Scenario for a fanmade transformers g1 episode

Suggestion for the title:
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The Fist of The Huffer

Basic idea:
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Huffer carries the Matrix of leadarship for a day.
(And it results in some mighty fantastic combat scenes as Huffer gains incredible power and increases in size.)

Motivation:
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Those two times Huffer had his noble moments in G1 series ("Divide and Conqer" (bravely leads Autobots when Optimus was down), and "Heavy Metal War" (towed Oprimuses trailer when he was damaged)). Also the motivations are: the fact that he is a truck (just like Optimus), and his interesting arms - though they are funny-looking his arms gave me an idea - they are chromed - mirror-like (can reflect laser light), and seem crude and strong (how does a combat scene when he is crushing Decepticon limbs with a grip of his hand, and smashing their plating with a punch of his fist, sound?).





SCENARIO:
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Story summarized in one sentence:
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Very badly damaged Optimus Prime surrounded by some Decepticons entrusted The Matrix of leadership to the only one present at the time - non other than the humble Autobot Huffer - to carry it to the safety of the Autobot base.

Description of the story in three sentences:
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Emergency call from a nuclear waste disposal convoy on a remote mountain road brought Autobots to the scene of a near catastrophy, not much far from the place where Megatron sent Starscream to help Reflector test his optics - but instead he modified it into a dangerous weapon meant against Megatron.

Two trucks were needed to replace the unoperable two destroyed in the incident - Optimus and Huffer carried away the radioactive material to the disposal location, but Starscream intercepted them and used Reflectors' modified optics for attack which drained Reflectors' energy rendering him inoperable, and really heavily damaged Optimus in explosion in a cave where he and Huffer (both electronically disabled (by radiation) to radio for help) tried to shield the radioactive material; leaving Optimus no choice but to entrust the Matrix of leadership to Huffer to guard it and carry it to the safety of the Autobot base - which he succeded after an amazing battle against the reinforced Decepticons lead by Megatron, when Huffer saw no other solution but to use the Matrix on himself.

Persued by some Decepticons, having reached the base Huffer was able to contact the others who then divided into two teams: to help Optimus, and to help Huffer and a few left in the base to defend it - which they succeded both, so at the end overwhelmed by the pressure of responsibility Huffer returned the Matrix to Optimus where it belongs.

(This episode takes place somewhere between the last episode of season two and Transformers the Movie.)

Transformation riddle

Here's something for ya, nonrelated to the main thing on this blog:

What car model* this Autobot I invented** transforms into?



* my favourite car - best design ever if you ask me
(seen it first time on a bubble gum picture when I was 11 or so, and like it ever since (seen some on the street too; hope to own one sometime in the future :) ))
** some time ago (maybe two years; not sure)

JOINING THE CREW

OK, people, THIS IS IT -- let's see whom can this thing count on -- use commenting to add yourself to the list.

This is where You decide whether you'll do something special in your life or you're gonna be just another useless fateless 'flesh-creature'.

Small exercise project

Of course - when we all work (draw frames) on one collective animation project - each of us would certainly draw it somewhat differently than the other fellow -- so my plan is to first have a small exercise project NON-RELATED to transformers - to see just how big those differences are.

The concept of it should exactly count on that erratic effect (rather than suffering from it) - some wacky theme, story placed in some weird imaginary world that would correspond to that wacky way of making it -- something easy - say 3 minutes long cRaZy cartoon at 12 frames per second with just 100 of us working on it (that's less than 22 images each) - without much effort nor precision - just doodleing it however, sketching it however, outlining it however, painting it however, shading it however, making whatever backrounds... just to make it as quickly as possible while going through all the phases.

So what would you like? :D Come on - use your imagination - let's see what you can come up with - something completely laughable (both by scenario and technically), easy and fun to do!
(use commenting to leave your suggestions (as you know - no registration is required))

A bit of practice

Bought a new monitor (my first LCD monitor by the way), so I've been checking out how it feels like working on it (jumping straight from my own old 15" CRT to this brand new 19" TFT - the level of detail observed on that larger surface, and the warmth of the color were impressive; also it gave me an excuse to play a bit more with my tablet (cheap Genius one - I guess there's no need for more because I suspect the issue about all the tablets is precession (and the limitations are basically in us humans - in our hands and eyes) - and for that you MUST zoom in on the picture while outlining)).

So - here it is - a bit of Transformers fan art made by me - fresh out!


You see the phases, and then the picture with ofsetted layers of the phases so there are all shown in one picture.
You can really feel how actually important the shading phase is.

Resolution for all of them is 800x600 pixels, so you might want to click on them to view the full version.

I'm thinking to make 800x600 a standard resolution for the cartoon frames, as it's just above the PAL resolution (768x576 pix.), so it capacitates PAL quality of the picture... and also it's a nice round number...
Of course the bigger the picture the greater the quality, but then it also takes more memory (and when you multiply it with the number of frames -- you talking gigabytes), so this is quite optimal.

