Details

Since my last post, the majority of my time on the fox project has been spent refining and making adjustments. Everything was in place, it was just a matter of making the piece tighter and more cohesive. No large scale reworking was needed, but there were a few sections that could use improvement.

First of these was in the Greece section. As mentioned in an earlier post, I created an expression in After Effects that allowed the fox and the dog to rotate with increasing speed in the “chase” segment. The problem was that watching the two characters begin to gather speed was not very visually interesting. I toyed with the idea of adding text to describe the action:

This looked clunky, however, and I felt that it conflicted with the voice-over. Rather than over-complicating the section with text, I decided that a straight ahead image of the fox and the dog’s faces would be better. This matched an image with the attributes described in the voice-over and broke up the rotating elements nicely. Fading in the faces and increasing the scale gave me the look I was going for.

Next up was part of the Japan section that involved shapeshifting. This part employed a stretch effect to make the fox character appear to morph into a woman. It was working well but I felt that it needed something more. I pictured a series of interweaving lines serving to connect the two figures. Enter our super handy trim paths. I had used these in the revamped intro and really liked the effect. When used in this section though, the mass of tangled lines filling in at different speeds looked out out of place against the background. To remedy this, I used a scatter effect. So the lines began scattered, reformed, and then scattered again before the change from fox to woman was complete. This was the added piece this section needed.

Much of the remaining work was devoted to improving the timing on gestures an facial expressions. I also added text to certain sections. Where this didn’t quite work in the aforementioned fox/dog clip, I feel that it added to the introduction of Zeus and the pre-chase scene in the America section.

I’m feeling really positive about how things have turned out as the project nears the final stages. I could continue to endlessly tweak and change things, but it’s starting to feel complete. The positive response I have gotten on this so far has made me consider doing more of these. Possibly a larger series, maybe one that involves other animals and myths. We’ll see what the future holds for the fox, but this piece has let me explore new techniques and served as a focus for my illustration. It reminds me of this video I saw a while back that talks about having a direction for your creative efforts. This project has been a great way to showcase what I can do and is the culmination of the skills I have developed over the past few years.

New beginnings

A main goal of this week was to nail down the intro section of the project. My initial intention was to use a time-lapse screen recording of a digital illustration. While this is an idea I still want to experiment with in the future, it was not working for this project. It involved creating an Action in Photoshop that, once recorded, could be played on a transparent layer, giving the impression of a real-time drawing. After quite a bit of trial and error, I found this approach to have its limitations The drawing had to be very simplistic for one, and the final result did not have the smoothness I was looking for. Back to the drawing board.

I toyed with the idea of a type-centric intro à la Stranger Things. I found a very helpful tutorial video that walked through how to achieve the basic effect. I didn’t want to copy the style 100% and was more interested in the kinetic typography aspect. This approach involved creating masks for each letter so their positions could be manipulated individually. Switching the letters to 3D and adding a new camera allowed for the zoom effect which finally resolved as a zoomed out reveal of the text as the letters are settled into place. While a neat effect overall, I still wanted to capture the illustrative nature of this project in the intro. The search continued.

Eventually I came across this technique of animating multiline patterns. I decided to do not one but three fox illustrations. They needed to be vector, so for the first time in this project, I drew them in Illustrator. After importing the vector foxes into After effects, I used Create > Create Shapes from Vector Layer which results in an Outline layer which acts as a Matte once parented to the original layer.

vector foxes

The next step involved selecting each group of lines and creating Trim Paths. By setting ‘End’ keyframes to 0% and 100%, the lines in each drawing filled in a way that made them appear to drawn in real-time. This was the effect I was going for all along and while it may not be as natural as a real-time drawing, it was certainly smoother than anything I had done so far. Organizing the lines in sequence and staggering the keyframes added to the effect.

