Hey fellas! I haven't done an update since May/August, holy moly!
This is gonna be a long one under the fold. If you wanted a quicker version of an update, I recently posted one onto the OddBall YouTube. Go check it out! I even have a time-lapse of me animating WIP in the background.
TLDR; We're at 58% animated, design work for backgrounds has been going great, and I've started to have passive thoughts about post-release stuff.
Hope you like to read, I love to ramble!
Animation has been going smoothly :D I've had a really busy summer, between freelance work, pre-production on OddBall, and moving house, I had to take a lot of weeks off to get back to it. I was still working on it, just not at full speed is all.
And that's okay! I've been re-learning to love the creative process with this project and it's been a great breather in-between higher end stuff. Even just spending an afternoon doing some rough animation has been calming and fun. Trying out different techniques and styles has kept it fresh for me instead of going through the motions.
Animation is over halfway done now, at 58% complete! There's only 52 shots remaining, and two of those have been roughed already ooooh ooooh.
Once the episode is done I'm thinking of making a reel of rough animation to post onto my own channel. Let me know if that's something you'd be interested in.
We're also starting work on backgrounds now! Our form for 3D artists was so successful we had to close it after only a week (150 submissions in under a week!! What!!! Remind me to advertise on LinkedIn again sometime haha). We found a lovely 3D artist who's gonna be helping us out.
You probably guessed it by now, but the majority of backgrounds for WIP are going to be done in 3D. This was for a few reasons-
1. It makes reusing sets and assets SO much easier. No more do I have to redraw 30 angles of a kitchen, just make one set and move the camera out as needed.
2. It's something I've rarely seen done before in indie animation. The hyper stylized and detailed texture backgrounds of old PS2 games I grew up with were weirdly influential to the kind of art I want to make. I know I can pull it off with the right minimal compositing.
3. As much as I love watercolor backgrounds, and I still will use them on OddBall, if I have to draw another background again I am going to explode LOL. I love painting backgrounds, but I am no layout artist nor a designer.
We're in the design phase, still working on set design, colors, locations, etc, so no 3D work has been done yet. Once there is I'll for sure make a blog post detailing our process.
I'm only mildly starting to think about post-release/merch stuff. I can easily get overwhelmed by that sort've thing, so it's only been a passing thought. Won't be heavy until we get much close to release. Nothing's a promise! Just cataloging them here.
One of the things I want to do are a sketchbook/BTS book, sold digital for a small fee on my online store. It'll have some of my old sketches dating back to middle school of these characters, a bunch of production notes and concept art for the pilot, including a backend about what goes into making an indie cartoon.
I've been back and forth on whether or not I not I want to make that last one a video. Learning the behind the scenes process from the people making it was what originally got me into animation, and if I can be a resource and provide that for more people going forward that would make me so happy. That's part of why I do these long blog posts, kid me would eat this up. I hate to be perceived and come off as too self-congratulatory, so that's why I'm adverse to making it a video, but we'll see!
I still have that time-lapse of animating recorded, it'll likely be uploaded unlisted after the episode is done, which I'll link here and in a playlist.
While my online store Back Alley is still down for maintenance (long story for another day) I've been wondering if it's worth it to do a small line of stickers or charms of these little guys. Nothing I made for OddBall ever sold too well, but it's a new indie landscape than it was even 5 or 6 years ago. If there's genuine interest after the pilot's release I'll see. I also need to start plugging my Ko-Fi more... Aaah all future stuff.
Oh, and one more thing! I redrew the socials icon! The previous one was really off-model and jank. I think I was trying to make the lineart thicker so it would be more legible, but it just came out looking gross.
Thanks for taking the time to read! I've kept this project close to my chest for so long, seeing the wide interest means a lot.
HEY YOU! I'm looking to hire a 3D environment artist for my Indie Cartoon, Work In Progress! This is a PAID POSITION, I’ll pay your own personal commission rates.
REQUIREMENTS
Experience with making low detail 3D environments replicating the PS2 era of graphic capability,If you meet that criteria, you can apply using this Google Form!
Like I said last month, all the boards are done! I spent the rest of April making new model sheets for props and outfits the characters wear.
