#storyboard tips

[sm-baby]

STORYBOARD/ANIMATIC TIPS

ko-fi✏️

I made these for my friends, but I thought that might be helpful for yall as well! hehe! Now whenever someone asks for storyboard tips I can throw this at them!

Examples of storyboards I made for fun:

[unianimationlife]

How to Make Your Storyboards More Dynamic With These Quick Tips

https://unianimationlife.blogspot.com/2023/10/how-to-make-your-storyboards-more.html

[collophora]

Found a cool color palette. Might finish it later. (Probably not.)

[luna-azzurra]

Creative Writing Hack #5

Storyboarding with Index Cards

Index cards are a versatile tool for visualizing the structure of your story and experimenting with different plot points and character arcs. Write down key scenes, plot twists, and character developments on individual cards, then arrange and rearrange them to find the most compelling narrative flow. You can color-code the cards by subplot or character to keep track of different story threads. By physically moving the cards around, you can easily identify pacing issues, plot holes, or areas that need further development. This hands-on approach to outlining can help you organize your thoughts and streamline your storytelling process.

[yellow-py]

hello! you've probably been asked these before, but i'm here to ask how long it typically takes for you to make animatics, if you have any tips, preferred methods, and what you use? i saw your funger animatic and it looks absolutely gorgeous! i love all the detail that's jam-packed into the art and story telling, so i'm curious about your animatic process.

sorry if this is a lot! no need to answer if you don't want to. i love your stuff and i wish you well!

Hi! I don't mind answering some questions!

First things first, I'm not a professional storyboards artist. I've done a few things for some youtube channels. I wouldn't call myself an expert. This is to say that my method of doing things might not the best for people who actually work in the industry. 

Most of the time I work in Storyboard pro 7. But honestly, any editing software works as long as it can handle pictures and audio. For the disco elysium animatic I only used  clip studio paint and some random editing program called Camtasia. It worked alright but it takes a bit longer to finish stuff since storyboard pro is more streamlined. My go-to method right not is to draw the backgrounds in clip studio and the characters and editing in storyboard pro. That way, I get the best of both worlds. 

The funger animatic took about 2 and a half weeks to make. It usually takes longer, but the song wasn't that long so that saved me a lot of time. But as another example, my disco elysium animatic took +3 months. So it really depends. I did work longer on each frame for that one tho, so idk. On average, it takes me about 2 months. But that number keeps going up since my expectations of myself keep rising. 

Anyhow! I'll be bringing up my fear and hunger animatic as an example of my process. 

My animatics usually start out having the ugliest thumbnails known to man. It does let me experiment with framing and timing, which is absolutely crucial. I do not recommend that people start refining frames without having planned out things beforehand.

After that, I just save every thumbnail and import it to storyboard pro. I just scale it up to the current canvas size. Then I just line up every frame with the audio. It is a little bit tedious but you gotta do what you gotta do. 

After that, I begin to draw the backgrounds in clip studio. I do the same thing as in storyboard pro and just size the thumbnail up. And then I just sketch over that! Technically, I could have drawn the backgrounds in storyboard pro. But their brushes are pretty uggo so I prefer to not do that :)

As dumb as it might sound, it kind of stresses me out when my storyboards aren't "pretty". Which is pretty stupid since storyboards are literally made only to be a guide for what an animation should be. so in actuality, it's alright if they're kinda crusty. But since I never intend to animate my animatics I find it nice to spend more time on each frame. Which is sorta stupid because I'm shooting myself in the foot by working so long on every frame...

Either way, after that, I import the new backgrounds into storyboard pro and begin to draw the characters. Technically I could draw them in clip studio as well. But its faster to draw them in story board pro and it also allows me to do some semi-animated things and work faster. So, after a lot of experimenting, clip studio backgrounds and storyboard pro characters is the way to go for me! 

And just to note. This animatic might have only taken about 2 and a half weeks. Which sounds pretty good. But when it comes to animatics I can become a real workaholic if im inspired enough. So every day after school I would sit non stop working on this from the second I got home to when it was time to sleep. As well as every second of the weekend after I was done with my chores. So that is to say I work pretty fast and persistently, which i know is not healthy or realistic. So take my timing with a grain of salt. 

But that's kinda my process. I just draw backgrounds and draw characters until the thing is done. 

If I had to give any advice, I would say it's important to have fun when making animatics as a hobby. When I make an animatic, it's because I personally want to see that animatic, and if other people like it, that is a plus! If you're excited about an idea, it'll be a lot easier to add fun details and soul into it. 

But yeah that's it. I can't really come up with anything else to say. I hope I gave some good insight!