I really liked where this was going but the intro still seemed to be missing something. One of the main themes of this project, and a key part of the intro voice over, is that these fox stories come from all over the world. I felt the intro needed something to exhibit this global subject matter. What better than a map! Over the years I have collected a bunch of vector maps and this was the perfect time to use a simple world map as a background. I added a scrolling effect and had the opacity dip in and out so as not to take away from the fox line animation.

fox line animation on scrolling map

Finally I had an intro I was happy with. I think this fits the project and flows well into the first section. I considered breaking up the sections into 3 separate shorts, but to me, this intro brings a cohesiveness to the project. I felt that adding it to the beginning of the three videos separately would be to repetitive, and now that I had something that worked, I wanted to use it!

The next steps for the fox project will involve tightening the screws on a few sections. Audio and sound effects can definitely use some polishing and I’m looking forward to adding refining some of the animated gestures throughout.

The holidays are approaching and the deadline for this project will be here before I know. For now though, I’m happy with how things are shaping up.

‘Til next time,

AM

The Fox...continued

With most of the parts in place, this stage of the project is about adjustments. Some were successful, some were not so. This week had the feeling of dismantling something you just finished piecing together. All part of the process I suppose.

I wanted to work on a few key points with the fox project. First being consistency in style, as mentioned in the last blog. This meant polishing up some of the illustrations. With time to work on it, I opted for a more realistic look. See the transformed people of Thebes below:

Old Thebians

New Thebians

As well as the poor family cowering in fear of Teumessian Fox

Old fam

New fam

I also tightened up a few things here and there. Part of the Japan section about fox possession included some very jerky positioning as the view moved, Ken Burns style, to three distinct areas of one frame. This was not working no matter how much I played with it. I decided to drop this approach altogether and make three separate frames.

Speaking of jerky positioning! I spent much of this week trying to rework the intro section. My idea for this was to keep my existing time lapse illustration style, but follow the changes in pen direction by adjusting Scale and Position in After Effects. The viewer’s eye would follow the pen until an eventual zoom out revealed a complete fox illustration. What I didn’t account for was that I would have to speed it up when adding it to the rest of the project in Premiere.

The result was a rollercoaster ride, and not in a good way. It was very disorienting and whipped the viewer’s attention all over the screen. This was not how I wanted viewers to experience this project. Especially at the very beginning. I chose to scrap this idea entirely and go back to the drawing board. Because of the importance of this introductory section, I think this warrants some additional brainstorming and maybe storyboarding.

I struggled a bit with the voice over sections as well. I’m trying to strike a balance between a podcast-y delivery and a more polished documentary style. Within reason, of course. (Side note: the sound direction by Dirk Maggs in the recent Sandman audiobooks is outstanding. Truly like an “audio movie”. I’m clearly not going for that level of sophistication, but I’ve listened to a million audiobooks and this is top-notch work.)

Back to The Fox, some clips had to be cleaned up in Audition and I’m finding they really stand out against the mostly untouched clips, even when levels and effects are the same. Maybe I am just picking up on minor anomalies because I’ve listened to them so many times. This will take some more work.

On a positive note, I was able to find a few great sound effects of Freesound. Growls, cheers, and cinematic whooshes. There is a wild galaxy of sound out there. People will truly record and post anything.

There were a few setbacks this week, so my mission for next week is to have a new intro in some presentable form, cleaner audio, and an overall tightened-up project in terms of how sound and visuals work together.

‘Til next time!

AM

The Fox in America

This week found me completing the illustrations for the final section and adding motion to them. It was also to once again look at the project as a whole. I wanted each section to be distinct, but to also work as a cohesive piece. More on that later….

The Fox in America section was fun and also a challenge. The story for this one is a tale from the Ho-Chunk tribe (sometimes known as the Winnebago) of North America. This tribe has occupied the northern Mid-West of America for millennia. My grandfather lived in northwest Wisconsin, and I spent many summers there as a kid. I wanted to capture the dense pine forests and rolling hillsides I remembered, and visually depict the bleak winter landscape I had only seen in photos.

