7 & 8 weeks, production!

Heres a mood board i put together of all the things i need to refer to when i'm animating. The setting of the animation is in newyork or somewhere like it. Not a rich place either, very urban and working class. I love the idea of those big housing blocks with the zig zagg stair cases, they are so iconic and scream america! Fairly odd parents is a cartoon we were going to use as style inspiration but that didnt happen in the end. Some pictures of jack russle puppies and bats to refer to. I also looked at some videos of bats and puppies, to get an idea of how the move. Bats flap very fast so i will be sure to keep that in mind. And puppies tend to be clumsy with their movements, but very simplistic. For example, a larger more grown up dog would be bending its legs more, but puppies keep them straight in little steps. I have to keep in mind how little girls work too. They dont move the same or act the same as adults, they are more exaggerated and clumsy in their movements too.

This is the illustrator Patrick Vale. His thick and thing lines indicate how close an object is, and he outlines objects thicker too. His lines arent straight or even, and he colours outside the lines in broad strokes too. We all loved this as a group so i did a test for us all and we decided to go with it!

Here is the test i did for our style. We altered it afterwards and decided it should be a wee bit messier.

This is the sketch I had to work from, straight from the story board. I ended up flipping it as i felt it worked better.

Landing layout.

I drew up the houses again as i wasnt too fond of how the other one looked. layout is the same it just looks different.

This is the line version, i used thicker lines for the darker bits to indicated deep shadows.

This is the first stages of shading it. This adds detail and style to the whole thing.

I then added more grey and erased some to show the lighting from the windows and street lamps/

i LOVE the lighting effects i have managed to create with this style. Very pleased with this background.

The landing background drawn up!

The different stages in production to the establishing shot!

Here is a technique i used for all of the backgrounds. I erased some of the shadow in the direction the light was going like this to indicate it is infact the light which is causing it, and where it is coming from.

Badda big badda boom.