Regarding to the whole keyframes drawing process. We are on the edge of the deadline (1st of May), but we still have 2 days. It was decided to use 3D models for some long-distance shots with complex camera turns and movements (I’m referring to shots 07, 38, 41 and 53). So we have 7 keyframes left. I’m sure Nikolay will finish them in the next two days.

Keyframes production sheet (29.04.2012)

It looks like our fundraising campaign is failing. It’s 2 days left and we still have $1619 to go. Anyway, it’s awesome to see that we have done that far and we are very grateful to everyone who gave us their support! The fact that you all believe in this project make us feel so warm and we will do our best to continue with our efforts and proof that your faith is no waste. Thank you!

Tomorrow I’m taking off in my trip to Libre Graphics Meeting 2012  (2-5 May, Austria) and exactly at the 1st of May I’ll be on the road.  I’ll post the final report about the keyframes drawing and our plans for the future as soon as I will get back. And of course if some of you have a chance to be at this great event – will be happy to meet you there!

Finally, it’s been a long time since I was posting my favourite “work-in-progress” drafts. They are kind of outdated already (since all those keyframes are finished), but I won’t feel as myself if I won’t post them now. ^__^

Everyone, have exciting week!

When you start drawing a characters you usually have “front” and “side” concept reference images. And when you need 3/4 view at some gradation it’s always a bit tricky part. And here’s Synfig to the rescue! No, it’s not a tracing time yet, but we can use Synfig’s tweening capabilities to extend our concept references. For example, this is how we get guides for Ivan’s head at particular angle.

Notice how your brain rebuilds the inbetween positions of the head basing the guide lines as references.

The next helpful trick is to use photos as references. Yes, sometimes to figure out the correct look of some elements at certain angles or positions we have to go with shots like you see below.

Hands position on the photo...

...turned into this.

And of course we cheat by using 3D models. Of course the easiest way would be to have 3D models for all characters and do all drawings on top of them. But there is a bad part about that. My experience shows that when you rely much on 3D models in drawing, the characters loose some flexibility or some kind of “creative sparkle”. And it’s not about “uncanny valley” only. Using model clarifies your image, it allows you to make the “right” image, according to “right” rules, “right” perspective, etc. But at the same time it puts your imagination to the limits and that’s bad. Because, you know, the hand-drawn animation takes much of its effect from the exaggeration and the most cool and exciting images come exactly when you breaking some rules. Understanding that is very important and that’s why we tend to use 3D models very carefully.

Currently we started to experiment with the soldier model. The funny thing happened with shot 35 – it’s the shot where the camera makes a long dolly out and all soldiers are thrown into the air. Initially we wanted to use soldier model as a base for drawing keyframes on top. But when we put the model into animation we found that the model looks very naturally as it is.

Considering that it will be masked with some vector elements, effects and dust we decided to use soldiers as pure 3D models in this shot. Of course that saved Nikolay a lot of efforts in the keyframes drawing.

Keyframes marked as to be done with 3D models

That’s everything I wanted to confess about our cheating. ^___^ As usual, you can see our progress for keyframes drawing on the image below. Don’t forget to check the gallery page to see the recent images of this week. We hope you like them. Stay tuned and have a great week!

Keyframes production sheet (08.04.2012)

Now back to the progress.  This week we have changed the strategy and put our efforts to work simultaneously on as many keyframes as possible.

Keyframes production sheet (02.04.2012)

I think that gave its results. Or maybe we just got over critical point – I don’t know. Anyway, although we’re not reached the half of keyframes yet, but it’s close, very close. Again I want to thank everyone who gives us support – it’s so exciting to see all of you care about the project. Your faith mean so much for us. Thank you!

As usual I finish with some WIP images and the finished ones can be found in the wiki gallery.

Keyframes production sheet (25.03.2012)

Here’s one more week passed by. For some reasons this was a kind of hard week.

From one side the non-stop-drawing mode starting to tell – as result of psychological exhausting the process turns into routine and drawings get looking dull and unfacy loosing their creative tune. At the beginning of passed week we have spend a lot of efforts to overcome this aspect, to “refresh” our vision and our minds. Much help in that we got from watching the Gainax artbooks, especially the “Groundworks of Evangelion” – which is like our “Bible”. Watching those works we always get a high impact to recreate our inspiration and get drawings done with a “right” feeling.

