Zlogspot - animationandvideo

Skateboarding Cage Monster by TET. Around the beginning of December 2018 I started work on a new CrazyTalk Animator 3 , G3 character of my own original design. Known as 'The Cage Monster' readers of my TET Life blog may recognize him as the Skatepark mascot for the long since closed Cage Skatepark . I didn't document the creation process in this blog, as I've done with other characters in the past, as I didn't want to start yet another series on a new character that I may or may not complete. At this stage I have completed a full G3 'side' view character rig which I managed to finish faster than usual because I could simply copy and paste all the hands and facial features from my G3 color monkey characters (that this character was derived from and which you can purchase in my Reallusion Marketplace store ). The Cage Monster will become available in my store when I've completed a front view character rig and his fully animated skateboard prop. The skate...

Bat Storm Muvizu (left) In development Bat Storm iClone (right). If you've been following my work for a while you'll be familiar with my Batman parody character Bat Storm. The character first appeared as a GoAnimate Comedy World design . When GoAnimate dropped all its fun themes in favor of Business Animations I moved the character into the 3D realm of Muvizu shortly after I purchased a license for it in 2016. I really love Bat Storm's look in Muvizu. The thing is, as easy as Muvizu's developers claim their software is, I find trying to do any form of character animation with it to be infuriating. Which is why you haven't seen a single Bat Storm animation created in Muvizu so far. My Muvizu Bat Storm Character. Lately I've been experimenting with Reallusion's 3D Character Creator 2 for iClone 7, which is soon to be released as a stand alone application in version 3. Although I haven't done a lot of 3D animation with iClone I actually know my way around...

Final character art, scene one. Continuing to work on my Infinite Monkey Theorem animated short , I had hoped to have finished the entire final draft storyboard by now. However the holiday season being what it is, I didn't get as much time to work on it as I had hoped. Despite that I can show you the entire process of me taking the character (loosely based on myself) in the opening panel of the storyboard, from rough sketch to the final artwork that I'll use in the animation. Obviously the main image at the top of this post shows the final character so, just to remind you of how the character started out, below is the rough sketch version. The original rough sketch. The basic steps I followed to create the final version was: Import the rough sketch into Clip Studio Paint. Sketch a more refined version of the character. Trace the outlines onto a vector layer for easier line work editing. Break up the body parts into their own layers. Add raster layers to add all the coloring. Po...

CTA3 Bone Editor Preview. If you've been following my posts on creating my CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3, Desert Scavenger Character, Mar-Rey Sue (note the revised spelling of 'Mar-Rey' from 'Ma-Rey'), then I hope you'll be excited to learn the main character rig is finished. That's right, all of the sprites are complete, the bone guides are in place, and I've imported the character into CrazyTalk Animator 3. Naturally the first import attempt was not perfect. There was quite a few adjustments to be made to the character template to get things working well. Also of note is that if you misspell a folder name in the template it can result in parts of the character not being imported into CTA3 at all. In my case, all the sprites for the character's right eye didn't import on the first attempt because I accidentally spelt 'right' with two 't's on the template folder. Second attempt, I fixed all the issues I discovered on the first. I'...

Ma-Rey Sue - Now with 100% less head scarves and googles. Work continues on my Desert Scavenger, Star Wars parody character, Ma-Rey Sue. Last post I gave you the character's development background and current status. This week, I've continued to work on her and made some real progress. Much of my time in her development these last couple of weeks was taken up with creating the character's hand sprites. Each hand has 24 different sprites to give you a range of pose options. Even though I was adapting the same hands I used with my color monkeys to work with Rey, the process was still quite time consuming. Robes Detail. Fortunately the hands are now finished. This week I've been working on her robes that flow around her hip and upper thigh. My goal is to give the animator two options, 1.) To animate the character with simple robes that are part of the upper thigh sprites, 2.) To include an optional character spine accessory of the robe that can be animated blowing in the w...

Since I hadn't talked about my upcoming CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3, Desert Scavenger Character, in any great detail (and because finishing her is taking longer than anticipated) I thought you may be interested to look at the project in a little more detail. The Beginning Back in March of 2016 I had this idea to create a Star Wars, The Force Awakens, parody animated short. Seeing the little ball droid, BB-8 roll around at speed through the desert reminded me so much of the old WB Road Runner cartoons. Since everyone was out looking for BB-8 and Rey was doing her best to make sure he didn't get caught, I thought that could be done in a humorous, Road Runner style parody. Character Design With that thought in mind I gathered together a few images of Rey and set to work creating a character that kind of looked like her but getting an actual likeness wasn't critical. I just wanted to create an original looking character that would suit the humor I was going for. Character developm...

TET - Bitstrips Avatar. I'm really great at starting projects and, because of that, a lot of projects end up on the back burner or forgotten about entirely. So as not to allow that to happen, I thought it was time for a complete update on all the animation projects I've started in recent years (yes, I said years ) and have still to finish or discontinue. I'll work backwards from newest to oldest. New Projects These projects I've not mentioned in this blog before or have briefly mentioned in passing. CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3, Desert Scavenger Character, and Animated Short Desert Scavenger, 'Ma-Rey Sue'. I briefly mentioned that I was putting together an animated parody short featuring Rey from The Force Awakens that was based upon the style of old Road Runner cartoons. I have a partially complete script and storyboard for the project so there's still a chance this will get made. What is more certain is that the Rey character rig (who I'm naming 'Ma-R...