[miiukkaa]

top down view of the lobby

[ducksydoodlesofficial]

Wanna know how to draw Alastor? Here, we gotcha 😉 Alastor insisted on "helping" (he got in the way) zoom in for best results!

[byoldervine]

Writing Tips - Reverse Storyboarding

Shout out to the residents at my work for helping me come up with this one, because I clocked it while I was watching The Lion King with them

Pacing is very important in stories, no matter what media form you’re using, and one tip I’ve heard before for that is that you should to be able to sum up a scene’s plot relevance in just a sentence or two. What we can do to practice awareness of this is reverse storyboarding of existing stories, in which we summarise the chapters or scenes so we have an outline of where each one goes and their importance. I’ll do it a bit for The Lion King now:

Scene 1 - Baby Simba is displayed in front of all the animals of the Pride Lands, showing the importance of our main character to the setting

Scene 2 - Scar is introduced as a sarcastic but intelligent antagonist with a clear motive and connection to the story

Scene 3 - Simba and Mufasa admire the kingdom while providing exposition, as well as setting up the elephant graveyard

Scene 4 - Mufasa and Simba walk around the Pride Lands to talk about the circle of life, though their bonding session is cut short by a hyena threat that sets up further villains

Scene 5 - Simba goes to visit Scar, who shows just how manipulative he really is by tricking Simba into going to the elephant graveyard

Scene 6 - Simba goes to find Nala and take her to the graveyard with him, establishing their friendship along the way

Scene 7 - Establish just how much Simba is excited to be king one day through childish and playful song so it further clashes with the adult him Nala finds later on

Scene 8 - Explore the dangers of the elephant graveyard while formally introducing the hyenas as villains and to provide the first danger

Going along, each scene has value to the plot, slowly moving it forward while introducing new characters and plot elements to establish their presence in the story. Reverse storyboarding allows you to recognise these things since you know where it’s all going, and hopefully it makes it easier to do the same thing with your own writing so that you can nail your pacing

[filmcourage]

How Writing Animation Differs From Live Action - Andy Guerdat

Watch the video interview on Youtube here.

[chuluoyi]

ngl i love nocturne of twilight so much 🥹 it's just a very good angst train that i'm surprised how much i love it even when i don't like angsty fics that much?? and seeing you answering writing tips, how do you plan your plots? how did you come up with such masterpiece?

thank you for loving nocturne of twilight 🤍 i love writing it too, and the fact you don’t like angst but read it all the same? 😭 it makes me kick my feet in joy sobs :’)

honestly i’m one of those writers who don’t really plot anything much and just go for it— bc no matter how i plot it, the twist always comes to mind right when i’m in the middle of writing it and i have to redo the whole plot again 🥲 and actually my plotting is more like notes about the characters i’m writing rather than the scenes

i still have my notes for nocturne of twilight and it’s as messy as this:

zayne and reader have been married for 2 years -> she’s in love and he considers her dear to him but is still “not in love” that much

reader gets injured and it reminds him of his past lover mc. angry vs angry -> arguments -> resolution

visiting mc’s grave together -> main plot device! reader is conflicted and feels like she loses to mc even when she’s his wife

smut. while drunk. bc zayne is self-righteous he won’t feel what he does is right -> he actually wants to treat her right and feels guilty for using her to drown his sorrows -> “that night is a mistake”

angsty wangsty. reader is angry, keeps her distance. zayne realizes she’s a different woman while with others -> he wants her back

angsty wangsty 2.0 womp womp

happy ending yay

the last two points is bc i have no idea what to write at the time of plotting so i just wrote it like that 😭

[lordrataxesofrhinoland]

if you ever doubt your artistic ability

just remember that professional concept artist Keith Webb once drew this fucked up hand and no one cared

[categorised-art-tutorials-tips]

Drawing a Journey (Comic Composition Tips)

Credit: Etherington Brothers

[sylvthetic]

Lexicon?

september 2024 // pencil, colored pencil, liner pen, permanent marker on index cards

Series of mini-drawings for an assignment to make a "lexicon" of my art. The guidelines were pretty loose, but I went for things that I either think about or do a lot

[credit-the-artist]

Welcome to credit-the-artist

As a fellow artist I got tired of seeing reposts of art with no indication of who the artist even is, let alone a link to their other works.

So here we are. A blog that dedicates itself to giving artists the credit they deserve.

The profile and banner art on this blog were made by myself at @antikris-t if you wanna follow me there too 👀

[christinaisdrawing]

Testing out the new Fading Opacity trick @ tinikois (on twitter) just taught me, for Storyboard Pro ✌️