December update: More animation and behind the scenes!

Dear Patrons,

Apologies for another late-in-the-month update! December is always busy before going off on holidays, but this time around it's even more-so the case because of the animatic development. I can look forward to already go on "holidays" next week though; well that's to say, I switch over to working full-time on Tales of Zale for that last week before Christmas.

I hope you are all ready and set to have a wonderful holiday season in whichever way you like it. On my end, I'll be having my mom over and celebrate a cosy small Christmas together with her and a sweet dog I'm taking care of. So personally, I couldn't ask for much more!

THIS MONTH'S ANIMATION PREVIEW:

I wanted to end the year off on a bit more animation. I quite like this shot where Zale gets to show some of his curious charm, so I thought that would be a nice one to share.

Now, I already did a full breakdown of the mission statement and general approach in my last animation post, so I'd recommend going back and reading that if you didn't already. It goes over a lot of the stylistic considerations. But just like back then, here are some of the color thumbnails for this particular shot.

For 2D productions, you'll usually have a posing artist do a couple of on-model poses to help the animator hit character design. We didn't have that in our limited time and budget, but Sammy Torres and I managed to sneak one reference pose in as part of our character design work.

After that, Tanja Hass Nielsen would make a rough sketch of the background, based on the storyboard.

That would be used as the base for the background, starting out by laying down the flat colors, then adding details, and finally adding linework.

I would then make some adjustments to the colors based on my own sensibilities during the compositing phase, than there we are! Final picture:

This teaser had a lot of firsts for the team, and we learned as we went along. There are definitely some stylistic things that I want to get more on point, but that will come naturally as we refine. Anyhow, I'm happy to finally be able to share the full animated shot which I shared a screenshot from such a long while back!

THE PILOT ANIMATIC:

The reason why my hands are so tied up is, as mentioned, the pilot animatic work. We're getting very close. The soft deadline is on the 22nd, though there's the possibility of doing some tweaks between Christmas and New year. The broadcaster has been very happy with the version they've seen so far, but of course I want to give it an extra push. We've finished polishing the storyboards of the episode itself, and are now working on the intro and outro. Music is being worked on, and voices are being recorded on Monday - so there will be a lot of editing to do here during the last week. It's really exciting to be bringing it all together though!

ROUND-UP:

However much I want to riminess on a year gone by, I want to focus on the task at hand first. This animatic will get my full attention, and then I will be at it with writing the big 2023 highlight post afterwards. If things stay busy, that's when you'll hear from me next, in the new year. If I can squeeze it in I'll be sure to make a little holiday greeting though :)

I'm looking forward to taking it a bit easy in January. Since the short film project that started in February, it's been pretty full-on this year with things being at their most busy during September when the short film project, other TV-series, and Tales of Zale all overlapped. Somehow I've managed to rest up a bit while still doing Tales of Zale and the other TV-series supervision, but it will be nice to have a little period where there's only one project to worry about. I'd really like to doodle stream again like I did at the beginning of the year, and actually produce some animation and sketches that don't have to be under NDA. That's definitely a hope for the new year once things have eased a little bit.

How about you guys? Got any New Year's wishes? Cosy holiday plans? Either way, I hope you enjoy your time!

All the best and see you soon,

- Sif