Dialogue- rough animation

This is the newest version. Some frames are missing, this is just the necessary amount of drawings to check the timing, spacing and arcs. Face needs to be added on some frames, too. Some parts of animation need to be fixed, but I am going to leave them alone for now because I spent too much time on them to be able to judge them objectively, and I will move on to other things for now and maybe animate the boy.

Dialogue- rough keys

These are the key poses of the old man character:

There's a little confusion with the backgrounds- that's because I couldn't figure out the right perspective, but that issue is fixed now, next upload will hopefully have the right background.

Dialogue- planning of the animation

These are the thumbnails for the acting for my dialogue piece:

I don't know how to upload sound file to blogger so these sketches can be compared to the actual voice acting by the reader; I will probably upload the sound only with the actual animation tests.

This is a very rough sketch of the steps the old man takes from his position by the cupboard towards the table- the number of steps will be different in the animation, but this sketch just helped me to get the idea of how is that movement supposed to work.

Dialogue- character design- continued

I worked on the designs a little bit more.

Here is the version which is almost final, and some sketches of the character's body and anatomical details

Here I finally got his face right. This is the design I'm going to use- I think it looks a little complicated, but I feel comfortable working with it, I find it easy to operate with and the forms in it are connected in a way that should make them easier to draw from different angles.

This is the final design for the old man and the boy:

Dialogue- character design

In my sound file there are two characters; I am still working on the design for the old man, the design of the boy might change slightly, too. These are the sketches I've done so far.

First, I was trying to figure out what idea I'm going to use for this piece. I tried to come up with something different than normal human characters, to have something to compare and choose from. I considered portraying the characters as bears, dragons or, well, sheep.

I liked the dragons version the most, but finally I decided that human characters will be the best option, since they won't distract the viewer from the actual dialogue with the unusual setting and unexpected fantasy situation. Below are the sketches I did of the human characters.

The one on the left is the first design of the old man I like and actually, the one I like the most so far; I would love to use it as it is here, but I will have to make sure he won't be too difficult to animate.

In the middle there are first sketches of the kid- I think he can be relatively generic as long as he is cute and has the right proportions for the age his voice indicates, since the main character in the dialogue seems to be the old man and he should get the most of the viewer's attention.

On the right there are just some rough thumbnails of the scene composition and a quick sketch of part of the animation I wanted to note somewhere.

These are just some sketches of the old man's head, to figure out the best shapes and proportions to make him easy and comfortable to animate

This is the last sketch I did for the old man; I still want to work on him a little, though.

This is what could be the final design for the kid:

I found it quite difficult to make the old man look the way I think he should- to reflect his personality and look appealing, and still be relatively easy to animate.