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Project Annie...In Motion!

lets Kickstart a Cult in Skullmageddon's name, and from there on we will take over the world.
 
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So I've been wondering, would some of Annie's attacks have a serious magical-vibe, or would she be more of a trained swordsman... or should it be a mix of both?
 
Skullmageddon did you go to a school to learn animation, or are you self taught?
 
Chicken Boo said:
Skullmageddon did you go to a school to learn animation, or are you self taught?

I went to school, but a lot of my knowledge and skills comes from self-disciplined projects and practice.
 
That and a few less-than-legal rituals.
 
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Which school did you go to?
 
Chicken Boo said:
Which school did you go to?

I went to the North Carolina State University School of Design. They don't have a program the specifically focuses on animation, but the Art and Design program has a lot of animation specific courses.
 
Thanks, I'm trying to go back to school and focus heavily on animation. I don't have much of self-discipline but the constant pressure of due dates are a great motivator for me. :PUN:
 
http://www.eightysixedclothing.com/skullgirls-weekly-tee-heartseeker/

heart_seeker_black__34578.1397511064.850.1133.jpg
 
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I'm not sure what this has to do with Anniemation.
 
He's rubbing it in D: the monster!
 
It's like a smokey, wispy, non-distinct-tendril-like aura. Kinda like the one around him during Painwheel's intro, but a little different.
 
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from an april's fools joke to having strategies and its own t-shirt

fukua sure is growing up
 
I forgot to post this last friday...

I did some fixes, color adjutments, cleaning of frames and some blinking experiments on Annie's idle animation..

Blinking experiment 1:
This is the halfed resolution of the gif, that came from my main photoshop file; one blink per loop.
4PKpqR8.gif


Blinking experiment 2:
This is just an edition to the last gif, basically adding the double ammount of frames to the animation.. making it non viable for the game in my opinion: one loop repeated with one frame of difference.
I know it looks more natural, I'm still working on a way to make it less frames but with the same naturality.
Npm7jFO.gif
 
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Before someone point it out... I know that in #1 she looks like she has a tick or something.
I'm still trying to figure out a way to make it look more natural.
 
People have been saying the knuckle of her hand looks a little odd. Aside from that, #2 is perfect.
 
DDB said:
People have been saying the knuckle of her hand looks a little odd. Aside from that, #2 is perfect.

The only problem with #2 is that if I double the amount of frames in photoshop (34frmaes) it makes an enormous file that is almost unworkable, most of the skullgirls idle animations are 17-21 frames long, and they work just fine, I might have to place the blink in another point of the loop or play with the speed of the frames just to make it work as intended..
 
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Karlaaldana said:
The only problem with #2 is that if I double the amount of frames in photoshop (34frmaes) it makes an enormous file that is almost unworkable, most of the skullgirls idle animations are 17-21 frames long, and they work just fine, I might have to place the blink in another point of the loop or play with the speed of the frames just to make it work as intended..
Looks fantastic, I like the blinking!
 
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I would say that for an idle stance she would probably have something more calm and a little less springy, like a warrior waiting to strike, but when she does it's fast and fierce.
 
sorry bud but you're a lil' late to the party, they already agreed to this idle
 
jam1220 said:
sorry bud but you're a lil' late to the party, they already agreed to this idle

I know, was just giving my thoughts. ^^
 
Is there any way I can contribute to Annie of the Stars? I can't draw on a tablet yet, and my art is a little lumpy.
Any way at all? Even a little bit?
(Also, what art books do you recommend so I can jump on this Hype Train?)
 
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WrestlerGuile said:
Is there any way I can contribute to Annie of the Stars? I can't draw on a tablet yet, and my art is a little lumpy.
Any way at all? Even a little bit?
(Also, what art books do you recommend so I can jump on this Hype Train?)

I dunno if there's really any one art book or art book series that will be a one stop shop so to speak for all you need to know. There's a lot to master and not even professional artists are perfect as any of them would tell you. The key to getting good quicker though is making sure you truly study and learn the important fundamentals and building blocks for drawing, figures especially.

The keys you need to learn before anything else though or in these steps I should say is probably

1. Proportions
2. Perspective
4. Drawing mannequins
3. Anatomy

These four things should be your biggest priority when it comes to learning how to draw as they are a corner stone and literally the foundation upon what the rest of your character/figure drawing will sit upon. You can't build a house on a shaky foundation and expect it to hold up, same thing with art. You'd be surprised how most people that attempt to learn art start off by just trying to skimp over these things which comes back to bite them when they find their characters arms aren't coming to the same length, their bodies aren't long enough compared to their legs etc. etc. It's all because they didn't take the time to learn proper proportions and how to keep their character in perspective. Foreshortening for drawing things in different angled views is also another component of perspective, so when learning perspective be sure to take a look at that as well.
 
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WrestlerGuile said:
Is there any way I can contribute to Annie of the Stars? I can't draw on a tablet yet, and my art is a little lumpy.
Any way at all? Even a little bit?
(Also, what art books do you recommend so I can jump on this Hype Train?)
Honestly practice practice practice books can only teach you so much and imitation is a good way to develop your own style before having your own style start by learning what I call shape relation which is how basic shapes make up everyday things and also learn perspective trust me it helps.

P.S
Coming back to the Annie team soon been busy working on Hollow related projects
 
I might be willing to contribute to this, but I'd need to know a few things first. Obviously I know I need to have Photoshop, which I do. But I was wondering if there's any standardized reference to use, similar to how Persona has a scale line art of Eliza to use as a base for all the animations he does for Eliza. If not might I suggest we create a more standardized format for making animations for Annie?

