My Shot for the Guard Dog Global Jam

[Conzeit]

yes, I know...this is right over the edge, when it comes to fitting the Lo Spec board.

it's a vector made video. The reason I'm posting it here is because it's made with toonboom, which handles palletes pretty similarly to the way a pixelart program would, and to me THIS was the natural evolution of my pixelart. You all know how bored I got of AA.

http://vimeo.com/17203581

http://conzeit.tumblr.com/post/2062110176/guard-dog-global-jam-shot-67-my-process

I'm posting this here mostly to alert people that ToonBoom is probably a good way to go if you want to go from pixels to vectors, and because I want you guys to see about my process too.

if this isnt appropiate for the board I'll take it to the Off-Topic thread, I guess.

[big brother]

You obviously spent a lot of work on this! I like the brushstroke style, it adds a Van-Gogh like mania to the shot. However, it's difficult to read, especially during the movements. The dog seems to lack solid construction and generally moves like a blobby collection of details. Sorry if this sounds harsh. You're a mature artist, so I'm not worried that you'll take offense. How long did you have to make this?

[Conzeit]

What I wanted to do with this shot was to approach this vague idea of something born from sprites but focused on brushstrokes that I had in my head, and I do think this experiment got me closer to do it....but I do know it also produced all those problems you pointed out.

I accumulated a lot of impressions about dog breeds with caved in faces trough all the 3 months I worked on this, and I wanted to convey every single one of them in the shot. Therefore, from the beggining keeping a strict "model" wasnt really a concern at all...I guess the way characters transform in Ren & Stimpy allowed me to feel like I had a license to do that, but I do know that it's not as well executed in my shot as it is in R&S because in my shot there's not enough time to read all the drawings and I didnt make inbetweens where one shape sticks but gets deformed. Also the design doesnt have such clear use of basic shapes. That's one of the things I learnt with this, basic shapes really do read a lot more easily.

When the character is stationary good construction pays off, because you can turn it around very welll....and not doing that well enough might have caused me to miss emotion I wanted to convey. Not having a strict model doesnt necesarily mean vague construction.
Specifically I think the animator who did this short http://vimeo.com/9115247 is more adequate at those areas and therefore woud have better served this shot in that aspect.

The choice to not use outlines made it a lot less readable, this should have more dark shades emphasizing the sillouethe and his face features to make it read more easily. I think I understand now that the reason so many animations have outlines everywhere is that aproach is less demanding on the pallete, if you rely only on shading to show your volume the contrasts have to flawleslly bring out the characters.

I knew I'd get this kind of comment here, and that's partly why I didnt post it here as I worked on it because I was trying something unconventional and the failing of things unconventional are specially easy to see from the outside so I was sure to get comments that would make me doubt myself and it might have made me hold back. Posting it afterwards like this I feel confident about what I tried and I know the limitations of what I did, so I still can elaborate and learn from the critiques I get. it's nice to be here =)

EDIT: Boy...every paragraph started with I...that's always been unsettling about the way I write C_c so much I, I, I

[ptoing]

Can you upload an AVI somewhere (dropbox would work)? I would like to look at this frame by frame for better critique.

Overall I think it lacks construction. I know the whole off model argument and I love well done off model stuff. That short you linked, while being awesome, was very moderate when coming to being off model, so I dunno where that comes in.

And also: before you can break the rules you have to master them. Or at least have some more experience. That's how I feel about this anyway.

Again, AVI please

[Conzeit]

I know what you mean Ptoing, but there were a lot of varying styles in the Guard Dog Global Jam, I was feeling bad about not having  anything close to what I wanted to do in art with my 25th birthday coming up (today) so with those two things combined not even attempting to do the style I wanted would have been a bummer. I had to do it even if a lot of flaws came out....that reason had been holding me back for too long. Now I know more clearly what those flaws are from experience, and atleast I have something to show for it.


The short I linked doesnt go off model and expresses better emotion, that IS my point, I'm not trying to avoid critique, I'm acknoledging it. My example of good off model stuff would have been Ren & Stimpy or perhaps The Wall....I know this doesnt compare.

I didnt disable the ability to download the video on vimeo, I think that if you go to the right and botton of the page, and right above the statistics it should say "MP4 Download This video"....Dont expect a lot in the way of minute detail like you would in pixelart :p....my hand is shaky and the lines are barely good enough for the resolution.



EDIT: Somehow I thought Ptoing was helm O_o

[ptoing]

Well of course I do not expect a lot of minute detail like in some pixelart That would be a lot of work for just one person, even for such a short segment.

I think overall if you would have added one more colour to the dog, something fairly dark and given him some outlines, but not even full ones, would have helped a lot.
I am sure you are aware of this and I am also sure you learned something in the process. So two thumbs up 

[Conzeit]

=D thank you ptoing =). I do want crits tho! BigBro's helped me elaborate how I felt about the end product...dont wanna make it seem like I dont really want feedback :p