The fox discovers a Ho-Chunk village in the chilly late autumn.

Another challenge in this section was that it required quite a bit of dialogue between Little Fox and a recently deceased member of the tribe. It was fairly simply to create a separate layer for each character’s jaw and then situate the anchor point so that it could move with the voice over using Rotation keyframes. I took this opportunity to let the fox break the fourth wall and make subtle gestures and facial expressions to the viewer.

Little fox gives us a glance when speaking to the ghost.

With this section mostly complete and in motion, it was time to address the overall piece. After some feedback, I dropped the black title screens in each section and instead opted for a small banner that quickly moved in and out from the bottom left. This allowed for additional scene-setting without slowing down the story.

Location and date in animated paper banner

Another issue I will be addressing in the following week is consistency in style. As mentioned before, I want the sections to be distinct but cohesive. More than I expected, this plays into the level of detail in the illustrations. Note the difference between the two frames below, one from Greece, one from Japan. In order to make things look more uniform, I need to bring these two styles a bit closer together.

People of Thebes in the Greece section

Kitsune and her unsuspecting victim in the Japan section.

Along with uniformity in style, I need to address the overall audio. With voice over, music, and effects now in place, I need to ensure levels are set correctly. I am struggling a bit with the back and forth between Premiere and Audition, but hope to get these things ironed out shortly.

The introduction is another section that needs something. The screen recording I spoke about next week is neat, but doesn’t warrant the screen time it gets over the entire intro voice over. I want to keep the general effect, but add something that really hooks the viewer’s attention. I have some ideas that require some experimenting.

All in all, everything is in place, but stylistic adjustments need to be made. With the exception of the intro sequence, I feel that the coming stages of this project will be based around smoothing out rough edges. It is satisfying to see everything in order, but it is clearer than before what needs work. I hope to have a more polished (and better sounding) fox stories for next week.

Until then, happy daylight savings! My pets unfortunately don’t observe it.

The Fox in Japan and more

Since the last post I have been working through the next two sections while also taking a comprehensive look at the project as a whole. The assets for a Fox in Greece were complete and assembled in After Effects. Next on my list was asset creation for the Japan and America sections. As I got toward the final frames of Japan, I was really curious as to how it would work with Greece. Rather than jumping into creating assets for America, I chose to start assembling things in Premiere.

This was a bit of a detour but a necessary step in the process. It was also a reminder that, “Oh yeah, I still need to re-record all of my voice over.” This was accomplished fairly painlessly with my trusty Shure SM58 into the previously mentioned Focusrite Scarlett. There are plenty of USB mics on the market but the SM58 fit the bill for this. They are great dynamic mics for any purpose and built to last (mine is close to twenty years old!). Some of the clips needed a bit of editing, so the handy Edit Clip in Audition shortcut made for a streamlined workflow. There are still tweaks to be made down the line, removing plosives, de-essing, but the general speed and pacing are there. I had a lot of fun adding effects when the Zeus character is introduced. I turned the pitch down a few clicks and added considerable reverb to create a real “King of the Gods” vocal effect. I’ll return to audio in later stages.

I also put together the intro sequence using a combination of techniques. I wanted to show a real time illustration of my fox character. To achieve this I recorded myself drawing the fox as an Action in Photoshop. This took quite a few attempts but I finally was able to record it cleanly without any errant brush strokes. With the illustration now saved as an Action, I moved over to the OBS broadcaster software. I set it up to record only the Photoshop window I had open, then hit play on the Action. I really like this effect but the intro still needs something. I’ll definitely be revisiting this in the near future. (Clip below is at my original speed. The intro is much faster).

All in all, I’m really enjoying translating the stories visually. In Japan especially, a few parts allowed me to depict the poor souls who had been possessed or enchanted by fox spirits. This victim of fox sorcery had a a particularly tough time.

Enchanted by kitsune

And this young woman underwent the unfortunate experience of kitsunetsuki. Which by all accounts sounds highly unpleasant.