Example for phases of work

SO, finaly snatched some time to post these!
All done on my PPC (using Pocket Artist).
This is an example of how the process I described in the VERY IMPORTANT TEXT RIGHT BELOW THERE (make sure you read it, please).
Just as I listed the phases:

1. blue doodle



2. gray sketch




3. black outlining



4. coloring



5. shading



6. placing surroundings

That's the final image in PAL resolution (768x576).

Easy!
(also we can make a game of 'find the errors' out of it q:D )

Planing

IT REALLY RELIES ON SHEER NUMBERS ALONE!
With hundreds or even thousands of people working on it at the same time I really feel the pity for the enemy called "work time"! It could be really munched-up in a matter of hours!

Now - in order to have a huge number of people working on a fan-based project, there has to be a huge online fan-base for the thing - and what has a greater fan-base than the very thing that inspired me for all of this in the first place - TRANSFORMERS! (Generation 1 to be precise.) I mean - in every country there are literally thousands of TRANSFORMERS fans!

Now imagine this:

20 minute cartoon

done at 12 frames per second

=14,400 frames

and now the best part: if there is only miserly 500 of us - then EACH OF US DOES ONLY 29 PICTURES (FRAMES) -PIECE OF CAKE!!!
(also have in mind that most frames don't require you to draw anything new - just move the existing elements)

all frames shown in a table consisting of120x120 (that's exactly 14,400) fields

each field flagged with one of five colors representing status for that frame e.g.:
(White = Untouched)
(Green = Unfinished)
(Yellow = Reserved)
(Red = Work in progress)
(Blue = Finished!)

each field leads to the download/upload page for that frame (frame page)

on those pages there are 6 fields (for 6 phases of work as listed below*) - each containing thumbnails for .PSD (PhotoShop Document) files which are the changed, saved and uploaded actual frames (add-only) - not all fields have to be used (maybe you do all the phases so you upload only the finished frame - but maybe it's better to specialize)

* phases of work (actually layers in the .PSD file) are:
1. blue doodle (just stick men, objects and surroundings drawn as quickly as possible to show how objects move (animation notes), and simply labeled to know what is what)
2. gray sketch (this phase is necessary because transformers contain a lot of geometry - additional lines are needed, errors in drawing are unavoidable etc.)
3. black outlining (one just pays attention to what's correct in the gray sketch and puts lines there)
4. coloring (using pencil tool in PhotoShop, sampling colors from the common resource materials, and using '[' and ']' keys to change the size of pencil tool, painting on the layer placed below outline layer)
5. shading (using burn tool in PhotoShop... surely you noticed how there are darker parts on the colored surfaces in cartoons)
6. placing surroundings (backgrounds and other static elements from the common resources)

common resources (as already mentioned) contain reference pictures (from the original cartoon series), and in the other group all the stuff needed for our animation (pencils (you copy them to your PhotoShop so we all draw outlines the same), backgrounds and other static elements , palettes (usually simple colored characters) from which you sample colors when coloring etc. etc. etc. users could upload into common resources what they draw if they think that wold be useful elsewhere)

table fields (representing frames) would be grouped into scenes (multitude of frames grouped), all frame pages for frames from the group show same explanation text for what happens there

Of course detailed scenario would be made and reviewed before we get to work - each scene timed and frame-counted.
That's the visual part. Sound comes later.

Listen up everybody!

This blog revolves around a simple single basic idea:
The more people works on an animation the faster it will be done!

Organizing fan-based (or even original concept) cartoon animation projects based on a principle that the more people synergizes around it the faster it will be done.

That could be brought to such a level that literally hundreds OR EVEN THOUSANDS of people around the whole world globe where ever they might be work together on a single project via internet. The basic idea was to use it on existing animated characters to create fan made cartoons - just for fun. I mean - we can all dream about making one - but can we do it each on his/her own - no way. You must have a whole company with payed workers (usually not much because of costs) and all (hard to do, so you're left with just a faint forgotten dream, in real life working some dumb job day-to-day) - but this way - every one does his/her small tinzie-winzie share and gets his/her name in the credits - that's it. Just for fun - it doesn't have to be precise or professional looking - just a load of fun! Where it goes from there is something that depends on our collective decision. One possibility which comes to mind is applicating it for animation competitions... Whatever - that's not the point - THE POINT IS MAKING SOMETHING SPECIAL IN YOUR LIFE JUST FOR THE LOVE OF IT.

I guess there are similar sites around here on these wide acres of the Internet, and that my idea is not original (heck - I bet there is a whole program included in Macromedia's (Adobe's...) Flash comited exactly to this), but - whatever - this is my attempt. (By the way: post similar sites and related stuff to the comment section please.)

OK, more than enough for the first post. :)