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I thought I’d explain the design process for my characters from my animated music video, ‘Dead All Along.’

In the image above you can see the original character design drawing, top left. All the characters for ‘Dead All Along’ started on paper, first as blue pencil drawings, then as pen and ink. I scanned the drawing into photoshop and tweaked the levels so that I the texture of the paper is visible – I really wanted to make the ‘Dead All Along’ world seem as if it was a paper world, almost as though an Edward Gorey inspired book had come to life.

Once in Photoshop, I ‘cut out’ each part of the character so that it can be animated in a cut-out animation style within After Effects. This character didn’t have to animate too much so it only has 9 separate bits, including 2 heads for the blink (eye open, eye closed). You can see the separate body bits in the bottom right of the above image. I cut and separate the body bits using the polygonal lasso tool in Photoshop creating a loose outline of the body part.

For coloring, I like to color in Photoshop. I use Photoshop because I can easily combine textures with the original character drawing and also because I like to be able to experiment with color ideas. I typically use textures in my coloring process and the characters for ‘Dead All Along’ were also colored with a lot of textures. I keep a texture library of textures on my computer that are scans and photographs of textures, patterns etc. One of my favorite set of textures is a book of origami paper that I scanned in – I used several of these origami papers to color and texture the characters in ‘Dead All Along.’ I’m also fond of the Maxon collection of comic patterns, and I have several of these scanned that I use. Below you can see a screen-shot of my texture library (top), a screen-shot of the textures and layers of the coloring process in Photoshop (middle), and a sample of the texture palette I used for the bird (and yes, that is a wallpaper pattern from the 1970′s :)

Yesterday I released the animated music video for the song ‘Dead All Along’ by Ceri Frost. Today ‘Dead All Along’ was featured on Vimeo’s Staff Picks channel :)

‘Dead All Along’, By Ceri Frost, Dir by Giles Timms (2:13)
Enchanted by a pixie, a child called Yorick enters a magical kingdom, but when Yorick returns he finds his world ravaged by time. Made at the Animation Workshop at UCLA’s Department of Theater, Film and Television, 2009.

The animated music video is set in a hand drawn pen and ink world inspired by Edward Gorey and animated in a cut-out style. Compositing and animation in After Effects.

You can view the video on vimeo here:

A still image from the opening scene for my animated music video, ‘Dead All Along’ performed by Welsh musician Ceri Frost.

Here is the revised treatment for the music video.

Logline: Enchanted by a fairy and transformed into a faun, a child called Yorick briefly journeys in the fairy kingdom, but when Yorick returns to his family he discovers that he and his family are already dead.

This is based on the myth of Tir Nan Og, an alternate or parallel universe, a place where time stands still and there is no sickness or death. The fairy kingdom is said to be a hilltop one, but invisible, or composed of magnificent underground cities. Fairy kings and queens rule there. Humans who enter the fairy realm cannot leave once the door closes behind them. Those who do leave may find that years have passed on earth during what was, for them, but minutes in the fairy kingdom.

I’m working hard on finishing this up this weekend so that it can be shown at UCLA’s PROM, the Animation Film Festival, on June 6th :)

Hand drawn and Photoshop with compositing in After Effects.

Work in progress for my next project at UCLA. These are color comps and character designs for an animated music video for “Dead All Along” performed by the amazingly talented, Ceri Frost. This is a terrific song by Ceri.

Logline: Peekle the faun, a mystical animal link to nature, realizes that he and nature are dead to mankind.

The death spoken of in the song is the death of man’s reverence for nature. At one time, man recognized that animals represented a mystical link to nature and the divine. Peekle is a spirit animal or totem animal who linked man with nature and the divine, and facilitated man’s communion with nature and the divine. Now, man no longer sees the spirit animals and has forgotten how to commune with them. Peekle is therefore dead to men, and nature and the divine are lost to us. The words and music of nature no longer inspire men.

Work in progress, hand drawn and Photoshop.

This is the title drawing for ‘Dead All Along,’ my current animated music video project at UCLA. ‘Dead All Along’ is performed by Welsh musician, Ceri Frost.

Hand drawn and colored in Photoshop.

Manifestations:
“Il faut trouver l’amour”…one must find love. The courageous Mr. Chip travels in search of love.

Music is by Welsh composer Ceri Frost: www.cerifrostmusic.com

Vote if you like it =)

Today I released my animated music video, Manifestations, featuring music by Welsh composer, Ceri Frost.

Manifestations:
“Il faut trouver l’amour”…one must find love. The courageous Mr. Chip travels in search of love.
Music by Ceri Frost, www.cerifrostmusic.com

You can view Manifestations at the following sites:

2D animation using Flash, TVPaint and After Effects. Created at the Animation Workshop at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.

Please rate it/vote for it if you like it, thanks!

Still image render from my Manifestations music video. A biplane swoops down to attack a giant bird.

Animated in After Effects, work in progress.

Loop of a robot pulling. Cut-out and drawn animation created in After Effects and Flash (keyframed and tweened).

Cut-out animation of a 2.5D biplane – with smoke trails and BRAKA gun fire. Part of my Manifestation music video.


Animated with After Effects (key framed and tweened).