20 May 2009

Ddrama the Llama's First Video!


Creative Commons License
Ion Canon by Demonic Otter Toe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This is the first in the Ion Canon animation series. It features Ddrama the Llama, a cud-chewing camel cousin with more than a few issues. Ddrama will appear in upcoming animations, as well as other animal and human characters.

I looked at several photos and videos of llamas to get a sense of what they look like and how they walk. I then drew the characters in Adobe Illustrator. I used a clipart bird from Microsoft, which I customized and created a "dead" version.

The background image is a photo composite with multiple layers and applied filters created in Adobe Photoshop. The original image is of a field and trees in the Texas Hill Country.

I took the characters and background image into Adobe After Effects, animated them, and added video clips from my stock video library. I could have imported the AE files directly into Premiere, but to save Premiere rendering time, I exported the animations as AVI files in AE.

I used Adobe Premiere to edit the animation clips and add audio. I used Adobe Soundbooth for the music bed. The birdsong and nature sounds were recorded this past weekend in a Minneapolis suburban park. I created the Foley FX in my studio.

(NOTE: I just noticed one of Ddrama's legs is missing. It is actually there, but was masked out in AE when I was trying to solve a particular animation issue.)




Ion Canon is produced by Demonic Otter Toe, the animated digit of Totem Media, L.C. All characters, media, and designs are Copyright 2009 Totem Media, L.C. except where previous copyrights have been established. All Rights Reserved.