Mindhack

We've been using conte again in bodies and motion, and I totally forgot how fun it is to use. I stopped using it though because I was getting too comfortable and it's really not a useful thing to know if you want to get into storyboarding...or so I think.

Was talking to my senior project teacher about the "style" of my film and was explaining how it's actually easier for me to animate shapes than animate a line and then fill it in with color. She said something that's been on my mind for the past week:

"If only you could lay in the shape and then outline, huh?"

That's just the ticket! 

Then on top of that, Nathan Fowkes (who kind of draws the same way I do, except...better) has just been on two interviews, here and here, where he recounts an instance in which Glenn Vilppu ALSO makes that distinction between "Tone" and "Line" drawing.

Glenn Vilppu: "You're a background painter aren't you?"
Nathan Fowkes: "Well I am a background painter, how did you know that?"
Glenn Vilppu: "Everyone else in here are animators and they're all drawing in line, you're the only one who is drawing in tone- you have to be a background painter."

Which has actually gotten me thinking on whether I should get into boarding. I really love boarding, thinking about the editing, the camera, continuity and really polishing a story to see what's needed or not, etc. However, it feels like I'm going against my "natural" way of seeing and mark making, which could probably be put to better use doing something else (background painting???).

I do want to stick with making storyboards since it's a really fun process, and would like to eventually use a pen, sharpie, or wacom the same way I do a conté. So, I've been trying to trick my brain to think the same way it does when it's got a conté in its hand which I have noticed is indeed very different. Something about holding a stylus just flips my mind around.

For now it's really annoying because it does become something of a two step process. With time, hopefully, I won't have to think about how I would draw something in conté first and then think about how I would relay that motion into drawing with a stylus- it'll just be focused on how to visually tell the story.

Anyway: