She dreams in music videos (Part 2)
This is a part 2 of this post where I break down the cradles video. If you have not read it then YOU SHOULD
BACK TO THE BLOODY CHICK...
The eyes animation was a lot simpler. One it's just eyes, and I'd already made the pallet earlier. I still wanted to put some animations into this thing to keep it alive, and this one was a much easier one to start that with.
idk what motnh I drew this in but it was sometime possible December. Unsure. Anyways Jockey has some bandages now and woke up on a table in a new room.
She's confused and doesn't really remember how she got here or what's going on. So somebody must've put her here while she was knocked out.
BUT who cares about that, NEW ROOM MEANS NEW BACKGROUNDS
I don't delete layers usually so that means that the files for Cradles end up really big, so whenever one got big enough I'd move onto a new file. Aaaand the second one, the one with most of these images is gone. So I won't be able to pull apart the background like I did for the other backgrounds, haha.
These aren't based off of any of the ILTM backgrounds though! Wow. Original.
Another "WE ARE IN HELL," "DONT B?", "KEVIN" which I am assuming is some sort of joke, and "I can finish this by Halloween - famous last words" I mean technically I could've withheld the video till October but nobody would like that lol. I guess these frames were made in October then! Good for me. And "WOW a working light".
Background text here says "[unreadable] and then we all can have a large feast". I feel like this is referencing something, but I forgot what? Strange. "I miss my family", some stuff scribbled out with "stfu" on top of it, and "Lol it's just a prank bro" in the bottom right.
Also what a cool door we should appreciate the doors.
Charger yelling about something.
C: There are zombies and we gotta leave now!!
J: Hi yes can I ask about what happened while I was asleep
C: We can talk about it later we have to keep moving right now
[and then they never do]
And the bandages are gone lol. We can get a slightly better look at some of the text, Kevin DON'T under it, so I'm assuming that it's supposed to be a vine reference? "finally a working like" and "KEVIN DON'T" on the same wall seems to point to that, haha.
OH HEY a cleaner picture of the background I have!!! I can't make out much but see if you can.
Man I REALLY wanted to reference the chainsaw part with the Jockey laughter in this one. I really, REALLY did, but I just couldn't fit it in. I think I could've put it here but I overlayed it with the silhouette again, WHICH IS STILL COOL but god dammit that's just a good part of ILTM.
For this part I really liked how it intensified more and more as she reached for it and then it just snaps back like nothing happened. Haha yep. I didn't kill Hunter whattt
+ a little hi Zar in the left bottom corner :)
These ones I KNOW I did in January. I have evidence. Anyways I decided at the end of the hall were stairs going down. I originally wanted them to leave for a subway, or maybe that pink place in Left4Dead with all the hearts and stuff because I wanted a change of scenery, but I ended up not doing that and so it ended up just being a more boring version of the blue rooms without graffiti. But I guess It has water? eh whatever.Another interesting thing about this one is that sense they were fullbodies I picked colors from them a lot, lol.
I kept going back and forth on if I wanted to make Charger pink as well, because Charger doesn't share Jockey's worldview. But this is also supposed to be how Jockey percieves it. But Charger isn't pink. Anyways I compromised and so she's pink but it fades back into the more normal colors at the front. You can see it most with the bandana but it's not very viable.also HI ZIPPER
I struggled with this one for a while. I wanted to have her knocking the door open with her back/elbow but I could never get it right, and I tried over and over but it all looks pretty awkward so I ended up going with this one.
I actually colored everyone's eyes in this idk why I put so much effort into that BUT I DID
They're in some sort of sewer. I tried decorating the walls quite a bit with moss and bloodstains, and I actually remember liking to draw it. I only colored this one within the last week because when I made it initially I wanted a friend to help be color it sense at that point I was aiming for a release on the 31st, the ladies 11th anniversary, but he later canceled so I mean IT'S FINE
This one flows a lot more. She's much more calm and instead of walking hesitantly she's flowing a lot more. I like how the water looks and how there's the grass and the flowery walls with vines on them, and red flowers growing where bloodstains were. ALSO YES THE RED FLOWERS. They appear a lot more in Cradles later so I'll explain them when I get there.
I like how Jockey's singing in this lol. I also added the detail of there being pink in her eyes sense that's how she's seeing the world right now! And it's right next to Charger's serious disposition and I feel like the image carries a lot of personality.
Another one of the pictures I drew. Jockey must be strong to just grab the chainsaw so quick! Also this is another one that I colored at the very end.
Man I really disliked the zombies quite a lot. I didn't want to detail them too much and I hated trying to figure out what they should look like and I ended up with this and really disliked it at the time but rolled with it anyways... They're zombies. They don't look very interesting and they look kind of weird but also: this is a three minute music video and these appear for a second. It's more about the feeling than the images themselves and the fire scene is PRETTY COOL and even if the fire is lazy copy paste sometimes, all the audience sees is the flames moving and that is the important part. You just have to remember what matters sometimes!
I liked drawing the chainsaw while it was around. The main body was red, the chain part was white, the handle was black, and I could use the same white to make it look like the red paint chipped off!!
