by the mailbox.

Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated, as well as suggestions for a title. I never know what to call anything. If I don’t receive any good suggestions, I will get stuck calling it something boring like “The Cactus and the Balloon.”

Illustration Inspiration

Here are some illustrations that I enjoy, find interesting, or want to use as inspiration for my own characters.

I found some on Mojizu.com, but couldn't figure out how to post the pictures on here. So, here are some links for artists that I like:

http://mojizu.com/Pages/mojire.aspx?mjcode=5df1286c-d6f1-41b5-b532-b139980ba0e5

http://mojizu.com/Pages/mojire.aspx?mjcode=f2601eec-1a9e-42fc-af5a-09b98f4390b6

http://mojizu.com/Pages/mojire.aspx?mjcode=6841302d-754d-4b6b-89b2-0a53427d56b8

http://mojizu.com/artist/kozak/Broccoli%20the%20Stardust.aspx

I also found a website by illustrator Michael Slack. The link is: http://www.slackart.com/
Here is one of his illustrations:


I am not sure what it is about adorable monsters, but I find them rather enjoyable. I don't think my project will be about a monster, but I like the style.

One of my favorite animations

I have wanted to be an animator since before I knew what they were called. When I was really young, I saw cartoons and became very interested in how they were made. I grew up on Disney, Nickelodeon, and of course, the Looney Tunes. One of my favorite characters has always been Daffy Duck. One of the best examples of Daffy is Chuck Jones' brilliant piece, "Duck Amuck," which you will see below.




I love this animated short, not just because it is funny and entertaining, but because of how it involves the story of the animator's relationship with the character. While watching most animation, people tend to forget or not think about the fact that someone had to sit down and draw all of those pictures. "Duck Amuck" shows in a fun and interesting way sort of how animation works. I also love the bright colors and the simple, cartoony style of Chuck Jones' animtation. He is one of the biggest influences on the way I want to animate in my own work.

Getting to know me, getting to know all about me...

My name is Sandy Bouman*, as you can see by the title of this blog, and my favorite color is green, as you can see by the color of this blog. I will be graduating at the end of May from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a degree in animation, assuming I continue with my current trend of passing all of my classes. I have a minor in storyboarding, and I have taken enough writing classes to almost have a minor in that, too. I feel that I am a storyteller at heart. I am not what one might consider verbose, so I get most of my ideas out on paper, whether through writing, animating, or drawing.

If you wish for the details of my life story to remain a mystery, stop reading now. If not, I will now tell you breifly about myself.

I come from the tiny town of Waynesville, Ohio. Waynesville was once considered the "Antique capitol of the Midwest," is one of the most haunted cities in Ohio, and is home to the annual Sauerkraut Festival. I have two dogs, and an older sister. I drive a 1998 Saturn SL2 named Carl. The first memory I have of seeing a movie in the theater is Disney's "The Lion King." I have loved drawing since I could hold a pencil. The only other occupation besides animation/writing/art that I have ever wanted to do was when I went through my dinosaur phase in the second grade, and I wanted to be a paleontologist. I happened across SCAD almost on accident during my junior year of high school, I applied, and I got in. The rest is history...


*In case you were wondering, my last name is pronounced liked it would be if it were spelled "Bowman," but apparently my Dutch ancestors preferred the letter "u."