The first image I'm posting is a page of doodles and notes I made as I was doing research on deers as I tried to get some insight on the main character, Dennis. This a great starting place for any character/show development because it helps bring elements that can spark insights on the characters, rules for the universe, or even help with world building. These sketches just helped me illustrate fun tidbits like: Deer will starve if food runs out because they won't travel into a new domain. I took visual notes in their speed and leaping abilities, and, most importantly, the fact that they poop up to 13x a day as some of the other interesting facts I learned (that would definitely interfere with ones daily routine, right?) These are ideas I would have loved to have weaved into the show had Zach and I developed this short into a series.
Below that image, is one of my very early thumbnail roughs (and animatic, just playing around) to see what is and isn't working about these characters. The great thing about working in Storyboard Pro is you can create in a timeline mode that allows you to easily drop in temp dial/sfx to see how well things are playing before you finally get into actual animatic editing and storyboard clean-up. Below that, is another version of the storyboard that is closer to the final piece. I believe you can still see the final WOODSTUMP short that Zach and I created at nick.com
I post these here more as a dumping ground for me so I don't lose these files, more than a "this is how to do it" blog. Also, it's fun to share the process with those who might not know the stages animation can sometimes go through on the way to a final produced piece.
Here's one of the many different passes above...
and here's one closer to the final board
