animatingforfun

[animatingforfun]

Back in 2020, I animated this 2D test while in pre-production for @whittlewoodshop and @nathan.engelhardt ‘s short film, “Forevergreen”, to experiment with how a wood carving could move in animation.

Based on @whittlewoodshop wood sculptures and Jin Kim’s drawings, this test was used to figure out details like how the wooden dowel eye would function in animation and how the bear sculpture design would stand up-right. On top of all the technical, I was having fun animating and discovering the cub’s personality. :)

To view Jin Kim’s character designs and more amazing behind the scenes, check out @forevergreen_short_film on Instagram every Friday for “Forevergreen Fridays”.

[animatingforfun]

“Color Kitten”

Today (day after Christmas) was a lazy stay-at-home day, so I grabbed my 3DS and animated this guy. It started out as some random guy, then turned into the cowardly lion, and finally me trying to remember what the Color Kittens from the Little Golden Books looked like. Enjoy!

(Animated using the “Butterfly Animation” app for the Nintendo 3DS)

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After wrapping my last shot!

-Moana 2 (2024)

-Moana (2016)

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This was a pure joy to work on.

For the behind-the-scenes story of how I made this animated mini-short, click “keep reading” below.

I started this 6 weeks ago, just before Nintendo shut down its 3DS and WiiU servers. The server shutdown meant no more multi-player online play for 3DS games, like Mario Kart 7, but also no more uploading to the Butterfly Animation online gallery directly from the app.

As an homage to the Inchworm and Butterfly Animation apps for the DSi and 3DS that I’ve been animating on since 2011, I originally was just going to animate just a single shot featuring something butterfly related.

But the story evolved as I began asking myself a series of "what if" questions that I had fun answering, like, “what if it was a little girl playing dress up as a butterfly?” And then “what if she was first cosplaying as a caterpillar then the butterfly?” “If this is a story of growth, what if she stumbles? What is her attitude when she stumbles?” “What if the design of the girl was something like Isao Takahata or Yoichi Kotabe would draw?”

Making this was the embodiment of everything I hope to achieve with my personal animation: to let creativity flow and just have fun animating and creating.

Since this mini-short was animated on my Nintendo 3DS, there was a memory limit of only 100 drawings, which was a bit of a challenge for longer or complex actions, but was a fun puzzle to solve. Sometimes limitations force you to come up with even more creative solutions. (I was able the squeeze in more drawings than the memory allowed, and filled it to the max!) :)

The song I used is from Rebecca Sugar’s album, "Spiral Bound", and perfectly fit the theme of the short. Initially, while I was drawing the character, I found myself humming a tune from Steven Universe that dealt with beginnings, endings, and not being ready. It’s amazing how the brain can subconsciously pick the playlist!

In the end, that song, sung by Steven’s father in the show, didn’t quite fit, but then I remembered another song by Rebecca Sugar which was more on theme with my story, called “My Own Way to the End”. The whole album is wonderful! You can check it out here:

Painting the backgrounds for this was the most challenging thing for me, but also the most eye opening! After painting, I would look around at the trees in the neighborhood differently. So many colors when you really look closely.

There’s so many talented people at my work and it was great that I could ask them for advice. One person I asked was the talented Tia Kratter, who happened to teach a mini-painting class for the animators while I was working on this short. I asked her for advice on one of the background paintings and she asked great questions which challenged me to try different things, but I still felt like I was having fun and playing without fear of failure. I mean, it was still hard though! Hahaha!

If you’ve read up to this point, thank you for reading this. :) I hope you enjoy this mini-short as much as I enjoyed making it!

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Work-in-progress on something fun!

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Played around with Flipnote today.

Animated a guy jogging, which is probably what I should’ve been doing instead, but this was more fun. :)

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Made this a few years ago but never shared it as it was just for practice.

Having owned Sara Bareilles’s previous albums, I blindly purchased her then latest album the day it came out. As I listened, I noticed a strong baking and pie theme connecting the songs, which seemed a little strange until I discovered it was an album of songs Sara wrote for a new musical, “Waitress.”

At the time, I didn’t know the story of the musical or of the movie on which the musical is based, but the emotion in the lyrics of the song, “She Used to Be Mine” was so clear, you really felt for the character, and could see who she’s transforming into. It was something I really wanted to draw and animate, just for fun and practice.

I never showed anyone, out of embarrassment, because by that time, my coworkers and I were all geeking out over Jessie Mueller’s rehearsal performance that hit YouTube a few months later in 2016. Her acting was so good and inspiring, and what I had done just didn’t compare.

Clearing out my old animation files from my Nintendo 2DS, I thought I’d finally post it. I used the maximum memory limit of 100 drawings, so the animation feels more like a blocking pose test, but it was really fun to make. :)

[animatingforfun]

“Bonjour!”

Animated on my Nintendo 2DS; memory limit of 100 drawings.

Tried a different clean-up line style, like a brush pen, inspired by a few French animated films. (Did the clean-up animation while on vacation in France. Thank you Justine and Louaye for helping with the vocals!)

Never animated bacon before. 😀🥓

[animatingforfun]

My pre-ordered Playdate handheld game system by Panic and Teenage Engineering finally arrived yesterday!

