storyboarding part II

I've sat through the credits of a number of video games in order to watch a final section not available until the game was finished. (No, I don't play them but I live with a fairly skillful gamer.) One thing I've noticed is that at the end of video games or even very short animations there are a whole host of people named who contributed to the end result. The short animations usually have a limited list of contributors as would be expected with a film that lasts five minutes or less, but it's remarkable that these things are rarely done by just one person. However, studio productions of full length movie cartoons, Studio Ghibli, for instance, will list more artists than actors in an average live action major film. It always amazes me.

Now I'm involved in my own small scale production of drawing and writing a story I'd like to read and can see for myself just how complicated the process can be. Should I draw and paint a few highly detailed pictures and write the rest or should I plan on letting more and simpler pictures tell the story? So far I'm still compiling sketches that aren't in much of a linear order but you'll see a few ideas are developing. I spent an afternoon this week writing out a plot summary that may have a climax that's too overblown for the intended length of the tale, meaning I'd have to add much more to the middle. I'm not sure I want to write an illustrated novel either, so for the moment my character is standing at a gate wondering about that next step.

Back to the drawing board.

Meanwhile, here's another little movie I found:



It's not what we have so much as what we make of what we have.
♡

storyboarding

For the past few weeks I've been entertaining the idea of writing a fictional story but rather than sitting down with pen and paper or a word processing program my first tendency has been to open my sketchbook. Although there are many things involved in telling about any adventure or quest it seems to me that two things are important at the beginning. The first is that you know who your main characters are and the second is that you explore the place before they get there. I've been taking tiny steps to develop a couple of characters - well, one to start off with and this is her. The trick for me will be to keep her recognizable from multiple angles. I hope you'll excuse me not telling you the plot if I explain it isn't very clear to me yet but I promise to post more sketches as the story progresses. It might get long and if it does I rather expect there'll be more writing than pictures. Even though I love Japanese manga I doubt my ability to draw pictures by the hundreds.

Meanwhile, in case you need entertainment right now, here's a very sweet little story about a young astronomer who lives in a world without stars:


Light up from Light up on Vimeo.


Wish me luck with the process. I have a feeling that telling you I'm doing it might just keep me on track.

♡

baby days is up

The picture here is just so there's a visual from my limited electronic photo files to introduce baby days.

It took several years to complete the story and not because it took so long to draw and write but simply that I kept finding other things to do. What began around 1990 was finally done by 1994 and except for a few photocopied versions sent to friends it's never been outside it's portfolio.

If you go next door to take a look please remember to click on the entire archive or it will stop after 6. It's an odd and very sentimental piece so if you're prepared for such a thing I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did when I decided to look at it again.