Ollie's Final Performance

Tonight marks the night that I finished official animation on one of my characters. My old man, Ollie, has reached his final pose and so I can call him basically finished! I still have to composite, etc. him and he has two other scenes that he's in, but he's a non-moving tiny background element. So yes, primary animation is finished on the ol' guy! I have 4 scenes left--3 involve my other character Pilot(SUPER fun scenes! I've been looking forward to animating these scenes in particular since summer!) and 1 scene involves a background with a pan(all After Effects so I just have to draw the background). As Corky St. Clair(Christopher Guest's character) said in Waiting for Guffman, "The pieces, as Dr. Holmes would say to Watson, are coming together sir."(This quote has been stuck in my head for the past week! Yet I can't find the actual scene anywhere online! YouTube has failed me....)

Just quickly thinking about Ollie--here's a good piece of advice for anybody reading this: Never give your characters goggles, poofy mustaches/eyebrows, or poofy coat collars. They might look cool, but they're one huge pain to animate--granted I'm thrilled I stuck with it and animated every last goggle drawing in perspective(the results work just fine), but I have no intention of doing that again on any future films. And here's a quick photo-booth image of a drawing of Ollie from his last scene:

The goggles.....alkdjfaporu@#I($W....

However, this drawing and the handful before it will never make it into the final film. I had to cut a few seconds off and this drawing, despite being a favorite of mine, had to go. It was even cut before I had a chance to really clean him up too.

MORE GOGGLES! DO NOT WANT!@#%$*@!
Here's the very first drawing of the scene(Scene number 22 to be specific). Cleaned up and ready to go. I wonder what he's up to??? Hmmmm. This one will be in the final product. Anyhow, tomorrow I plan on roughing in a big action bit with my cat, Pilot, and by the weekend start my favorite Pilot acting scene.

P.S. James Baxter interview on AnimationPodcast.com...can't wait for the next part, incredibly inspiring though now I don't want to see a frame of my own animation that I've finished. Oh well, I still have 3 scenes that can really benefit from what James Baxter talks about.