Bonkers and Skunky - Tooned Up & Down (Animation WIP)

Here is our long overdue post about us working on animation! I'm not sure if we'll be doing this for all animations we do, but we wanted you guys to understand how we operate with how we do animations!

The following is written by Oiruse documenting his progress on the animation! All I did was correct a few mispellings but otherwise it is untouched from his original document. <3

"First things first, Eddie was inspired by both, a recent animation he saw, and an old pic of his, for me to attempt a simple loop of Bonkers, along with his friend Skunky the Skunk (from the same show! .. well, Skunky has his own show within Bonker's show... anyway...) So, lets give it a shot!"

"First work in progress. What I like to do is, first of all, use that wonderful cyan/light blue opacity pencil to do sketches. It will help to permanently see what I plan on animating without getting in the way of the transparency between frames, the onion skin.

I start trying to visualize the scene and make sure the anatomy and pose of the characters, not only are correct, but they are viewed at a very appealing angle. This angle is way too "isometric" (Barely any perspective applied) and this will be surprisingly HARD to animate if I try, because the motions done here will be so little for the amount of work I would have to make. We want MOTION, and this view will lack it, and might make certain things confusing to spot.

THAT SAID, I really like this idea and posing, so All I have to do is try again and change the angle."

"THERE we go. This is a perfect angle, you'll be able to see them bounce like the toons they are, and I forced a little bit more perspective onto it. not only that, it looks like you (the viewer) came in and caught them in the act! (which is one of my favourite situations). 

I could add more detail to it, but I dont need to convince myself any further. Plus, the more details I add, the more stubborn I'll be to try to replicate it. all I need right now is spheres.

Yes, spheres. Trust me. Spheres."

"Once I have the sketch, I'll lower the opacity of both the animation frames, and the reference sketch. That will help me to see things along with the onion skin. This is how it would look without the transparency."

"First of all: Spheres. Motion. I need to know where are the characters coming from, and where are they going, and I like to treat characters' limbs as if they were characters themselves, That way I can keep track of things individually, otherwise I would have to fix things CONSTANTLY, I'd rather do that later, once I get to see everything as a whole. I gotta be quick and rough for now.

Also, VERY FEW frames. I only need to see the motion, it doesn't need to be smooth. Once again: where are they coming from, where are they going. I'm using 6 frames pers second here, works great because the motions so far are pretty simple. If there were more sudden/quick motions, I'd increase the framerate in spikes, but it's not necessary here."

"Adding more detail. Now we can finally actually see their figures. So far so good. Still keeping a low framerate just in case I regret something later. The lesser frames, the easier it is to fix things, and the least time wasted.

If I don't know what something's gonna look like, I skip it and focus on what I Know. I cant take of unknown things once I can see the whole thing more clearly. Here, I don't know what to do with bonkers' left arm, so I'm keeping it "open" for now. I can easily figure that out later, since it's still going to be stuck to his body. 

'No arm, you are coming with me, whether you like it or not. REST? HA! You can rest AFTER I'm done animating this AND AFTER I fap.'"

"Adding more detail. Not much to comment here, just adding more and more lines. It's a LOT easier for things to go smoothly by working on things individually. Trying to draw every frame entirely usually has me wasting a LOT of time fixing everything later."

"Here I noticed Bonker was WAY too big compared to Skunky, so I shrank him, and I also fixed his head bobbing a little bit. Now it looks better. 

Additionally, I figured out what to do with his arm! He'll be holding his foot for balance, and for extra... cuteness! He will be squeezing his toes from excitement!

Enough work for today. Its good to let your eyes rest from work and let it all "cook". I'll be able to spot more things to fix later with a Fresh vision.

NEXT DAY:

Gave it one more look. I think it's ready. It is time to Increase the framerate, from 6 to 12. Lets give it a shot."

"THERE WE GO. We're getting there. With double the frames now we can appreciate the motions. Thanks to the higher framerate I was also able to fix a bunch of things that didn't look right, like Bonkers' tail and ears. Lets keep going."

"Added the eyes. Lookin' good. also, ignore the flashing sketches. (MINOR EPILEPSY WARNING?) Those will be fixed at the very end, all I care right now it's the MOTION. Gotta look smooth. 

Bonkers' hair is bouncing more than usual. As if it had a mind of it's own. Gotta fix that."

"Decided to make Bonkers squeeze his toes as they Twitch! I think it looks cute! We're getting there. Also added his panting mouth.

Although I just noticed that I gotta take care of Skunky. His anatomy doesn't fit the one in the cartoon. Lets see what I can do."

"There we go, now his body looks more bottom-heavy like in the cartoon! I also grew his overall size. 

We almost have the full sketch though. I'm confident enough now to add Skunky's arm working on bonkers, and I'll see if I can spot more details to be added or changed. For instance, Bonkers' tail's movements are soo boring, lets make em more exciting..."

"Skunky's arm is done! I also Added a lot of missing details, including Skunky's body details, improving his boner, as well as Bonkers' tie, improved tail and ears. I think it's ready to be cleaned up!"

-AN ENTIRE DAY LATER-

"OOF... That was pretty exhausting, but it's finally done. All Cleaned up. That was definitely the hardest part of the entire thing, making sure everything is smoothly synced up. But now it looks pretty and polished and smooth. There are still a few details that look a little wobbly need to be fixed (like bonkers' shoulder and Skunky's lower shirt and tie). But everything else is pretty much done and ready for colouring. Anything else that needs to be fixed will be done as Eddie colors it all.

I hope you guys enjoyed this process. See you next animation! :)

-Oi"

That's all we have for now! We plan on finishing this next month since the time it'll take to clean up and add a background will take a bit, but we hope you guys enjoyed a little deep dive into how Oiruse does animation for himself!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to our patrons! Thank you again for all the support you guys have given us this year! We couldn't have done it without you. 🐱🩲♥