Skip to main content

#XPPenanimationchallenge - How I Created My Entry for XP-Pen's First Animation Competition

XP-Pen's Mascot, Fenix, in A Change of Art by TET.
XP-Pen's Mascot, Fenix, in
A Change of Art by TET.
XP-Pen, the makers of a range of pretty sweet pen display monitors, and Reallusion, the makers of some pretty sweet animation apps, teamed up for XP-Pen's very first Animation Challenge with the theme of 'Change'.

Any form of animation was acceptable with entries needing to be a minimum of ten seconds in length.

Entries closed on June 16th, 2020 (sorry, this blog isn't really a breaking news site, I probably should've mentioned it back in March when entries submissions opened) so it's too late to enter, but I wanted to tell you the tale of how I ended up creating my entry in a really late evening, the day before the deadline.

Watch my entry below. Remember the theme is 'Change' and XP-Pen suggested in the rules that including their mascot, Fenix, somewhere in the animation would be looked upon favorably.
 

The Ideas

Skater - My First XP-Pen Competition Idea
Scenes from Skater - My First
XP-Pen Competition Idea.
This was not my first idea for the competition. That may not be a big surprise but what you don't know is I completed up to a full, finished scene edit of my first idea. To finish it I just need to do all the sound design (which doesn't include dialogue since there is none in that animation).

My First Idea

In my initial idea I wanted to feature characters created by Cartoon Solutions. I have an entire library of those characters and backgrounds that I've never really used, even though I like the art style a lot.

I came up with a brief story about how parents keep changing their minds, getting mad when teenagers spend all their time hanging around the house, and then getting mad when their kids stay out too long as well.

The animation followed a teen boy, kicked off the couch at home by his mother who decides he's spending too much time at home, laying around listening to his ipod.

Later the boy spends so much time out at the skate park his mother has to come over and tell him to go home.

In general, I did like this animation but it didn't quite fit the concept of 'change', and nothing particularly stood out as eye catching to me. Plus the XP-Pen mascot didn't really have a place to be. I was going to make him a skater in the background but it seemed like an afterthought.

Not having a better idea I persevered with creating this animation through six animated scenes all edited into a final cut ready for my sound design.

Still, I just wasn't feeling this as an interesting idea.

The Next Idea

XP-Pen's 3D Model Mascot turnarounds.
XP-Pen's 3D Model Mascot turnarounds
with my painted character rig.
While exploring XP-Pen's website I discovered they sell a 3D, paintable model of their mascot, Fenix. Not only that but their site has complete turnaround images of the model, perfect for turning into a fully rigged character in Cartoon Animator.

I thought, what better way to get the attention of the judges than to animate the company's mascot with the competition sponsor's animation software. So I digitally colored the front facing view of the 3D model and rigged it as a Cartoon Animator G3 character with a front facing, morph based head. (Note this rig even has a full set of hand sprites copied and recolored from one of my other characters).

I really liked the final version of the Fenix character rig but it didn't match the style of my first idea so this prompted me in another direction.

At this point I hadn't seen the idea that was just staring me in face. 

Since Reallusion is currently all about motion capture for 2D animated characters, I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to break out the Facial Mocap Plug-in for Cartoon Animator 4 that I bought but hadn't yet found the right project to use it with.

Fenix in an Office Scene by Anton Bakhmat.
Fenix in an Office Scene by
Anton Bakhmat.
Maybe I could have Fenix sitting at a desk talking about some kind of change... maybe slip in some reference to the fact that this performance was motion captured too.

I set that scene up using an office background by Anton Bakhmat.

Usually I can improvise funny dialogue without too much effort but, for whatever reason, I just couldn't find an inroad into a short, funny dialogue about change. It needed to be either funny or a captivating story to stand any chance of being noticed, since the whole animation would be just a character talking to camera.

This is what I was going with right up until the day before the competition closed. I even had the facial mocap plug-in set up and ready to go should inspiration hit that day. It didn't. At least not for this idea.

The Light Bulb Moment

While sitting around, trying to come up with dialogue for my Fenix/Office animation I was looking at my original colored image of Fenix standing next to the unpainted model image. I happened to think to myself that the white model looked very much like a marble statue next to the more animated looking colored character.

Statue of David by Michelangelo
Statue of David by Michelangelo
My mind immediately went to the most famous marble statue I knew of - Michelangelo's Statue of David. From there it was a tiny jump to what if Fenix swapped out what is, let's face it, a very old statue, for something much newer and contemporary... say a statue of Fenix? It was very much a light bulb moment for me.

With just a day to go before entries closed I got straight to work on what I thought was a fun, and funny idea that was doable in the time I had.

Creating the Animation

Cartoon Animator - Statue of Fenix Scene
Cartoon Animator - Statue of Fenix Scene.

