Animatic TO Animation

If you're like me, you enjoy watching the behind the scenes of a DVD just as much as the film itself, sometimes even more. I love looking at the storyboards, animatics and the character designs of a production to see where they began.

If you CLICK ON THE PICTURE below I put together a little test showing about 30 seconds of an animatic and then 30 seconds of the (more or less) final animation for a little production I'm working on called "Rise Above". There are a few differences, but for the most part the final animation follows the animatic.

I need to give props to Andrew Kramer from Video Copilot. I combined the Flash cartooning with After Effects and I used a few of his tutorials to achieve it, not to mention elements from their DVD "Action Essentials 2" which I think helped to push in the direction I wanted.

I'll be sharing the entire animation very soon.

Hope you enjoy and remember CLICK ON THE PITURE TO SEE IT. :)

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Rise Above

Well, I've been really busy with some fun client work which is always a good thing and I haven't gotten permission to post anything from them, but once I do I'll be sure to load some images.

In the mean time I've been messing with a side project I'm calling "Rise Above". It's action packed with very little dialogue. I'm not going to say too much about the theme all though from the pictures below you can guess what it involves. I'm almost done with the animatic just need to bring home the ending. I'll be posting the animatic once it's done.

At any rate, below are a few screen grabs from the animatic as well as a few test scenes fully colored. I'm trying to combine the vector character that's animated in Flash with special effects done all in After Effects.

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Yehaw!

Some quick sketches for an event for my son's school. The imagery comes from a Bible verse, "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds." Hebrews 10:24

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The Fantastic World

I recently did a quick job for a new kids show and DVD called The Fantastic World. The show features two wacky brothers that have a lot of fun and share lessons from the Bible. The styling has a throwback to the Sid & Marty Krofft shows, live action, puppets, however I was asked to do a title sequence of sorts and translate the two brothers into cartoons for a short video that's being shot. Below are some scene grabs as well as concept sketch.

Just click play to see the title sequence.

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Online Store

I finally got an online store up and running. It's looking pretty bleak right now because well, there's only one thing for sale which is the first DVD for the Christian pre school show "The Slug And Ant Show™". But that will soon change hopefully. I'll be adding posters and books and whatever else I can think of.

Just click the image to link to the site or the "Click Here To Buy The DVD" image with the DVD cover on it to the left.

Thanks to all for their encouragement.

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The RCS Lions

Below is a simple test for my sons school mascot animated. The two main sports at the school are basketball and soccer. Eventually I'll do one with the lion kicking a soccer ball and then put some type of animation together to feature everything.

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They're Here

The DVDs for The Slug And Ant Show™ came the other day. They look great. An online store will be up and running very soon.

On another note, we pretty much secured major distribution which is also great. Contracts are still be ironed out, but the potential to be in stores nationwide is very exciting.

So you might be asking your self,"Gee how could I help get the word out about this great new cartoon?" Well I'm glad you asked. Do you go to a church that has a children's program? Or do you know of churches in your area with a children's program that would be interested in a Christian pre school cartoon? If yes, then how about hanging a few posters about the show on a bulletin board or two? If you're interested send me and email at; info@slugandant.com and I'll mail a few posters to you.

With that said, now begging and pleading is my new priority, only kidding.

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Side Project

I've been messing around with a little side project which I won't say what it is at this point until I can get the idea further along. But I thought I'd share a few sketches from it. I will say that it's not an animation, but a simple book.

I'm not sure how I want to color it just yet, but below is also a series for one color option.

Okay that's it for now.

Just click the image to see it larger.

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Sketches

My son's school mascot is a Lion, but they don't have a character design for it. I thought I'd start with a few cartoony sketches and then maybe a few realistic ones all though I'm partial to the fun cartoon approach.

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Quick Sketch

Just a quick sketch before the weekend.

I have this photo of my grandparents sitting on the window sill in our kitchen and I took a moment before heading to work and sketched them.

My grandmother's personality truly matched her hair color, "firey". And my grandfather was born with one leg shorter then the other thus the reason for the two different size shoes, but he never let it slow him down.

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Dove Approved

Well I'm happy to announce the first review on the upcoming DVD for The Slug And Ant Show™ by the Dove Foundation. They review tons of DVDs and films everything from independant projects to big Hollywood productions. Their goal according to the statement on their website is "To encourage and promote the creation, production, distribution and consumption of wholesome family entertainment." I think it's a great goal and it's one that Salty Graphic Studio LLC strives for as well.

Please click the image below to read the review.

