Gildedguy vs Kamise is Out in the Wild!

Here’s a blog post about the fastest production I’ve had in awhile! I’ll be talking about the approach that was taken, some new techniques, and how it all went. Join me for this quick dive into the past 2-3 months of speed-animating.

The Setup

As a quick refresher, the ending of Story #9 setup the currently ongoing animation event I titled “DUELS! Hosted by Gildedguy”. It is an open-invitation to artists and writers to submit creative works that can be loosely tied to Gildedguy’s castle and wider world of Cier. It’s been a fun way to connect with my community, while also encouraging people to rapidly produce a project without fear of making something “perfect”. The past round of submissions had 3 months total to make something, and we had 16 out of 161 people reach the finish line.

“Gildedguy vs Kamise” was my own submission to this event, and although it was not fully polished, the animation, layouts, and story was premiered in a finished-enough state.

With Round 1 complete, we’re currently heading toward the Round 2 milestone, which has a deadline of July 25th.

I’ve grown accustomed to doing short projects as a good break from big productions.

The Idea & Inspiration

This particular project was spawned from the “for fun, speedy” premise of the DUELS! event, but also my own desire to let loose once again. My earlier animations were goofier in nature, and aimed for “capturing a feeling” over deeper plots & ideas. I wanted to return to those days, years ago, when all I wanted to animate was feelings. I was living with my parents, still going to a day job but fiercely passionate about art as an escape. It felt like all I did was sleep, go to work, eat, and work again (draw). So stuff like “Rhythm & Rockets”, “Vs. Fry”, and “Vs Jade” were more so a means for me to get my day dreams out of my system.

After working on several serious anims, that desire was burning in me again.

A feel good animation needed to be paired with a matching feel good song, which Almost Monday’s “sun keeps on shining” was perfect for. It was also sufficiently short for me to be able to animate the 3-4 minutes of footage for.

The Approach

Here’s a rough timeline of the production, which was mostly streamed and recorded live on Twitch. I setup a spreadsheet and divided the pipeline into multiple phases, while assigning each phase a progress amount (in percent %).

Then I tracked how much progress I made on each phase throughout the next 2 months.

Other than help with some 2D backgrounds and music, I solo-animated the whole project. It felt good to be able to work leanly and make quick “in the moment” decisions. This supported the overall theme of fun and flow, and we would not have had some of the included gags if not for this approach.

Not to say there weren’t ambitious scenes – Kamise’s fly down and final rotating brawl come to mind. In a totally different production, these scenes alone could have taken entire months to finish. I could have 3D modelled the rocks for greater perspective accuracy, or added even more keyframes to the animation for that extra “wow” factor.

But when you’re working quickly, you pick the first approach that comes to mind – “just make it work”.

And it does work! The Theory of ETA proves to be true once again.

We tend to spend as much time on a task as the deadline affords us.

Reject Full-body – Return to Stick

“Full-body” is a community-specific term that refers to characters that are not animated in stick-figure form. That is, the characters are constructed more solidly with clear lines of perspective, volume and usually shading.

The default mode for animation is to animate in “full-body”, but in the stick community, it’s the opposite. Beginners to experts work with, and push stick-figures to their animated limits with great success.

I too started out with sticks, but eventually “made the jump” over to full-body after many years. So I’m now the “opposite of the opposite” by sticking to full-body, which returns me back to appearing default. This kinda explains my style’s broader appeal to indie animation than the niche of pure stick-figures.

Heck, even my first speed battle was technically non-stick.

But it was time to return to my roots, because stick figures are literally the fastest way to animate a character.

And it went – pretty well! It’s not amazing choreography or anything, but the final look of 2D stick fights works quite well once all the compositing and 3D backgrounds are put in. There was a comfortable blend between the full-body and stick-figure shots.

Small Motion Creates a Big Effect

Although I employed a a multitude of comfortable and familiar techniques for this one (tight deadlines restrict experimentation), I did learn one new technique. Or rather, technology.

It was my goal to use 3D backgrounds to save time from the beginning, but my previous implementations often suffered from a “moonwalk” effect. This uncanny “floaty-ness” occurs when superimposing 2D characters on top of realistic footage. It occurs since the scene data between the 2D world and 3D world are not in sync.

Live-action productions solve this with sophisticated camera-tracking data that is thrown into the calculation when it comes time to combine 2D and 3D. It’s crucial for this data to be perfectly precise, because our eyes can sense misalignment and jitter instinctively.

I had little way to address this moonwalk effect in my previous uses of 3D backgrounds – it’s often a cost I’m willing to bear for the features of fully 3D environments (free camera movement, reusable assets, dynamic lighting).

But upon working on the 3D for VS Kamise, I recalled a handy plugin that Shuriken developed a few years ago for Alan Becker productions. It mapped the movements of Adobe Animate’s 2D VCam into Blender camera movement. It would be perfect for a 2D stick fight here in the Gilded Castle!

And I could also use it for non-stick fight scenes, which are usually side-scrolling in nature. I could nest the subtle 2D VCam movements within a parent of 3D camera blender movement, which allows for synching subtlety while also unlocking wider sweeps or rotations in 3D space.

All this to say: Subtle 2D camera movements can now be captured in 3D to look more realistic. It’s an effect I have not fully mastered, but it certainly helps ground the animation if I am to use 3D more.

BY THE WAY the 3D backgrounds (and several 2D backgrounds) are available for free here.

Why did I pick Kamise?

In line with the theme of the animation, I went with vibes. Kamise is a cool lookin stick, not overly serious, but not obnoxiously silly. He’s not overpowered, but he’s fast. This applies to both the character, and his creator – Chorange is not afraid to just put out stuff. He ships. (In the Steve Jobs “Real artists ship” way, not the weird fandom ship way…). I greatly respect artists who do this, as it demonstrates a courageous, creative spirit, which is something I need to be reminded of.

Chorange even finished his side of the duel before I did, and it still was a substantial duration of animation compared to the many WIPS, short clips, and animatics one commonly sees on the internet.

The story could have easily been one of Kamise teaching Gildedguy how to let loose, instead of the other way around. Regardless of that, the ending would have been the same: Both artists chilling under the sun after a successful show.

Conclusion

A lightning fast production, but did it hit the artistic goals I had in mind? Well, artistically I shot for a “feel good” vibe, which I believe was achieved. This was a project without complexities, and that was by design. It’s not ground-breaking stuff, but simple and pure things are valuable.

This strange thing is though, is that it has left me wanting more depth. I have ideas on how I might want to shoot for something deeper, more mysterious, and new. Or perhaps I’ll remain at the surface, where things are easygoing, sunny and simple.

Or maybe its a false dichotomy, and an animation should have as much of both as possible. Things are a little “up in the air” at the moment, so I’m going to need more time to really hone down and figure it out before the Round 2 premiere (July 25).

Wish me (and the other participants) good luck!

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