On their dev forum, I found someone made a neat prototype pixel animation app called “Pocket Pix”. I decided to give it a *spin* today. :)

[animatingforfun]

“May the 4th be with you!” -Admiral Ackbar

PLAY WITH SOUND!

Here’s a short behind the scenes...

This video was made using the “Stop Motion Studio” app on the iPad, which has a great set of features that allows you to adjust the camera settings, add sound FX and music, and also use a remote camera (iPhone).

For planning, I did a super rough 2D “scribble” pass in TV Paint to figure out the posing and timing.

I found the “notes” timeline strip super handy. I was able to jot down action notes like on a paper x-sheet, but this strip scrolls along the timeline so I could see when certain beats were coming up.

Also, I discovered the “Stopwatch” window, which allows you to tap a button to record the frame duration info. That info can be converted to image marks or sound ticks, which I used to make my own click track reference for the music.

For the “disco” shot, I filmed the figure behind my TV, where I have LED lights from IKEA setup. It was a total DIY stage setup! :)

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Flipbooks are fun! :)

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Work in progress

I really don’t have much free time these days for personal animation (busy on a fun project at work!) but it’s nice to try squeeze some in here and there. I have some other projects and stop motion I’d love to do, but animating on my 2DS at least allows me to doodle when I’m out and about, even if it is just limited to a 99 drawing animated clip.

Almost done with the rough pass and will probably start my clean up pass this weekend. :)

[animatingforfun]

With less than 2 weeks before the Nintendo 3DS eShop closes, this short uses apps only available through the eShop, as a love letter to those apps.

This was a slooow-burn film I worked on over 22 months, on and off, to pass the time while waiting in public, like waiting at the doctor’s office, waiting for food take-out, or waiting while my kids ice skate.

The animation was done using the Butterfly Animation app. The backgrounds were painted using the Colors! 3D app, which was then imported into Butterfly. The frog croak sound is from Flipnote, another drawing app on the DS. The music is from the Nintendo eShop theme, and the music from the chase shot was created using the Korg M01D music synthesizer app.

UPDATE: I saw Catsuka did a nice shout out to my film! :)

Catsuka Twitter

Catsuka Website

[animatingforfun]

More work-in-progress- BGs

Painting BGs using the Colors 3D app on my Nintendo 2DS xl.

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Work-in-progress- Cleanup pass

There’s a memory limit of only 100 drawings on my Nintendo 2DS (Butterfly Animation app) but this will be a short story of a young witch struggling with growth spells. :)

This is a super slow-burn project I work on whenever I have to wait for something in public, like my weekly waiting in line to pick up food from Porto’s bakery, or if I’m at the doctor’s office. Usually I get through about 1 or 2 drawings at a time, but yesterday I was at Disneyland, so I was able to finish the clean-up anim pass on one of the shots.

[animatingforfun]

Here’s some behind-the-scenes from the 2-day production of Christmas Raptor 2021:

The only time I’ve every animated in the bathroom. :)

For Christmas this year, I got a Jurassic Park Velociraptor toy, and even though it’s now a few days past Christmas, I decided to make this stopmotion video because I couldn’t stop laughing at the idea. Enjoy!

Animated with Stop Motion Studio Pro app on my iPad.

[animatingforfun]

More 2D planning

(Play above video with sound on!)

Not only do I sometimes plan out my CG animation in 2D, I also sometimes plan out my personal stop-motion projects in 2D.

I’ve only done amateur stop-motion animation, so maybe I’m unaware of a way with modern software to go back in and edit, but for the most part, stop-motion is straight-ahead animation. Once you begin, you can’t go back to a previous section and adjust it. All the more reason I like to plan it out with either thumbnail sketches or a 2D animation “scribble” pass.

My 2D planning in the videos above are super “scribbly” as the Star Wars animation was a 24 hour film, and the Christmas Raptor was a 48 hour film, but they got the job done.

In my previous post, I say “why” I like doing a 2D planning pass, but I didn’t exactly say “how” I go about doing it. 

I like to first think about the character’s personality, who the character is, what the character is thinking and feeling, the character’s subtext, what I want to say/communicate to the audience, and how to phrase those ideas into sections to communicate those ideas clearly.

Although very basic, below is the first stop-motion animation I’ve made where I focused on the character performance, similar to what I do professionally at work. I planned out the actions in 2D first, but unfortunately I only have one photo of the planning pass from when I was animating.

In this performance, I had a simple idea: A guy is waking up, going to start his day, but instead, decides to go back to bed.

For the first “phrase”, I wanted to communicate to the audience this guy is tired, so he’s slumped and yawns, but also stretching as he’s waking up to start his day.

Next, I wanted to really reinforce the idea that he’s waking up. Although reluctant to start his morning, he stretches high while bouncing a little. The subtext here is, “Okay, okay, I’m awake!”

Next, should be his “battle cry” moment to start the day, but he’s groggy. So I have his arm anticipate, getting ready to point as if ready to say, “Charge!” but because he’s tired and doesn’t really want to go, I have him holding a beat with his posture slumped and his other arm dangling, which says otherwise.

After his beat of contemplation, I extend the arm, but instead his subtext saying, “Charge!” I have the subtext say, “Ah, forget it,” as he turns around, stomping back to bed.

Hopefully those phrases of actions, driven by subtext, read clearly, and he feels alive.