The Boros Animation Blog

I'm in the process of arranging the scenes as we speak, so in the meantime, take a look at these beautiful character models I've built for this episode!  I spent a lot of time and effort getting each one to look as close to the original design as possible without compromising quality or motion potential, and it really shows in the over all product when your characters are built properly from the beginning.  Some animators build as they go, but I believe that you risk building characters for the moment that will all look different from each other and not be as compatible and uniform to your overall style you've chosen for your show. All the technicalities aside, these are some fine looking character models and I'm very proud of them, especially considering that they are an approximation of someone else's work... I gave them my own flare where I could, but this was more about attacking a particular look, per the request of the producers. If you like what you see,

After a much needed personal day, I'm happy to be back on track! Today we get to start placing our character models on our scene and start laying out our first pass of animation!  This is an exciting time to be lurking, so keep it right here on The Boros Animation Blog , coming to you straight from Smirk Studios ! Need your project animated?  Email me  and we'll get you on the waiting list! Animation and Graphics produced at  Smirk Studios  for project "The Boros" using Adobe Animate. All rights reserved. More info as the project unfolds! Keep it posted here for more updates on the production of "The Boros." Art/Animation by  Joshua H. Metz

Here we can see now that our main character Solomon is the correct proportion to the other characters in the episode, and so now any zooming we do with the symbols will maintain the consistent integrity throughout the different models, as opposed to distracting your eye with obvious pixelation and graphic edits that make an animation "clunky" when we obviously want something more seamless. Believe it or not, I had to resize each layer a second time for every symbol, which is what took so long. I literally got stuck all day on resizing vectors, which is why it's so important to have a good character proportion chart to work off of FIRST! I've put this in my notes for next time... Stay tuned, I've got one more character (this time I'm going to proportion the screenshot to match the approximate size of the character sheet and do it that way, I'm certain it will save me time) and then we are DONE BUILDING CHARACTERS! NEXT STEP: Story Bo

  Just so you can see what I'm going through, it's actually pretty interesting.  I have to do this for each body part, and it can be particularly difficult if your symbols have symbols within them, assuming you've designed it that way to be intentionally separate.   As you may know, resizing a vector doesn't affect the line size of our line tool (like the pencil tool, for instance), whereas resizing a symbol that has been built with vectors inside it will resize the entire symbol, which will often thin out some of the finer details of the character, often giving the character a cheap or "flash animation" look, which I personally like to avoid when I'm working on projects for someone else.   On my personal stuff, I don't mind just throwing things together, and for those projects, it's fine to have something look a little off, but not when you're trying to bring someone else's vision to life.  You can see in my Rick and Morty SPOOF  t

I figured out the quickest way possible to resize all my layers at once without compromising the line size and consistency (resizing symbols versus resizing vectors), and am almost finished with the setup.  Good morning!  Today is going to be productive, so check back throughout the day! Animation and Graphics produced at  Smirk Studios  for project "The Boros" using Adobe Animate. All rights reserved.  More info as the project unfolds!  Keep it posted here for more updates on the production of "The Boros." Art/Animation by  Joshua H. Metz

Nothing to be alarmed about, but I am dealing with a little extra tedious work with this character model in getting it to properly size to the height proportions that are appropriate. The solution is simple but tedious, so I'm going to take a break and come back in a little bit to continue!  More updates soon! Animation and Graphics produced at  Smirk Studios  for project "The Boros" using Adobe Animate. All rights reserved.  More info as the project unfolds!  Keep it posted here for more updates on the production of "The Boros." Art/Animation by  Joshua H. Metz

I'm almost done building one of the 2 main characters, who (appropriately) have more intricate character models with slightly more detail (and take a little longer to get just right for a few reasons*, ask in the comments to know more). Check out Solomon in all his glory: More to come, sit tight!  More updates TONIGHT! Animation and Graphics produced at  Smirk Studios  for project "The Boros" using Adobe Animate. All rights reserved.  More info as the project unfolds!  Keep it posted here for more updates on the production of "The Boros." Art/Animation by  Joshua H. Metz