Avy writes about how she makes fanime
Just because I made a “How to make a fanime” thingy a while ago and I thought I’d do it again here because I’ve learned even more.
BEFORE I START THOUGH, THIS IS FANIME. NOT PANIME. A lot of people I’ve met associate fanime with either Fanime Con or the panime Nyan~ Neko Sugar Girls! The difference is fanime isn’t made to be bad. Panime is. Just think of fanime as a comic, only animated. That’s the difference.
And again, before I start, I’d like to say that a lot of fanimators I talk to, and actually I include myself, would not like their shows to be associated with fanime. Although it is animated, scripted, and almost everything by them, I would like to make it clear that some people just do not feel comfortable with the category. They want it to be associated with their own, unique style. You may put it in that category in the back of your head to know that it can be associated with it, but it’s best you do not say it.
If you go to the fanime wiki, it will say this:
Fanime (a portmanteau of “fan” and “anime “) is a relatively new genre of web animation that has recently started to gain popularity on Youtube. Most fanime has an anime art style, hence the name, and are often inspired by pre-existing animes, the most popular of which being Magical Girl shows such as Salior Moon and Tokyo Mew Mew. Unlike most web cartoons, fanimes are usually made using MS Paint or Photoshop and Windows Movie Maker instead of Flash and are usually drawn by a one-person team.
The term has been changing and including more and more, though. “Fanime” can mean any home-made animated webshow, usually from fans of anime, hence “Fanime.” A lot of people, as I said before, don’t feel comfortable with the term.
Some popular examples of fanime I can give are ~*Eternal*~ and Guardian Angel, and more popularly, Elemental Goddess.
WHY ARE ALL OF THEM MAGICAL GIRL???
Not all of them are. Just, unfortunately, the most popular ones are. It’s just a fact that magical girl is the most popular genre of fanime; it has been in 2007, and it still will be now.
A lot of people tried to fix this by adding blood or little fight scenes with scary elements in their magical girl series. THIS DOESN’T WORK. I would just like to say that. The best way to fight the magical girl genre is NOT to make a magical girl. Unless you want to try extremely hard to stand out.
The rest of the majority of fanime is horror, but I’ve never seen any of them finished… Possibly because the animators can’t draw blood?
So you want to make a fanime? I’m assuming that. Because you’re reading this. Soo. If not, you’re probably just curious and that’s fine too.
Making a fanime takes a lot of work, time, dedication. It is extremely stressful and is hard to tackle if you want to put your schoolwork first. My suggestion is do that; if you’re planning to dedicate most of your time into your show/fanime/what have you, you should do your homework as soon as you get home so that the rest of the time you have can be used for other things.
Now, onto actually MAKING it. First of all, you need an idea, a plot, something to start your story. If you don’t have anything, there’s no point in making the show. Once you get it, if it comes out of nowhere and you just think of it, skip this step. If you based it off something, DON’T.
Before you can make anything, you have to make sure the idea is original and hasn’t been overused. If it’s a magical girl, make the costumes more original or throw some tricks in there. What made certain magical girl shows interesting? In Madoka Magica, it wasn’t the oh-so great desuness that made it great, it was the life choices and development of the characters. If horror, don’t make it blind blood here and there, there has to be a reason for it, be it supernatural or not. You can have the plot based around finding the reason. Developing the plot is an extremely hard step. For Eva -Eve-, it took 7 years for me to get it where it is today. At first, it was a horrible Magical Girl. Now, it’s has some elements of it, but took so many of it out, diving into many genres. Don’t be afraid to experiment. My recommendation for finding out if your plot is good, is going to any somewhat experienced fanimator and saying, “Here’s my plot. Is it too cliche, or can it pass? Do I need to do more development?” Some might be too nice to tell you to do more, but some will lead you in the right direction. At this point I’d like to say my inbox is always open. Also, be aware that other fanimators may have used the idea already. For example, I just recently saw a show that reminded me of Yin Yang almost immediately. The concept of light and dark in a child has already been used; either develop it more, adding more twists, or use a different idea. Make sure you don’t rip it off.
Next is character development. Once you have the idea and have development, it’s back to other development, only with who will be in the show. Is the main character going to be male or female? How did they grow up? What’s their main goals? With main characters, or characters that show up a LOT, I recommend filling out a character sheet, my favorite being here. You also need designs for that character. If your story is going to be placed in a certain area, research fashion in that country or place. If it’s on a different planet or fictional culture, you could make up your own fashion, based on researching several cultures. If you just want to make a fictional Renaissance-y thing, research clothing from the Renaissance. If your characters don’t match the era or setting of the story, the show won’t sit well with the audience.
