Photoshop cs6 character frames, using the timeline function. Premiere for timing and compositing. Plus traditionally inked backgrounds

Shane was my animation in-between assistant and idea bouncer. We made these characters together and continually develop stories about them together.

Brainstorming self-contained stories for characters I made for my comics. The characters are actors to fit into any story i want them to act out. Script → storyboards. Storyboards become key frames. In-betweens done with Shane's help, especially with him filling in the black shadows and doing still boiling “squiggle” frames.

90% of the process was done in two semesters of school plus a summer. Then I sat on it for like 10 years cuz school made me depressed about making art. The last 10% was done here in NC, adding original music from Aron Speer, and mild cuts/edits.

Backgrounds drawn traditionally first, to fit the characters on them. Drawn with nib pen and ink on 11×14 papers, then scanned.

Characters were drawn in Photoshop, then exported as individual frames. The frames were then one-by-one added on top of the background in Adobe Premiere. It's a pretty low fps, maybe on 3's or 4's most of the time. I like it cuz it imitates the low quality of surveillance cameras. The black and white drawings were toned green/yellow and blurred a bit with a filter over the whole thing in Premiere.

I had a friend in San Francisco put my movie through his VHS machine and re-record it, and I mixed those textures throughout the animation (like the beginning blue screen).

(if you have any frames or backgrounds physically, maybe you can show them?),

I have zines with the concept art, which are all traditionally drawn because I think better on paper.

It's always easiest for me to do storyboards and keyframes - i lose a lot of motivation with in-betweens if they aren't personally amusing me with each drawing. Sketching the motion is fun until it gets to the tedium of inking and filling in 'colors'. So i intentionally work in a sketchier style with boiled lines and lower frame rate so I don't have to match frames exactly.

I will say I started using ToonBoom after Photoshop and the onionskinning is so much better in any other animation software Lol. But I already had all my work in PSDs and a brush I was used to. So i finished the project in Photoshop. Would not recommend to anyone else.

I just wanted to finally have a sustained narrative with my characters that was more than a one page comic. And I am happy now with it! It was mentally taxing at the time thinking about how I had to “market myself ” to apply to animation jobs and try to fit my nasty little self into other people's expectations. But now I just kinda draw whatever I want and people come to me to personally see how I would draw their own personal thing - rather than me having to draw for a big audience expectation.