Bang Your Head!

After doing the animated Bush dance and the Coraline trailer last week I thought it was time to take the next step and see if I could animate one of my own drawings.

I wanted to see if I could animate one of the OilCan Drive characters in time to a drum beat. It was time to make Ryan Burke bang his head.

I had a few ideas about how to do this and, for some reason, I started this project, like all my animation tests, sometime around eleven at night. I drew up the different parts of Ryan on the back of a piece of cardstock using blue line pencil and Sharpie markers. I figured if this thing was a total bust then at least I'd get the drawing done as quickly as possible.

I scanned the pieces into Photoshop, painted them, and put them together.

Now, it was time to animate.

I think I tried about ten different things. I could make this move or that move but it never seemed quite right. I was about to give up when I finally figured it out and built it in a way that it looked good. Moving him to the beat of the drums I created on the computer took a little more time. For some reason doing this so late at night I lost all sense of the math skills I needed to make it work and move him in time to the beat of the drum. But, when 3:30am finally came around I figured it out and was finally done.

I was done and I was happy.

So, here is Ryan Burke bobbing his head in time to the music. Make sure you turn the volume up to hear the drum beat.

The world of OilCan Drive just became animated.



Now, my next task...can I make him sing?

I have a few ideas about that but it seems like such an undertaking that it may be easier to actually do some OilCan Drive songs first. I think I've finally figured out how to get out of my own head and record some of the OilCan Drive songs.

It was simple.

Give myself a project that is even harder than recording an album.

Animating it.