for the first part we had to do research into animating a sack of flour, bringing inanimate objects to life is a fun and demanding task. she let us watch Disney films in class to get an idea of how to draw it and that was fun for the most part

for the storyboarding phase of the flour sack, everyone went with really tame, cutesy ideas such as it picking a flower of the ground or uninspired slapstick like it being emptied into a flour bowl.

I decided to blow minds

my bag of flour is going to be fucked.

here is the storyboard.

as you can see,it really enjoys being filled with flour.i also made a rough animatic in flash but unfortunately i missed the chance to show this off in class, i would have loved to see my peers reactions.

most people used tablets and macromedia flash to make their animation. but I didn’t have a tablet and I’ve always wanted to do old school animation with a light box. the fact that my animation is near enough 10 seconds long didn’t put me off, as soon as i started drawing the key frames and in betweens I was having so much fun,i havent felt such an artistic sense of fun since i first played flipnote studio and ive decided I definitely want to do more animations this way. luckily im a quick artist and it only took me two sessions over the course of two days to get up to 2oo frames.

i have a commission on the sidelines where someone wants me to make an animation using a rabbit and there is a second part of this course (which i will get to later) where i will use the same method but even longer and more detailed.

this is the first version i made using around 100 frames and here is the 200 frame one, im working on a third iteration as i type this.

i want to add a thread stitch to the side of the bag along with shadows on the ground when it jumps, im in the process of creating backgrounds for version 3.

another experimental technique im on the fence about whetever to implement or not is putting actual flour down on the trail of flour that fills the bag while i photograph it.

“expressive” would best describe my approach to the sound in this cartoon. i will use muffled gag noises for the bag to show its pleasure at being filled and sassy moan when strutting in the opening.

at the same time i am starting work on the second half of the module,creating a character and creating a storyboard and drawing an animation. the character ive decided to use is y-fronts man, he’s a creation of mine ive had since high school and i keep re-using him (im not too great at creating characters and he’s the one decent one i keep re-using him over and over for everything :P)

so far ive storyboarded a sequence of him shadow boxing,he swings a few jabs at thin air then he has a bright idea then a lightbulb will appear then cast a shadow from him, then his shadow will rise from the ground and start to par with him. depending on time constraints i may either have his own shadow kick his ass,or he could use a flashlight to try to kill it,then it could split into two(like that scene from terminator 2 where the liquid robot gets a blast to the stomach) and then have his ass kicked by two shadows instead of one lol.

overall though it’s a fun class,lot of creative freedom. 🙂