I sometimes think this frame looks awkward but everyone else likes it and I think it's cool. My second try at perspective and I figured out I should move the poof to one side instead of trying to keep it in the middle. NOT NEARLY AS COOL AS THE CHAINSAW JOCKEY LAUGHING IN ILTM but I mean it's still pretty cool. I like how the chainsaw looks and how her hand is grabbing it. I think I did well.
DID CHARGER PICK UP HER AXE that's kind of funny. I don't remember that but I like that idea now lol. Anyways they killed the zombies thank you Jockeyyyyy. Earlier Charger actually told Jockey to get the chainsaw because I mean she's scary... But she's also good with it so whatever.
I remember this one internal conversation I had with the characters where the ladies find a flamethrower, and Hunter is like "That's so cool I wanna use it" and Charger tells her to give it to Jockey haha. Just let her have it. That's a Jockey thing.
Smoker tells Jockey to shut the fuck up and stop singing.png
This is also part of the animation where I use zooms a bit more. They aren't at their full peak but I am starting to use them quite a lottt Also Charger's weapon changes into her [I forgot the name] big long knife thingy. Idk man
But then the zombies get her before she can help Jockey!! D:< I like the zombies as more formless blobs here. FUN FACT I drew this panel this month I took a long break from cradles after getting tired from it so YEAH THIS DRAWING IS FROM THIS MONTH.
Long image meant I can use it for longer sense I could zoom it. Jockey tries to help but is currently unable to and Charger kind of fucking dies. I like how the knife sticks out though, it's so shiny.
I REALLY like this frame. It's about as close to the Chainsaw moment as I could get and I think it's cool! She breaks the tongue and takes the weapons and kills the zombies! Motherfucker is a unit!! I really like this image though not gonna lie.
Another image I zoom a lot in.
Tiny smoker in the back lol
That one part where the song clicks and she gets more blood on her every time it clicks is an MKV file so that means I can't put the video here but I CAN take screenshots.
idk what the significance is supposed to be here but it sure does look cool
The text is really cool over this part, I used a bunch of effects on it to give it this very specific affect as it zoomed over this image. + The image itself is really cool and the sketchy style absolutely lends to it.
I also dulled her jacket in this part. I was kind of planning to keep the jacket dull from this point on but I ended up not carrying through with it. But either way it makes for a few cool frames. Also from this angle you can see the blood on the floor isn't even hers. She just got a bunch of zombie blood on her idk how she's still fine.
red flowers and crossed out face!! And it layers over the last image really well.
69th image woo. Anyways I forgot the blood on this one and always planned to go back and do it but I didn't, oops.
also supposed to layer over the last image but its wider. In the video I put the last word over her face and dammit I want that to be appreciated.
AGAIN, it's a reference to the ILTM video. In that video there are these big red flowers that don't really have any significance
aside from relating to the lyrics.
I thought they looked like they related quite a bit to blood and the lyrics around them piqued my interest. "Beautiful flower in vivid red bloom" as blood comes rolling from it and the zombies play with it. I decided to put the red flowers where there was blood in my animation and I don't have any exact meaning for them but I REALLY think they stand out in the pink world and can be given a lot more thought as to what they mean in this animation. I think they're pretty neat.
I replaced all the flowers in the intermission part and thought to myself, this part is gonna be easy! I'm gonna get so much done sense I just need to replace two images and I've already edited that part. But NO it was synced up wrong and I realized that it looked like the image wobbled. And I disliked that, fixed it, and somehow didn't catch that the normal flowers in the first intermission wobbled.
anyways then it turned out that I had to re edit it anyways because the beats were timed slightly differently, and I fixed it slowly. Very slowly. and lost interest and took a week or so long break....
But I mean that part of the animation looks cool so no regrets.
Then I decided well if I'm gonna have to re-edit this I'm gonna put even more effort into it and I did so now there's this image. I drew this last week. The entire last bit of the animation was made in a week. I spent most of my time on this image on the wall and the wall looks cool.
Aw man Juan Rivera died
So I moved everything outside because I really really wanted a change of scenery at this point. Now it's RED and there's blood and brick everywhere. And zombie smoker is there.
My original plan for this part of the song involved a segment with Zombie Jockey, "I wanna taste your content hold you breath and feel the tension" but the rest of Cradles was too chronological for it to make sense to randomly switch to another story. AND I felt like Smoker wouldn't get enough screentime otherwise!
The zooms get a lot more intense from here on out to fit the chaotic nature of this part of the song. And I do think I utilize them pretty god damn well.
here you can see her tongue is ripped to imply that she was the smoker that strangled Jockey earlier!
Scrapped idea for this one:
The text is actually ON this image this time instead of added on in the editing program. I did this for zooming reasons and also this is THE largest image in Cradles sofar haha. I used the image from back when she was in the hallway all the way back when the fire started as a reference for this!!
The line "Honesty is a one way gate to hell" was the line that made me really want to make an animation for Jockey in this song sense it's just such a good line aaaaaaaaaa so I really wanted to do good with it? I ended up coloring everybody in the pink world and switching starkly back to the red dark and bloody place she's at right now. It's pretty basic but I like it!!
