Finally got the storyboard finished for the Christmas card brief. I'm starting to get a bit worried already as it's taken the bones of four days to do, and that's just nine still images. O.k. so a day was lost trying to upload it - technical errors - but I have a ton of work to do. I still have several characters to draw plus a dozen or so motorbikes. There's also a lot of background stuff that still needs to be added. First though I think I'll have to clear out some old files as my computer has slowed down dramatically, even Photoshop which worked fine before, closed itself down last night, probably exhausted. There's roughly six scenes, the first four will be only about two seconds long - each. But there's a lot of motion in them so that'll require a lot of drawing.

 

The image above is the opening shot, it will include several bikes speeding past the camera/viewer. It's the only one I've done so far and I want them all to be different so I won't be just copying this bike & rider (though to be honest I'll have to do it if time is a factor). I have animated a moving wheel as part of the research. That is I added lighter shades to opposite arcs and made it move up and down, to give the impression that the wheel was moving. Now that I've been working on the timing I don't think this will be necessary as the bikes will pass by so quickly.

You might guess that I've discovered the clouds filter in photoshop

 

 

Again there will be as many bikes as possible within the time for this scene and hopefully they can all be different.

 

It'll be snowing in this scene, should be interesting to try

 

 

This scene needs to be darkened as it's set at night. I want to include the light beams of the bikes as they pull up outside the hospital. This might be a bit ambitious so it'll be left till near the end and dependant on time.

The main thing for me with regards the storyline was to avoid the stereotypical images of Christmas. I think I've done that in the first half of the animation. O.k. there's a robin in there, and snow, but they don't necessarily have to imply Christmas. There is an obvious reference at the end, there's only two more scenes. But I wanted to build up a sense of tension/ apprehension so that the ending would be a surprise( It'll be a surprise for me if I actually get it finished in time). But that's part of the entertainment isn't it, to have a twist at the end of your storyline.

The remaining two scenes are firstly, the group walking along one of the hospital corridors, and finally reaching their destination and carrying out their business. Hopefully I'll have at least the first scene animated and ready to add to my next post.