Storyboarding - Tumblr Posts - Page 2
![Title card reading: [Storyboarding Basics. Brought to you by NU Animation Club, March 23 2023]. There is a chibi drawing of Feeb drawing on a CINTIQ](https://64.media.tumblr.com/1bb4994121212e48c92ee88de5cbe45d/8f6b9c73271b12ac-28/s500x750/efeaa63ce1f755c3643a35f0973a68f1f1057236.png)
a couple snippets from a presentation i gave at school this past week on storyboarding!!
‼️DISCLAIMER: I am still a student and have only worked on student and indie projects! This is just stuff that I personally find helpful as an amateur, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt!
Happy boarding, friends! ✍️💕
~a bunch of questions about storyboarding~
I’ve gotten a slew of questions about storyboarding lately. I hope you don’t mind if I answer in a generalized way instead of replying 1 by 1!
Keep in mind I’m extremely new to storyboarding myself. I am by no means a pro at anything.
“How do I learn storyboarding?”
Here’s some great links to get you started:
http://www.floobynooby.com/comp1.html http://www.floobynooby.com/pdfs/Composition_Storyboards_Brad_Chris.pdf
The best way to learn storyboarding is to study other storyboards. A good way to practice is to watch a good movie (doesn’t HAVE to be animated) and pause every time theres a shot change. Draw a quick, simplified thumbnail of all the shots and study why the compositions look good/add emotional value to whatever’s going on.
You can study all day and nothing is going to teach you faster than drawing, though, so don’t forget to START.
Plan your shots as rough little thumbnails first. Once you’ve figured out the compositional language of your scene, then you can draw it bigger and more detailed/start thinking about the acting. Acting is something I need to get way better at myself.
Show it to friends/other artists so you can get feedback. Don’t board in a vacuum- you really need people to point out why something is confusing/not working.
“Do I need to go to college to be a storyboard artist?”
Nah. I know several people who never went to college and work in the animation/comics/illustration industry. Some people really benefit from the structure of school. If you can afford it and it sounds like a good fit for you, go ahead! School can open some huge doors for you! But if you want to save your money and work hard, that’s also a completely valid option. Lots of young people feel pressured into going to school, but if it’s just not financially feasible for you, tell everyone to take a hike. Student loans are no joke. I’ve noticed that a lot of kids are ushered off to college immediately after graduating high school. This doesn’t give you a lot of time to figure out what you want to study. Don’t go to college to “find yourself”. That’s just an expensive daycare. Really really think about what you want to do, wait until you’re absolutely sure, and then invest in yourself if that’s what you want to do! Personally, I never went to school and I have no regrets about that. It’s different for everyone.
“Am I too old to have a career in art? I’m in my teens and I feel like I didn’t start studying soon enough.”
Here’s how I feel about age limitations in art. TLDR: There are no age restrictions to art. You can jump in any time and if you’re willing to put the work in, you’ll get results. It’s up to you! Also, all teens are babies. You’re still glistening with amniotic juice. You can do anything in the world. Go do it.
“How do I break into the industry?”
This is a really complicated question with a lot of different answers. My own experience involved getting noticed online because of putting my work out there. That’s all I can really give you advice on. Just work on your stuff and make sure it can be seen. DO NOT harass media makers, though. Like, don’t @ tag them all day long trying to beg them for attention/retweets/reblogs. I see a lot of people doing this and it boggles my mind. That’s a quick way to get blocked.
Just make stuff you’re proud of and people will find it. I’ve been on the internet for 13 years or something gross like that. Stuff takes time.
The animation industry might be your ultimate goal, but don’t forget that being an artist usually means you’ll be doing a lot of different types of jobs. I work in illustration, design, sometimes comics, etc. Your personal projects can also become a source of income if you’re willing to put in the work.
Hope this answers some of your questions! Sorry I don’t have more info
by storyboard supervisor Erik Fountain
A few years ago, Erik put together these updated AT storyboard guidelines for new board artists and revisionists.
how do i learn how to storyboard comics
1. set the panels
the first version is the easier but also boring for the eye, the sequence rectangular-square-square and repetitive, try to use diagonal cut, open space and vertical cut to help the movement of the story and action.2. use movement to tell the story
3. Pose, Perspective and Line density
4. Framing and Silhouettebeing the file too big it’s a link format
In my opinion, those are the main rules to make a good storyboard. If you need more help ask awayMOD.gif
Storyboarding Trick?
