It’s May!
2026 has been an interesting year that’s keeping me busy. So busy, I don’t know what to focus on. I haven't had any motivation to work on the Elusive Green Elephant. Luckily, motivation isn’t required to finish anything, but discipline is, and that’s what I’m lacking now.
As such, instead of forcing it, I’m going to work on a different, shorter project. I’m calling it Princess Charming, in honor of an Epic Fantasy I started and never finished when I was 10. Long story short, dragons routinely kidnapped Princesses across the land, and the princes routinely saved them. The main character, Princess Trina, had an incompetent prince, and she had to save herself as well as him. It was very much the product of 90s girl power and random anime influence.
This short is only one minute long, keeps the dragon attack, and while Princess Trina is still very capable, so is the prince. There’s more team work and less gendered shenanigans. This project was fully boarded and even has a fully timed animatic (It feels more like rough animation, actually). Aside from wanting to animate while being uninspired with the Elusive Green Elephant, I found some guides on making an animated short by Simply Robotix. I want to practice some structure I usually miss.
I got the Production Essentials: Animated Short Toolkit. It’s 3 PDFs.
1) Animated Short Production Starter Kit: helps you organize your idea in a way that’s easy to share to increase your odds of getting funding.
2) Pitch Your Project One-Page Template: helps your idea in a way that's easy to share to increase your odds of getting funding.
3) Producting Meeting Agenda Template Pack: helps you hold productive team meetings. I use this one the least as I’m currently working alone.
Right now, I’m working on the logline and refining the character turnarounds. How’s this for a logline: “When a dragon snatches a headstrong princess from the dining table, things take a turn for the worse —for the dragon”. I’m still workshopping it.
I need 3 turnarounds, the princess, the prince, and the dragon. When I’m done, I’ll update my website.
I’m also going to make some style frames (as suggested in the Production starter kit!) and draw the backgrounds I need. All of that will also get a post, as I rarely do them, but those steps really do make the process smoother.
When I start animating, I plan to do it all in Moho Animation. I originally planned to use TvPaint, but that was back in 2022, before I had Moho. My “animatic” really is more of a roughly animated piece, so it’d be good to practice Moho to push and polish the animation.
Simply Robotix’s kit also has tips on making timelines. I’ll try plotting something out soon. At the moment, I think the character sheets, backgrounds, and style frames can be done by the end of July.
Thanks for reading!
Animated Short of the Month: Jumping (1984)
I saw this short roughly 12 years ago in college. I loved it so much that I go searching for it every couple of years. This short, by THE Osamu Tezuka, takes you on a journey through Japan and beyond, on a pogo stick.
Kofi! Any support is appreciated. If I can get 10,000 people to donate $1 each I’ll be able to focus on these projects and still take care of my family. Having said that, if I have my way, I’ll have finished building the official store on the Sleepy Gallows website.