Fantasy comedy 5+ years in the making need rigged characters

[RunandGunPictures]

Ok,

Well, as many times as I've tried to get this project off the ground, I'm for once not going to go formal with the intro. My name is William McDonald. I'm a videographer located in Olympia Washington. A while ago I was doing an internship with a company in Tacoma who is now in LA. During that time I was on a writing staff and produced a script for a web series entitled Dungeons. It was going to be backed and produced, but after the 7th episode was written and recordings for episodes 1-5 finished, they switched corporate heads and the money never materialized. The new guy in charge didn't care for me or my humor and I wish I could say he failed, but no he now works for Miramax... But I digress. I own the rights to the scripts and the audio that was recorded. I'm still in contact with all the voice actors involved and the story boards were finished for 5 of the 7 episodes. The voice actors who wanted to do it then, still want to do it now. I've tried with a friend to animate it in flash and failed 3 years ago. The issue has to do with drawing on a computer (or in my personal case drawing period). I can sculpt fairly well and have a lot of experience in stop motion animation, but trying to do a cartoon... I find extremely difficult, I can animate fine, but I can't draw...

Ok now to the more important bits:
1. We have a script for the entire first season and notes to continue us for two more if for some reason the show become popular.
2. We have story boards for episodes 1-5 and character designs ready to go and are willing to alter them to suite the animator. We want this as easy as possible for everyone involved.
3. We have the audio for episodes 1-5 ready to go. This thing was edited originally with the intent of being a flash video series which was very popular back in 2003 when we first started this. (Although the 1st pilot episode I wrote unsolicited back in 2001).

What I am looking for is one of two things.
1. Someone willing to make us rigged characters to animate, loosely based on our concept art.
2. Or someone willing to actually animate this thing for us...
Now here comes the fun part. Seems everyone here wants something for free and normally I wouldn't go down that road. But after going through freelancer.com paying out $1200 for 1 minute and 30 seconds of animation (5 characters 3 of which actually moved in the script) and not getting anything usable in return after a year of messaging back and forth. Basically I span my wheels and now I'm riding this wonderful rollercoaster of an economy, I'm pretty well financially strained. I honestly want to say, if you make me these characters I'll cough up some cash. But I'm currently on half time at my job. Which means I just have enough to make my bills and have a lot of free time (which is why I'm hoping to animate ).

I realize this doesn't seems like the greatest deal on earth. I will give you credit of course (I can hear the little flag being waved with "woo" right now), if you want to take the characters you create for me and sell them to other people, make your own cartoon, whatever I don't care. I would just want the rights to use them for my project and any promotions attached to said project. I guess at this point you might call this a personal project with delusions of grandeur. I've sat on these scripts so long, in limbo and I'd just like to see them done. As time goes by I see other people basically doing what I've been wanting to do for years. If I wait any longer it'll seem like I'm just a copycat. At this point all I care about is that I get this thing made. If anyone out there is willing to make me some rigged characters at front, 3/4ths, profile, back that would be great. Hell if I could just get the 3 main characters, me and my 3 associates could mod off them. Bellow is our 3 character designs we originally had and a few frames from our story boards. Feel free to make any changes you'd like, perhaps give Bolax the barbarian some shoulder pads or additional crude armor, he's currently dressed in assmail which is in a later episode...

BOLAX
Ass mail, it’s a type of armor for young warriors who aren’t trained to clinch in battle yet. It’s to protect their virtue.

ROSE and GLEOBRYN
(Stare at Bolax)

BOLAX
You know… From the other warriors. When bloodlust fills their hearts and there is no women around they may do things that aren’t…

ROSE
GROSS!

Flash versions of characters


Bolax


Rose


Gleobryn


Radom scenes



Thank you all for taking your time to read this and any help you provide will be greatly appreciated.

These are pieces of dialogue to give you a feel for why the characters look the way they do.

Sniped #1 source Episode 2 good example of Bolax

ROSE
You expect me to believe that your lack of lady companionship is a choice? Next you’re gonna tell me that you’ve cultivated the burnt out balding alcoholic look too.

BOLAX
Why how nice of you to notice! This rugged Adonis physic was sculpted through years of hard drinking and a life time of bar fights.


Sniped #2 source Episode 7 good example of Rose

EXT. TOWN DOCKS - MIDDAY

ROSE
Being here really takes me back... My mother met my father on a dock much like this one. My father was a sailor and my mother, well I'm not sure what she did but bet your bottom dollar that when the sun went down so did she. To the docks every night to work and from what I hear she was a hard worker and a natural at her job.

GLEOBRYN
That explains so much.

Pan to show a group of prostitutes working the peer


Sniped #3 source episode 6 - good example of Gleobryn

GLEOBRYN
By Ray Log can I ever get a break just one not even a big one! Sometimes I think I was put on this Earth just to provide a minor deity some chuckles. I mean come on any shred of dignity that I may have once had was left at the way side before I even made it out of Cleric school but an ass for a face?!! Come on this guy has an ass for a face!

ROSE
You know they say that when you point your finger at someone else there are four pointed right back at you.

GLEOBRYN
You know what you’re right… I'm done! I'm done! Let's just get this over with? Want me to bend over? Will that help? I'm assuming that's where this thing is going I mean Life impaled me long ago...

ORACLE
Enough! Though your outburst was amusing and rather informative we have two more witnesses and this trial is just getting good. Shizor please approach the stand.

