5 Episode 'tribes' cartoon

[grady1017]

*UPDATE*
This may be too little too late but....
aleXean requested a look at a rig so here it is! (finally!)
I made the pirate character look a little different because, as I mentioned previously, I don't own the rights to the original character...so I made his brother! ha! I DO NOT like his design any where near as much as the original, but the rig is the same!
Anyhoo...here is the public dropbox link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ou8nh5i16w5wn ... extra.anme
Hope you guys like it and hopefully can help ya out in some way!
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Hey everybody!
This is a 5 episode cartoon series I created for my church (where I work as an animator in the children's department). It was created for a 5 day summer camp entitled Summer Xtreme (hence the SX logo at the beginning of each episode!). This year our theme was 'tribes' and each grade was it's own tribe:
Kindergarten: Vikings
1st: Pirates
2nd: Gladiators
3rd: Cowboys
4th:Ninjas
5th:Luchadores
6th:Superheroes
The cartoon's story centers around a character from each of these tribes.
All of the animation was done in AS except for the villain and the 3 robots in episodes 4 & 5. These were done in 3DS MAX. The villain's eye was animated in AS and exported as a texture to the 3D model. All of the backgrounds were created in Photoshop using mostly the pen tool to fill in shapes, and then some art-y looking brushes to add textures. Most everything was composited in AS as well, except for a handful of shots that required a little something special (like an animated flare in 1 or 2 shots in episode 5, that I used After Effects for).
The first episode is admittedly the weakest out of them all! So if you have a short attention span start with episode 2! - although I still recommend 1! It's got a cool intro! (I think so anyways! Ha!) All of the kids cheered when they're tribe came up in the intro! It was really rewarding for me to see them enjoy the cartoon so much!
I was director, editor, and writer (although I did have input from a few others on story). I am also responsible for everything visual (character design, animation, backgrounds, etc...).This is all I worked on for about 2 months! Haha! I even got to do 2 voices (the villain and the ninja). A good friend of mine did the sound effects and added music for me (which includes Avengers soundtrack and copyrighted stuff like that!...He even used some sound effects from the Transformer movie ha!...) and the other voices were done by fellow staff members and 3 volunteers. ( And a great job they did in my opinion! Very talented folks!)
We took inspiration on the visual style and even some of the narrative style (such as the interview cutaways) from the cartoon show 'Total Drama Island'.
You will notice a slump in lip sync quality when you hit episode 5...we were pushing it to get this one done! It was an all-nighter and we were finished exporting it shortly before it was supposed to be played in service, so some sacrifices had to be made!
All in all, it's not perfect, but I'm very proud of what we accomplished here. And although it was a lot of work, I had an absolute BLAST working on it!
Anyhoo! Enough of me blabbing! I hope you enjoy our labor of love!
Starting with episode 1:
https://vimeo.com/67995612
https://vimeo.com/67998044
https://vimeo.com/67998585
https://vimeo.com/67998584
https://vimeo.com/68002827

*If you watch the episodes direct from our Vimeo channel make sure you go in order because they didn't get uploaded in order, and ignore 'July 14 Part 2 Correct,' and 'Episode '3 5'......haha don't ask!

And if you just happen to be interested in that sort of thing, this is the recap from our 5 day summer camp where we showed the cartoons:
https://vimeo.com/69112547
That's me at 00:42 jumpin' around haha!
00:47 is Lance - he did the voice of the Viking.
1:13 is Brock - voice of the Gladiator
....and that's all that made it into the recap! Haha!

[aleXean]

Wow! Animation was great! I watched all five and clearly drew inspiration from shows like Total Drama Island and Symbionic Titans, as well as the voices sounded familiar (as they usually do with those kind of characters).

Definitely very bouncy squash and stretchy but it worked! Kept me interested, good length for each episode. Definite room for even more improvement and fine tuning but who cares, I loved it!


Any chance we can get our hands on either the pirate or viking character rig? For me I use everything Anime Studio has to make it more stable and traditional (using switch layers for fast frame by frame and Bones for squash and stretch) would love to see some!


8.5/10 -Story could have been a bit different but it still worked for what it was!

Animation was awesome, great job!