In storyboards you can’t animate out everything but for a demo reel or a short motion where you want the movements to ‘flow’ better there is a certain trick you can try on programs on Storyboard Pro or Photoshop.
Lets start with this:
This is just a rough board snippet of a guy punching air. It feels kind of choppy. It is made up of 8 unique drawings.
But if you take a drawing of the punching guy and using the select tool you transform skew/translate/rotate/ certain parts of his body you can get this:
And the timeline looks like this:
But I didnt draw any more unique drawings because I just slightly modified the existing 8 unique drawings. Transform an arm slightly and that is enough to fool the brain into bridging that big gap between two animation frames. Even moving the arm slightly down like in the picture below is enough to get this effect.
In Photoshop just use the lasso tool and transform the selection but the vector drawings on SB Pro make this a lot easier.
***For actual production work I would not try this because boards are always scrapped or changed and trying this can lead to frustration down the pipeline during the revision stage.
If you want to try this out just for fun or for your portfolio demo reel I highly suggest trying it out since if done just right they can really make your boards flow better panel to panel. Have fun!
This is the study of a friend of me who is learning and studying storytelling
it is from THE BAD SLEEP WELL from Kurosawa.
thank you very much @benjelter :) for letting me publishing your amazing work
I really like this movie, one of the best crafted Kurosawa’s movies ever. I recommand to watch the movie first to read this study. I hope it can help you to understand what that means to study a movie. I really mean to open a body like a medecine student. :)
Try to find what are the ingredients in the cake, not to describe the cake.
reffer to my study of notorious I did if you want to see more.
so as you can see, just copying the composition is far from enough. that’s an advice from my former head of story on incredibles 2, believe me on this. In general, I m just repeating dumbly all the advices I m hearing at work, of course, I m not pretending I created them ^^
I suggest to do 5 to 10 study like that a year when you start storyboarding. that is also pushing you to watch more movies :) so that’s rad :D I really insist about watching a ton of movies, like 100 to 200 new movies a year, especially old classic stuff :)
I m on letterboxd, I did some cool movies list if you need some cool stuff to start https://letterboxd.com/melodeamon/
here is the conclusion of Ben’s study of the bad sleep well:
——————————————
I’ve tried to dig really deep into the subtext of this scene so there’s a chance that I have interpreted some things differently than the intentions of the director. This scene begins at 1:19. Nishi has just saved Shirai from a hitman only to bring him to the very window that his own father (Furuya) jumped from to commit suicide. He intends to murder Shirai in the same way. He brings Wada with them. The way that I understood this scene was that on the surface it is Nishi’s first big victory against the criminal bosses. The subtext of the scene on viewing it a second time (knowing the ending) is that this may be the moment that it is subtly revealed that Nishi is not brutal or evil enough to destroy this powerful entrenched organization. When faced with the opportunity to murder Shirai, Nishi does not follow through with his plan. He spends effort at the end of the scene justifying this to himself and Wada as if it were part of the plan but I don’t think that he fully believes it. Light Although my line drawings do not do it justice, I think that the lighting is critical for this scene. The flashlight is used as a device to direct our attention and to motivate many of the shots. It seems like the flashlight is also used symbolically to represent the truth. When Shirai is forced to confront the truth about himself and Nishi’s father it is almost as if he is beaten down and destroyed by the light. Like a cockroach he wants to run from the light to hide but wherever he goes Nishi is there to force the light (and the truth) down his throat. Nishi even holds the photo (which is lit by the flashlight) up to his mouth as if force-feeding him the truth. When Nishi tells him the truth, he lights himself up with the flashlight. Even when we see the window from the outside, it is lit by the powerful light. Shadow This one is a little less clear but I believe that shadows are representative of the past in this scene. When Kurosawa wants to avoid having a shadow he can place the flashlight in front of the character and when he wants to have a big shadow he can move it to the side. It seems to me that the placement of shadows was deliberate in this scene. When Shirai’s past is exposed for the first time we can see a big shadow of his head on the wall. When Nishi tells Shirai about his own past as an illegitimate child we can see his shadow on the wall as well. The biggest shadow of all comes when Wada confronts Shirai though. After