Drawing the Backgrounds

As I decided on a specific style for the artwork sticking to this was key so I spent a while creating the backgrounds I decide that there need to be a decent amount of texture to each one. But not loads as it might look as if it's meant to be realistic. I decided to use a texture as for the main background and blended this in with my colour choices seen in previous post. Other than this I added in the different elements such as the building and clouds at and coloured this sticking to my scheme. I did this for the first few backgrounds whilst also drawing the main elements such as the plane at the same time to make sure they looked ok when put together. 

This one is the first scene of my animation and is meant to be an airport with the control tower, hangers etc. 

This is just a transition scene for flowing between the airport and the warehouse which I think will work well in the animation.

Finally this scene is the edge of the warehouse where the trucks will come out with the city in the background.

Chosen Text

Linking back to my previous post I have decided on the text that I will use in the animation - 

"Food miles cause 19 million tonnes of emissions per year so..."

"Grow your own veg" 

"Buy local food" 

"Together we can reduce Food Miles' 

This is the order they will appear in the animation and I think it will make the message clear as well as help the animation have a kind of story it follows. 

Text over Voice over

After getting half way through designing my animation I decided to add in some text to further the message. As I was not sure it was clear and watching it back I released there was a good opportunity to add some text in a certain scenes. I'm not planning on writing paragraphs or anything like that though just a few lines at certain points to clarify and help the message be conveyed. 

I also decided on text over a voice over as I didn't want to break up the music and getting a flowing voice over to work with the animation could be hard. Time issues also played a part here. 

1960's Animation - UPA

As a follow up to my retro cartoons I think I found a more focused theme to follow. Whilst researching animation I was really drawn in by the style of the 1960's animation particularly the work of UPA (united productions of america) at this time. The style really appealed to me for example the background used were simple coloured backgrounds for the most part with a little bit of texture to add depth often the way these were drawn gave them a illustrative feel. The characters are as I described in my other post but I think focusing on the work of UPA during this period this gives me a stronger visual style as UPA released a lot of different animations around this period (such as Magoo)

and the all had the same structure and style so the company obviously had there style and it one that I want to follow in my work. Hopefully finishing my animation with it looking like it could be from this time. 

Retro Cartoons

As a style for my animation the style of retro cartoons from around the 1950's is a style that really like. The key elements I think would work really well for this project these elements being the use of shading and simplicity, it is also a semi realistic animation style.  I decided to look at these further by searching for examples. To look at the visual style further as well as the way they are animated which should hopefully give me a clearer idea of what I wanted to do. 

Looking through a number of example

s I really like the way the characters are drawn it's a really fun style. They all have these massive noses that helps shape the face and then these tiny legs and often arms and then a simple shape for the body which has added detail for clothes. Which sounds like it shouldn't work but when you see it together it just does. As I said I think this is a really fun style and it will stop my animation from looking too serious considering the subject. Also with the ideas I have so far for my animation I think I could make a unique main character for it which would add a story element. 

As for backgrounds these are kept simple often they are not that defined and there is just textures with blocks of colour and the other elements of the background would be added in by lines. This style works and backgrounds and flat coloured characters go together really well. So far for my ideas I have a variety of backgrounds so I think this style would stop me spending too much time on these elements but also differentiate between the backgrounds well. 

The animation style is also not as complicated as more modern styles which suite the art style and the backgrounds as well. Also it will help me as it's my first project on After Effects. 

It is also (at this point) a wide theme to follow so it gives me freedom to experiment and play around with the visual style a little bit sticking to the overall style of a vintage cartoon. 

Music

After having a long search I finally found a piece of music that I want to use for my animation. It has the vintage rock feel that I was after and I think it will help my animation stand out. The track is called 'Gold on the ceiling' by The Black Keys the first 28 seconds or so are instrumental intro this is the part of the song I will be using. I fairly confident the track will work with the animation i'm also hopeful as I  don't have many other ideas on the music.

The track can be heard here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yCIDkFI7ew

Sound Effects

I found a very good site for getting sound effects http://www.grsites.com/archive/sounds/ which pretty much has most of the sounds I would need. However I haven't decided yet whether I will use sound effects because I have a lot of parts where a sound effect could be applied mixed with the music it might get a bit too much and sound messy. Saying that though if I watch my animation back with just the music a decided it needs sound effects I will look back on the issue.