Pajama Forest - Hold On

Hold On

by Evan Diaz on August 26, 2010 at 12:00 am

I felt bad working so hard on the animated short and stiffing you guys with no comics, so I put it on the back burner yesterday to whip up a new strip. Fear not though, I’m still working actively on it!

I looove animating but doing it in Photoshop is far from ideal, so I’m thinking of investing in some pro animation software. Like I said, I already have Photoshop which is of course great for creating 2D art but not so great for animating, and Maya which is great for 3D stuff and animating but not so great when trying to do traditional 2D animation. If anyone knows some top notch programs that the big studios use for 2D animation (not Flash!), please let me know :D

Also, I had a totally rad alternate ending for this strip that I’ll see if I can do soon (before I forget it).

PS! all of you ninja masters who haven’t sent me pictures yet, go ahead and do that when you get a chance. I’m going to be starting on the ninja master awesome-rad ninja pose commissions here in the near future.

Ket

Do you have a personal vendetta against Flash we should be aware of?
Bomber

Ed’s facial expression in 5th pic owns. Sooooo innocent! :D
Strong One

haha I can’t tell you how this reminds me of my own friends.
http://www.pod-comic.com -PookeyG-

ToonBoom. Expensive, but I hear great things.
Mikki

Adobe After Effects! It’s amazing! It takes a little while to get used to it but once you get it, its amazing! And the official website has some pretty awesome tutorials. (Not to menton hundreds of sites when you just google tutorials)

Oh, and also… After Effects works hand in hand with photoshop! You do the drawings and backrounds in photoshop and then send them to after effects and you animate in After Effects. It makes animating fun and easy for those of use who love Photoshop! :3

Hope I helped!
Becky

This is me when I annoy my mom. :’D
Pepper23

Same here….or when I annoy anyone for that matter…lil siblings, friends, etc :P
Evan Diaz

Not really, I just know what it can do (not really what I want) and that people love to recommend it :)
Evan Diaz

heh, thanks :D
Evan Diaz

I do this to my wife sometimes, she’ll give me the ‘hold on’ and I’ll yell holding… HOLDING HOLDING!! :D
Evan Diaz

I just looked it up, it looks okay I guess but it seems to focus more on puppet animation, which in my opinion as an animator, is hideous. I’d like to find the kind of software that places like Studio Ghibli use to create their masterpeices >:D
Evan Diaz

Yeah I actually used After Effects quite extensively at my old job. It’s pretty good at what it’s designed for (timing and post processing footage), 2D animation isn’t it’s strong area :\
http://www.pod-comic.com -PookeyG-

You can make hand-drawn animation w/ it too I believe… Not sure.
Evan Diaz

Ooo, If you’re intrested I just found out the Studio Ghbli uses a program called Toonz http://www.toonz.com
Anonymous (aka Nora)

1) LOOOVE Ed’s expression in the fifth strip. 2) I hope to high heaven Ed isn’t gonna get a love interest named Bella. That would be awkward and I would stop reading xD
Anonymous (aka Nora)

One more thing… just out of getting all of my randomness out for the day, i use a relatively primitive* animating/video-game-making software called Scratch, and if anyone is watching for a simple programming language, Scratch is the place to go!

*primitive meaning simplistic, easy, aimed towards beginners and chiddrens. It’s still really fun though.

scratch.mit.edu. go there.
Elyse

I know that Pixar’s animation software is available, but I don’t know anything about it and I’m guessing that it’s more 3D than you need…
narnianbadger

HAHAHA this is so me!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hate waiting… it’s one of my character faults. heheh.
CWR

Anime Studio? I was going to suggest AfterEffects, but I have an annoying habit of reading all the posts before commenting – I haven’t looked into it myself yet, but it’s worth looking into. South Park uses Maya for 2D animation…
3L337

My brother is a professional 2d animator and his company uses toon boom.
Cassis

I am an animation Major and I hate Using Flash so I know went on a search for a better program last year, in my 2D animation Class.. (ended up having to use flash anyway.)
but there is a Program Called “FlipBook” which was what I really wanted to use. you might want to check it out. idk if its what you are looking for but thought I would suggest it. I am super excited to see your animation.

(PS) their website is TERRIBLE..
http://www.digicelinc.com/
cico34

Did you intentionally draw Ed as if he was going to poop?

Or sub-concious coincedence?
Anonymous

Pencil, Maybe? http://www.pencil-animation.org/
Jake

Oops… Forgot to put mah name above
I gots a question!

Hi! I love your comic, its pretty and a hoot to boot! I Gots a question though. Why is it called Pajama Forest? Why not something like.. The “Adventures of August and Ed” or something?
Mikki

I love FlipBook! XD

YAY. I completely forgot about that one o.O I used it BEFORE I went to college. It must be way better now with updates and stuff, huh?

Oh, and hey,another idea for animating. Umm I’m kind of lazy and broke when I was in school so when I DID need to animate, without the use of the schools equipment, I used Windows Movie Maker. (I know, I know its for placing scenes of already filmed stuff but hear me out)

What I would do is save each frame in Paint, or another drawing program, and do it old school and drew out each frame and put in the stills and minimized the time for each “clip”. I felt amazing after I was done. I didn’t have to worry about tchnical stuff and got to spend my time focusing on the art and not worry about all the little things a professional animation program would give me.

It gave me a great unique look at the animation, and I got to slice and add music with relative ease! X3

YAY!
zachary

this is me 24-7 when i need something from someone and they say hold on
Evan Diaz

I’m glad I’m not the only one who isn’t crazy about Flash :\ I think I did find that digicel site the other day when I was searching but the page looked so horrible I just left it hah! But on your recommendation I checked it out again and it looks pretty cool.
Evan Diaz

maybe subconsciously.
Evan Diaz

thanks Jake, I might have to check that one out (especially since it’s free :D)
Evan Diaz

good question. long story short, brainstorming session of random funny words and bam. Pajama Forest.
Jake

I wouldnt really need to use animation tools,but if you have a DS w/ some sort of card (M4DS,R4,ETC) or a DSI (Havent tried it but it should work), Animanatee is a great tool for animation..You can have up to 10000 frames or until the memory runs out,You can record sounds or add a WAV/MP3 file to the animation,+ lots more features…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 Mr Astley

Click on mah name for a BIG surprise :D
Cassis

Glad we could help. have you found a program you like yet?