june 2016
The ANIMATOR'S SKETCHCLUB '4TH JULY PARADE'!
Next month witnesses America's legendary '4th July' celebrations - especially parades! So I thought that the ANIMATOR'S SKETCHCLUB should celebrate its own animation '4th JULY PARADE'! We are most probably all independent artists after all - so why not celebrate our own version of 'Independence Day' - i.e. the way that all animator's should, whatever part of the world we come from!
Below you will see a video of a) a snatch of a small town '4th July' parader in bizarre costume, followed by b) some fabulous walk action reference footage that was put out on the internet by Houman Sorooshnia. Check the video out, then I'll tell you what the challenge is.
Below you will see a video of a) a snatch of a small town '4th July' parader in bizarre costume, followed by b) some fabulous walk action reference footage that was put out on the internet by Houman Sorooshnia. Check the video out, then I'll tell you what the challenge is.
Great stuff huh? It should give you plenty of food for thought with regards what's coming up for this month's Challenge!
THE CHALLENGE:
I want you to create a character of your own design that can walk in our own 4th July Parade. We're not actually asking you to animate your character walking - just draw them in 4 separate walking poses - the two 'strides' and their midway 'passing' positions.,
THE CHALLENGE:
I want you to create a character of your own design that can walk in our own 4th July Parade. We're not actually asking you to animate your character walking - just draw them in 4 separate walking poses - the two 'strides' and their midway 'passing' positions.,
These are the 4 poses that your character should be drawn in. Note the body rises on the 'passing positions' 1 and 3!
The attitude of the poses should reflect your character's design as closely as possible. You character can therefore be 'happy', 'sad', 'nervous', 'brave', 'eccentric' or anything else you can think of. You can also use an existing animation character of course. However, the real kudos will be for you to create your own that will proudly walk in our animation parade on the 4th July.
Below you will see a guide background for the parade video. My plan is to use this background (or a modification of it) and superimpose all your character design poses over it, to create a video that will show our animator's parade passing by. It will have some kind of music going with it and it will be premiered specifically on the 4th July next month, together with the announcement of the winners. The video will run for as long as the number of characters submitted will allow me to run it.
Below you will see a guide background for the parade video. My plan is to use this background (or a modification of it) and superimpose all your character design poses over it, to create a video that will show our animator's parade passing by. It will have some kind of music going with it and it will be premiered specifically on the 4th July next month, together with the announcement of the winners. The video will run for as long as the number of characters submitted will allow me to run it.
However, to do all this I need you to follow some necessary guidelines, otherwise the plan will not work out...
i) Please color your character but leave the background absolutely WHITE.
ii) Put your 4 character designs onto one file so I'm not overburdened with too many files to work with. (And please send your final submissions as soon as possible before the deadline, just in case there are many for me to deal with in the time I have!)
iii) For those who can do it, please make your files 1080 pixels high - as the video will be created in HD1080. (I can scale down characters accordingly.)
iv) Please scan your designs in color if possible. If not, photograph them so they are well-lit and sharply focused.
v) You can submit as many characters as you like but each one should be on its own file with the 4 versions of it on that file.
vi) To get a sense of your character in relation to the correctly sized background, you can download the BG file below, print it out and use that as a scaling reference to draw over.
vii) You can create your character drawings larger than the background file of course - but just make sure it will fit into the background format once it is scaled down.
viii) DO NOT include the background art with your character poses when you submit them - just keep the background WHITE!
Finally, the closing date of your entries is strictly Sunday, JUNE 26th, at Midnight (Pacific Time).
'Good luck' one and all! I can't wait to see you in our parade!
| 4th_july_bg.jpg |
Click on the BG file above to download it for your reference
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winner's laurel award!
To spice up our monthly challenges I have decided to give each winner a digital 'LAUREL AWARD', a mock up of which can be seen here . . .
If you're a winner, we hope you will display your laurel with pride - on your 'artwork', your 'website', your 'blog' or simply your 'Facebook page'. I will of course include your name in the final winner's design, so only you will be able to display it.
Note: I will endeavor to present all our previous winners with a 'Laurel' - but AFTER this June challenge is over! :)