Young woman possessed by a fox

As I finish up the America section, probably the most bizarre story of the three, I plan on doing a zoomed out overview of the project as a whole. This will be a chance to really determine what’s working and what isn’t. I will no doubt cut some parts that have become near and dear to me and add things to make it feel like a cohesive piece. As it stands, I’m happy with the overall visually style and mood of the storytelling, but, as ever, improvements can be made.

One final note, today is Halloween! One of the truly great holidays. This year we will be dressed as Laszlo and Nadja from What We Do in the Shadows. There is no shortage of vampire and bat adornments in our house, and there will be no shortage of Sour Patch Kids and Snickers for Trick-or Treaters.

‘Til next time, wishing you an extra spooooooky All Hallows Eve.

Bat!

The Fox in Greece

When undertaking any project, it’s always interesting to see how things along way differ from your original plans. Whether due to aesthetic shifts, technical challenges, or time constraints, things never seem to turn out as planned. That’s part of the fun though, right?

This week found me beginning work on one of the three sections in this project. The Fox in Greece is the shortest of the three and seemed like a good place to start. I thought it would give me a good idea of how to plan for the other two sections. This one has its basis in an actual Greek myth and gave me some very colorful characters to work with.

Stylistically I wanted these animation to be set against a worn paper backdrop so it seemed the stories were actually jumping off the pages of a book. I used various blending modes in the comps in Photoshop, with the characters inheriting some of the background texture through Color Burn, etc. I assumed that would translate fairly easily to After Effects layers. What I didn’t account for was that when these characters moved over a background, they would inherit that as well. After some trial and error, I got past this using Track Mattes. It’s funny how even though you feel comfortable with certain software, it always takes a bit of refreshing to actually pull it off.

One of the challenges that came up took place during a clip in which a magical dog was chasing a giant fox. More on that here and here I wanted to show these mythical creatures spiraling faster and faster until they became a blur. I thought this could be accomplished with Rotation keyframes and the Speed Graph. As it turns out, I was mistaken. It took quite a bit of failed attempts and Googling before I found this very incredibly helpful post from Dan Ebberts at MotionScript.com. The solution involves some calculus which Dan thankfully does for us, and he even goes the extra mile by providing the expressions. A big thank you to Dan!

I had to use my original scratch audio for this due to an unfortunate case of laryngitis I picked up this week while attending this thriller of a game on Monday night. Nevertheless, going over the audio again and again while editing gave me even more insight on things to change and add when my voice is in better shape to record the final audio.

Creating the assets for this section was great fun if simply for the tons of Greek mythology reference art I looked through. There are so many ways Zeus for example is depicted.

The many moods of Zeus

I ended up creating a sort of amalgam of my own. In the end, I got a lot of practice drawing men in togas.

The men of Thebes

I was able to put together a mostly formed working comp of the first section. There are definitely adjustments to be made, but I’m making progress. In an exciting turn of events, I encountered a real, live fox on my Thursday morning run (excuse the poor quality pic):

Actual fox

I can only take this as a sign of encouragement from the natural world.

More to come next week as we dig in to The Fox in Japan.

Next steps

One of the challenges in a project like this is determining what is realistically feasible in the given time frame. It was clear my original script was way too long and needed to be much more focused. I had planned on covering a region or country (three in total), discuss how their local cultures viewed the fox, and then put forth two fox-centric tales. This might have worked for a longer series, but was not an option for this project. Cuts had to be made.

I chose to skip the anthropological bits and work with the stories on their own. The result was one story for each region: Japan, Greece, and the US. It was time for storyboarding anyway, so rather than continuing to editing my script doc, I started transferring voice over copy (more on that later) to the boards. This functioned as my working script.

I love storyboarding and feel that a project really begins to take shape at this stage. Creating visuals to go along with a script is obviously necessary but also one of the more creative parts of the entire process. Not only does it provide an invaluable blueprint for your project, it’s a chance to let your imagination run free. It also helps when your topic is as fanciful and myth-heavy as the one for this project.

