I missed the three year anniversary by 10 days, but it's close enough to call this the start of year 3. A lot has been done these past two years, 69 scenes in color, edited with sound! Five scenes are left to finish the project. I'm working on the largest scene of the picture by far, nearly 900 frames, with both Howard and Kayla talking.

What's left? The big scene, then a few scenes with the otters talking and two short Kayla/Howard scenes. After that it's time to lay in the final sound effects, and after that, original music score. There's still one piece of Background art yet to be rendered but it doesn't affect my animation. My goal, obviously, is to finish up this summer or fall. Since taking retirement I've been able to work far more productively on the film and have completed a number of difficult shots. Now it just a steady push push push to get it done.

This has been a huge learning project: Learning more about animation, about software and the limitations of it. Motion capture, which helped in a number of scenes, didn't always work for the angles I designed them. In particular, angles of someone leaning back in a chair at a 70 degree angle was too much for the software....the mocap translated into weird movements that required time consuming hand animation. The result came out nice, but at a cost of more than a weeks' work. This isn't a complaint, just a recognition that if I use mocap in the future I'll have to carefully design the film and shots to utilize it more effectively.

Well, time to get drawing. I'm pacing myself and trying to get quality scenes out as I can. Every scene presents its own problems and solutions, each one a learning event. It's been a great ride, and I'm looking forward to the next project. I have a new voice talent to whom I've spoken with and two tentative ideas. I may go with a simpler art style next time, but that is for another post!