Yaki and Yumi

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Stephen Levinson is a super awesome and talented 14 year old! He took my rough animation that I did (go to the blog below, and watch!) and cleaned it up, and colored it. He did a very fine job! Thank you Stephen! I am sure the animation world should keep their eye on you! Here is Stephen’s website everyone:
www.stephenstudios.com

CLICK HERE TO SEE FAN ART ANIMATION
**animation may only work on macs**

So, on my final day of production here on “Yaki and Yumi”, I thought I would share a special treat. I have dusted off my animation pencil, and flexed my flippin’ fingers to bring you..an animated walk cycle! I haven’t animated in a long long time, but had a blast revisiting the medium! Since there was not a pencil animation camera anywhere to be found (talk about a dying art form) we had to get crafty. Paul brought his digital camera from home, and we taped it to the edge of my desk on an empty compact disk case. We then piled up some paper, a trash can, and the top of a box, and taped a peg bar to it. We shot it in a program called “Frame Thief” and then exported it into “Quicktime”….CRAZY! But…it worked! Thank you to my mentor from Disney, John Ripa for taking the [Read more…]

Here are some more incidental characters for you all to see..some have larger parts in the show than others. How do we do it? I design the character, based on the storyboard, and then Paul “puts it through the Paul filter” by doing a stellar job cleaning and coloring them in Illustrator! One of the things Paul and I have fun doing, is making up stories about each character in the show..we do it mostly for fun, but I think it also adds dimension and makes each character, (no matter how small) unique and interesting.

I know you have all be dying to see what the world of Yaki and Yumi looks like..and here it is! Paul Stec has literally invented a new super secret process of creating background designs just for Yaki and Yumi. I have spoken with both Yaki and Yumi this morning, and they are quite pleased that they get to have this wonderful arena to romp around in. Yaki is particularly interested in getting to finally find some food! Yumi however is looking forward to meditating on some billowy clouds.

Jun Falkenstein, my fabulous director has been working hard at creating the exposure sheets for Yaki and Yumi. What is an “exposure sheet” you ask? I have always called it a guide map of sorts, Jun calls them “blue prints”. They are used to help direct the overseas animators as to what sort of timing/acting to use when they animate the final project.
The voice track has been laid out by a “track reader” so the character’s mouth shapes are placed correctly. Jun also has cut out reduced pieces of my storyboard and done some drawings of her own to help explain what sort of action and expressions are needed.
***If you click on the image, it will appear larger***

Ladies and Gentelmen,
For your supreme viewing pleasure, I bring to you…a tastey sampling of..our PROPS!!
Props are created by pulling out the needed elements from the storyboard and then they are designed and colored.

The genius behind these particular items: Mr. Paul Stec

Here at Frederator, there is a hallway where all of us creators have been asked to hang a piece of artwork related to our shows. The frames are made out of pastel and foamcore…So most of the artists have created something that was drawn with pastels. Well, I hadn’t touched my box of pastels in over 10 years, but here is what I came up with..a fun and loose drawing of my favorite cartoon stars of late, Yaki and Yumi!

I have been having fun animating a walk cycle for Yumi..now if I can only find a machine to shoot it on! In the meantime, here is the expression sheet of our loveable dragon pal..I had BLAST creating it (and so did Yumi) …pun intended.