I've had my eye flare up with chronic conjunctivitis (pink eye.) I've had trouble sleeping. I've felt anxious and stressed.
All because of my concerns about completing Adult Toy Story in a timely manner.
I recently came to the conclusion that despite my best efforts, completing ATS in less than TWO years was simply not going to happen. Now that I recently turned 46-years-old, I can't justify waiting that long to get my work out into the world.
So I decided to pivot.
Once the pivot decision was made, the stress and anxiety subsided. The pivot felt right.
I have a tough dual goal: to get work out into the world and to improve my drawing, animating and storytelling skills.
Accomplishing this goal has been a multi-year challenge. I accept and embrace this challenge. But at the same time, I need to be realistic and smart about it.
After some self-assessment and re-evaluating, I decided that I do not presently have the skills to animate ATS quickly and the lack of progress was depressing me.
I DID realize that I can quickly do an animatic. So it's not full animation but it's not entirely static either.
All I needed was a short story and I found one in the public domain. It's called "The Repairman" by Harry Harrison. I divided this story into 18 episodes and each episode is divided into scenes. Each scene requires drawing, painting, animation, audio and compositing after I've storyboarded the entire episode.
This is still a LOT of work BUT it's going significantly faster than the work on the film.
All because of my concerns about completing Adult Toy Story in a timely manner.
I recently came to the conclusion that despite my best efforts, completing ATS in less than TWO years was simply not going to happen. Now that I recently turned 46-years-old, I can't justify waiting that long to get my work out into the world.
So I decided to pivot.
Once the pivot decision was made, the stress and anxiety subsided. The pivot felt right.
I have a tough dual goal: to get work out into the world and to improve my drawing, animating and storytelling skills.
Accomplishing this goal has been a multi-year challenge. I accept and embrace this challenge. But at the same time, I need to be realistic and smart about it.
After some self-assessment and re-evaluating, I decided that I do not presently have the skills to animate ATS quickly and the lack of progress was depressing me.
I DID realize that I can quickly do an animatic. So it's not full animation but it's not entirely static either.
All I needed was a short story and I found one in the public domain. It's called "The Repairman" by Harry Harrison. I divided this story into 18 episodes and each episode is divided into scenes. Each scene requires drawing, painting, animation, audio and compositing after I've storyboarded the entire episode.
This is still a LOT of work BUT it's going significantly faster than the work on the film.
 |
| Page 1 of Ep.01 storyboard |
I'm calling this switch from the film to the webisodes a "pivot" rather than "quitting" because I'm leaving the film temporarily. I love ATS and WILL complete it. I just can't complete it now so it makes sense to work on something I can complete now. As long as I'm working on any project, I'm improving my skills, learning more about Toon Boom Animate Pro and getting closer to fulfilling my vision as I see it.
Coming soon: a rough version of some of Episode 1!