just talking about everything that happened to Furuya, Wada confronts Shirai. Moments ago Shirai thought that Wada was dead under the same circumstances as Furuya so this is like a ghost of his past confronting him directly. Wada’s shadow on the wall is huge and totally engulfs Shirai. It eventually leads to his collapse onto the ground as the weight of the past becomes too much for him to bear. Staging This is one of the most obvious things in the scene but the way that Nishi is always the highest in the frame and Shirai is being constantly lowered is representative of the way that Nishi is standing strong while diminishing Shirai’s reputation and confidence. Nishi is not lowered until the end of the scene. Although he outwardly seems pleased with the results of the night, I think that internally he is disappointed that he was not able to go through with the murder. Camera movement/rhythm At the beginning of the scene the window is established as being on the very left side of the room. For much of the scene the camera is panning left. Nishi is pursuing Shirai as he runs from Nishi, Wada, and the past. It may be that this overall camera movement shows the progress of Nishi’s goals in addition to Shirai being forced to the window. Moving to the left represents forward progress in Japan much like moving to the right does in the West. When his resolve is strong and he is planning to kill Shirai the camera moves left. After he has given up on murdering Shirai the camera switches directions and moves right. This probably represents Nishi’s growing farther from his goals for the first time in the movie. I also noticed that the camera makes a dramatic turn in the one moment where he is trying to throw Shirai out of the window. This makes us feel very off balance and helps us to feel the drama of the scene by having a unique camera move to accompany it. We actually have the opposite camera turn but much slower after that shot where Nishi walks closer to Shirai. It seems like it’s to look up at Nishi and make him look dominant but maybe since it reverses the previous camera move it could also represent a return to stability. Motivating shots This may not be unique to this film but I found it interesting: I think that every shot in the scene was motivated except for the shots where we are quickly cutting back to a shot that we were already looking at. It seems that the reason this works is that the previous shot is well established in the mind of the audience. The best reason to motivate a shot is that the audience should understand what they are looking at immediately. If the audience already understands what they are seeing because it is fresh in their memory, that works too.
a couple snippets from a presentation i gave at school this past week on storyboarding!!
‼️DISCLAIMER: I am still a student and have only worked on student and indie projects! This is just stuff that I personally find helpful as an amateur, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt!
Happy boarding, friends! ✍️💕
![Title card reading [Storyboarding Techniques: A Sequel to "Storyboarding Basics". Brought to you by NU Animation Club, Nov 2023]. A chibi drawing of Feeb holding a stylus waves in the bottom right corner.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/e302676ef8b68efe7a62a939a15cb663/2dc9b039e896ab3c-74/s500x750/8892af0d22ebc6d436bc179b688b702996e494f0.png)
![Text reads: [Boarding Action Tip: Move characters in Z-space! Beginners have a bad habit of boarding in x and y only. Don't neglect moving in z-space! It can be dynamic and exciting!] A drawing of an axis sits above the text, showing a green arrow pointing up for Y (symbolizing moving up and down), a red arrow pointing right for X (symbolizing moving left and right), and a blue arrow pointing forward (symbolizing moving forward and back). Two examples are shown on the right, depicting Vash from Trigun Stampede drawing his gun. The first one shows him running to the left and drawing his gun, moving in X-space. It is more static and plain. The second one shows him running towards the viewer, drawing his gun when he gets close, moving in Z-space. It is more engaging.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/09bf64ccbeca3c5af22ae8e4e1a7142f/2dc9b039e896ab3c-b7/s500x750/e1bd4ca3916d393d46cddb2f27509370b001eed3.png)
![Text reads: [Boarding Action Tip: Go close, then far. Bring the camera close to the character. Pull back without cutting. Moving the camera allows the viewer to feel like they're fighting, too.] The example shows Finn from Archmage Ascending holding up their magic staff, the camera close to where their fist grips the weapon. The second shot shows that the camera has pulled back to have Finn's whole body in view as they swing their staff downwards, causing an explosion.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/7c1fae6a88b663c437bbc426945b2ffa/2dc9b039e896ab3c-e3/s500x750/567d1ed177ffdf54ef1974b762055082590978df.png)
