Revised twirl animation

Thanks for your comments guys, they really helped me in improving this animation. She could still be a bit more graceful though.

More tube monsters

I totally forgot about this. I did it awhile ago and I like these better than the blue tube monsters I posted earlier. The animation is pretty rough, needs some more finessing.

BG sketch

Super rough sketch I did a while ago of the creature's habitat. This one is on the ground, but I think I want them to be up high instead, like trees.

Tubby dance animation test

Thanks so much for the comments guys! Keep 'em coming. This one was easier than the twirl animation, but there's always room for improvement. Here's the flash link in case you can't see animated gifs.

Animation test

Here's a rough animation of the "girl" critter twirling around. I'm having trouble viewing animated gifs in my browser, so I don't know if the above image animates for you - if not, you can see it here. I'm super rusty at drawn animation, so please, let me know if you have any advice!

Background test

I made the critters' pods out of plasticine, photographed it, and ran some photoshop filters over it. Now the little guys are all moved in! I'm not sure about it though, maybe it's not smooth enough, or maybe it's too photoreal..... the experiments will continue.

Board page 3 - the last one!

Well this page is pretty rough, sorry for that. So they're in the stomach, and one of the creatures is jumping to get out. he can't quite get high enough though, and as he falls from his highest jump onto his companions, they all squish together to form one big super-critter. It's bigger, with all 3 different types of protrusions. It does a little dance to celebrate, then deftly climbs the stomach wall, resisting the wall throwing it off. It confronts the fat monster, who ends up getting stuck with its own goo. The hero is close to the tree pod forest, but has to cross the stream to get there. While it's jumping over the stream, the underwater plant monster reaches out and pulls it down. The super-ball quickly rips out the plant monster at its roots and escapes. It's now at the bottom of the tree pods and looks up, realizing that they're too high to get to. Dejected, it slowly walks away, and suddenly falls into the tube monster cave. The tube monsters close in for the kill, but our hero jumps up and in a flurry of anime action ties the monsters into a knot. It then pulls the knot down and sling shots up out of the cave, all the way to the top of the tree pods. It hangs onto an empty hole and climbs into it, and splits up into the three original creatures. All the creatures are dancing as we slowly pan out to the see the whole forest, and fade to black.

Blue Tube Monsters

Here's a color concept sketch of the tube monsters. I'm not too comfortable with painting from scratch in photoshop, but I thought I should give it a whirl. Don't know about these colors yet, and I'm thinking it probably shouldn't be so sparse. Maybe some tube plants or something in the background.

Color!

Sorry for the loooong post about board page 2. I guess there's a lot going on in that one. Here's a quick color rendering of the heroes.

Board page 2

Okay, so the monsters are really mad at our little critter now since he hurt one of their own. No more toying around with him. While he's still dazed from his sudden fall the left one goes in for the kill. We see it's mouth get bigger until black fills the screen. Cut to the girly critter falling from her pod. She's got a smaller body with longer slender nubby things. She falls into water and slowly sinks to the bottom. Awaiting her is an elegant plant monster. They struggle, but eventually the plant gets the best of her and stuffs her down it's hole in the ground. I know this isn't as exciting as the tube monster sequence, I might have to spice it up. Cut to the fat creature falling. He's got a really big body and tiny nubbies. You can think of the first guy as the hero, the second one as the love interest, and the third as the lovable comic relief. Except all this love and comedy doesn't really play out, so forget it. So the fat guy falls onto a really big fat monster, with bulbous protrusions. He bounces off and lands nearby to the left. Their in a kind of field of these fat monsters. He notices the monster, and slowly tries to roll away, screen right. (not pictured) The other nubby creatures can hop, but our fat guy here just rolls. But the monster sees the fat critter and suddenly sprays him with a thick gooey liquid. Close up of our guy, covered in this gooey stuff. He tries to move, but it becomes obvious that the goo is too sticky to let him go anywhere. He's trapped. Cut wide, and we see the monster jump on our guy, the goo splatters out. Cut to the ground under the monster, and we see that our guy isn't smooshed, but is in fact forced down a hole in ground. In the wide shots of this sequence there will be faint circles on the ground - these turn out to be tunnels like the one our guy gets forced down. So we see him slide down this tunnel and land in a huge stomach with our other critters. The stomach is probably bigger than pictured. The other critters are surprised and then happy to see him, and they all hug. Then they all droop, dejected looking, and they all sort of look up, and camera pans to the only way out, which was their way in. (not pictured). So the graceful one starts to climb the textured wall, but is quickly foiled because the wall pulses and throws her off. She probably tries a few more times until she gives up. Then the fat one tries to roll up the sloping sides of the stomach, but the stomach wall bumps him back. Then the they try stacking on top of each other, with the hero on the top, trying to jump up. He jumps higher and higher each time, but doesn't quite make it....... stay tuned for page 3.

Board page 1

This is page one of a thumbnail board for my cartoon. Push in to these strange tree-like pods. Each tree pod has a bunch of little indented pods within it, like little cubby holes where creatures live. The creatures are dancing about, having a good time. Camera pans quickly to different creatures dancing. Pull out to see them all dancing. A storm slowly descends and starts hailing on them and shaking them around. They are thrown about in their individual pods, and we that three of the creatures fall out. We follow one of them as he crashes through the ground into a cave inhabited by predatory tube monsters hanging from the ceiling. The monsters chase our frightened guy around the cave, bearing their ugly dripping fangs as they approach. The middle monster picks up our little guy and swings him back and forth towards the other's mouths. In a surge of bravery, our guy swings up and punches the monster, giving him a big bruise, and the monster drops him. I know the bruise looks like an eye, but it's a bruise. The other monsters nurse the bruised monster.
The next page is coming soon.