The Animated Self Development 6: Incorporating Rotoscope

Something had dawned on me. My time was limited. And if it had taken me nine hours to develop one keyframe, I knew my methods of production were going to have to become more efficient if I was ever going to get it completed.

That was when I decided to incorporate rotoscoping into my animation. I would ordinarily choose to use it. There are definitely some things I would much prefer to animate by putting pen to paper and then reference footage to get it right. But when I'm restricted for time, it has often proved to be a huge help. Therefore with this animation, I will try to use rotoscoping wherever I can to save time.

I have singled out a few shots that I feel could benefit from being rotoscoped; for example, Lauren passing the sound booth and Oscar opening the sound booth door. Other movements such as facial expressions I feel would need to be animated by hand to remain consistent with character designs and the rest of the animation. The idea is, for example when Oscar opens the sound booth door I rotoscope the door opening, his body and the interior of the sound booth, but then animate his head to fit with his character design (how I've drawn his head in comparison to his body is larger).

When I played back what I had rotoscoped I felt it looked successful and the real life movements fit with my more unrealistic designs.