Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-10734109-20140309224756

One thing that we still need to straighten out for this is

1. What style are we going to use? It must be simple enough to pump out multiple frames that are all consistent

2. Can be drawn by ALL of the animators

3. Is very expressive (no dot eyed chibis!)

Also, since this is probably the most important part of the whole thing, we need to know who's doing what.

1. Storyboard artists. These people should be able to execute the same style time after time in a comic style format, and will probably be doing either half or all of the main drawings. Storyboard artists normally do what the principal animators do, but rather than filling in all of the gaps between frames they only do one drawing per movement. For instance, moving an arm up or turning.

2. The principal animators. These are the people who sketch out the animations and movement, but just do the main framework of it. I'll probably be one of these, since my dad says that he'll help me with it. You don't need a super good animation program to do this, but you'll definitely need some knowledge on animating and being able to keep the frame to frame artwork consistent, as with the storyboard artists but to a larger extent. Also, you will need to add in the backgrounds (even if it's just temporarily) to place the characters correctly.

3. The background artists. You will all need to collaborate to decide on: 1. The style of backgrounds. 2. The general look of each setting. 3. How the characters will possibly be placed in it. You will need to draw each setting from multiple different views and angles as well to give variety to the scenes and have it make sense. Most likely, the backgrounds will be more complex than the actual characters, and won't have harsh line art.

4. The finishing animators. You will have to have a program that includes layers in it. You'll be lining the principal animators' sketches and adding color to them, so you'll need to be able to put their work on a lower layer and the finished stuff on top. Also, then you will need to be able to add the backgrounds from the background artists on the bottom layer. For this, you can always use programs like Photoshop, Sai, or Gimp and then put the frames together. The principal animators will have already figured out the lip-syncing in the previous step. Whether or not we're doing shading is not yet decided. Plus, the line art must be as close to what the principal animators had done as it can be and can't be wavery. Otherwise it won't look right. You will also have to check and see if the frame-to-frame work is consistent.

5. The editors. If you're a finishing animator, you can also do this. You'll probably need to re-sync the new drawings with the voices, and will put the full product together. This includes the opening, middle, and credits. They will also add in the music to the video as well. And remember, the voices and the animations have to be SPOT ON. If not, it won't look correct at all. You'll also probably have to splice in the voices to fit all together. 