Storyboard Sneak Peek

Wow, the updates are blazing through in here!
I finally got to work on my storyboard again. It's still not final, but I think it's getting closer.
It's way better (and longer, running time 4:57 atm.) than my first version, and I feel like I'm a lot more familiar with the story, characters and everything now.
No matter how it turns out, or even if it never finishes (god forbid), you can't argue it's not thought through ;)

So, like I said, it's still not final. My good friend Henrik has offered to look it through. He did that with the first draft, and came back with some excellent ideas and comments.

I would like to share some of it, even though it's not finished. It's picked randomly across the film (and ordered randomly as well), and the colorscheme is only for clarity, not the final artistic choice ;)

I'm still a bit unsure of how much I'd like to show of this early process. I don't think I'll post a lot of wips, but final milestones will be here, no doubt about that.

'Nough rambling, here are some pics from the storyboard - eight to be exact!



















Have a nice day!

Croquis and first 2d animation

Hi guys.

So, little progress on my short film. I simply don't have time atm.
On the other hand, I get to do a lot of drawing and animation all day long, so I guess it's pretty cool anyways.
Today we showed our first 2d character animation.
It's been quite a pleasure to work on this, although it was some looooong hours in the end.
A LOT of things are wrong, but here goes for nothing:

Fly and Frog from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

I also got a chance to go to croquis after school for the first time since march, so I'm more than rusty, but I collected a bunch of them, to show here anyways. Some of them works okay, others have something that works, but figured they'd be interesting to look at.

Tease

Okay, gotta be time for another update, mainly on my (forever) ongoing short film project.
I've finally started in school, which also means less time for personal projects, but hopefully also more effeciency and skills ;)

I changed my work in progress title from "Departure" to "Deep". I think the name is way cooler and a bit smarter. The name is obvious in the sense it takes place partly under water, but also i concern to the characters and their feelings.

I'm still working on the storyboard and design of the film, but it's coming along okay.
I've got some concept art done, but I'll need a little bit more then I will post it here.
As I said, the design is still in progress but also moving foreward.
I think the film will be around 5 minutes long which is by far the longest film I've made, but I believe it's a pretty decent length for such a story. It is after all pretty slow paced so 15 minutes would be boring. 2 minutes would on the other hand be way too short to tell the story with enough emotion.

Anyways, here's a little teaser for you all (my self I guess :D)
I've locked on to a pretty solid color scheme and hope you like it.

Cheers

Rainy august

Figured it'd be time for an update here on this rainy sunday, in the beginning of august, in the lovely country of Denmark - yay!

So, no pictures today, just words. I'm in a pretty creative process right now, working on a short film. The designs are coming along, after a couple of months of agonizing and frustration.
I've started on the storyboarding which I have a pretty ambivalent feeling about. On one side, it's such an amazing tool where you are forced to think about even the smallest detail in a very visual and concrete way.
On the other hand though, it's just so extremely difficult and tough. There is no cheating, no short cuts no nothing. Everything has to be crystal clear and figured out.

But at the end of the day, you just gotta do it. There is no way around it, and a nicely fleshed out storyboard is just invalueble for the rest of the process.

That was it for the short film. On another note, it just got very official that I'm accepted into the bachelor line at the Animation Workshop, so as of september I'm officially a animation student. To celebrate my self (lol!) I decided to buy two books, that I really think will help my.
They are both titled Drawn To Life, one about humans and one about animals. They are based on the learning material that was made availble for the disney animators in the 1980'ths and still today (I think). I cannot wait to get my greasy hands on them, and learn a bit about how to draw for animation.

That's it for now. I might post a small teaser on the storyboard later on, but for now, I'll keep it all off web.

Cheers.

Final Weight lift exercise

Here is the final rendered version, animated in maya, rendered with mental ray, with rendertimes around 30 sec. on a super crappy laptop.

I've really tried a new way of animating (the Jason Ryan way), so I feel I've learned a lot, which is probably the most important thing.
I'm fairly happy with the results, although I see troubles a couple of places. I can't really be specific about it, so I can't really make any changes.
Maybe in a couple of weeks I can see all the flaws :)

Weight Lift exercise from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Cheers