What do you think of these characters? (WIP)

[donnie]

Hey Cap, just saw Coney's new walk- Very Nice! much better than before .
Also for what its worth I really like the sketchy Background you did behind it!

I think your right though in that his walk is perhaps not specific enough to a small boys and could easily be Coney Senior's walk... Perhaps you could try putting a skip in his step or at least have a moment where both feet are off the ground as young boys have so much energy that they tend to rush everywhere (the sweet shop?,Pet store with an Egg in hand to find out what it is?)... Maybe giving him Somewhere to go will help inspire and inform you in how he should walk/run/move etc....

Story sounds intriging, Good Luck with it all!!

cheers

D.

[capricorn33]

Could it be possible to share the anme file? Just for learning...
-G

I put these mouth switch things in the "tips and techniques"-forum... felt like they maybe belong better over there...

viewtopic.php?t=8785

/.../Perhaps you could try putting a skip in his step or at least have a moment where both feet are off the ground as young boys have so much energy that they tend to rush everywhere (the sweet shop?,Pet store with an Egg in hand to find out what it is?)... Maybe giving him Somewhere to go will help inspire and inform you in how he should walk/run/move etc....

Haha! You sound just like me directing kids in front of the camera!


Good advice though, and of course you are completely right. Coney JR is a boy, he needs to move like one - correction: he needs to move like himself. And of course he has to know where he is going...!

[capricorn33]

Hello again

This thread has been silent for a little while now... But the Coney family isn't dead, far from it.
They are just waiting for their story to grow, their tale to settle.

I'll return to the character development and to the fiddling with the animation of it all as soon as the story gets a little clearer in my mind...

It is slowly taking shape, though.



Coney JR is this kind of boy who finds stuff all the time... you know, rocks and pebbles, abandoned (he thinks) cats and dogs, empty bottles and all kinds of garbage... and then he drags all of it home, asks if he can keep the dog or the cat, and stores all the other stuff in boxes under his bed. He is a real collector, dedicated as only a 7 year old boy can be.

This time he has found an egg.




He's driving his mother crazy with his collecting frenzy. She didn't like it at all that time when he forgot that he had hid 15 snails in the cupboard. Until you could smell them, that is... half a year later !

This egg is an potential stink bomb, too. So she forbids him to take the egg into the house.
Well of course Coney JR sneaks the egg into his room anyway, he just has to hide it very well and make sure that mother doesn't know...

He cares for it, he keeps it warm under a lamp, he sings lullabies to it every night before he goes to bed.

But one day when he comes strutting out from the bathroom (the egg has had a nice warm bath in the bathtub) he stumbles on a mat and drops the egg. It falls smack down on the floor and cracks open...


And what happens thereafter is yet to be told...
(and to be seen to, I hope, as an animation)


...Funny thing about eggs that they are so fragile, and still so strong. The tiniest things, they are. And still they are the seeds of life itself...


cheers
cap

[funksmaname]

plus... ANYTHING can come out

nice ideas... its cool you're taking time out from animating to build a story around your characters - i need to do the same...

good luck

[Rudiger]

Wow, I instantly connected with these characters. I really do want to find out more about them. Here's hoping you continue development on this and end up making some short YouTube episodes or something. Who knows, 20 years from now we could be lining up to see "The Coneys Movie" !!

[capricorn33]

Wow, I instantly connected with these characters. I really do want to find out more about them. /.../ Who knows, 20 years from now we could be lining up to see "The Coneys Movie" !!

Thanks, Rudiger.
I haven't been giving the Coney's much attention now, this last month. I have been busy enjoying summer, which BTW isn't too long here in Finland....
Maybe I'll continue working on their saga now when the autumn rains start coming and the outdoors ain't that appealing anymore...

As for "the Coney's movie". Sure, I was already halfway into planning the whole thing and then suddenly this Simpson's movie appeared from nowhere. I don't know who these people are, but I think they may have read this thread and stolen my whole idea. Damn it!

[rplate]

Hmmm....about Coney JR's walk I would maybe suggest that he needs a bit more 'up and down' movement.../
You also seem to have some kind of back and forth rotation on the body, which is fine, but the rate in which it moves isn't perhaps 'even' which gives him a bit of a 'limpy' feel.
D.

Thanks for your notes, Donnie!
Here is a somewhat improved walk. (And forgive me for the lousy background art...)

a little less limping junior

Well, I can't really call this walk innovative or not even very good. But his limping sickness has impoved at least a little since last time you saw him...
Next time I'll try to give him a little happier style of walk... This one is just to boring and out of character. He's just a little boy, for God's sake!


Meanwhile I have also been thinking about the story that junior is about to stumble into. I have a couple of ideas.
One of them includes a mystic basket filled with eggs that Coney's mother finds on the doorstep one early morning when she's out to check the mailbox... Very mysterious. Who would put twenty eggs outside someone elses house like that? And it's not like it's easter or anything right now...

Little coney JR is fascinated by the eggs. And he is wondering what KIND of eggs they might be. Are they normal hen's eggs? Alligator? Or something else...?

(- No, it's NOT dragon's eggs!!!)

But what are they then...??? And where did they come from?
Hmm, the plot thickens...

[laniangeline]

Your characters are really cute!!