Hit Me With Your Best SHOT!

So it's actually happening. "Gallery Girl" will be done next Wednesday May 7 at 10 am! And I will most likely be working on it until 9:59 AM. But it shall be DONE! Truthfully, I'm right on track. Everything else in my film, including the end credits, is finished. Now all that I have left is the clean-up and coloring the entire Oil Painting Sequence. Yes it's still a lot, but I'm ready for it!

Like I said, the rest is final, so I thought I'd post a final screen shot to give you a hint of what to expect:

Wouldn't you be fed up if you were stuck on this rock with these air heads for thousands of years, too? What's poor Seshet to do? You'll find out soon!

Pop, LOCK, and Drop It!

So, a strange thing happened last Tuesday. I officially Picture Locked "Gallery Girl." That means all of my timing was set in stone, and now my Composer and Sound Designer can work their magic.

Speaking of magic, take a look at the wonders of the Cintiq. I'm creating the Oil Painting Sequence entirely with the Cintiq, and the first stage was the rough animation. So far so good! The Cintiq makes animating, clean-up and coloring so much easier it makes my head spin. Here's a rough shot created with the Cintiq. Seshet is stunned:

This last week I also revisited cleaning-up the Charcoal Sequence. I've got the charcoal process down to a pretty efficient pipeline (as efficient as animating with charcoal can get at least). Here's how it goes down.

First, I rough out the animation with a plain old pencil:

Second, I clean-up with that same old pencil (or probably many, many other pencils):

Third, I charcoal it up for the final look:

Then I hairspray and scan each drawing, adjust their curves in Photoshop, cut them together in Premiere, and, lastly, pass out.

Drawing the Line

I started animating with charcoal a few weeks ago, and the results look promising. I'm using a charcoal pencil, so it's not nearly as messy as I thought it would be. Somehow I still manage to cover my arm with charcoal, but I kinda like that. I'm roughing out the animation with pencil and then going over it with charcoal for the final look. And then dousing it in Aqua Net Hairspray! These are the final looks for the scene in which Seshet is literally drawn into the charcoal sketch piece.

I've roughed out the other parts of Seshet's dance through the charcoal, but it comes at the end of the film and I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise.

In other exciting news, the Cintiq that Lauren and I are sharing is scheduled to arrive today!! I can't wait to try it out. I'll be animating the oil painting sequence with it, and it should make a whole world of difference in terms of efficiency. I may actually finish my movie now!

Beethoven the Composer...Not the Dog

The verdict for our leading lady's new name is Seshet. Which I just thought sounded cool and "Egyptian," but apparently it IS Egyptian. According to a few sources, Seshet is translated into "Scribe" from ancient Egyptian. Scribe? Big whoop, right? Except when you consider that most scholars think women in Ancient Egypt were illiterate (not by choice), a female scribe was breaking the mold. So Ancient Egyptian girl power!! All hail Seshet!

Now for some girls that aren't scribes by any means. These are the After FX puppets for Benu's ditsy admirers. Benu is the brawny boy in the middle.

In other news, Seshet has a run-in with a certain famous composer named Ludwig van Beethoven in the film. Well, a bust of his head, at least. Here he is, and he's happy to see you.

Speaking of composers...I'm looking for one. I'll keep you updated on what happens with that. I think it's about time for Seshet to painting-hop with a soundtrack.

Beauty and the Benu

First off, a realization: so I googled the word Sesh and it means a few things. No big deal. But one thing that it means, according to the Urban Dictionary is: "A 'session' in which one smokes cannabis sativa through the use of a bong with a collective of friends." Totally fine, but maybe not fine for the name of our fair Egyptian lady. So, I'm thinking maybe Sesha or Seshet (still Sesh, but different). I'm taking votes!

In other news, the After FX Hieroglyphic puppets have proven to be quite a challenge, but I think I'm on the right track. I've cut a lot of the needless Egyptian characters from the party section, so now it's only Sesha/Seshet and the brawny Benu and his team of female admirers that I have to worry about. The idea now is that this is a small piece broken off of a much bigger wall found in some Ancient Egyptian tomb...or something. But the main focus now is also that Sesha/Seshet is stuck in not only a flat, dimensionless medium, but also trapped with emotionally flat, dimensionless people. This also means that Princess Sesha/Seshet shouldn't be a princess anymore, to make her even more left out of the crowd (so much for this blog's URL).

Here's the flattest, dimensionless of them all, Benu (he looks good in a mini-skirt though):

I've also cut the Warhol painting that Sesha/Seshet travels through, in favor of focusing on the other paintings. I'm in a constant process of streamlining as the deadline creeps up. So, talk amongst yourselves. I'll give a topic: Princess Sesh is neither a princess nor a sesh, discuss.

Walk Like an Egyptian

So here is Sesh as her hieroglyphic self. She may be flat, two-dimensional and stiff, but she's still got her sass. I created the following in Photoshop, with each body part having it's own layer. I can then import all of the elements into After FX, parent them together and create a nifty hieroglyphic puppet. That's the plan anyway. I also made her slightly transparent so that the ancient wall can be seen through her a bit as she moves on it. I hope it's selling the idea.

Sesh is soooo over this blog and just wants to go home and get some turkey!

A Change of Plans

After an unsuccessful attempt at capturing the distinct look of Egyptian hieroglyphics in some animation tests last week, I think I will try another technique. Some of my classmates have suggested that I make puppets in After FX, so I will try that...but I'll tackle that a little later.

So, to not hold back the momentum of my film, I will animate 2 short shots of the security guard flipping the lights off in the museum from the beginning of the film. I will use my tried and true pencil and paper for these. Here are the story panels I will cover: