17. 56 Backgrounds

I have now drawn 56 Backgrounds. I have a few left and my goal is to finish most of them this week and start animation next week.

I will need to make a new planning obviously...

There is a few POV in the film and I haven't decided if they will be fully animated backgrounds and characters or if it will only be a big background with pans.

Anyway, here's what it looks like when I try to review most of the BGs:

 

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15. Win a Book!

I just finished this background, and it's quite weird, so I thought it would be fun to give a book away to someone that manage to guess what it is.

Like the facebook page (Deadman on facebook) and then Send me your answer HERE (quentin.vien@gmail.com), and I'll randomly selected the winner on sunday night,

and announce it on this page on next monday.

You have until Sunday midnight!

The winner will get the book number 99, signed with it's donkey post card and access to the deadman's mailing list that gives access to special secret shit.

Spread the word, on facebook, twitter, google + (do people use that?), smoke signals, etc...

And if you can't wait until monday, because you really really need to have the book, you can buy it here: Help Finance the film.

Or simply read about it. (you should buy it though)

For those of you who already have the book, It would make a good present for your grandmas, so I'll be happy to send it to whoever you ask me to.

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14. Making a Shot

I finally got around editing that "making of video" I was supposed to last week. It shows the different steps I go through to make an animation.

1) Shoot live action.

2) Choose only the frames I need for the animation.

3) Time them and place them correctly.

4) Rotoscop them.

5) Clean the drawings and shade them

6) Place the animation on the Background.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, especial one of me moving in slow motion in my living room, there you go:

[vimeo 46986044 w=500 h=281]

music is "RoadTrim Part 2" by the dead pirates

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13. RIP

My computer died last week... This is not a good news, I'll have to get a new one, which is not going to help the finance of the film.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to edit the little making of I wanted to show you.

I got some secondary characters animated last week, and I was aiming at comping a shot completely, in order to have an idea of the final look.

All this is going to be postponed until I get a new machine. I'm going to focus on backgrounds again.

This is a good opportunity to get lots of them done.

Here is some background characters animation.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/46446181 w=500&h=281]

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11. Ranch

Last week went well, not having any distractions really helped. I have now 14 Backgrounds completed, and I'm feeling a bit more confident.

This week I'm gonna keep on drawing as many backgrounds as possible, but I'll leave the Shading for later.

I'm also planing to finish the film first shot. The background is ready and it has 3 characters to be animated.

Good challenge!

In the mean time here is a finished BG, a RANCH:

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10. Change in Plan

So last week I did a proper schedule, and as expected, It freaked me out... It came to 45 days of work at a pace far from the one I'm at. So I had to re-think the way I work.

I was drawing one Background at the time. The process was, Print the storyboard on an A3, look for references, Draw a detailed pencil drawing, Ink It and then shade it.

Each process is fairly easy and relatively efficient. However by working this way I was loosing a lot of time, wondering what to do, looking for things on the internet, getting distracted by facebook etc.

I would also lose time in between each steps, out of procrastination or lack of motivation. If It was 8.30 pm and I wanted to work till 9, I wouldn't start a new drawing, other wise it would easily end up being 11...

Plus It meant that I needed to finish every background completely to be able to animate every shot.

The new plan is more efficient because I have lots of task to choose from, and I can turn off the computer during a whole day if I want to.

The new process is print lots of BGs (maybe 10), look for all the references needed for those BG, then draw and ink all those 10 BG. I keep the shading for later. The shading process will run until the end of production.

This way in a few days I should be able to have the outlines of all the background, and so I will be able to start animation at any time.

My animators friends also recommended to keep other things to do while animating, to have something to relax my head with.

I managed to do 8 backgrounds in one day an a Half!

This week I'm in the contry side, without electricity, internet, or even cell phone coverage, so I will focus on shading those 8 back grounds.

Hopefully I'll finish all of them!

Here are this week 8 inked Bg:

As always feel free to comment HERE

9. New BackGround

Last week was a bit slow, mainly due to the fact that I spend 5 hours colouring A THIRD of an A3 in red. Using a O.4 mm pen... Bloody Diner sits. It felt like Math lessons all over again!

Anyway, I'm one background behind, I will catch up somehow this week.

Mooe sent me the first draft of here Harry Nilsson's "One" cover, and it's brilliant,

I can't wait for you to hear it!

Mean while listen to here other songs, HERE. They're perfect for a monday morning. Or any other time!

This week plan is a bit serious...  Apart from the thursday afternoon Old Fashioned Stroll.

I need to sort out a proper PLANING for the backgrounds. I've finished 6 of them, out of 60 and I only have a few weeks to finish all of them.

I started by the hardest ones, yet I need a realistic schedule. Today starts the 9th week. It needs to get a bit more intense.

Any one care to Produce me?

The great news is that I am 20 Books away from adding 1 more month to the production! Making it a proper 6 month production.

Here is one of the new BackGrounds, a Motel Room:

Feel free to leave comments HERE

8. Diner

I've finished 3 backgrounds: a London Tube Station, a Diner and a Saloon so far. And I need to start working faster now,  I should draw at least another 4 Backgrounds this week.

I'll need to take a day to set up the animation tools (Line test and animation table) and scan the final drawings.

The sales of the book have dramatically slowed down,

so I'm just dropping a few lines to remind you that you can help finance the film

by buying a Deadman's Reach book HERE or by making your friends buy it!

Thanks!

And Here is the Diner:

You can let me know what you think of it, here.