#i ironically started that storyboard as a ‘i’m just going to doodle and submit whatever the finished product was i won’t even clean it’ but

[ducktracy]

how do you start a storyboard? what’s the difference between thumbnail sketches and rough sketches? i wanna learn, but i’m so lost

GOOD QUESTION I AM HAPPY YOU ASKED!! as with all of my explanations, this’ll be long winded but i hope it helps!

so YES! thumbnails are usually first! it depends on how you’re approaching the board. are you working off of a script/written list of ideas? are you just starting completely blank?

i usually try to start with some form of writing down, just because i’m flighty and don’t want to miss any potential ideas in the rush of the process. i’m going to use a personal board i started for fun as an example (and as an incentive to pick it back up, because it said i last opened the file in August, so…)

usually if i’m doing a personal board, i’ll have an outline written of the basic actions i want. nothing too thorough, just “so and so does this” “action for this panel” “so and so does that” etc. this one is timed to music, which is a special case—i REALLY didn’t want to lose the ideas i had, and trying to recite those and keep the beat of the music at the same time got overwhelming and i didn’t think a sheet of thumbnail drawings would help maintain the authenticity in time, if that makes sense. so what i did was type very vague descriptions in each panel, with the panels timed to the music so i knew what to fill in later. i’ve rehearsed the actions enough in my head that i have an idea of what i want, so when i see “camera pans past Porky” i immediately know we’re going to follow Daffy out, i can see Porky encircling him as he catches up in perspective with the camera (enter foreground, exit foreground, Daffy tracks him the whole time while he walks), etc etc I CAN SEE IT. so i have a jumping off point for my thumbs

there were some actions more reliant on the music than usual, so i scribbled them out as crudely and quickly as possible to not only not lose the idea, but see if it works. the water splashes are “animated” in comparison to everything else, but that was mainly to see how the execution would work—is the overlap cluttered or natural? will i have enough time for each beat? i can already tell that i want to move the splashes back as the camera catches up so it doesn’t tangent off screen. that’ll be all fixed later during clean-up—right now i’m just focused on getting the ideas down and sketching out what i have a clearest idea of first. that’s also why there’s a jump of white before Porky and Daffy themselves—i know i’m going to have Daffy come up to Porky from behind, but not exactly sure how i want to stage it yet. fly down in a down shot? follow Daffy from an eye level view? those aren’t pressing matters right now, and i feel i’ll get more clarity with that later once i carve everything out. as such, i just skip it and go to what i have in mind. that’s also why Porky is missing for the last few frames; i needed to envision Daffy’s acting more and see if the staging allowed room for his broad actions. i’ll squeeze Porky in later. BUT. to answer your question more directly, thumbs are usually the blueprint of the blueprint. they’re meant to be crude, ugly, scribbly, NOT DETAILED. they’re meant purely to convey ideas and thoughts, which will be expanded upon later with the roughs. some people like to draw thumbs directly into their boards—i like to open a program like MS Paint (or even just the margins in SBPro) that is as simple as possible so i can focus purely on what i need to. much of it is acting, but sometimes staging is a priority, which i’ll indicate in a box. it is never perfect/completely accurate, but that’s again what the roughs are for. here are a few examples of how i thumbnail—there isn’t a right or wrong way to do it! i just like to have it all in one place so i can check back periodically, i get cold feet if i put my thumbnails directly in every panel. feels like jumping in too quick, i like to work my way up from there

and let me be clear that you can go straight to clean up if you’re comfortable! i know and work with people who go straight from thumbs to clean, and i envy them GREATLY. i’ll sometimes have two different versions of a rough if i’m having trouble getting an idea across—i need to ruminate with the drawings a bit more and generally feel more at ease through the general progression, but it’s all a matter of how you work

and really, it’s just clean up from there! cleaning up the characters, backgrounds, adding inbetweens if necessary for the demands of the board… and after i’m done cleaning, i’ll take care of any housekeeping such as adding white mattes to the characters so they don’t blend in with the BG and checking to make sure the sizes are consistent with each other. (i really only do the latter for professional work, as my personal storyboards are a bit looser and a little more lax) this is a bit of a crude explanation because storyboarding is so subjective of a practice and everyone does it differently. ideally, initial thumbnail drawings would just BE the storyboards, with all the fancy clean up left to layout! but that’s another story… and one that’s futile to bring up seeing as these are for personal use anyway HAHA. but i just like to work my way up and sort of see where the storyboard and the characters take me

#i ironically started that storyboard as a ‘i’m just going to doodle and submit whatever the finished product was i won’t even clean it’ but #got too ambitious and would like to clean it… with 95% of it blank HAHA #i think it’s good i’ve sat on it though because i’ve done a lot of ambitious storyboards in between that time and am much more seasoned than #i was and this wasn’t even 6 months ago yet! but for example i’ve been learning FX animation and so i know there will be needlessly #informative smoke trails from the gun and water droplets not needing to be spelled out HAHAHA i’m loving learning it #anonymous #asks