Cody's Final Animation Project

After months of slaving at Smiley Guy Studios, here is what Cody has to show for it - a really great short!

Cody: That's a Wrap!

It's hard to believe it's my last day at Smiley Guys. Four months went by so fast.

I ended up finishing my animated short "Magic Pen", and although it didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped I feel like I've learned a lot in the process.  Starting with the concept, writing a script and storyboarding before heading into animation was a good way to understand how an animation can go from an idea to a finished product.  At each phase there was always someone willing to explain things to me and to help me get started with what I was doing.  Everyone had some very good advice to share and ways of improving upon what I was trying to accomplish and I'd like to thank everyone for all the help with my project. 

It was an awesome experience to be able to work with such talented people and a privilege to have done my placement here. Here's a picture of what my animation started as and a picture from the finished animation.

Original Concepts

Final Designs

Cody Approaching the Finish Line...

Over the past couple of weeks I've begun to animate and I've got my first few shots done.
Initially I had a hard time figuring out where things go and what things do in Flash.
Nothing seemed to want to do what I thought it was going to, but the more time I spend in the program the more it's starting to make more sense to me.

Now that Iv'e straightened out some of the issues I was having I think I could speed up my process.
There's still a lot of work to do but I look forward to continuing and finishing on schedule.

Here's a frame from the opening scene.

Cody's Ready to Animate!

This week at Smiley Guy Studios I worked on refining my animatic and finalizing my character rigs.
I've also made revisions to my backgrounds and props and I think I have all the assets I need.
Now that things are set I believe I'm ready to begin animating.

Here's a picture from the title sequence.

Cody Trims the Fat

I've been continuing to work on my animated short and things are still progressing somewhat as planned. All the dialogue I intend on using has been chosen and is pretty much in place. I've cut the time of the show down from over 3 minutes to less than 2 so the animatic I've made needs a lot of tweaking. I've also added slight head turns and different mouth positions to my flash characters to make them look less flat.

A Cody Update

Here’s a picture of one of the storyboard panels

Hello again. Into month 2 at Smiley Guy Studios and things continue to go well. I just finished storyboarding for my animated short, which (on some good advice) I decided to make in Flash. I’ve received a lot of good advice for setting up my scene and characters and general tips for using Flash, so I’m excited to move on to making the animatic. The script has been recorded and the lines are mostly chopped up so I can start timing everything out soon.

Cody Brown - New Intern in Town

Hello there. I’ve been at Smiley Guy Studios for a couple of weeks now and thus far it has surpassed all of my expectations. From my first day everyone has been very welcoming and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to work with such talented and creative people.

So far I’ve come up with a concept for an animated short and done some work for a couple of different web series. I just finished getting some feedback on my script, which was very constructive and helpful, and I’m exited to strengthen the story. I’m eager to move forward with the project and continue making it better. Here’s a colored sketch I made of what the characters might end up looking like.