Progress!

Yesterday I obtained some photos and some clips in class that I can use to help me animate the background figures I'm going to be using. I've got the base photo for a trombone, snare and cymbal set, cello and piano. I still need to gather more short clips to use as tool-tips for my animation, such as walking animations, pool shots and other various actions you'd find in a romanticized bar scene. Progress is coming along, just need to keep gathering photos and start the rough sketches on Photoshop. Wish me luck.

Sum Songs and Other Stuff

Today I dropped by Aaron Brother's art and frames to grab a sketchbook that is going to be dedicated wholly and entirely to this project. Any sketches or thumbnails I'm going to have are going to be in there. So far I've learned how to draw expressions and basic bodies. Next it's specific characters.

Music selection is going well, I've been listening to a lot of blues and bebop on Pandora Radio and have been writing artists down that I'm interested in using. I've got some links on some stuff- Some of the stuff is even Japanese, and is pretty dang good.- here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6jCJZEFIto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F5459jCtuM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1n4yr4SmA4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09BB1pci8_o

Lastly, set pieces that I'm going to have to draw: Bars, alleyways, car chases, office scenes and all the clothing/styles of the 40's to boot. I'm having difficulty finding good representations of 1940's mafia styles so if you find any good ideas, be sure to let me know!

I may be setting my heights too high on this project so I don't want to bum you guys out if the animations are choppy or if my project turns out differently. I just want to make sure I'm really pushing myself.

A Little Late. Nonetheless: Theme

The other day I decided upon a musical genre to base my animation off of. The style? Bebop and smooth jazz. The theme of the animation? Mafia, New York and the craziness we all like to associate with that time. There's going to be bar music, thug music and a wordless story to the animation. It's all about the music after all! Character designs and scenery sketches will come as I find more reference pictures.

Time For Thumbnails

Alright, I've decided to take the highroad and challenge myself. I'm going to be animating a video and setting it to tracks of music. I'll be spending time creating animation thumbnails and then pairing music to the thumbnails to determine how long each section will be between the two and so on. I'll be doing this between every picture, again, and again and so on. I'll be doing all this until I have a basic reference for what I'll be animating. Right now I'm brainstorming ideas in a thumbnail journal of sorts. When I have a more comprehensive idea of what I'll be drawing I'll post a couple of thumbnails from it. What size do you guys think the thumbnails should be? Full 8/11 size?