Animation: Outlines and joints on your character in Illustrator.

I now have my character all coloured and almost ready to take over to After Effects but one of the problems I am going to have to deal with is where the joints of my character overlap. Let’s take an arm joint as an example. First I start off making a copy of the upper arm layer as this has a black line over lapping the lower arm as you can see below.

Next I move one of the Upper arm layers below the Lower arm. This will be the outline of the Upper arm. I’ve made it all black in the illustration below.

Finally on the Upper Arm  layer which is above the Lower Arm Layer I use the paint bucket tool with the no colour fill option to get rid of the outline around the arm. Now I can see through to the Upper Arm layer below.

Of course you can deal with the whole problem by designing your character in Illustrator from scratch. We shall do that at a later date. Tomorrow I shall be looking at mouth shapes and eye blinks.

New Jim and Heinz London premiere.

Jim and Heinz encounter a small setback in 'Critical Error=True'

The new Jim and Heinz film ‘Critical Error=True’ finally gets its UK Premiere tomorrow at Exploding Cinema‘s end-of-March show at the Cross Kings (in Kings Cross).

The film, which details Heinz’s attempt to track some lost data through the Internet, has been two years in the making and includes the results of extensive research into data storage by director Ben Slotover. This is the first Jim and Heinz to be shot on location in Budapest and parts of rural Hungary, including an abandoned soviet-era radar station which was guarded only by a single, listless, chained-up dog.

There will be a short Q&A with Ben Slotover following the film. Come early to guarantee a seat!

EXPLODING CINEMA
THE CROSS KINGS
126 York Way, Kings Cross,
London, N1 0AX,
Map:
http://www.thecrosskings.co.uk/map.html

Doors 8pm
Show 8:30-2am Just £5 entry!
‘Critical Error=True’ approx. 9pm

Tube & Rail: Kings Cross,

Buses: 91, 73, 205, 214, 63, 71, 10, 30, 45, 46, 73, 259, 390, 476

Live music from Bath based post punk/pop combo HYSTERICAL INJURY