Much of the dialogue in the show is quick, these snippets are from portions of the episodes where there are mini-monologues for the characters, usually there are much shorter sentences so don't think the show necessarily drags, although it is dialogue based. Also I realize this isn't in screenplay format on the forum, the script is, but for the life of me I don't know how to properly indent within this tiny edit window.

Signed,
William A. McDonald

[slowtiger]

Now this is nearly the first time I can take a posting in this section really seriously. You obviously have done your homework, and it's a very good idea to post some artwork and script examples.

But I'm sorry, I will not step in. Not just because of the no payment bit, but because of the content. As far as I can see, this show is trying to be a spoof on all those sindbad/xenia type fantasy series, and that just doesn't hold any appeal for me. Monty Python introduced this kind of dialogue in the 70's. I'd rather watch the originals, they are so cheesy already and sometimes self-aware of that. We live in 2009, even "Drawn Together" seems old hat now.

I understand that you want to rescue as much of the finished work as possible, so changing story or dialogue is not an option. If you are stuck with these stereotypes, you should by all means avoid a stereotypical look. The flash characters are stereotypic. I'd recommend to go as far as possible away from that look, style-wise. No "comic realism" faces, no human proportions, no realistic movements. No slick outlines, no flat colours, no gradients, no toon shading.

I could imagine this to be mildly amusing when done in an interesting visual language. What if you do the whole thing in cutout style, and the source material would be all those medieval illustrations and european classical painting, wildly butchered for comical effect? (Think Jib-Jab movements, but antique images.) That would be a unique approach, one that would let the finished series stick out from everything else.

[tonym]

That was a pretty good job of throwing all your cards on the table and explaining what's what with your project.

How long are the episodes, by the way?

[RunandGunPictures]

How long are the episodes, by the way?

They tend to dance between 7min. and 10min, however the first episode was written to be part of a 15 min. online variety show and ran only 3min. 20 seconds. Then it was decided that it would be a independent online series. We have since extended it to 6 min. with new content. The reason there is such a variance in length was that these were written originally for a web release, it wasn't crucial to make them a uniformed length.

If we could just get Anime Studio version of the heroes and rigged that would be perfect. It does not have to be as we drew them above, if anyone was willing to make animation friendly interpretations of them, that would be great. The only real requirements are that Bolax has a diabetic beer belly, Rose has read hair and is attractive and that Gleorbyn is kind of gangly.

Signed,
William A. McDonald

[dueyftw]

Sound interesting. I'm currently working on a 90 second animation that has a dead line of march 15. I only have 30 seconds done.

I can do this but your looking at like only 8 to 12 seconds a day, if that. With no background art its going to take longer.

The an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0G7g7cF_3s

Look at the page link also. So from Roinin's comic to something that moved. What killed it was no voice work.

Getting someone to draw the backgrounds and other characters will help. Like the hookers on the dock. Just that one 6 second shot, is 8 to 12 hours of my time with out it, and hour or so with the art work done.
Also someone doing the Papagayo work would speed things along.

There is a ton of work I'm seeing so far with just what you have here. The three characters don't match art styles. It is as if two different people did them. The female being the best to the clocked guy is the poorest.

For more of my thoughts and a quick test of some animation of your project, contact me at: morgan_c_w (at) hot mail (dot) com
and maybe I can help.

Dale

[dueyftw]

Here is a pic of the girl in AS:



and the file:

http://rapidshare.com/files/209273307/g ... plete.anme

This is just a start. It needs much more work. Rigging and such. About an hour and a half of my time.

Dale

[RunandGunPictures]

There is a ton of work I'm seeing so far with just what you have here. The three characters don't match art styles. It is as if two different people did them. The female being the best to the clocked guy is the poorest.
Dale

Actually they were drawn by me in Flash based on concepts sketched by my business partner. And funny enough, I drew Gleorbyn 1st, Bolax 2nd and Rose 3rd. I got better as I went along and tried different styles of drawing... As I said, those characters are really open to interpretation and don't need to be considered strict guidelines.

Sorry for my delayed response to everyone who has posted. The market just picked up a bit suddenly, I'm now back to full time and I may have some money to invest in about 3 months. Which would be great!
In the mean time, I'm not giving up on this project. I've received a lot of emails from people wanting to be hired or to show me interpretations of the characters. Honestly, I'm impressed and I want to thank everyone thus far.

I haven't made a finally decision yet, but as for your offer to do a sample animation. What would you like me to supply you? A script of a scene along with an audio file and story board to go with it? I could choose one with just the 3 heroes if that makes it easier. Well let me know and thank you for the offer.

Signed,
William A. McDonald

[dueyftw]

William:
Upload everything that you have on the first episode to rapidshare or some similar website. Keep the files under 10megs, I'm on dialup hell. You could start the Papagayo work by yourself. When all the assets done the actual animation doesn't take that long.

I have gotten good at copying drawing into AS. I have a large wacom which helps. But I have a night job where we are short handed. So I'm getting lots of over time. Currently I'm studying Blender, Mandarin and trying to improve my drawing. One of my cars craped out, so I don't have a backup. I'm down to a small truck and the Vett. I need to buy another car. My father just had an operation on his back and lost the use of his left leg. I have a about 45 days vacation and will be back in sunny FL the end of April. Sucks, I wanted to tour Asia. To put it bluntly, I don't have time to put into this if you want it done right away. I'm will to help as much as I can. Realisticly would be 15 to 30 seconds a week if you also work on it.

Dale