I. Preproduction- Character Designs

C. Character
Once the script and story is done, characters and locations of the story can be visualized by the concept artist depending on the characteristics of each character, the mood of a location, and the director's (that's you!) vision of how each element in the story should look like.

ROUGH sketches and gestures for my first film "EGG"
these poses need work! wahahaha... oh well... we're all learning.

Turnarounds for Mr Mani, of "I am the Superhero".

A character turnaround is extremely important for animators when a character is finalized; Even when working alone, they serve as guides during animation! You will thank yourself for doing them especially at the crack of dawn, where the sun's rays hit your retina at its most vulnerable state! But anyway, you typically you can make a front, 3/4s front, side, 3/4s back, and back view, but you may also add top and bottom views as well, depending on the requirements of the storyboard, which may or may not be done while this process is going on. I usually finish the turnarounds first before I move to the boards. Again, they make great references.

If you notice, I also added some style guides on how hands, eyes, noses should look in this short film too, that way other artists designing other characters for the same film will look like they belong in the same film!

Anna preliminary style guide for Tuldok Animation Studios' "Libingan".

A character comparison is also good to see the proportions of one character with the other!

Once I have more than one character, I get their front views and place them side by side, to check how each of them compares with each other in terms of proportions and size. You may notice the blue circles beside Anna's head, those are about the same size as her head.

Miscellaneous aliens from "Galactic Space Patrol"

When designing characters and making a size comparison, or size comp, I like to measure them by heads than by actual units of measurement. (I wasn't too good in physics and science after grade school!)

next: backgrounds!

in the meantime, check out these amazing character artists and site:

Arthur de Pins
Francisco Herrera
Alberto Ruiz
Character Design blogspot

I. Preproduction- Sequence Outline & Script

I. Preproduction

Animation requires a lot of planning. Although it may seem tedious and time consuming at first, careful planning and setting up of a story will save you a lot of time in the long run. This is the most important process, and usually takes the longest.

Before you want to start doing the visuals, you might want to pick your brain and write your story down so you can "free up more space" for the visuals in your mind that will happen later on (it works for me!). Remember, this is also important too!
Writing a story down will test you to see if you can put a story together on paper! If you can say it through words and the audience will understand it, then you have a bigger chance of making your story be understood in it's final form. This is just the beginning!

Subject.
Think of a concept or a subject. It can be about anything, from a social issue to a moral lesson, to a frustration or simply something that just needs to be said.

Story.
From the subject/concept, wrapping a story around it will be helpful, and entertaining as well. Animated filmmaking is storytelling after all. This is the most important aspect of a film, without it you will have an empty shell no matter how technically superior or eye-catching your animation may be, it will be easily forgotten if it has an awful, cliché, or simply bad story.

A. Sequence Outline
Once you’ve got your story done, you can flesh it out by making a sequence outline. It’s just a chronological list of all the important, general events that happen in the story.

Sequence Outline for my first short film "Egg", 2003.
Written with Marco Danga and Katerina Rillo

B. Script
The script is a more detailed version of your sequence outline. Here all the details are placed, even minor actions, dialogue, sound effects cues, and scene transitions to bring your characters and film (almost!) to life.

For animation it is useful to have your script divided into two columns: one for audio (what you hear) and one for video (what you see).

The audio visual script for "Libingan", of Tuldok Animation Studios, Inc.

There are quite a lot of sites and books that deal with this in much more detail, google them!
My friend keeps complaining that the columns need to be switched into Video and Audio, personally I do mine like the one above coz I got used to the AV acronym, meaning Audio (first!) then video! but eh... it's up to you. :)

next: Character and background designs!