![Text reads: [Boarding Action Tip: lead the eye. Inevitably, action scenes have many moving parts. Use the composition & camera movement to guide the viewer's eye in the direction of the main motion.] The example shows Juri and Utena from Revolutionary Girl Utena engaging in a sword fight. As they move from the left to the right of the arena, the camera tracks their movement. Another smaller set of boards beside the example shows how the camera's view moves to the right, following the duelists.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/cfa5965c7b8cdd59dbab679a2851eafa/2dc9b039e896ab3c-82/s500x750/1fa2c1a53cd52e943f1716dba83d7873e7dfd016.png)
![Text reads: [Boarding Conversations: Perspective is power. The angle/perspective of the camera implies power dynamics. Low looking up: the depicted character has power over the viewer. High looking down: the depicted character is under the viewer's power.] There are two examples, both showing Makima from Chainsaw Man having a conversation with Denji. The first shows two over-the-shoulder shots, both characters on equal level, and is marked [NEUTRAL]. The second example shows Makima from the perspective of a low-placed camera looking up, so she looms over the viewer; and Denji from the perspective of a high-placed camera looking down, so he cowers under the viewer. The example is marked with a checkmark and the note [stronger sense of power imbalance].](https://64.media.tumblr.com/24826ef8458d024adee7c41c062e77a5/2dc9b039e896ab3c-cc/s500x750/bf2a790ce3a0d707c94f0f676301f00744374374.png)
![Text reads: [Boarding Conversations: 180 Rule. The viewer must stay on the same side of the scene at all times. A way to test this is to make sure the character faces the same side of the screen (left or right) in every shot.] There are two examples, an incorrect one and a correct one, both depicting Dani and Dorian Wytte from Hooky having a conversation. The first example shows Dani on the left facing right, with Dorian on the right facing left. A small top-down diagram below shows that the camera sits on the right side of the twins. In the next shot, Dorian is now on the left facing right, and Dani on the right facing left. The diagram shows the camera has jumped to sit on the left side of the twins; this is incorrect. The correct example starts the same, showing Dani left facing right and Dorian right facing left. In the next shot, Dani is still facing right and Dorian still facing left. The diagrams show that the camera has changed its angle and position, but has remained on the right side of the twins. This is correct.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/9920d846a80cc6c366cfd3a52177342b/2dc9b039e896ab3c-e1/s500x750/76f9c1c2d5e13c9ff6711a46c1e003df59f63536.png)
some storyboarding techniques as a sequel to my storyboarding basics presentation. I focus specifically on tips for action and conversation scenes!
as always, these are general tips and tricks, but rules can always be broken. happy boarding! ✍️✨
The frames of the animatic:
Versus the actual animatic so far:
I’ll make it a bit more snazzy in final drafts of it, but for now this is essientially just the storyboards for this.
I love making animatics and I am challenging myself to make more this year, and actual commit to finishing them! It was hard for a bit there because I was in a bit of a funk when it came to my creative endeavours. But now I’m working on getting myself back on it.
I also have a hadestown animatic from forever ago that I’m planning on revamping. But Until then take my concept art and the occasional wip of this animatic!
These are all my OCs, and the comic with them updates on June 1st!
Here’s an animatic I created this Spring!
I’ll be posting more on my Youtube, so check out my channel for more animatics and painting process in the future! 💚Music: “Aftermath” by Caravan Palace
The animatic I worked on is out!!!
Offspring is a 2D animated horror/comedy show that pokes fun at monster movies, coming of age, and the hero's journey. The series follows an undead teen as he navigates everyday life between becoming a Slasher like his dad or staying human.
You can support the project on INDIEGOGO!
Any little bit helps us get closer to our goal, and reblogs and shares are greatly appreciated!
I'm so excited to see what we can make!
a couple snippets from a presentation i gave at school this past week on storyboarding!!
‼️DISCLAIMER: I am still a student and have only worked on student and indie projects! This is just stuff that I personally find helpful as an amateur, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt!
Happy boarding, friends! ✍️💕
a couple snippets from a presentation i gave at school this past week on storyboarding!!
‼️DISCLAIMER: I am still a student and have only worked on student and indie projects! This is just stuff that I personally find helpful as an amateur, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt!
Happy boarding, friends! ✍️💕
a couple snippets from a presentation i gave at school this past week on storyboarding!!
‼️DISCLAIMER: I am still a student and have only worked on student and indie projects! This is just stuff that I personally find helpful as an amateur, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt!
Happy boarding, friends! ✍️💕