Reddy the Color Monkey. Now available. Reddy, the Color Monkey, is now available to buy in my Reallusion Marketplace store  for your next CrazyTalk Animator 3 production. It's been a long journey that began way back in 2011, when I first tried to create him as a CTA, G1 character . Then again in 2014, I attempted to create him as CTA2, G2 character . Each time the process or life in general got the better of me, but with CTA3's G3 character rigs the process of creating characters has become a lot more achievable and, most importantly, less tedious (though I'd say it's still challenging if you want your character to be fully featured).. Reddy is available in two angles, Front and Side (a.k.a. 315 degree) views. Both angles feature a full range of hand and face sprites, as well as additional front facing feet sprites. Both are compatible with CTA3's facial puppeteering system and G3 human character motion library. Reddy's Tail. Also available is Reddy's Tail, ...

Reddy the Color Monkey. My new CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3 Character, Reddy the color monkey is both finished and still a work in progress. Previously I thought I might have a demonstration animation completed for this post but, after receiving some sought after feedback on Reddy with some very good suggestions I decided to refine him even further. Most of the changes were to the line work around his joints so when his limbs move the join is less obvious and looks more natural. The more obvious change is that I added some shadow to him to make him look a little more three dimensional (so he'd match better with Garry Pye's excellent characters, props and backgrounds, which do have shadows and I will probably use quite a bit with Reddy). Reddy, disguised as President Trump. Additional Characters and props by Cartoon Solutions. Having done those changes, the front facing character rig of Reddy is complete. However, he's still a work in progress because I've been working on ...

See how I turn this free VectorCharacters.net image  into a CrazyTalk Animator 3 Character. Creating a character rig from original art can seem like a daunting task in CrazyTalk Animator 3. Especially if, all you really want to do is put together a quick animation with characters you may never even use again. Here's how to rig a CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3 human character, with the fewest components, whilst still being compatible with G3 character motions, and having a face capable of lip syncing and character expressions. You should be able to do this in under an hour - assuming you have your artwork ready to go. The process is even quicker if you have the Pipeline edition of CTA3 and take advantage of the supplied Photoshop templates and import feature. If you have the Pro edition you'll have to import your character art sprites in manually to one of the G3, Human, Dummy Templates. In my example I'll be using this Casual Girl character  (pictured) from VectorCharacters.net -...

Reddy the Color Monkey A CTA3, G3 Custom Character. Last post , I wasn't sure I'd get this far so soon, but, as it turns out, creating a CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3 character is a much easier and relatively more enjoyable task than creating the previous G2 Characters. In just under two weeks I've completed Reddy, the Color Monkey, my very first, fully Rigged G3 Character By fully rigged I mean he has all the sprites needed for a full range of facial expressions and hand positions. He also has an extra foot sprite so you can position his feet either facing forward or sideways. Additionally, his tail is a separate G3 spine character that you link to his hip bone. This means that his tail can be fully articulated and animated using key frames or spine motions. Currently he has a few issues to fix that are only noticeable once you start moving him around (hence the reason for not showing him animated just yet) but these are minor, mostly cosmetic problems. Overall, from start to t...

This sketch only took about 10-15 minutes. Using a symmetrical ruler meant I only had to draw the left side of the image.  Last post I mentioned my intention to develop an animation series based around my color monkey characters. Recognizing that just saying something won't make it happen, today I started work on actually drawing and rigging the color monkey characters themselves. It's definitely a task that comes with some trepidation and a definite sense of déjà vu as I've been here before . A few years back I attempted to rig this same character in CrazyTalk Animator 2 as a G2 character. It was a lot of work that I ended up being overwhelmed by. This time I'm rigging the character in CrazyTalk Animator 3 as a G3 character. It's less work but still not a complete cakewalk. Unlike multi-angle G2 characters, G3 characters are only single angle. In theory you could draw and rig one from scratch inside a day (including all the additional hand and face sprites) Anyway...

One of my biggest stumbling blocks in moving forward with my own animation has been coming up with ideas that I can get excited about. Even with using time saving animation software like CrazyTalk Animator 3 creating animated shorts is still a lot of work that you need to stay motivated for. As much as I want to earn a living from creating my own animated shorts, the higher priority is to enjoy creating them... you know, if you enjoy what you're doing you'll never work a day in your life - that kind of thing. When I got back into creating animated shorts in 2008, after discovering GoAnimate , I was clearly having a lot of fun in the years before that site transitioned from allowing anyone to create animated stories to a business explainer video creation tool. I made somewhere around 180 animated shorts over the space of about 4 years - roughly 3 animations per month. Most of my animations were either humorous shorts, sketch comedy, or sitcom like stories told in parts over se...