animatic - second pass

I finally figured out the formula to create a custom brush in TV Paint that looks like the MS Paint pencil. What was missing before was 30% step. I chose this line thickness for now, but I'm still unsure about it. I might decide to use a smaller line for items in the background, or keep the same line thickness throughout. I'm leaning more towards keeping the same line thickness throughout.
Using this new brush, I redrew each image from my storyboard and added more frames in between to specify the timing of the movements better.

This time I drew Lorraine as she appears in my character design instead of as a stick figure, and honestly, it's just not as funny. The emotions are a lot less raw than when there were no details in the face. I will have to get used to drawing Lorraine in a bunch of poses and emotions.

Feedback from class and from Jean

• first shot: add a second of both girls sitting together before cut
• first ladybug: add a pause between ladybug flying out and Lorraine's reaction, give her time to process
• when Lorraine is looking in the mirror and leaning in, add 12-24 frames before she opens her mouth. Maybe have her open her mouth, see a bug/bugs, close mouth, pause, open again (show her thinking)
• Lorraine's bedroom: make the bed smaller in frame
• scene of Lorraine sleeping: everyone in the class said to make the room MORE red. Like someone said to make the screen entirely red and then have Lorraine's eyes forcibly open like in cartoons when a character is in the dark and only their eyes appear.
• hold the shot of the front of Lorraine's house a bit longer, maybe shorten the frame right before?
• shorten the run across the street, only needs to be like 2 seconds
• when Lorraine smiles, hold that image 1-2 seconds longer
• hold black screen 1-2 seconds longer too, need to show passage of time more clearly...
• last scene: while Lorraine is dancing, cut back and forth between shots of garden pests being eaten. also, show the plants growing up from the dirt.
• exaggerate the plants in front of Lorraine's house (windowsill + yard), both in the before and after. nobody caught that the plants on her windowsill were dead before and blooming after. when they are dead, maybe have flies or stink lines or something in the "before" and then a heavenly glow in the "after". color will help with this.
• when the ladybug eats the aphid, the flower they are on can grow immediately to show the beneficence of the ladybug

I also want to try cutting out Lorraine's friend at the beginning! It might save me a few seconds and make exposition simpler to just introduce Lorraine alone.

Style tests

Since I got my custom brush pretty good, I wanted to test out my visual treatment. I started with some color tests for the park scene. The way I picked the colors was super random and not great but it was an okay place to start. I picked the one I liked best and drew out the background as it appears in my animatic, but with more detail.

I made some slight edits in like, the horizon line and the placement of the trees and whatever. I don't love this drawing but again it's a helpful start.

The next steps for this specific background are:
1. thumbnailing different layouts
2. refined color tests
3. redrawing, trying out different line thicknesses