Background progress: Three done

 This is the background that I was working on in the previous post. This is the first shot in the film, just without subdued tone, which will be added digitally. I am very pleased with this, as I've not drawn using perspective in years.

 This is the ceiling that will be shown when the lights flicker on inViva-1's room. This will only be in the film for a few seconds.

This may not look like anything useful, but it is. When Viva-1 is awakening, the world around him shall be blurry, as if he is disorientated. Therefore, this drawing shall be faded and shaded to look that way, so it needn't be overly detailed.

Backgrounds

I have began production of the backgrounds/still illustrations for the animation. Here's my progress on the first - the lab at the beginning!

Viva-1's first Flash appearence!

After chopping out all his components, I put Viva-1 together in Flash, just to see what he'd look like all together. He's a lot more hench then expected, but otherwise he's great! I'll try some little bits of animation done soon.

I was really not expecting Flash to handle .PSD files, but it turns out it does! It just turns the visible data into a vectored bitmap when it imports them, which makes them really lightweight and easy to manipulate. I'm not sure what it would do with a .PSD with several layers, however.

Model Sheet Slicing

I created a model sheet for my robot character, Viva-1, using physical means (pencil, pen, paper), and then scanned it. I then used Photoshop do remove the paper background, and therefore leave only Viva-1's components.

I tried to remove the strange pink tinge that the scanner decided to give the components, but after doing so, I decided that I'd like to keep it. It adds a feel of humanity and life to the otherwise metallic robot.

The next thing I did was cut out each individual component on the model sheet, so I can then maneuver them separately in Flash. I am yet to cut out the individual mouth shapes however.

All these components were stored on my USB Drive, although I shall move them so that they are local to my PC, just in case anything horrific happens.

Animatic

I have completed the Animatic version of my storyboard! This was done so that I could match up the timings of each 'scene' with the music track I have chosen.

 I shall now upload the animatic to my personal YouTube channel. However, I am marking the video as unlisted, so that it shall only be viewable to those who have a link to it, such as yourself. This'll ensure that not too much about the piece is given away early on.

Contacting the Musicians

Sadly, Coldplay have not provided a business E-Mail for contact on their website. They do however have a personal contact page, which is more suitable for Fanmail. However, seeing as I am not a business, I have used this service to contact them and enquire as to whether or not I can use their track.

I await a reply.