A page from The Fox in Greece storyboard

For the storyboards and much of the asset creation for this project, I am using a Wacom Intuos Pro (large version). I’ve used Wacom screen-less tablets for years and have recently toyed with making the jump to a Cintiq display tablet. Much debate can be found online about which is superior, but I have found the Intuos to suit my needs the best. I like the large version because I can use my entire arm to draw. Smaller versions I’ve had in the past have really cramped my wrist and the drawing area on the large version has been a great help for that. In terms of software, I’m using Photoshop for much of this project. I know Clip Studio Paint, Procreate, and Krita have many loyal fans and I plan to explore them all in due time. For this project though, I’m sticking to PS. I’ve been using it for ages and I’m just more comfortable with it.

At the outset, I thought I could get away with telling the stories visually and with type, but after some consideration, I determined the abundance of text would really slow down the pace. The solution: do a voice over. Like many, I am not a huge fan of hearing my own voice on recordings. This led me to consider enlisting the help of a voice over professional through Fiverr. Ultimately though, I opted to take on the voice duties myself. I could be more flexible with the lines and it would save time. Plus, a new challenge and a learning experience. Can’t go wrong with that.

I’ve used a Zoom recorder and my iPhone for other projects, but for this I made the leap in purchasing a digital audio interface. The Focusrite Scarlett Solo was very reasonably priced and one of the best selling interfaces in the world. From my years of amassing a ton of gear as a musician, I already had a dynamic mic. stand, and cables on hand. The Solo is super portable, connects via USB, and has both mic and instrument inputs. It also comes with stripped down versions of Ableton Live and Pro Tools recording software. It was too tempting to pass up.

Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen

After making the call to do voice over, he next logical step was creating an animatic. I recorded rough (and by that I mean very rough) audio on my iPhone and started piecing it together with storyboard frames in Premiere. It is soooooo helpful to read your copy aloud. During and after recording the audio I found sections that looked fine in the script, but sounded really clunky when read aloud. I recommend having a scratch audio track in any kind of project like this that includes voice over. The animatic is also incredibly helpful as a blueprint. It gives you a great idea of the timing and pacing of the work. With the animatic mostly finished, I added some audio from the Free Music Archive to further help the mood of the piece. It may not make it to the final edit, but the light-hearted music of Serge Quadrado really fit the feel of this project.

With the storyboards, animatic, and technical aspects of voice recording complete, I could continue work on creating assets. This has been great fun so far and will continue into next week. Looking forward to seeing things come together in the coming weeks!

See below for a sample background for The Fox in Japan.

Foxes

My latest project has had me digging through some dusty, forgotten corners of the web. Un-styled html, visitor counters. Normally these would be signs that my research has gone down the wrong path, but in this case I’m not worried. I’m looking for stories. More specifically stories about foxes.

The idea for this project came to me as I was looking through sites on mythology and folklore. I was struck by how often the fox came up as a major character. The trickster, seldom good, but not truly malevolent. Sly, cunning, and clever. It was popping up in Greek mythology, Native American legend, and ancient Japanese folk tales.

I soon had the idea of an illustrated, animated, cultural world tour with the fox as its centerpiece. I dug through countless web sites (many of which had not changed their design in this century) for fox lore. There was a lot of it. I stayed away from the new age, ‘what’s your spirit animal?’ sources in favor of actual stories. Creation myths, legends, and parables that informed the beliefs of those within a culture.

Research led to a loose script, a moodboad, a tighter script, and some character design. See below for what I’ve come up with so far. Check back in for regular updates throughout.

fox reference, pretty cute

proof of concept scene

character design

Testing....testing...

Welcome all, to the first blog post. Kicking things off with some pet pics.

1. Sadie, faithful friend and coworker.

2. Ollie (orange) and Charlie (gray) exhibiting some brotherly love.

3. Rare photo of the gang all together.