Testing Asaf's Wetbrush

[Paul Fierlinger]

I've been amazed at how often, always actually, Slocum wears a three piece suite when on board his sloop. Sometimes without the jacket but often with a hat and tie, crumbled and in terrible shape. There is one mention in his book that I did catch only on second read though, where it's pretty clear he wore nothing at all when at sea -- and who can wonder. I'm certainly going to use that one. I think he wore a suit only when he sensed there could be cameras nearby. He never mentions wearing oilskins when at sea, he doesn't even mention carrying them aboard, yet it is hard to imagine that a seasoned ship's captain would sail anywhere without oilskins.

There are many omissions of strange intentions throughout the book so I am convinced that much of it was written with spin in mind, for the benefit and pleasure of his readers. It makes it only easier for me not to become pedantic about the truth.

Ironically, a large portion of the made-up part of the story will be his friendship with Karl May, who teaches him how to become a famous and wealthy writer by making up entirely everything; why bother with travel? Doesn't this attitude reflect so much of what goes on today? And here will be my story itself half made up, taking apart the frailties of truth and honor and humility to warn against the pitfalls of hubris.

Is it wrong to to have the means justify the end? If I stuck to the absolute truth, the Slocum story would become just another predictable, unexceptional adventure story, falling in lockstep with Slocum's plans which have become obsolete by the whirligig of time .

I treated My Dog Tulip the same way and got a kick out of it when Sierra once remarked that she didn't remember a certain part I showed here being in the book. In both instances I take care to state that my films are merely based upon the book of the same names. Ackerley says as much himself in Tulip's epilogue. Even Christopher Plummer, who reads the voice of Ackerley, changes the narrative just by his very unique and personal delivery, which in turn influenced the way I illustrated certain scenes -- opposed to my initial intentions before Plummer's recording. Sandra had her own readings of how I drew things and gave scenes a changed meaning by the colors she selected and the style in which she painted them... it's all just part of the joy of creation.

[malcooning]

I like Slocums' story. It makes me want to read his book, particularly because Slocum seems like a rightfully unusual character.
This sounds to me like a great thing to work on for the next 3 years. Just, Paul, beware of becoming Slocum yourself
by the way, did you pitch for this film, or did someone offer it to you?

[Svengali]

"Sailing Alone Around the World" - Project Gutenberg, text only

"Sailing Alone Around the World" - Google scanned book with illustrations (5mb PDF)

Sven

[Paul Fierlinger]

Yup, it's public domain, which saves the producers perhaps $ 100,000 or more. This is what the relatively obscure but still in print Tulip cost them. It was a big help in having them go along with my choice for the next film. Somewhere there's also a free audio book; read oddly by a British actor.

[Paul Fierlinger]

I've been experimenting with a way to use a combination of Asaf's watercolor brushes to both hand paint with and bucket fill too, to achieve the best of both. This led to my discovery of this latest version's (TVP 9.0.5) improved healing feature. It's pretty phenomenal and I highly recommend anyone to play with it a little.

[malcooning]

Paul, how do you use the healing mode in this case to make it look more natural?

[Paul Fierlinger]

I uploaded another test to the same place as the first one, http://www.video.paulfierlinger.com/tvp/ and took the older one out.
It shows several loosely edited scenes with no sound. The backgrounds are painted with the brushes that Zigotto and Hisko developed on top of yours. I wanted to see how far I could go with a sort of messy look, I tried out a closeup (too much shimmering) and in the last scene, with pen line background only, I tried the combination of both hand painted areas together with mostly filled areas.

I give such high marks for the new healing abilities because the gaps I typically leave behind in my pen drawings are too atrocious to be considered useful for a bucket fill -- but not anymore. If I had used merely the fill mode, the result would be a uniform fill that could betray the texture of your faux paper below, so I used your paint brush to hand paint some strategic frames as a distraction -- not too much to become unpleasant as in the closeup scene or even the one following it, but just enough to have the paint match the looseness of the line drawings.

EDIT- I should mention that my healing settings were Fill: Color & Density, Gap Closer 3, Expand 2, and Range 1.

[Paul Fierlinger]

A few people have asked me to show the water and boat scene, one of my first attempts to start the Slocum film several years ago. I drew in a low res, small format at 10 fps back then so I merely expanded the waves to the sides to make the screen wide angled. The frame rate remains 10 fps. I animated the waves by drawing unrelated keys, that is, every 10 or 12 frames I drew a picture of waves without any relations to each other and then inbetweened them to connect them all into "rolling seas". My theory (or rather observation) is that it is not necessary to see the motion of waves on the ocean as a repeating pattern, but as "confused seas". I think I used just two layers for the waves. Later, I experimented a bit with coloring them -- I still have a far way to go.

[Klaus Hoefs]

I was one who asked for...and after studying it again and again I am still amazed: it's simple (pose-to-pose) technique and it's perfect look !
Thank you very much, Paul. A great lesson.

[Klaus Hoefs]

In concerns of Slocum-character:
Looks to me like the gentle Prof. Bienlein (= German // =English:Prof. Calcalus, = French:Professeur Tryphon Tournesoll) from Herge's Tintin; is it what you wanted ?

There are any available in the net, here's a trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlvKIq9auP0

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[Paul Fierlinger]

You caught the switch, Klaus. There is a turnabout in the dramaturgy of this project; we have all agreed to pursue a larger audience this time, thus less sophisticated adult and more sophisticated family oriented. I don't want to pander to children necessarily, but we want to keep the story lighthearted whacky, for lack of a better description. Thus I've been experimenting with a more Jacques Tati Mon Oncle character.

[User 767]

I noticed that when he's on the boat, the texture (in his pants, especially) seems to stay still, while the 'outline' moves. Is that a function of the brush or paper, or just how it ended up being painted?

[Paul Fierlinger]

It's how it ended up being painted in this test. When we get to the real thing we'll be doing everything the way I painted his jacket. In the last scene.

[malcooning]

Paul, as long as you use paper, texture will stay still. The way you paint can only show more or less texture, depends on the paper hardness settings, and the opacity of the brush and, particularly in Luma modes, the pressure of your dabs. The way paper texture work in TVP (regardless of which brush you're using), is that the "paint" interacts with the luminosity values of the (black and white) paper images (i.e applying more color value to where are black pixels -> groves, and less value where there's white pixels -> bumps). So the paper is used as a stationary elements - and so does the texture, as result. To work around this, one should embed texture into the brush, but it usually works better with more grainy brushes (like pencil, crayon etc)

maybe this can give rise to an interesting feature request: Random Paper Offset !

[Paul Fierlinger]

Asaf, I understand this very well; this is not new to me and it is exactly what I think I have found a workaround for by combining hand painted and filled modes. People here are scrutinizing frames, knowing what telltale signs to look for, unlike a theater audience. I certainly like this look far more better than the smooth "cartoon fill" look.