Owls, Cats and 2D - OH MY!

Time for some Blog action. Remember the work in progress “Daughter of God” film? No? Me neither, these days it’s all about “The Owl and the Pussycat”!

This is an almost complete short that we have been working of for the last few months. As you may have guessed its based on the poem of the same name by Edward Lear.

The origin of this project began many years ago, early in my involvement at AWF, with the concept art based on the poem. However at the time nothing came of it and we moved on to other things.

Recently I’ve been learning how to use a new piece of software called “Anime Studio Pro”. We wanted to make a new short film with the software and “The Owl and the Pussycat” seemed perfect.

Now I will talk about the software, because who doesn’t like to talk about computer software! “Anime Studio Pro” is a 2D animation program that includes some 3D components. It allows you to drive character animation with 3D concepts such as skinning an object and modifying bones to animate it. The program is certainty designed for 3D animators moving into 2D, rather then for traditional hand drawn animators who I imagine would hate it. Below is the Owl with his bones visible. His body is made up of flat shapes that the bones control.

Another similarity with 3D programs is that you can create morph targets for parts of the character, such as the mouth. Instead of continuously having to draw different mouth shapes, in “Anime Studio Pro” I create the shapes and expressions only once and then reuse them.

The end result of working with the program looks like a hybrid between 3D & 2D. I like the story book look of it and think it matches the theme of the source material.

The film also has some completely 3D shots that lead into the different story acts, but I won’t talk about those as I didn’t do them.

Below are more stills, hope you like them.