32 Madagascar Road has finally been released

After four and a half months, the first episode of 32 Madagascar Road is finished. It's been a long road full of lots of drawing, tweaking, planning and animating. Oh and plenty of very late nights.
After getting a film degree at university, a lot of people found it strange that I had decided to make an animation. I told them that I just wanted to branch out and try something else. This was half right, but the reason I really wanted to do something aside from film was because I was being let down by people when it came to making films/videos. So I figured that with an animation, I would only have to rely on myself. So I just went with it, and I have honestly really enjoyed it. It was, as I said, a very long road, and it felt like there was no end in sight. But seeing the finished product has made it all worth it.

The characters are loosely based on me and friends, while the events are based on actual things that have happened. It is mainly something for us; there are inside jokes that no one else will get, but this doesn't mean I want to exclude anyone from enjoying the animation.

For the eagle eyed viewers, I have drawn a few locations in Cardiff. One location, a street in Cardiff, took me a couple of hours to draw, but is only visible for about half a second. But, as with the majority of the things I have drawn, they can be used in future episodes.

I have received a huge amount of support during the making of Madagascar Road. Close friends have suggested ideas, improvements and praise, as well as their voices. Others have told me that they're looking forward to seeing it once it's finished. So the support has been fantastic and I'm very grateful for it.

One of the parts I most enjoy is actually coming up with ideas for an episode. I have lots of ideas for episodes and it's tempting to just shove all of them in. But seeing as the episodes will run at between 4-5 minutes, I have to fight that temptation.

There is plenty for me to improve on for next time. Things that may not be very noticeable for viewers, things such as movements, speed of movements and facial expressions. The main thing I plan to improve on though is the sound. I don't have any professional sound equipment (yet) so the recordings have just been done at home. But they are at least audible, and I didn't want to keep correcting things that I wasn't happy with, otherwise the animation would have just kept getting pushed back constantly. At least that way, improvements will be more noticeable each time.

It's been an interesting and fun road, and I am now working on the script for the second episode. I don't have a time frame as of yet, but that will become more clean in the next few months.

10 Days Left

There are ten days left until I 'release' the first episode of Madagascar Road. Everything is on track and I'm pretty confident that it will all be done on time. The visuals are all put together, the intro has been made along with the closing credits, so all that's left to do is to tweak the sound. Should be simple enough.

Hopefully people aren't expecting a masterpiece; because they'll be disappointed if they are. This is my first animation, and it's a working progress. I've learnt what needs to be done to improve on things for next time, so each episode will see more improvements.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Animating=Complete

Job Done...

The animating is complete. It's taken about 3 and a half months of patience, very late nights, lots of drawing, writing and animating, and it's pretty much there. All that's left to do now is the sound and editing. I also need to come up with some sort of intro. Nothing fancy though.

In theory, for me anyway, the concept of animation is pretty simple. But tonnes of hard work goes into it. Sitting at a computer for hours on end using an animation software may sound relaxing and easy, but it is very draining. Animating every single bit of movement is no stroll in the park. There are pegs and camera movements and using the correct movement cursor to make sure you're actually moving limbs and characters across a screen that go into it. Also, having to draw all of the locations, different angles and movements of characters and background props takes up a lot of time.

Being a film graduate, animating never crossed my mind. But I thought I'd branch out and develop my skills and knowledge somewhere else and thought, "Fuck it". I don't have to rely on anyone else to be somewhere at a certain time, I don't have to rely on someone else to hit deadlines, and I have the freedom to do whatever the hell I want. That's the beauty of animation. If I want to ram a massive space battle with explosions and lots of things going on, I don't need money or people to do it. Just a pen, paper and imagination. This is my project. I make every executive and creative decision, and no one else is there to say, "No, you can't do that". I'm not working for anyone, I have no limits, and I love that.

I don't have a solid future plan for what the 'show' will actually be about or what the genre will come under. During a discussion with some friends I actually compared it to the American sitcom 'Seinfeld', which was said to be a show about nothing. But I take back that comment. I care about a lot of issues, both personal and worldwide, and I do plan on slipping those into future episodes. Whether it's an episode relevant to something in the news, or if it's a flashback or nod to my childhood/people from back home, I am going to be putting a lot of me into it. 

I do massively look forward to putting it online for people to watch. A few people have told me that they can't wait to see it, which is nice to hear. My house mates constantly ask how it's going, and they're always supporting and lending their ideas to me which is also nice. All in all, this animation is for my friends and family, which will become more clear to see in future episodes. As I've said before, there will be a lot of private jokes that no one else will get.

For now though, I plan to have some earlier nights. The story for the next episode is being worked on, so until then there won't be endless late nights of a 5am bed time. Well, there might be.

The End Is In Sight

Almost there...

The animation is nearly complete, and the end is now in sight. It's been a long project, and being my first animation, I wasn't really sure how long it would take. The animation will only be a couple of minutes long, but the amount of time and work that has gone into it has been massive. Sure, it doesn't look great artistically. I'm no skilled artist, and there's lots of room for improvement, but it's the story and the charm of the animation that I'm hoping will be successful. And with each new episode, I hope to improve every time. I've already learnt a lot throughout this first episode and taken into account things that I can do better.

I think my main goal is to create a kind of fan base; which will be helped by using recurring characters all with different personalities, relevant themes and recognisable locations.

There are a lot of 'in' and private jokes which no one else will understand bar a few people, but they will still be funny (hopefully). I've already started penning down ideas for the next episode, so this first episode is going to be the first of many!

Animation Update

So the animation is going strong. I've just finished animating the penultimate scene, so the end is in sight!

I've decided to not worry too much about making everything look perfect and putting loads and loads of detail in, as this will just halter the time of completion, so as long as it's finished, that's what matters.

Stay tuned!

Female Character

So I've drawn my first female character! It is the first time I have drawn a woman in quite a few years, so it took me a very long time to do to try and get it right. You'll notice that she looks a lot different to the other characters; where she has a realistic face outline and facial features, the other characters have a more cartoony look, with round faces, round eyes e.t.c. I deliberately made her more realistic as I wanted her to stand out, and look attractive. If she was drawn in the same style as the other characters, she wouldn't stand out, and she'd have probably ended up looking like all of the male characters.

The 'head shot' drawing took me pretty much all day to do, as it took me an incredibly long time to just get the face right so that she didn't look manly.Even though she is only in one scene, I believe she'll create a sense of actual attractiveness; from the point of view from the other characters, the audience, and for the animation in general.

So check her out!

Website

So my animation; 32 Madagascar Road, now has its own section on my website. This includes character profiles so you can get to know a bit more about each character.

In regards to the actual animation, I'm up to scene 4 now, leaving me with 6 more scenes to go. Slowly getting there!

Check out the website here, and stay tuned!