New Ventures In After Effects

Pretty much all the animation I do is in Flash, however I've been diving into After Effects a bit taking a stab at character animation. It's a different approach but has some neat effects.

The images below show a Lion I sketched in Photoshop. Each part of the Lion to be animated is set to it's own layer and then imported directly into After Effects. Setting the character up in After Effects takes a bit of time, all the pivot points or joints have to be positioned and then some parenting of layers is involved so that when the arm moves, the hand moves with it...but I'm getting the hang of it.

I'll post more as I progress. I think it's opened up some more possibilities in animation and has been somewhat inspiring, plus it's pretty fun. :)

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Cool Plug For My Studio

Well, we got another great plug for Salty Graphic Studio my company this time from Collide Magazine and Dale Carter of Worship House Media. We're pretty excited about this because it features our studio and one of our properties, "Bible Notes With Cliff". Thanks Collide and WHM!!

I recommend watching the whole video podcast, but if you're short on time just skip over to the 7:24 minute mark to see our plug.

12 - The COLLIDE Show from Collide Magazine on Vimeo.

Upcoming DVD Trailer

What good is an upcoming DVD release if you don’t advertise it a bit? The video below is a short one minute trailer for The Slug And Ant Show™ DVD that will be available towards the end of this summer.

Also below is the Ad poster for the DVD.

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The Slug And Ant Show™ from Michael Foster on Vimeo.

Late Night Sketches

I've been playing around with some different shapes while sketching. I'm not sure where it's heading, but I'm trying to be less rigid and just let things happen. At any rate, I seemed to focus on Sumo wrestlers which I've always found kind of interesting for some reason. Maybe it's their large stature or despite their size how agile and flexible they are or maybe it was a late night and I wasn't thinking straight. ;)

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Toon Band

Just a little something I was messing with. The little animation is just a loop with some random music to test it. The characters are based on people I know. :O) When I have time, I'll throw a bass player in there and I know just the person I'll model it after. The one with all the heads is a mouth chart showing all the positions used to lip sync.

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This One's For You Elaine.

This past Sunday at church a friend named, you guessed it, Elaine told me in a serious tone that I needed to update my blog. So this one's for her. :O)

Just click play to watch a little test. The music, which is "The 2000 Pound Bee" by The Ventures,is just for placement all though it fits the animation.

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Drawer Geeks Again.

Another challenge over at Drawer Geeks. I did this over the weekend, I'm actually early this time. :)

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Inside Job

I'm working on a number of in-house projects and decided to mess with a poster concept for one of them. I'm not sure if I'm sold on the title it may change, but it serves a purpose for now.

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Drawer Geeks

It's been a while since I took part in a Drawer Geeks challenge, but I took a few moments to come up with a drawing for this weeks topic.



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Random Brain Cleaning

Sometimes I just need to clear my head of projects that I'm working on and give my brain a little cleaning. Not that I'm not enjoying what I do, but it's always good to take a little break and work on something random.

At any rate, I threw this together this afternoon. Now it's back to work. :O)

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Something Different

I'm hoping to post a few character designs I've been working on, but in the mean time I've gotten hooked on the free video tutorials over at Video Copilot
If you use After Effects and love working in video I encourage you to check these guys out. We're talking movie quality effects and heck, it's free!!

Below are two Studio I.D.s I did based on one of their tutorials.

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Freebie 01

Besides doing character design and animation I have a background in design. I still get the occasional logo design and it's a nice break to do something different. I also love graphic vector art and I thought I'd start offering some little free downloads if anyone is interested. The one below are random silhouetted birds. They're free so use them for whatever. I hope to post different vector art in the future, so check back. :)

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Download EPS

Salty Graphic Studio 2009 Reel

Well, I finally got around to updating my studios animation reel. I guess it's a little long, but I figured what the heck. If you get tired of watching it you can always stop it. :O) but why would do that???!!

One note though, if you click play then click the little arrow button on the lower right corner of the video and then select "HQ" you can watch it in a higher quality. I don't like the default quality of youtube at all, it really "mooshes" the images up.

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Sneak Peak

Well, I just finished up a few short animations that will be used in a longer music video for The Go Fish Guys They're a really neat children's ministry that record and perform kids music as well as putting their own spin on some classics. Below is a little sneak peak of their latest video with some, not all, of the animations I did for them.

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Job Sketches

I'm working on a few quick animations for a client. Below are a few sketches for a few Bible characters that appear in them. David, Goliath, Zaccheaus & Jesus.

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