Perhaps a pack of some standard things for anyone that wishes to contribute to use, just so anyone making them will have animations that all match up to a standardized sprite?
 
PKStoopKid said:
We would need Alex to draw up a model sheet to work with I suppose we could still give it a try

Well all you really need is the base, static idle pose, everything else could mostly be worked off of that. or you could compare Annie's height proportion wise to Eliza and the others and make one based off her illustrations.
 
Oh jeezus, this always happens. The thread dies down for a little while, then it explodes on me!

Anyways, it's looking awesome Karla! Both versions look good, but realistically speaking version one would be the best fit for in-game use simply because it's fewer frames. Mariel was kind enough to provide me with some feedback regarding the animation a while back and one of the things she mentioned was that I have a tendency to over-animate things. She showed me how taking out a few frames didn't effect the overall quality of the animation. This helped me realize that I could be more conservative with my frames.

Mysterygamer3k said:
I might be willing to contribute to this, but I'd need to know a few things first. Obviously I know I need to have Photoshop, which I do. But I was wondering if there's any standardized reference to use, similar to how Persona has a scale line art of Eliza to use as a base for all the animations he does for Eliza. If not might I suggest we create a more standardized format for making animations for Annie?

Perhaps a pack of some standard things for anyone that wishes to contribute to use, just so anyone making them will have animations that all match up to a standardized sprite?

There isn't a standardized character sheet, nor is there a standard for the workspace. I personally use an extremely large workspace for my work because I like working at twice the resolution I think I need, that way I never make anything too small. This is unnecessary in this case though, as not even the in-house animations are done at such a large size. It doesn't matter what size you work in as long as it's an HD resolution with the characters to proper scale.

A real character sheet would be nice though. Some of Annie's details are rather ambiguous, especially her legs.
 
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Skullmageddon said:
Oh jeezus, this always happens. The thread dies down for a little while, then it explodes on me!

Anyways, it's looking awesome Karla! Both versions look good, but realistically speaking version one would be the best fit for in-game use simply because it's fewer frames. Mariel was kind enough to provide me with some feedback regarding the animation a while back and one of the things she mentioned was that I have a tendency to over-animate things. She showed me how taking out a few frames didn't effect the overall quality of the animation. This helped me realize that I could be more conservative with my frames.



There isn't a standardized character sheet, nor is there a standard for the workspace. I personally use an extremely large workspace for my work because I like working at twice the resolution I think I need, that way I never make anything too small. This is unnecessary in this case though, as not even the in-house animations are done at such a large size. It doesn't matter what size you work in as long as it's an HD resolution with the characters to proper scale.

A real character sheet would be nice though. Some of Annie's details are rather ambiguous, especially her legs.

Well, I'd go as far to say as that's kinda the point of her design, is to have her be a little more cartoony than some of the other girls since she is considerably younger than the others. But I could try to come up with some kind of standard, I would just have to figure out how tall she is supposed to be in relation to the others. Would you say she's roughly the same height as Peacock (no hat)?
 
Mysterygamer3k said:
Well, I'd go as far to say as that's kinda the point of her design, is to have her be a little more cartoony than some of the other girls since she is considerably younger than the others. But I could try to come up with some kind of standard, I would just have to figure out how tall she is supposed to be in relation to the others. Would you say she's roughly the same height as Peacock (no hat)?

Sorry, but i disagree entirely :)

Having a character's design be "cartoony" and "ambiguous" are two completely different things that have nothing to do with one another. What I'm saying is that the shape of some of her details (lower legs, hair, etc.) are somewhat undefined and ambiguous because there is no detailed character sheet. This isn't a comment on the intent or specific qualities regarding her overall design. The problem is that there isn't a well established character sheet to provide specifics on her details, all we really have is the quick igg sketch that was developed to promote her character.

It's also worth noting that Mariel brought this up momentarily when giving me feedback. She mentioned that it looks like there's some warping in her legs in my latest idle animation, but she specifically attributed this to the fact that some of Annie's features are ambiguous on account of the fact that there isn't a developed character sheet to work off of.

Either way, it would be great if you could develop some kind of standard to work in! I can help out as well, or at least provide feedback and input. Though when it comes to specifics like her height I have no idea :P
 
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Skullmageddon said:
Sorry, but i disagree entirely :)

Having a character's design be "cartoony" and "ambiguous" are two completely different things that have nothing to do with one another. What I'm saying is that the shape of some of her details (lower legs, hair, etc.) are somewhat undefined and ambiguous because there is no detailed character sheet. This isn't a comment on the intent or specific qualities regarding her overall design. The problem is that there isn't a well established character sheet to provide specifics on her details, all we really have is the quick igg sketch that was developed to promote her character.

It's also worth noting that Mariel brought this up momentarily when giving me feedback. She mentioned that it looks like there's some warping in her legs in my latest idle animation, but she specifically attributed this to the fact that some of Annie's features are ambiguous on account of the fact that there isn't a developed character sheet to work off of.

Either way, it would be great if you could develop some kind of standard to work in! I can help out as well, or at least provide feedback and input. Though when it comes to specifics like her height I have no idea :P

True, I guess I was mixing up my terminology a bit there and ambiguous would be the correct one to use when referring to her lower legs so that does open up a little more freedom I think with her animations at least. But like I said I'll try putting something together to try and establish a height and general size for her compared to the other characters.
 
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