My current W.I.P.

[PaulX]

Just a 'work in progress' view of the opening scene of an animation I hope I will one day finish and posting updates here may help with the motivation in achieving that goal. Nothing in the picture is finished, much still needs decals, textures, etc and more models need to be created. There will be an old 1930's style truck, more rocks, some grass and the gumtree will have more branches. The main character is currently under construction and when finished I'll upload a pic.

The story is of a lonely preteen boy who dreams of rockets and having a friend his age and who lives on an isolated farm in 'outback' Australia with his Red Army veteran Grandpa.

[PF_Mark]

Sounds like you have a vision of what you want to creat which a good foundation for acheiving it. Nice set so far keep working at it and post often it does help keeping you at it I find.

[Eric2575]

Hi Paul:

 

nice start with a promising story behind it. The key will be to keep your motivation about the project. Set yourself definable goals and reward yourself for work done. Off course interaction with the forum will help you along the way. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

[robcat2075]

Sounds ambitious, but sounds like a good story.

 

with his Red Army veteran Grandpa.

 

that's practically a whole movie right there!

[PaulX]

Thanks all - it is a big project to undertake alone but may as well make a start and see what happens. Robcat, that is a good comment and writing the script it did occur to me that the grandpa could take the viewer out of the story. I can't drop the grandpa's part because it is an essential juxtaposition to the boy but will have to balance the two carefully. So much work, but I believe no amount of fine animation and stunning visuals can make up for a crap script and so it's well worth spending however long to get it right.

[Gerry]

Paul, you're right about starting with a good script! But just as important are concept and character sketches, and storyboards and animatics as things progress. I would recommend spending some time with pencil and paper before even firing up A:M. It will make the animating part about a hundred times easier.