On the other side, the time limits don’t allows us spend too much time on “refreshing” and polishing each drawing. Of course there’s always a chance to extend the deadline and put more efforts into drawing, polishing… But there is a danger that during the longer period of drawing artist will grow his skills to the level when his “last” drawings will significantly surpass his”first” drawings. And in this case he will need to get back to his “first” drawing and do rework again and the process end up in nowhere. That’s why I don’t want to dedicate more than 2 months for keyframes drawing. There’s also another reason – we need to learn to draw fast. From my experience the amount of time spent on picture and the quality of picture isn’t strongly correlated. The mos exciting images come out quick like a sparkles, but sometimes we can spend many hours on an image and get an awful result. So if we want to survive we need to draw fast and working on our current deadlines is an only way to learn that.

As I’ve said this was a hard week. We’ve hit some action scenes which are consumed much of our efforts and we often leave unsatisfied with the result we got. But I know that we just need go through and overcome this period, I know that will lead us to the next level, to the second breath. Maybe it’s just around the corner. Just keep working hard. So, enough of rants, back to work!

P.S. Don’t forget to watch the latest drawings page. ^__^

Keyframes production sheet (18.03.2012)

And everyone knows that I love posting “work-in-progress” drafts. ^__^

For finished keyframes please see watch the recent images page at our wiki. Cheers!

Nikolay uses MyPaint to draw the keyframes and some edits are done in GIMP or Krita. Thanks to the GIMP’s ora plugin and native support for ora files in Krita we can seamlessly edit MyPaint files everywhere. Well, in fact Krita’s ora support isn’t that perfect (2.3.3 here), but we can live with that.

So, our basic working format is OpenRaster (ora). My task is to prepare all animatic images – compose them together with all reference data into ora files, so Nikolay can proceed directly to the drawing. We have a special production sheet to identify pending, prepared and finished keyframes. I also mark keyframes which are considered relatively “easy”.

Keyframes production sheet

Nikolay looks at this sheet when he needs to choose next keyframe to draw. After the keyframe is drawn he sends me ora file for review. My job is to look for style consistency and general quality issues. If the keyframe is accepted then Nikolay moves to next one in the list. If there is a issues then I put my notes onto separate layers together with some explanation sketches, send the file back and process repeats. On the images below you can see how it’s usually looks like.

Typical "work-in-progress" screen

Having a production sheet allows Nikolay to proceed with other keyframe while I’m doing review, so the work keeps to be intensive.

Also we can’t go without phone conversations – although Nikolay is quite familiar with the matter it takes from 10 to 30 minutes for discussions on each keyframe. Discussion can take place at any moment, so the mobile phone is an only option for that.  Although Nikolay lives in other town, we are lucky to reside in the same region – that allows us to have all talks at the flat rate.

Needless to say that we have certain conventions about file naming which allows us to keep all data in the order. I will not cover them here as it may sound boring and there is a high probability that those conventions will change with a time.

That’s all my notes about the current workflow. If you would like to see the finished keyframes please watch the recent images page at our wiki. Cheers!

With that event the project enters new phase – keyframes drawing – and since the 1st of March Nikolay is working on them. And here’s some results.

Shot 51 - Morevna KF1 - WIP

Shot 51 - Morevna KF1 - No Shadow

Shot 51 - Morevna KF1

Shot 51 - Ivan KF1 - WIP

Shot 51 - Ivan KF1 - No shadow

Shot 51 - Ivan KF1

Also, to celebrate the beginning of the new phase of the project we decided to update our website theme with the new banner to better fit with current status of the project. Nikolay quickly made some cool artwork and now you can see the result (you may need to clear your browser cache to see the changes). Goodbye, old theme!

We was so excited with new artwork so after playing with new banner we accidentally got a new wallpaper done.

Morevna Project Wallpaper #2 (1920x1080)

That’s all stuff for today. Stay tuned – the next week is going to be hot!

Shot 51: Artwork by Eleonora Pala

Shot 32: Artwork by Eleonora Pala

Ivan's Car: Modeling WIP by Vjacheslav Jastrebcev