Liz v 3rd year

bgs and foreground for the portal with one frame of Minty as a placeholder :) 

Some bits n bobs from the recovery stage of the story! need to change the time on that blink tho I think- but otherwise it’s been going well! I binge-watched the latest run of the pokemon anime while I worked, and it reminded me how fun animation can be ;u; it seemed like everyone was having so much fun with the characters- pushing it so far and doing all these crazy shots and animations- it’s so nice to watch :’)

Although it has made me want to put more crazy shots into my own animation, hehe ^^; 

Reporting in with four weeks to go! 

Have another pixel-edged render of my work! I’ve mostly finished this segment apart from the effects, and in fact I’ve done lots of bits for the next 3 segments... I just wanted to try rendering this to see if the new version of Krita I installed can handle transparent bgs better (It can’t, but that’s easily worked around :) 

Work’s been slow this past week- it was my birthday, I went to the beach and took part in a science experiment that meant I had to do a hellish 24 hours without caffeine- all thing’s I’d factored in to do - but then I got slammed with some kind of mystery illness that’s had me totally knocked out for the past two days! So I’m hella behind, as usual, but still not back up to 100% speed, when I need to be doing 250% speed to power through the animation I still have left! :’)

Worst comes to worst, I guess I can cut it even shorter- but I want to tell a complete story with this project! :< 

Today I’ve been struggling with Krita! It kept crashing, so I tried updating it- and then when I finally managed to install it properly, the update was worse?? So I spent a good two hours trying to troubleshoot it :’ ) I think I might go back to the old version tomorrow :0 

And before you say ‘well ofc krita is buggy, it’s open source’ - I’m broke, okay? The animation soft I really want is TVPaint, but I can’t heccin afford it :’) So krita will have to do for now :0 

So, with over a month left of work, I feel like I’ve reached the end of my rope. My goal of five seconds of animation per day isn’t an unreasonable one, really, but thanks to outside stress, family health issues, and cats... I’m constantly failing to meet that target and I haven’t had a day off in weeks. I can’t keep this up for another month, I physically can’t.

So. Here’s my plan.

- restructure the story I’ve got planned out- time out the four quarters of the music and put the turning points of the ‘first arc’ of the story I’ve got planned at musical turning points in the song. This will involve stretching out some of the footage I already have- adding frames, holding shots- as well as a bit more animation. This has the advantage that I can give some of the shots that pass a bit too quickly as it is ‘room to breathe.’

-do less character animation for the next couple of days, and instead do more background paintings for a change of speed- also while I have my true colour monitor at uni before I have to take my laptop to work at home.

- Intentionally use less full animation where it isn’t needed- make more use of partial animation, silhouettes, motion tweens and still frames for the upcoming footage.

-go home for Easter earlier. Hopefully I’ll be able to work better in a less stressful environment with more support and I get to see my family more.

-timetable some days off around my birthday, etc. To see extended family and friends.

-timetable in some time to work on other projects as well as uni work- it’s really bothering me to only work on one thing at once when I know I should be getting started on things to kickstart my business after graduation, such as my hive works pitch, designing merchandise to sell in my shop, etc.

-keep trying to work on my health- do some more exercise, spend more money on better food, and try to fix my sleep (difficult when you’re lying awake at 3am desperately trying not to think about your project lol)

First finished background for the video! I’m really pleased with how it turned out! :)  I recorded the process, but unfortunately my computer decided to dump the video after 3 minutes? : ^ ; anyone else having trouble with the new VLC player?

I was inspired by Steven Universe, Wander over Yonder, MLP:FiM, @vivziepop and of course Samurai Jack for the style of backgrounds I’m gonna use for this video :)