[Thrashador]

I saw all 5 too. That was way impressive. You say you used 3D, but it was 2D textured enough to look relatively seamless. The story was pretty standard fare, but the overall thing definitely kept my attention.

So I noticed music played a pretty big part in the whole thing... Did you animate first or get the music first?

Thrashador

[jahnocli]

I watched all 5. Great production values -- wouldn't have looked out of place on television. Congratulatiions - you put a lot into this and it shows. Big shout-out to the voice actors too, they did a great job. You should be proud.

[awalker]

Great job. Really impressive. Hope you will make and post more shorts in the future.

[grady1017]

Thanks guys! I'm really glad they were entertaining enough for you to stay interested in all 5, and am glad to hear you liked them!

Any chance we can get our hands on either the pirate or viking character rig?

I technically don't own the rights to any of the characters since everything I create is work-for-hire and belongs to KidPak...but I can make a few quick 'cosmetic' changes and give him to ya as a fresh character What would be the best way to get that to you? How do people usually go about swapping .anme files around here?

So I noticed music played a pretty big part in the whole thing... Did you animate first or get the music first?

I animated everything first, then passed off the finished video (with voices) to a friend of mine named Chris. He added the music and sound fx. He just did a great job at lining good music cues up with the action!

Great production values -- wouldn't have looked out of place on television. Congratulatiions - you put a lot into this and it shows. Big shout-out to the voice actors too, they did a great job. You should be proud.

Thank you so much man!! Means a lot!

[aleXean]

Uploading to public dropbox and posting it here if you want everyone to have it! If not PM me, I'm very interested!

[shift]

Excellent. I literally only spotted one flaw and that a tiny line break in one of the episodes, I think on the pirate, but other than that, this is TV quality stuff. I would watch it every week. A lot went into this. Character design and especially the sound. The sound is flawless.

[jezjones29]

Very professional work. Will you be making more?

[grady1017]

Any chance we can get our hands on either the pirate or viking character rig?

Well, better late than never, right? Ha!
Sorry it took so long but here is a (modified) version of the pirate rig:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ou8nh5i16w5wn ... extra.anme
I changed the look of him a little bit (which doesn't look near as good as the original!...but the rig is the same!
Hope you guys like it and can somehow benefit from it!

this is TV quality stuff. I would watch it every week.

Thanks so much, man! Glad you enjoyed it!!

Will you be making more?

Don't have any plans at the moment with these particular characters, but who knows?? We'll see what happens when we start planning for next year's Summer Xtreme!

[neeters_guy]

Thanks for sharing the file. It's really sophisticated, but practical as well. I like how the shoulders, hips, and knees bones rotate around perfect circles. (I do this on my own rigs, but this is first time I've seen someone use this particular method.) You combine a lot of different techniques: point binding, flex-binding, and bone offset. I'm still studying the arm set up, but it looks really interesting.

Although I'm not a fan of Total Drama Island, you really nailed the style. I recall that your earlier animations were quite different, so clearly you've got the chops to adapt to any style of animation. Anyway, really impressive and substantial work!

[funksmaname]

Dude! I've only watched the first 2 episodes so far - but this is absolutely brilliant! Very well done.
I love the characters/voices (although the viking sort of sounds half irish, half scottish, and no part scandinavian - but *meh*)
The writing is great, the use of the video interview cuts is great, the timing is... great - this is some of the best complete work i've seen in a while.

That screaming spartan REALLY cracked me up.

I also wanted to commend you on the sound design, music etc - the whole thing is incredibly polished and professional.

This also shows how great writing and timing can entertain children and adults alike without the need for gore or swearing as a crutch for poor writing.

[beachbumlarry]

Excellent work, well done!!!

[3deeguy]

I'm late to the party but this was outstanding. I watched the whole thing. I like to say I don't do the 'LOL' thing but when the superhero discovered which part of the robot he was I really laughed. Very well done.
I'm actually curious to see what Kidpak is doing with the series.

[Danimal]

I'm glad this got bumped back up because it was very entertaining and extremely well put together!

I've never used 3D in conjunction with Anime Studio. How did you get the models from 3DS MAX to look drawn like that?