An Uncle Sam Cartoon: Pre-production
This is a bare bones representation of pre-production of an animated cartoon short about Uncle Sam losing the love of his life, liberty. Due to her departure, Uncle Sam is no longer able to afford their single room house causing him to call his last friend George Washington for a place to stay.
Characters:
I will be showcasing the two of the three main characters here. I will be showing Uncle Sam and George Washington since they are the two characters that will be animated.
Uncle Sam:
Uncle Sam is no Spring chicken, he's over 200 years old. He's a self centered American who lacks basic compassion for his fellow human beings. He's a chain smoking, gambling, alcoholic S.O.B. He is very neurotic and has energy that bounces off the wall, even with his old age.
George Washington:
George Washington is a very serious personality. He is very analytical and keeps composure for the most part. He is a very caring person even if his serious nature puts some people off. He almost seems like he's bored of life and everything around him. He is over 200 years old also and lives all alone.
Environment Model Sheets:
There are two locations in this animated cartoon short. One being the Single room home of Uncle Sam and liberty. While the second is George Washingtons Mount Vernon banquet room. The rooms were designed to fit the characters personality. Both characters interact with their respected environment all while communicated through a phone call between the two.
Uncle Sam/Liberty's single room home:
Their single room home was designed with the mind set that its run down and is almost stuck in the 1950's. The center piece of the room is their Murphy bed. The pictures shown are just the north/east side of the room and the south/west side of the room. These are used when making the storyboard and final layout backgrounds.
This next picture is an establishing shot for Uncle Sam and Liberty's single room home. Notice the warp perspective, with a camera pan, this scene comes to life.
George Washington's Mount Vernon:
For George Washington's environment, i used reference pictures of his Mount Vernon estates banquet room. I simplified the shapes for a more square fell to match the characters personality and design. Once again these are North/east side of the room and south/west side of the room.
Once again, this next picture is background/panel from the storyboard. It once again is warped perspective, but there is also a warped three point perspective going on. With a camera truck and pan, this scene will come to life.
Storyboard Animatic:
This video is the storyboard in an animatic. These panels are used to figure out the timing of the storyboard. This storyboard also has the first story key frames set. From here, the panels are drawn to production for layout and more key frames will be added.
Final Render Test:
This next video will show case a final render test. The scene is from the storyboard above. The colors are not final for the background and the character was drawn before the finalized model sheets. This is strictly here to show the technic that will be used to ink the final animations.
The next video simply shows the final render scene before ink and paint. Inked and painted in photoshop then is composited in after effects.
Final Thoughts:
This project is here to show all the pre-production that went into An Uncle Sam Cartoon: Losing Liberty. But I also want to take some time to show case the set up that is used to produce the work you see. All animation and concept drawings are all done traditionally on paper. Animation is done with an acme punched peg bar and i keep the pegs on the bottom (let gravity work when flipping through pages). Final rendering will be complete in photoshop. I choose to animate this project on paper because paper is what got me into animation in the first place. I know how to operate toon boom harmony and i must say, after this project, i will be animating all digitally on toon boom. But for now, here is my drawing desk (notice the wall of references in the back), and also will show the photography set up i have for capturing the animation and concept art.
Lastly, here is a picture of my little helper. Shes always by my side while drawing all this madness.
