The making of Lanimation - Part 1
I guess you’re quite familiar with my work so far. If not, go to www.lightapprentice.com, where you can find both the Light Apprentice comics and animation.
Hi everyone,
Today, I’ll talk more about the animation and how the initial process of making the three first episodes is being. I mean, it’s not a secret by now how to do 2D animation, just buy a Disney classic DVD and voilá, but I hope that with this text I can show you a bit more how I do it. That is, if you find there is any difference at all.
So today I’ll talk about storyboards and animatic.
Because after you have the idea, the first thing you do is that, right? Well, more or less. Before that, you usually write the script, but in my case, I go straight to the thumbnails of the most important scenes of the episode. (have in mind I already had the model sheets ready)
In the case of the first episode, I sketched the action scenes first, then the scene the boy meets the robot, then the first one. I kinda went backwards. Then I scanned from my sketchbook and organized them, from the beginning, of course. Here are some of them:
Excerpt 1:
Excerpt 2:
Excerpt 3: (obs.: not a sequence to previous)
Actually, they look more like thumbnails than storyboards… They were done waaaay back when I still thought this project could never see the light of day. Good thing I was wrong! I’ve learned so much doing this first episode - it took me nearly three years to finish these 4 minutes of animation.
Another thing. Back then, I had no idea of how to do an episode of animation. I was learning by doing it. So I did these as reference for myself - as I “knew” no one else would ever see these drawings. So if you don’t really understand what’s going on, well, that’s not your fault. Just compare to the actual animation and you’ll see they are actually pretty close.
Ok, with the storyboards ready, it was time to put them into an animatic, which is just the storyboards organized in video so you can measure the time of each shot. Some call it “story reel”, but they are the same thing in the end for me. It should have the soundtrack and audio dialogue to it, otherwise it doesn’t really have a purpose. And sound effects, if possible.
So, this is an excerpt of my first animatic. I’m not ashamed to show my old drawings because that’s how I evolved, that’s how this animation was made. Again, compare to the finished piece, and you’ll see I already knew what I wanted deep inside my mind, I just didn’t know how to make it.
Well, this is it for the first part of the making of. I hope you liked it. Next, I’ll talk about the same subject, but this time I’ll show you parts of the never-before-seen episode 2, and explain what changed from the first to the second episodes, in terms of studio structure, experience and whatever more.
Notes