sketchy-kate

[sketchy-kate]

MoY#10: Backgrounds done!

yo~ more background previews! :) trying to nail down the style and not chuck in textures and details like I normally do. But all the major backgrounds are done and I’ll be doing more animation tests and moving on to creating the gallery pieces!

[sketchy-kate]

MoY #09: Sprucing up the Garden

So I finally added a bit of lighting and such to the bg and just having the shadows really adds a lot to the atmosphere. Backgrounds have always been kind of daunting to me but taking the flattened approach is something I find enjoyable and hopefully can segway into more complex designs. This is just a little snippet of the garden! More to come :)

[sketchy-kate]

MoY #8: Water Test

yo~ not much of an update but just figuring out how I’m going to animate things likes waterfalls, fountains, butterflies, etc! A lot of things are turning out to be easier than I thought :) the power of key words or just typing like a neanderthal on Youtube goes a long way!! 

So what’s interesting about this is that the waterfall assets are actually just straight rectangles with straight white lines going through them. I threw on a wave warp on that as an effect and boom! You got a waterfall! 

At the bottom, I’ve added some particle effects and kind of a weird foamy splashy thing?? I’ll probably revisit the foamy splashy thing...

[sketchy-kate]

MoY #07: Completed BGs and walk cycles!!

^^^^please turn up your sound!!! ^^^^

Hey so lots of exciting things in development!! I got the major bgs all set up-- I know these are a bit flat so I’m gonna throw ‘em in photoshop and scuff ‘em up a bit. I did try messing around with putting some bg elements on different planes of the z axis but would probably get a better parallax effect if I used a camera (which I have no clue how to do....yet). I also wanted to try using the lighting feature in after effects to light the scenes as opposed to painting them in there. I had such a hard time with that when I worked on a music video some months ago. 

Since the frog “walk” was so appalling in the garden in the video up there ^^^, I decided to try my hand at doing a walk cycle. I contemplated getting the rubber hose add on for after effects but just wanted to try animating it using the regular tools of AE....and with a simple search on Youtube, I was a lot simpler than I thought!

Maybe adding more personality to the walk would be further down the road but I’ve got to say, I’m pretty happy with this. I can finally crack open my copy of the survival kit for the animator and use those principles on my animation!

[sketchy-kate]

MoY#06: Completed Color Script

Finally finished! I’ve always kind of dreaded dealing with color but it takes patience to figure out what works and what doesn’t. I can definitely think of a few things that I would improve when I get to making the art. 

[sketchy-kate]

MoY #05: Moar Color Comps!!

Hello~not much today-- I omitted a few scenes that weren’t as exciting but I’m kind of liking how this is turning out. Thought it would be interesting to throw in my storyboards for comparison (and also just to fill the empty space). The more and more I work on it, it’s beginning to become a pretty huge project. But I really want to put together an animation reel and think this can be the main meat that it needs :) 

[sketchy-kate]

MoY #04: BG Color comps

Just more color comps~

[sketchy-kate]

MoY #03: Storyboards Done & BG Color Comps

Hey so it’s been a few days since I’ve finished my storyboards-- I kinda breezed through them so I could get my ideas down quickly. I’ve been using this program called Storyboarder and it’s completely free and has a lot of great functions. Once you’re done with your storyboard, you can make a gif out of it. If you want them arranged into these neat little worksheets that are complete with page numbers and scene numbers, you simply just export it as a pdf and it arranges it all for you. If you’ve got any dialogue, they include that along the bottom too! 

Anyhoo, that being said, I’ve also done a few color comps for the bgs and I kind of like how it’s turning out. I feel like I need to do a few explorations to really feel like I’m getting somewhere. There’s three long panning scenes at the start of the animation--so I really wanna put in as much atmosphere in it to set us up for the museum interior.

[sketchy-kate]

MoY #02: Rough Drawings

Took a swing at all the scenes in the script-- trying to tackle the meat of my short first and focusing on getting the imagery down. Sometimes I’ll have multiple ideas for a single shot or several sequences after which is why there are a few stacked frames....I normally use pen because if I use pencil, there’s the temptation of erasing and thinking too much. I also want to try getting the message across without being too literal with my imagery. I can have a lot of good ideas but they won’t necessarily work well with each other and this is where I can test it out.

[sketchy-kate]

MoY #01: Writing & Initial Character Designs

Hey guys!  So I’ve actually been thinking about this for quite some time. It’s something really personal to me...and I’ve been really hesitant about putting this out there. I really wanted to make something beautiful out of the crappy time I had a year or so ago. So here’s the first in many posts on this new animation I’m cookin’ up. Theme: Princess and the Frog (not the story, just the characters and symbolism). Kind of following the saying of “You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince.”

I’ve just drafted the script for the story a second time...but I just find myself getting so excited that I tend to just go straight into the character design aspect of it first. All of these are pretty finished >_< but hoping to put more shots of my daily progress.

So with these initial designs up top, I was just aiming to get the look down of the princess and frog. The princess just needed an attitude of not being easily amused or impressed. For the frog, I wanted his expression to look rather blank, clueless, and a bit dorky.

My first round of heads weren’t really easy to animate in After Effects so I kind of needed to go at it with a simple approach to the bodies-- Just using straight up elipses and straight lines for the legs and arms. If you’ve ever played Night in the Woods, Scott Benson structures his characters in a certain way to achieve walking, running, pivoting/turning that makes it easy to animate in After effects. I highly recommend you to check it out on steam because despite its cute appearance, it talks a lot about real issues that one can relate to. I honestly love the relationships you build with the characters and learning more about Possom Springs and its mysterious past. It’s one of my most favorite games!  

Premise: The Princess is the tour guide into the Museum of You, a curated collection of things with sentimental value (to the Princess). 

Lastly, here’s some of the inspiration I gathered up-- 

[sketchy-kate]

So this is something I cooked up a few days ago--had a lot of fun making this! I’m thinking of making more pieces that incorporate type and animation down the road! :)

[sketchy-kate]

Hey guys!! Sorry I haven’t posted anything in ages but I’m jumping on the bandwagon and making my ‪Stranger Things fanart. Here's eleven! I encourage you all to watch it!

[sketchy-kate]

a few pages of my sketchbook!

[sketchy-kate]

toxic environment

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some lady I saw in Downtown LA

[sketchy-kate]

the wonderful ladies at werk!

[sketchy-kate]

hanging out at the junkyard~ I wanna do more of these but as a bunch of polaroids! katesoldevilla.com