The pilot is a little longer than I expected, running at 11 minutes, but still manageable! It flows super well. Right now animation is 44% complete.
I still have backgrounds to do, but I have a neat idea to save a lot of time on them I haven't seen done on many other animated shows, but I know if I pull it off it's gonna look super good and save a lot of time... Will be scouting for artists in the summer for that.
No promises but I'm looking back to get back into streaming this summer, so you'll see me animating some of these guys live.
Here are those new model sheets I talked about in the previous blog post.
For fun sometime soon I'm gonna actually organize and sort the tags on here. I love... Sorting and organizing...
Stuff I posted on my Discord but I should post here instead:
Been redoing model sheets again again! I just needed a reference for their side views but one thing led to another and.
I only plan on doing the main 5, don't need to do the rest of the cast until future episodes. Their models aren't changed, it's just for my own clarity so.
Finally got into a good groove with storyboards! Had struggle developing a shorthand and getting too overwhelmed with making it look perfect, but I'm unlearning perfection so it's okay.
Been busy with freelance work and @oddballstudios so I've just been working back and forth while I can. But I got an extra 2 minutes done on them, in the big middle section right now.
I've been learning storyboard pro for these new scenes, and working on ToonSquid while I'm out of the house. SBP has been great but boy are there some little quirks that annoy me. The easing functions and audio editing are a mess, but actually drawing and timing the animatics is great. Love that I can export them right into MP4s and ToonBoom too. Wish I knew that before chopping every shot up in Vegas beforehand HAHA (exploding).
You're already following (or found me) on here but in case I forgot to mention it I stopped using the Twitter, so the WIPToon account is abandoned and I'm not sure how to properly keep up with the Instagram, so here's where you'll find most of everything.
Okay think that's all for now woo yay have a good evening everybody.
Heyyy people! It's been a busy few months and a while since I've given any public update on what I've been working on, so here's that now woohoo.
ODDBALL ADVENTURES
FINAL EPISODE: EVICTED
We're still working on storyboards, but I have a little jump on animation. We posted a preview of it on the channel back in November. We also wanna get started on a special side project for it too, and that'll be a surprise teehee. Here's a few more board previews oooh.
SUBWAY HOTDOGS
Also shared a preview for this back in November. We've had this audio laying around for a while and we finally got to it boarded by the amazing Anselmo and staticbrain_tv. This will be a slightly longer short and have limited animation like the Christmas Spirits video last year.
You can find it's own Tumblr blog here with comics and more updates galore yay.
WORK IN PROGRESS
PILOT
So what's going on with WIPToon? Last year I got the first quarter of it all animated! 2 and a half minutes of animation are done. Before I got back to boards, I wanted to do re-write of the second half. I think it flows much better now thanks to the help of @commanderrcat.
Everything is thumbnailed and I'm working back on storyboards in-between my other freelance work. Here's some previews!
SNOW DAY SHORT
A few months ago I had a cute little idea for a WIPToon Snow Day short. A few weeks ago, @commanderrcat, @fishiecomics and I finally got around to writing it. Without those two it'd probably stay just in my head haha. It still needs a board artist but hoping I can work on that on and off in-between the pilot.
Here's it's own dedicated Tumblr blog too!
MORE STUFF
I've been working on a music video on and off for about a year or so- actively since about November (A lot of that time was just finding a visual style I liked for it). I'm like 60% animated with it and hoping to finish it soon :D
I've been busy on a lot of projects last year. I was a cleanup artist for The Boys: Paranormal Paranoia, I've been doing a lot of animation for TheAmaazing, and I was even the lead animator for Eddsworld's latest episode, Pinheads. Aside from one post I didn't talk about it much because I took my break right after, but it was great to lead the team as a proper animation director and have an even more direct hand in designs and visual style. Maybe I'll post a few concept arts and layout drawings in a future post, who knows.
Been a busy few months working on stuff behind the curtain. I'm excited to share all these new things coming. Have a happy new year everyone!! xoxo -PB
Hey there! It's been an extremely busy summer and outside of some doodles I haven't been able to do much WIPTooning for awhile... But here's a storyboard preview I showed off on stream yesterday!
I'll be back to regularly posting soon <3 <3 <3 <3
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