Category Archives: Layout (Animation)

Practice in Animation Storyboards – The Last Scene 04

Getting to the end here.  Start of an unfinished third scene.  I might just add these images to the existing scene two page here.

Storyboard sequence from an animated film. Sequence shows man walking into abstract shot. There's lots of exposed wire and a lightbulb in shot.Lighting effects!  So that’s it.  Last of the BREAK PROGRESS practice storyboards.  Next time I’ll start posting boards from an animated short about robots and evil vine plants.  Huzzah.

Practice in Animation Storyboards – The Last Scene 02

Getting to the end here.  Start of an unfinished third scene.  I might just add these images to the existing scene two page here.

Storyboard sequence from an animated film. Sequence shows man stepping away grom gin still and letting go a light bulb.Love that last shot.  Got the movement down pretty well I think!  (not sure what the shot adds from a narrative perspective though…)

Practice in Animation Storyboards – The Next Scene 13

AKA: The Layout Special

Scene one is here and scene two now has a home here.

I have a confession to make.  When I do “camera moves” for my storyboards, I skip a step and go straight to workbook — is that phrase in use anymore? — or even to some sort of preliminary layout stage.

I used to (and sometime still do) tell people I’m a storyboard artist, but I’m much more interested in how every stage of production fits together to create the final whole; divisions between storyboards, layout, or even editorial can be a bit fluid with that mindset.

A workbook or layout of a shot from a self-directed animated feature project. Digital drawing feature a truck-out, pan up camera move showing a woman opening a door and the crazy gin-still setup she has on the second floor.Only after drawing something like this workbook/layout/whatever would I break it down into sequential panels to imply camera moves (in this case a combination truck-out and pan up.)

I never got around to breaking this one down.  Maybe I recognized the purpose of the exercise had come to a close?

Pencil Layouts of A Comic Panel

Featuring a perspective aerial view of an owl walking through a leafy cityscape.  Just a teaser of a comic book project I’m working on.

perspective pencil layout of a comic panel

Wire Eaters Base Level Layout

An early pencil layout from the second scene of “Wire Eaters.”  The “final” pencil version includes more detail, but I do like the clean look of the empty room.

pencil sketch layout of a large domed interior, several pathways lead from many doors to a central dais.The art inside the gray overlay is the part you’d see “in camera.”

Wire Eaters Shot B1 Layout

I’m currently working on a pretty ambitious traditionally animated short.  It’s called “Wire Eaters” and below is the first existing shot of the film in workbook/layout form. 
Shot B1 – Layout Drawing 
For anyone curious the camera move is a three field right pan followed by a mild truck in.
Shot B1 – Layout with Camera and Animation Blocking
Shot B1 – Layout with Color Blocking

Lastly, how the shot looks “in camera”