Now that you finally have characters and a decent idea, you need to write a script. Now, I do everything improv because I know my characters well and the story, but for a lot of people, I know it helps to write an outline of the series first. You could make an overview of your series in notecards, putting events and making them, shifting them around until you like the order. This could be the order of episodes. You also need to decide how many episodes you want in this stage, and how long they should be. If it doesn’t matter and you’re doing it for fun, that’s fine. If it does matter and you want it to be on a resume or something, that’s fine, too. Whatever you want!
When writing a script, you can write however you feel comfortable (I do mine my own way), as long as you clearly have some direction for what you want happening. A normal script is written in a certain way, and you can go here (more details on trimming down your idea, and picking one), here (picture guide), and here (full script formatting guidelines) to find out how to write it, but you may also use different approaches since you’re making it yourself. As long as there’s context on how the character feels, and the voice actor/actress can tell, it should be fine. You also need to take into account all of your characters’ likes and dislikes, and what they value in other characters. This sets up chemistry and how interactions are in the show and makes it more interesting.
After the entire script is done, you can finally start what you want to do! Normally, in a production team, people make storyboards. Storyboards are extremely easy. All you do is make a few quick sketches of certain shots, and know how long each shot will be for, and what the character say in them. It’s pretty much like a comic. I’m not even kidding. This video is a great sum-up of how to storyboard. The sketches, I’d like to emphasize as the video does, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO MAKE PERFECT. They are ONLY just so you know where everything is!
When you’re done with the storyboard, you can go back and edit things you don’t like out. It’s your planning stage. You don’t have to keep everything you write down or draw out. My friends and I also make storyboard reels, where you do not make it on paper, or in little comic form, but in its own video. These are some storyboard reels, with the final product (advertisements) on the side, to get a gist of how important storyboards can be.
After the storyboard, or as a lot of fanimators do, you can go right into the animation. Sometimes, I don’t even make a storyboard! Though they’re extremely helpful, animation can be better. To animate, you need any art program—even MS Paint will do, not kidding! Preferably, though, you want a program that has layer. The artist toolbox has several programs in their tags list if you want to look for one! A lot of them are free!
When animating, you want to redo it several times. First, the sketch, then the clean-up (if you have time), then the lineart, and finally the coloring. Preferably, do the sketch more than once. Treat every frame like a work of art—except, don’t color it too much. Making it TOO good will make the animation take too long to come out. One of my friends has this problem with Terra Lucis, but she likes doing it so I’m not gonna stop her xwx ((She’s been working on the first episode since she released that opening. And only this, from what I’ve heard, is fully colored and ready. Much of the rest is still in sketch stages))
Speaking of MsIlluna, she’s uploaded an extremely helpful tutorial on animating here! It touches the characters, sketches, lineart, just the many stages of what she does.
During the stages of animation is when I’d recommend you look for voice actors. Before looking, though, you want to make sure you have at least a little bit to show them. Give what’s actually going to be in the show, not just some frames you made up real quick. To get voice actors, you can go to voice acting alliance, or simply post on YouTube and ask for auditions sent to either your email or as a video response.
Additionally, you need to make sure you have a good OST. I’ve already made a tutorial on that here.
SO MUCH WORK I CAN’T EVEN DO IT I JU-
OKAY THIS IS WHAT WILL MAKE ME SLAP YA. If it’s too much work, DON’T DO IT. Nobody’s FORCING you to. Some people fanimate JUST FOR THE ATTENTION AND IT REALLY BOTHERS ME. Do what’s FUN FOR YOU. Not what’s fun to watch for OTHERS. If you DO like it, then don’t complain that much. If you love it, it’s worthwhile. If not, then oh well, you don’t have to, just stop.
What’s some good do’s and don’t’s?
Ah, yes, the do’s and don’t’s.
Make your ideas original and check if you think the idea has already been taken
Choose unpopular music for the OST, and study your anatomy and things you’re not so great with.
Make your animation smooth; experiment
Make your animation choppy.
Be nervous; if you like what you’re doing, chances are, someone else will, too.
Be upset from hate—though you might be inexperienced, people just trashing your stuff without leaving tips to help isn’t right. Don’t get worked up over it
Use vocaloid music. A lot of fanimators I’ve talked to get annoyed when a Vocaloid is singing the opening, so instead, try finding a cover on Nico. You can do this by copying the title, putting a space, and pasting in 歌ってみた (which literally means “I tried to sing”). With covers, you still get to use the song you want, and you still get a “real” voice singing!
TRACE OR RECOLOR. THIS IS JUST THE STUPIDEST THING EVER. IF YOU DO, THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY WILL MOST LIKELY HATE YOU AND YOU’LL END UP RUNNING OUT OF THINGS TO TRACE/RECOLOR SO YOU WON’T EVEN HAVE A FREAKING EPISODE UP.
Hopefully this is somewhat helpful if someone was interested! I’ve just been in the community for so long, and recently lurking, and I’m just hoping this will get a little less mahou shoujo frilly horror out of the way :’D
Again, if you need more help personally, my inbox is ALWAYS open.
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