I haven’t posted one of these in a while, and I apologize for that. I’ve just been so danged busy again. We’ve had lots of family visits and holidays and I’ve been doing all I can just to keep up with the basics. I’m reaching a point though where I can once again see the light at the end of the tunnel. I do believe sometime this summer I will have pushed certain things off my plate for good and that will free up some time for me to focus on certain core projects that I really want to do.
And here’s a taste of one of those core projects…
It may not look like much to start, but this is the result of an hour or so playing on my iPad with an animation app called DoInk. I’ve done animation before, mainly with Flash, and have even published a couple of cartoons for which I was paid quite nicely (see AtomFilms.com for my very NSFW animated movies, Stick Figure Porno and Stick Figure Porno II). Having been away from animation for a while, I’d like to get back into it and I think DoInk may help.
The upside of DoInk is that it’s vector animation, so I don’t have to draw every frame by hand. I can simply modify the shapes I draw using the usual vector tools. If I make several small animations, like I did in the sample above, I can combine them into a more complex animation to get some pretty cool results. With the fly, I created separate animations for his eyes, wings, legs, etc. Then I created another animation to put all those pieces together. Then I created the flower in a third animation and then combined them all together in the fourth animation to bring everything into one animated clip.
So I now have a portable animation program to play with, and that’s cool. Unfortunately, DoInk doesn’t have all the features I’d like to see in an animation app; for instance, layers aren’t available in the drawing mode, which is a shame because it would really help to create complex animations more quickly. However, I’m sure the app will continue to develop and grow and I’ll be making the most of it as it does.
I should also mention I ordered a copy of Smith Micro’s Animation Studio Debut and will be using that as well. It’s a desktop program, not an app, but as I mentioned earlier, once I’ve got some stuff pushed off my plate for good, I will be shift gears to work on other projects, and animation is going to be one of them. Can’t wait to get into that!
