Experiment (four more panels)

I've started thinking of these images as being similar, in a way, to how key poses work in animation. Working pose-to-pose is, I assume, still traditional in CGI (I actually don't know much about CGI, no shock, it involves technology), in case anyone out there isn't an animation nerd, a key animator will basically plot out the extreme poses or movements to map out acting or motion high points in a sequence. Then an in-between animator connects the dots and provides the flow between the key poses, For example, a character placing their hand on the handle of the gun in their holster, towards a pose with the arm extended to shoot. In the case of whatever this is that I'm doing here, the images are kind of like narrative keys, and eventually I'll fill the moments in-between as a story emerges. And then link the sequences up. I don't know if the analogy fits, but I'm calling them key panels. 

A lot of old Fleischer Brothers animation was done "straight ahead", where an animator just barrels through and draws every step animated in sequence. You get some wonkier motion, a more liquid flow sometimes depending on the artist, but it can be freer and more expressive and less locked in to poses than using keys. But on the other hand, you're working without a map, or net. Things have to add up. I'm amazed at how people can just draw a sequence straight through, but both methods are magical.

I wanted to be an animator when I was a teenager and in my crude after-school SVA school projects and at NYU film school used both methods. It taught me a lot, mostly, that I wasn't cut out to be an animator. The OCD made a hard job even harder., I kept trying to do fully-animated minutes-long student films by myself, which was ridiculous and impossible. Too many drawings to tell less story, too many technical issues -- I realized in animation/film classes that I wanted to make comics and control the work as much as possible, work on more stories rather than work on isolated scenes, and, also, stay away from people, who intimidated and scared me (meaning, I was intimidated and scared of them). 

Also, in the 80s, just about everyone felt that the industry was dying, it was a horrible time for the medium and field, and no one expected the rebound at Disney and to see television animation blow up so big. There were few jobs and many animators and it was pretty dire listening to the senior students and instructors discuss the opportunities, or lack thereof. Maybe you'll do a low-pay Sesame Strip segment. Cool, but...what about after that? Anyway, I wanted to write and draw a lot of stories by myself, animation is a business and art for very particular, talented people. I was not one of them. Alack, and alas.

I still have punched animation paper left over from my NYU days (I, uh, appropriated it), I used it for all the Eltingville pilot designs, which was pretty cool. I never in a million years ever thought I'd work on a professional animation project, let alone several of them, let alone a pilot based on my own stuff. Too bad the show didn't happen. Alack and etc.

Boy, I love that paper. 

Wow, I'm babbling and need to go to bed. I had a crazy day and night, some good stuff, some bad stuff, some stressful stuff, some worrying stuff, some productive stuff, some fun stuff. Too much stuff, which is why I'm still up and typing. 

I hope a story emerges for these drawings. I have about two dozen now almost finished. Still not a clear plan. But it's something to do that has no pressure on. 

Anyway. Four more weird little panels.