Set Up

Using Affinity Photo brush tools I set about erasing the Statue of David from the image shown above. I then found another image of the statue with the background removed already which I broke up into pieces and mixed in some rock images for my tumbled over statue that was David.

I then stretched out the Fenix white model image to give it a more epic 'Statue of David' height that would give good reason for Fenix himself to be up a ladder sculpting away.

I recolored and squashed a lectern prop for the Fenix statue podium. Then placed my Fenix character at the top of a ladder prop I had with an existing hammer prop in hand.

Animation

Fenix's hammering animation is a looping motion file taken directly from the G3 Human Motions - Occupations Pack. It's actually a motion for a side facing character but still looked okay with my front facing Fenix if I turned his head to the side as far as it would go. The only change I made to the motion was to stop Fenix's right hand from moving so it would remain still and look like he was holding onto the statue to maintain his balance.

His second talking motion is called 'Introduce' from the G3 Human Motions - Smooth Moves pack. I didn't have to change anything about this motion at all.

In terms of actual animation I did, I key framed some of the transition between the Hammering motion and the introduce motion to look a little smoother and to get the layers right so Fenix's hammering arm would remain in front of his face as it moved in front of him.

I linked the hammer to Fenix's hand in the character composer as an attached prop, rather than linking it to him on the stage, so that it would layer behind his hand. The hammer was then key framed manually to make sure it was always in the correct position in relation to his hand.

Fenix's facial animation is about as minimal as it gets. His mouth is auto lip synced to the audio file (I may have tweaked this manually just a little). Then I just made sure his head and pupils were facing the right way in relation to either hammering or speaking to camera, added eye blinks, as needed, and it was done.

Finally I animated the camera which, because it starts with a slow pan up from the rubble of the David statue, meant I had even less animation to do on Fenix. In fact it's the sound of his hammer that makes it seem like there's more going on in the scene without me actually having to show Fenix hammering until it's time to reveal him.

Audio

Freesound is a wonderful website. So much so that I ended up throwing them a donation because I downloaded so many sounds for this and another animation I was working on. I managed to find a hammering sound that not only perfectly fit but matched the timing of Fenix's animation without any need for adjustment.

Other than my own voice, which I recorded about five takes of the dialogue into Audacity and then changed the pitch slightly, the hammering sound is all the sound in the animation itself.

The Edit

The final edit was put together in Movavi Video Editor. Which I really only used to bookend the animation with titles and a fun music track.

The Premiere - Oops, I'm Accidentally Topical

 My focus was completely on getting this made before the deadline. Which I did, with plenty of hours to spare, as it happens. It wasn't until people started viewing it that I became aware my little short was also very topical.

As it happens a new #BlackLivesMatter movement had been gaining momentum worldwide. The week I released my animation the world was particularly focused on tearing down monuments depicting anyone who had owned or utilized slaves.

Without getting too political, I don't particularly agree with tearing down monuments whether they're racist or otherwise. To me it's a form of erasing history. Better to re-contextualize the monuments to raise awareness of this not so shining, 'forgotten' history than remove them. That's where I stand.

I mention that only because my animation isn't a commentary on #BlackLivesMatter or the efforts of some within the movement to remove 'racist' monuments/statues. If anything the Statue of David is a monument to the 'little guy', the everyday hero who took on a giant and won. I don't know what, if any, links the statue might have to slavery - though I expect there probably are some given the time it was made.

The idea behind my animation is, as I said, Fenix thinks the Statue of David is quite old. Failing to appreciate its significance he decides to replace it with a more modern statue, stating that it was time for a change, anyway.

---o ---o--- o---

As mentioned this animation was created for XP-Pen's first Animation Competition. Winners to be announced on July 1st 2020. You can view all the entries [ HERE ]. I'll let you know if I'm a finalist.

Popular posts from this blog

Can You Learn Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 for Free Using Their 137 Official YouTube Video Tutorials Sorted Into a Logical Learning Order?

Or you could just buy The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator . While Reallusion's Cartoon Animator is one of the easiest 2D animation studios to get up and running with quickly, learning it from all of the official, free, video tutorials can be more overwhelming than helpful. With more than 137 videos totaling more than 28 and a half hours of tutorials, spread across three generations of the software (Cartoon Animator 3 through 5) it's hard to know if what you're learning is a current or legacy feature that you either need to know or can be skipped. Many of the official tutorials only teach specific features of the software and don't relate at all to previous or later tutorials. As a result there are many features either not mentioned or are hard to find. To make your learning easier, on this page, I've collected together all of the essential, official, free video tutorials and sorted them into a learning order that makes sense. Simply start at

Artbreeder - Using AI created Character and Background Content in your Animations

A selection of User/AI generated images from Artbreeder. If you're looking for an endless supply of 2D character and background images for your animations then Artbreeder , an online Artificial Intelligence (AI) that generates image mash-ups you can tweak as much as you like, could be the ultimate content library. What is Artbreeder? Artbreeder is free to use though there are various paid plans, that give you additional features, such as higher resolution download images or more settings to play with. All images created on the site are Public Domain (CC0 License) and can be used in commercial projects. Using Artbreeder's online app you can generate head shot portraits, full body characters, landscapes, and other scenes simply by choosing two or more existing images to mash together then, using a series of sliders, to select which traits from each image you wish to lean toward in the final image. Photo Comparison - Top is my original uploaded photo. Bottom is Artbreeder's ap

Jarrad Wright, The Big Lez Show - Who Would've thought Animating with MS Paint Could Take You So Far?

A friend of mine recommended I should check out The Big Lez Show after I mentioned to him I make animations for living. He said the show's creator, Australian animator, Jarrad Wright , just makes episodes from his home using MS Paint. Somewhat shamefully I hadn't heard of The Big Lez Show, but the fact that it was being made with MS Paint absolutely hooked me into checking out. If you've never heard or seen the show then you, like I was, are probably thinking how good could it be? MS Paint has kind of a cult following of hardcore animators but no one would use it as their primary animation tool on a series, right? WARNING - before going any further, you need to know The Big Lez Show and its humor contains some pretty strong language. By strong I mean it's peppered very liberally with the 'F' and 'C' words and is very every day Aussie, blue collar speak. Unapologetically, all of that, is part of why it's so good. There's a good chance you've

AE Juice - Animation Presets, Motion Graphics, Templates, Transitions for After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Other Video Applications

Level up you video edits and animations with AE Juice's motion graphics and templates. Some days you just don't have the time to create flashy motion graphics for your latest video or animation. For some of us it's more a question of our own artistic abilities being a little less than the awesome we'd like them to be. Whatever reason a resource like AE Juice's animation presets, motion graphics, templates, and transitions packs for After Effects , Premiere Pro , and other video applications can really make your work stand out very quickly. AE Juice gives you access to an instant library of free, premade content elements and sound effects, which you can add to with additional purchases of various themed packs from their store. There are three ways to manage their content, all of which can be used in commercial projects . The AE Juice Standalone Package Manager makes it easy to browse previews of all your pack contents and to download and find just the elements yo

Eric W. Schwartz: Cartoonist, Animator and Amiga Die Hard

July 1992 Edition, CU Amiga Featuring Amy the Squirrel. American Cartoonist, Eric W. Schwartz , (whose unofficial Amiga Icon, Amy the Squirrel, is pictured on the July 92 edition of CU Amiga cover on the right) is my only real animation hero. Sure there are the big names like Disney , Chuck Jones , Tex Avery and even Preston Blair whose influences can all be seen in my own cartoons but Eric did what none of the others could. He showed that really great 2D computer animation was within my reach with little more than an Amiga Computer , a copy of Deluxe Paint and Moviesetter . This was at a time when computer based animation was in its infancy (outside of computer game animation) and Flash was something that lights did. There were many great Amiga artists but Eric was really the only one consistently making very funny, traditional style animations. His humor and drawing style is heavily influenced by classic Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons but he managed to build on this,

Make Disney/Pixar Style Characters with Reallusion's Character Creator and Toon Figure Bases

The Extraordinary Tourist Classic Coat outfit created using Reallusion's Toon Designer for CC3. I've talked before how I've wanted to get into 3D Disney/Pixar style character animation since I first saw the animated cutscenes for the very first Tomb Raider game back in 1996. It's why I initially bought Reallusion's iClone 3D studio app as soon as I could afford a computer that would run it. But then Reallusion released their 3D Character Creator (CC) for iClone and I wanted to create my characters with that (and I did try with Bat Storm ). But the focus of CC was realism, even with ToKoMotion's stylised body morphs . Now with Reallusion's Cartoon Designer bundle for CC3 which features two packs, Toon Figures , and Toon Hair , designing Disney/Pixar style 3D characters just got a whole lot quicker. The two packs are the bare essentials for creating Toon style characters. Five body morphs (2 male, 2 female, and one adolescent body morph that w

Reallusion Releases Cartoon Animator 5 - One Version, More Features, Lower Price!

If you're serious about producing 2D animation as quickly as possible, while still achieving professional results, Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 makes the most compelling case yet as your animation studio/tool of choice. Cartoon Animator's point of difference has always been its ease of use and accelerated workflow. Creating fast, 2D animation using puppet, bone rigged based characters and props, on a stage with 3D depth for easy scene parallax effects. As it has developed Reallusion has incorporated more advanced features like motion capture for both face and body as well as being able to export scenes to post production tools like After Effects with the addition of plugins. After moving away from Flash based vector image support for a few years, Reallusion is back with full .SVG (scalable vector graphics) support for resolution independent graphics. They've also added Spring Dynamic physics and Full Form Deformation tools, both of which make it ridiculously easy t