Nick Leong Art (he/they) - PROFESSIONAL EDITION

YouTube video by TWRPtube TWRP - Starlight Brigade (feat. Dan Avidan) [Official video]

On this day, 6 years ago, we collaborated with Dan Avidan, @twrpband.bsky.social, and the amazing @doigswift.com to generate this monumentous music video. Starlight Brigade!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Q3i5w6-Ug

I need a proofreader like yesterday

can't*

jfc

Clarity is more important than believability* damn

I mean it's both, it's really both, but I tend to favor clarity cuz they can believe what they don't understand y'know

FUCK yeah! Glad to hear it!

Also damn looking back I was SO picky and technical about my volumes and 3D rotations, no wonder this shot took forever. Experience paid off, I'm definitely faster (and a tad bit sloppier) nowadays while achieving similar effect-- but this is all on 1s! What a slog that was.

It's tricky to see, but if you play the video at half speed it becomes a lot more obvious what clarity I was shooting for and how little (imo) it affects the flow of the action in black and white.

Looking back I'm actually pretty certain that color made it far too noticeable to get away with lol

Learning these things is important to understand why people rely on convention and when you want to have a specific effect that convention is important to understand so you know where it is and isn't needed. But it's always just effect. Squash and stretch isn't required it simply feels a certain way

animation cheat tip:

there's no such thing as cheating just do whatever looks good lol

oh I'm sorry your walk cycle needs a down and an up position? A bouncing ball NEEDS to squash and stretch? Spacing NEEDS to be consistent?

Naw if it looks good it looks good. If it's expressive, even better.

You can see the full rough animation here.

So that's the choice that I made in order to try and preserve that! Anne's run was the primary action, I didn't want the audience to lose focus. And though it didn't pan out, I find it much more interesting to make choices like that just to see what would happen. We're in control of reality here!

Sometimes what reads in roughs won't read as cleanly in color, and I suspect that's what happened here. Nevertheless it's something I think about a lot. Sprig's body is just a smear here, it'll read regardless, but Anne's leg might get lost in the action and I didn't want that to be confusing. (2/3)

This didn't make it to final, but in this shot I did for the opening of Amphibia, I deliberately chose to have Anne's leg break through Sprig's body between frames to maintain the clarity of the run. Is that the right call? It felt right to me! And I've done it in plenty of other places since. (1/3)

animation cheat tip:

Sometimes during really fast movement if a pose reads better when you break the action... just go for it! Clarity is more important than readability and it's cool to remember that we can do that if we want.

example in quote post

thanks Erika :)

Going out of order a bit now, because I haven't posted anything in a while and I was reminded of this one shot I did for Moon Girl. It's not the most complex, or one that took that long─ In fact I'm pretty sure I finished this one in under a day─ but it's one of my all time favs ♥

#animation

Here's one I did for Ingenue episode!
One of the shot was actually done mid-flight when I was visiting my fam.
But hey it helps me getting distracted from my flight anxiety ig lmao.

All in collaborations with:
@projectendo.bsky.social
@karevalgon.bsky.social
@nickleong.ca

#Lackadaisy
#animation

I'm not gonna lie, I struggled so much to think in the creative space rigged animation requires that these shots were really frustrating to me and I didn't show it off anywhere like-- ever! But looking back I'm really happy with what I did, time heals all wounds and all that :)

aye, keeping it simple also kept it from taking longer than a few hours-- it's a good testament of time in not always equaling quality out

Digging way back into the archives a bit back to 2019, I found this animation I did for Manila Luzon's ROBBED music video with the studio Chaos Emporium!

#animation #2danimation

god it's awwwwwwwful! On one of my all time favorite shots too :'(

holy fuck I am so sorry about the shitty audio I have no idea what caused that, it's a silent video on my computer but bluesky has this really loud click going on. Anyone else hearing it?

Going out of order a bit now, because I haven't posted anything in a while and I was reminded of this one shot I did for Moon Girl. It's not the most complex, or one that took that long─ In fact I'm pretty sure I finished this one in under a day─ but it's one of my all time favs ♥

#animation

I saved both of these because I wanted one on each of my two monitors at work, I figured it made for a cool wallpaper 😌

A large black screen with a tiny MK slightly lit by the barest light. The light reveals MK and the surrounding surfaces, but the shadows stretch out beyond the container to engulf the entire screen

The same thing as before, but more detailed and with color and clean and final for the show

Quick share of one of my personal favorite shots from my time boarding on Lego Monkie Kid, a side by side comparison. In this shot MK is alone, trapped in a vase, and I got really excited when I thought up this way of making him feel isolated

#storyboards

Probably my favorite board on Lego Monkie kid, season 3 episode 4.

I like this one because I got launched with minimal direction, mostly just the script and "hey make sure they look like they're talking to each other."

Can you believe most of us boarded in harmony lmao

#storyboard #animatic

Probably my favorite board on Lego Monkie kid, season 3 episode 4.

I like this one because I got launched with minimal direction, mostly just the script and "hey make sure they look like they're talking to each other."

Can you believe most of us boarded in harmony lmao

#storyboard #animatic

just digital hand drawn. Except for the bandanas, which are looped and then pegged to move around (with masking so it's not distracting from the characters during review)

Harmony toon boom!