Slythe

I watched  The THUNDERCATS yesterday; the original 80's cartoon. Got inspired to draw SLYTHE. I always loved this character, maybe because I like lizards and reptiles so much...or maybe I like lizards so much because of watching Slythe on this show? Hmmm. I'll have to think about that.

Ugly

That's melted ice cream meant to look like runny mascara under his eyes, and the ice cream cone on his nose...a rhino I guess? It's just plain freaky looking.

horse background...3 WAYS!

Starts off all nice and happy in the top pic. Then it starts to get a bit foreboding in the second pic. And finally it gets down right gloomy and miserable for this poor fella.

Aardman Animations

It wasn't until I finished this scene and played it back that it instantly reminded me of Aardman Animations work. The shifty, darting eyes, the mouth shapes, and the timing are all very reminiscent of Wallace and Gromit  or my personal Aardman favorite, Creature Comforts. I imagine if Aardman films were in 2D instead of Claymation or Stop-Motion, they would look something like this.

Horse Lips

A pretty funny lip sync.

rain

It's hard to believe I am almost finished animating all the scenes with these 2 characters. I am very happy with how it all turned out, the top notch voice acting, the funny character designs, and even though the animation is very limited, these two characters really came to life with strong personalities.They made a great duo to play off of each other and the main character.

Color to set Mood

The last act of this short film is kind of gloomy as the mood gets desperate for our main character. So I adjusted the colors and made it dark and overcast to fit the mood, well that, plus it's literally a biblical rain storm that starts in the last act.

Lee Van Cleef

from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly."

Robert Mitchum

A quick sketch of a young Robert Mitchum. UPDATED with a clean version in the top pic.

sketchy guy

sharp dressed man

Just a sketch.

breakdown

 So here is a detailed look at how this piece is animated. The top is the starting pose. I needed to add a bit of an anticipation. One thing I absolutley hate about flash animation is when you see a whole character as one symbol that stretches up and squashes down. It looks cheap, it looks awful. I've seen this alot in early flash animated shows. But there is a time and place for everything, and in this case I used it too. The way it is used here is okay, it's very subtle, but it serves as an important anticapation to the huge wipe.



You can see, above, how the whole character is a symbol that is stretched. It works for this pupose because the next 2 inbetweens are not symbols or tweened animation. They are good ol' fashioned inbetween drawings. You know? Like animation should be. The two middle pics on the top show the inbetweens. The action is quick, I used a wipe...AGAIN. What really makes it work is the secondary action of her belt and her hair when she lands on the desk...as seen below.

So there you have it; two inbetweens to go from the character standing to her pounding on the desk and laughing, made possible because of a cheap and easy symbol tween as an anticipation.

all together now

Here's the 3 laugh cycles strung together. There is a second character that will also be in the scene laughing with him, that's why you hear two different people laughing.

another wipe

I had only two frames, to go from the top pose to the bottom pose; on two's that is only one inbetween. This looks like a job for....another WIPE!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Laugh cycles.