 I have completed the short video titled "Convenience."
"Convenience" metaphorically depicts how people may take advantage of the idea of convenience. The coloring phase took at least 187 hours, probably closer to 200 hours. In total, the animation process took over 887 hours to complete. The video can be viewed on the Gallery page.
This is the clean-up of my animated short. The total cleanup time is about 287 hours and 36 minutes.
My hope is that by the Spring of 2019, I would have 5 animated shorts completed, one of which I am currently working on. I would like to enter a few --maybe even all of them-- into film festivals. Some ideas have come to mind as plots, which I am grateful for. These were not contrived, and in my experience, the best ideas come without my trying to force it upon myself.
I’ve finished the sketch animation of the short video I’ve been working on. Here is a sample of the scenes. I am working in 30 frames per second.
I am animating a short film, expecting the run time to be about five minutes. It will address the question, "How much do we value convenience?" I must confess that I have not storyboarded it. Doing so would have made it easier to see the end of the film-- as I point out in my "Here are Some Keyframes to a Story" post-- and I may have animated it quicker knowing what the important beats are. Instead it is taking me over a year to animate because I couldn’t figure out what comes next and how.
I began this short sequence with a simple plot. However, I didn’t know how or when it would end. I knew if I started to storyboard it from the beginning and chronologically proceeded, then I would be stuck past the point of the plot. So, I resolved to try to think of the storyboard as “keyframes” to a story. In animation, keyframe drawings give the artist an idea of the defining states that will make up the animation. The animator will look through the keyframes and begin to develop what frames should lie between them to create the illusion of motion. I used this keyframing idea to put together this storyboard from start to finish. This first came to my awareness in my storyboarding class in college. I was assigned to lay out a short story in six panels. Then, I was to go back and add six more panels, one between each of the original set of panels. After years of convincing myself that I wouldn’t use this method of storyboarding, I decided to give it a shot with this one.  One immediate proactive I’ve found with this is that I can finally see the end to this project instead of a blank! It might not be the last shot, but I now know what I am finishing with. This contains, at least, the last action the main character will make.  This is the first set of “breakdown” panels that go between the first set of panels. With the first set, I know the series of events that will take place between panel 1 and panel 6. Now I can illustrate even more important beats that come between panel 1 and panel 6. There is no “breakdown” panel between panel 4 and panel 5, as I thought it wasn’t necessary to bring out yet.  Here, I begin to define the opening scene, keeping in mind that panel 1 has already been drawn.  This becomes a straight-ahead page, as each beat is sequential between panel 1 and 1a. I decided to use capital letters to label panels between a number and lowercase letter.  This page then picks up after panel 1a, and I have to remember the panels that have already been drawn. Because they were significant beats to the story, I can remember them fairly easily.  This is another straight-ahead page to complete the necessary beats of the story. As this process continues, I decide to omit panel 3.  Several pages later, I refer to panel 6 to develop the final panels of the storyboard. Panel 6 ended up not being the last panel as it didn’t adequately deliver the “punch-line” of the story.
Now that I have laid out all of the panels, I can piece them together. The entire storyboard can be found here. I may consider using this method in the future as it causes me to think early on about how the piece should end. I am working on some animated clips that will be featured on an episode segment of Articulate with Jim Cotter. I am also working on a video with original animation that will be posted on the Articulate with Jim Cotter website.
The illustrations for the fourth and fifth installment of the children's books by Javenna Bellinger have been finished. Check out the highlighted images from them on the Gallery page.
This concludes my freelance work of this series. I have completed the third set of illustrations for the third children's book from local Philadelphian author Javenna Bellinger. The best from that book will be uploaded in the near future.
I have completed illustrations for two children's books. The best from them will be posted in the near future.
I am beginning freelance illustration work for a series of children's books. The first set of final artwork should be completed by the end of next month. This should be a good experience for me.
This website is still young, but I hope to provide videos and updates on projects here, while displaying final projects and major events on the What's New page. So stay tuned.
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ArtistDiamond Stewart is interested in animation, comic book art, video games, and music. 
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