Nick Leong Art (he/they) - PROFESSIONAL EDITION

Here's another sequence I did for the bad guys 2! This is the very first assignment I was given, what a MOUNTAIN of a sequence for my first crack at this film! Great crash course on drawing the characters lol

#badguysmovie #thebadguys2 #badguys2 #storyboard #storyboards #animatic

Another Bad Guys 2 board! A few of us had tried our hand at adding some *OOMPH* to Wolf and Diane's first kiss in this alternate ending, and this was my stab at it~

#badguysmovie #badguys2 #thebadguys2 #animatic #storyboard

small but funny secret, we were all so bad at including the tails in our boards (this is the only time I remembered lol)

I was sure it came up in one of our team meetings! I'll be honest, I thought it's why I got to board for ya haha

Some behind the scenes thumbnail sketches, I was having fun with this one hahaha

Another Bad Guys 2 board! A few of us had tried our hand at adding some *OOMPH* to Wolf and Diane's first kiss in this alternate ending, and this was my stab at it~

#badguysmovie #badguys2 #thebadguys2 #animatic #storyboard

Don't Trust Anyone - Part 2

#badguys2 #badguysmovie #thebadguys #thebadguys2 #storyboards #animatic

Here we go! This one's an earlier pass of the sequence "Don't Trust Anyone" from the feature film The Bad Guys 2!

#badguys2 #badguysmovie #thebadguys #thebadguys2 #storyboards #animatic

buff marmalade standing next to unimpressed Kitty

loose sketches of Diane Foxington of Bad Guys 2 fame standing next to 3 variants of an overworked and high-strung assistant

Finally got all my data recovered and I'll be posting bad guys 2 stuff soon! In the meantime, have this warmup doodle I did of Kitty and Professor Marmalade, as well as some rough sketches when me and a coworker were trying to figure out what Diane's assistant might look like

#badguys2 #thebadguys2

Some #thebadguys2 Storyboard! I've only worked on the first version of the movie, meaning the boards are old, but they may have influenced the final a bit. The first sequence I've worked on, kickboxing between Diane and Wolf, super roughly timed.
#badguys #wolf #diane #dreamworks #storyboard

The bad guys gang looks at Wolf floating in the background

Diane, holding Dolphin, looks on as police officers bag up evidence, including a framed photo of the bad guys crew

Oh yeah, The Bad Guys 2 is out! A lot of my stuff is pretty spoiler-y so I'm gonna hold off on posting it for now but I am really proud of the work I did for this one!

In the meantime here are a couple of shots that didn't directly make it into the movie~

#storyboards #badguysmovie #badguys2

Verdi was more talented than me, sure. But I have poems to write anyway, because I have things to say. The best of them get sold and become part of someone else's experience, but even the ones I write just for me are worth something, and the ones that dont work out but I keep thinking about.

(yes I'm a big fan of blatantly framing the focal point via foreground elements, almost all of my favorite shots have some level of this)

The bad guys gang looks at Wolf floating in the background

Diane, holding Dolphin, looks on as police officers bag up evidence, including a framed photo of the bad guys crew

Oh yeah, The Bad Guys 2 is out! A lot of my stuff is pretty spoiler-y so I'm gonna hold off on posting it for now but I am really proud of the work I did for this one!

In the meantime here are a couple of shots that didn't directly make it into the movie~

#storyboards #badguysmovie #badguys2

I remember this! Was my primary point of reference for most of production when I was trying to think up what kinda doohickeys and debris would be floating around up there

#badguys2 movie moment. Very early piece done in pre production. The movie is out , check it out in big screen if you can !
#visualdevelopment #badguysmovie

TWRP - Starlight Brigade (feat. Dan Avidan) [Official video] YouTube video by TWRPtube

On this day, 6 years ago, we collaborated with Dan Avidan, @twrpband.bsky.social, and the amazing @doigswift.com to generate this monumentous music video. Starlight Brigade!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Q3i5w6-Ug

I need a proofreader like yesterday

can't*

jfc

Clarity is more important than believability* damn

I mean it's both, it's really both, but I tend to favor clarity cuz they can believe what they don't understand y'know

FUCK yeah! Glad to hear it!

Also damn looking back I was SO picky and technical about my volumes and 3D rotations, no wonder this shot took forever. Experience paid off, I'm definitely faster (and a tad bit sloppier) nowadays while achieving similar effect-- but this is all on 1s! What a slog that was.

It's tricky to see, but if you play the video at half speed it becomes a lot more obvious what clarity I was shooting for and how little (imo) it affects the flow of the action in black and white.

Looking back I'm actually pretty certain that color made it far too noticeable to get away with lol

Learning these things is important to understand why people rely on convention and when you want to have a specific effect that convention is important to understand so you know where it is and isn't needed. But it's always just effect. Squash and stretch isn't required it simply feels a certain way

animation cheat tip:

there's no such thing as cheating just do whatever looks good lol

oh I'm sorry your walk cycle needs a down and an up position? A bouncing ball NEEDS to squash and stretch? Spacing NEEDS to be consistent?

Naw if it looks good it looks good. If it's expressive, even better.

You can see the full rough animation here.

So that's the choice that I made in order to try and preserve that! Anne's run was the primary action, I didn't want the audience to lose focus. And though it didn't pan out, I find it much more interesting to make choices like that just to see what would happen. We're in control of reality here!

Sometimes what reads in roughs won't read as cleanly in color, and I suspect that's what happened here. Nevertheless it's something I think about a lot. Sprig's body is just a smear here, it'll read regardless, but Anne's leg might get lost in the action and I didn't want that to be confusing. (2/3)

This didn't make it to final, but in this shot I did for the opening of Amphibia, I deliberately chose to have Anne's leg break through Sprig's body between frames to maintain the clarity of the run. Is that the right call? It felt right to me! And I've done it in plenty of other places since. (1/3)

animation cheat tip:

Sometimes during really fast movement if a pose reads better when you break the action... just go for it! Clarity is more important than readability and it's cool to remember that we can do that if we want.

example in quote post