pasithea

So...

In the world animation class this summer I saw a type of colouring I really liked so I talked with Marty about it after class and it turned out that he actually had a production cel from this piece. The artwork was chalk pastel and charcoal applied directly to the paper cel.

Hmm. A media I liked AND it its very cheap and in a media that I tend to work really quickly in.

So last night I did some tests in preparation for the animation success team meeting this evening. First I just applied charcoal to some animation paper and fixed it and let it dry, then did a smudge test of it (since that was a major concern) Seems like it'll be okay.

Next I copied cels from different shot scales and coloured them. Those results were pretty fantastic. I LOVE charcoal!

Finally I tried colouring a short sequence with the charcoal and fixing each frame. http://circle.twu.net/animate/pencil/shadow_test_web.mov
I used my original animation of the cat for this test since its the worst of the cat animation and would show jumpiness the best. (Also I couldn't bring myself to possible trash production cels. :)

I'm happy with it. The color problems on the page aroun the cat are due to 1) fixer still being wet on some cels and 2) slight wrinkling of cels cause by fixer.

The solution for the first is obvious. The solution to the second.. I'm going to try using some different fixers and see if I can get one that doesn't cause wrinkling. Also, if I photo on my animation stand rather than on the floor the platten glass will definetely help. :) bright top lighting with lotsa diffusion will also help.

All in all, this method of coloring seems like it may be workable. I was averaging about 2.5minutes per cel to color. That's faster than the 3.5minutes per cel to ink and majorly faster than either paints or even most computer coloring (for me) Lotsa potential! :)

I think though I'm gonna do the film in ink-outline only mode first and see how I like it as a 'finished' piece and then maybe go back and do the coloring later. Also thinking about doing the charcoals on a seperate layer and then compositing them together rather than working on the inked originals. *sigh* Too bad my punch holes aren't aligned. I could photocopy all of my cels and just do it that way. Maybe I should think more about a punch of my own. (Though I'm leaning towards building a template for a dremmel actually)