I am wanting to make an animated opening for my comic Interim State, I am going to be paying for this, but I have no idea where to begin. Anyone have any thoughts.

…ZOOM ZOOM! An airplane flies around the words “Interim State: Chapter 2”

EDIT: Or whatever chapter you're on, I don't read your comic.

Well, do you have any ideas about what you want to be in it?

Whatever it is, it should be something that even people who have seen it several times would want to watch again. If you spend time and money making something, don't make it so it's only good for one viewing. Or, depending on what you want to do, you could design ‘reusable’ elements and then put out versions with slight (but significant) changes- things that would change the meaning or tone?

If you meant more along the lines of ‘how do I go about hiring someone’ then I have no idea…

I am thinking something along the lines of an opening of a tv show. Something that catches the eyes and has action, shows the cast. Things like that. And I hate you flapjack. So much. :)

Now are you looking for a .gif that can be incorperated into your comic like this:




Or an actually MPEG that can be displayed on youtube like this:



Ignore the quality on the second item, it was made 4 years ago before I really learned how to use movie maker and long before I had photoshop.

I can't watch the second on niccea. I am talking about like an opening to an anime. If that makes sense.

Dammit. If it was still on my computer, I would put it else where. It looks like some sort cheep movie advert. (But like I said it is a piece of crap made a long time ago)

Um…let me see If I can discribe it. It sort of has a narrative with pictures appearing around it (I didn't know how to animate then). At the very end, the pictures flash in a quick succession and then the title of the RP flashes up.

Oooooh an anime intro. All you had to say was what you just said. Maybe I can do a collab with your main artist, since I can do animation and stuff.

you have an example flap.

Well, my sprited avatars are recent. I haven't done any drawn though. I was planning on it.

(This one's pretty poorly done though, shoulda spent more than an hour on it.)

sprites are a different story to producing your own animated character sheets, it's like a world apart, you only really get quality with experience and so on and so forth. best off asking somebody who has some real experience with animating this sorta stuff, which will probably mean looking off site somewhere.

Exactly. Listen to pineapple man.

I think with like animes, don't they hand draw each frame? The backgrounds of course are usually drawn seperate. Basically it's very hard to do the style you're thinking of and it could take a while.

From someone who has had training in animation, I am going to say, if you want something of decent quality, it's gonna cost ya an arm and a leg if you're doing traditional animation (like in anime). Flash animations would probably be cheaper, but keep in mind that Flash animations have a certain “look” to them, and people can easily pick out if it's made in Flash or not. It entirely depends on your budget and what kind of look you're going for. Are you going for a Flash cartoon scenario or a fully traditional animated cartoon.

Keep in mind, too, it's not just animation you'd be paying for. They gotta color each frame if it's traditional and make all the backgrounds, let alone just the pencil tests. Something that's 30 seconds long could take months to make. I've made a 30 second one in a month, but that's because I abused looping and there was very little action going on.

Long story short, animation in traditional means (hell, even Flash means) is gonna cost you more than you probably think. I've heard of trained animators still in school that get paid $50 an hour for animating.

Edit: Actually, I do know someone that could probably help you.

http://zeurel.deviantart.com/journal/24376348/#comments This guy, Zeurel, is offering 20 second animations for $50. This is a Flash animator and does a good job with it. Watch some of his animations to see if it's something you'd like.

yea that guys is really good.

Photoshop has a great animation component.If you have a basic knowledge of animation techniques you should be able to learn it rather quickly. (the principles are basically the same.)
I used it to made this animation last year:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-HiPH_bzD4

the2ndredbaron
I am wanting to make an animated opening for my comic Interim State, I am going to be paying for this, but I have no idea where to begin. Anyone have any thoughts.