BUT that image of Jockey almost didn't even make it in. It was scrapped sense I was going to use it for an earlier line but I thought it kind of fucked up the "Devils hide behind redemption" line so I moved it away.
Original placement:
It reminds me a lot of that one scrapped devils hide version.
The ORIGINAL Jockey for this line looked like this.
I wasn't quite happy with it as it needed more refinement and then I realized HEY I can just replace it with that Jockey from earlier I didn't use. It all worked out in the end woooo
This one took me a bit to get right but I like the movement here! How she moves back and swings her arm at her is really good, and especially the zooming here I ACTUALLY start syncing to the lyrics. Instead of semi-randomly panning around it zooms whenever a new important word is spoken, and here it starts with the knife and zooms out to see more of the image which looks cooool
The image itself is cool but again the zooming in the video makes it even better.One scrapped idea for this part was Jockey getting backed up into a bunch of rubble.
Another zoomy one! IDK smoker you kind of had it coming I'm gonna be honest. Anyways all of Jockey's friends died that kind of sucks
Sometimes I think to myself, hey, why didn't I do more cool animations like I did in the beginning!? And then I realize I did and this is one of them. I actually edited this one without listening to the audio and somehow it timed perfectly so that's good for me.
I actually experimented with the intermission quite a lot and it was a huuuuge pain to edit. I had a lot of different ideas like showing different scenes over it but eventually I tried just making another tree frame and it worked out so well that I just scrapped the other ideas.The rest of this I drew literally yesterday!
Back in pink world. Been a while sense we've been here! I picked up a blades of grass brush somewhere and I decorated the ground with it instead of manually drawing blades of grass again.
I actually really like the sketch for this version because it shows pretty clearly I did think of the text zooms and what not. Care starts at the feet, free in the middle, lately at her head.
Kicking up daisies. The flowers start appearing at her feet even though they weren't there in the last panel.
One too many quaters in my pockets, she finds a bunch of flowers on her. I thought it was a cool idea and one thing that I think is cool about this ending bit is that it's the one part I planned out the most throughout anything else in the animation. Like the whole scene was thought up back in September!!But even this scene had changes from the script. Cradles is very much a "make it up as I go thing" for the most part.
The initial script wanted her walking when it said "untied laces" but I was like she doesn't have laces tho she has velcro and the scene was organized differently from the script anyways and then, JUST THIS MORNING I was rewatching ILTM and saw THIS
Horrible. I thought she had velcro this whole time. like maybe I am crazy but I always thought it was velcro man none of the other things have thisss
I liked drawing this field of flowers it was so funnn. Also the profile here! I have finally perfected it. If you compare it to the first one it's muuuch better and looks very nice.
Okay I like this frame a lot and the flowers look so good and the colors are so nice but I would like to point out the one floating flower on the left
ITS THE INTERMISSION TREE my dearest friend. All the flowers fell off of it and bloomed!
Same image but I zoomed in a bit to put Jockey there. The bottom half of her body is cut off sense it's not supposed to be in the picture so I mean call this extra content
:(And then I told everybody OK CRADLES IS DONE but I was lying actually I HAD PLANNED THIS SENSE THE BEGINNING MWAHAHAHAHA
I didn't want to add too many extra frames to this part but I really thought the breathing would add a super nice touch and I was rightttt
Taking the shaders off for these parts! I accidentally made them too dark in the video which kind of sucks but I'm not going to reupload it. Anyways Hunter's hoodie is down because I like drawing her hair
Jockey looking around concerned. I use the same background here as I did at the very beginning of the animation!
sleeping Charger and Smoker were fun to draw. Realistically Charger would be the one up but idk man I made this animation I'm allowed to decide things
concerned hunterrr Hunter is kind of the only one in the team that's actually friends with Jockey? Smoker straight up doesn't like her (most of the time at least) and Charger is mostly just a mom to everyone. Hunter actually gets along with Jox and actually tries to talk to her
I like how buff Jockey is lol
Hunter's just like... uhhh... okay then...?
I'm gonna go a bit more in detail about this scene in general. So the plot of Cradles is that the gals get seperated and Hunter and Smoker get zombied, Jockey tries to go out and find them and ends up running into zombie Hunter who she accidentally kills. Then she's found by Charger and they try to escape and find Smoker and Charger ends up dying. Then Jockey goes outside to hide and runs into Smoker, who is zombied. Then Smoker dies and idk Jockey probably also dies.
It makes for a lot of fun visuals but I didn't really feel like there was any real things that come of it. And very early on I thought to myself about having an extra ending where Jockey wakes up and sees it was a dream. And dream fake-outs are REALLY frustrating sometimes, specifically when what happens in the dream doesn't impact anything.
Here I feel like it would have impact, even if just a little bit. She sees a reality where the worst things happen and tries to accept the reality she is in, and that it isn't as bad as whatever's in the dream. I dunno I feel like there's probably something you could take from this!
+ the really funny joke that all of Jockey's dreams are music videos lol
ANYWAYS thanks a lot??? For reading?? If you could leave some of your thoughts that'd be really cool sense I spent so long on this haha. I hope people appreciate this! It's my biggest animation project yet and I'm excited for the future.