I have just completed drawing and coloring the Saloon in Adobe Flash.

The saloon will be used at the beginning of the animation to show where the scene takes place. This is regularly used in episodes of 'The Simpsons' and 'Family Guy'.

The Simpsons house.










I used many different online resources to research into what a saloon looks like.

Here is 2 versions of my final image. The first shows the Saloon with black lines. The second shows it with brown lines as it will appear in the animation.

The brown lines will help it fit in the scene.

This drawing took a lot longer than expected, but I am happy with the outcome.

In the next few days I hope to complete the intro to my animation.

I have recently begun the lip sync process of the animation.
The recording went well and was done in one sitting.

I am going to be lip syncing in separate compositions in Adobe After Effects. I will then pre compose these and import them into the final animation file.

I have been researching online into what mouth shapes to use when lip syncing. The following images are some that have helped:

The following is a Lip sync test using the 'Potato Sheriffs mouth'

It looks like I need to create some more mouth shapes.

When Lip syncing I use the wave file image to gain the correct timing for the words.

All my characters have around 4 - 5 different mouths.

The Following are the Oranges:

Default mouth. This is used when the character is not speaking or showing emotion.

A, AHHH, EH, I. This mouth shape is used the most when animating. It can be used for most words.

F, TH. This is used before words beginning with F. It can also be used for words beginning with TH (but only because the orange uses F's)

O, OOH, URGH. This mouth is used for all words with oooh's. Is also used for short words.






I use the wave file in Adobe After Effects to see when the mouth shapes are needed.