Storyboard Artwork Project/ArtRage2

This school is:: Wikiversity Film School - Narrative film production

This course is:: The basics of narrative filmmaking
This lesson is:: Creating the thumbnail storyboards
The pages of this lesson are:

Introduction - Creating the thumbnail storyboards

If you have problems:

Things to worry about! ("Crossing the line.")

More things to worry about! (Eyeballs & cameras)

Storyboard worksheet (pdf) • Storyboard worksheet larger (pdf) • Story • Script Outline • Sample storyboard frames • Formatted script • Floor plan.

Using ArtRage 2 to draw thumbnail storyboards
Storyboarding with ArtRage2 Free A simple but challenging program Simply wonderful ArtRage Free is a wonderful program. The free version is absolutely free, fully working, and extremely easy to use. I highly recommend that you download this program. Simple It takes only 2 seconds to understand how to paint using this program since it one of the easiest programs to learn. Fun While the free version does not have as many features as the full version, it is great fun to use. That is because it simulates real artist tools. Skill required Yet, the program is challenging. When you want to draw thumbnail storyboards, it can take you a long time to figure out how to get your storyboards to look good… or even just acceptable. Specially if you are not a skilled artist. The tutorial To help you get started specially if you are not a skilled artist, I have created this tutorial to help get you started. NEW Start by creating a NEW page. When the dialog box comes up, select a frame size of 640 by 360 pixels. Because of the way that ArtRage2 works, it is easier to draw on a large page than a small page. Night time background Then select a background color for the storyboard frame. Our movie takes place at night so, to give a night feel to the storyboards, I want a slightly blue background. The set of tools Here is the pallet for the art tools of ArtRage 2. When you get the free version, some of the tools are disabled. The disabled tools are usually the more advanced tools. All of the basic tools work in the free version. Chalk To begin, I select the chalk tool and set it as large as possible which is 100%. Note: This size of the piece of chalk stays fixed while I draw. When I set the chalk tool to 100%, it stays at 100% the entire time that I use the tool. When I press down harder on my pen tablet, the amount of chalk added increases but the diameter of the chalk always remains the same. . Using the color picker, I select a color for the face of the character. Color Picker The color picker is simple. You select the basic shade on the left and then adjust the brightness in the tiny verticle bar on the right. The shade that you pick appears in the lower right corner of the tool. . Begin drawing I begin to draw the face by adding chalk for the face. I use circular motion to increase the face until the blob of chalk reaches the correct size. . Create the face Quickly, I get a nice round face. The size of the face depends on how I think the shot should be composed. . Next I select black. . Then I go all around the face to get an outline. . Next, I create the eyes so to get white, I click in the white part of the bar at the right. . I use the crayon which is set to 20% wide. . I paint the eyes white. . Black detail Then I select the felt tip brush which is about 30% in size and draw the eyes and the body. . I switch to black. . And I paint the center of the eyes. . Then I draw the body. Now everything is done but the hair. . Then I select brown. . I use the crayon which is set to 20% wide. . Finally the figure is finished. . SAVE and EXPORT I must save the painting. Also I must export the painting as a JPEG files. This is not automatic with ArtRage 2.	The Unformatted Movie Script "Seduced by the Dark Side!" EXTERIOR - The local movie theater - NIGHT (1) The Young Person and Old Person stand looking at the movie poster outside the theater. The "Dancing Fairies" music begins to play. Slowly dolly in as music builds. A smile begins to form on the young persons face. Cut to the poster and dolly in slowly. The "Dancing Fairies" music morphs into the Star Wars theme. (2) Young Person: "That was a great movie..." Cut to a side view as the Star Wars music begins to fade to street noise. (3) Young Person (contined): "but I do not understand one thing." The young person;s head turns to the older person. (4) Old Person: "What's that?" Wide angle shot to show emotional distance between the two characters. (5) Young Person: "How can anyone be seduced by the Dark Side?" Immediately a dark cord plays. (6) The old person thinks for a while. Old Person: "Humm!" Thinking very slowly. Music: The music starts with "thinking music" and then morphs into to "fairie music". Finally, the music comes to a sharp halt. (7a) Old Person: "What computer do you..." (7b) Old Person(off camera): "... have at home?" Cut in mid sentence to see the young person's anticipation. (8) Young Person (eagerly): "A Macintosh!" The young person's face lights up with excitement. (9) Old Person: "But what computer does your father use at work?" Military music for thoughts of father. (10) The young person thinks for a moment. Young Person: "Humm!" Music: The music starts as thinking music and shifts to fairy music and then ends with the Star Wars theme. (11) Young Person (amazed and excited): "Seduced by the Dark Side!" Full Star Wars theme (12) The Old Person smiles. Old Person: "Ahh!" The face lights with a knowing smile as the fairy music starts again. (13) Old Person and the Young Person walk toward home together. Lock the camera for a matte painting. The camera remains locked. When the matte painting is added, the shot will look like this: (14) Fade to Black. The End
	Using a mouse? Using my wireless mouse instead of my Wacom table, my storyboard artwork looks like this. The image quality is not too bad but it sure feels uncomfortable when drawing.
	The Secret Tool of ArtRage 2 Undo One tool not mentioned enough in ArtRage2 is the Undo command. Keep your fingers ready to undo at all times. There is even multiple levels of undo. This command will rescue you more times than you can imaging. Try it.
	It is free! Download today Download ArtRage 2 Free today. Try it. If you really like it, try doing the lesson where you must draw the poster for Star Wars. ArtRage is the ideal tool for this. And the poster is a wonderful excuse for you to relaz and draw for an hour or two.

The Finished Drawing

Size Reduction: Finally, I use another program to reduce the size to 160 by 90 pixels. In my case, I took the JPEG picture which I exported from ArtRage 2 Free and imported it into iPhoto. Inside iPhoto, I simply exported the picture with the image size of 160 by 90 pixels in the JPEG format. This gives me a very simple thumbnail storyboard frame which takes very little memory on the WikiU Film School website.

Talent helps: As you can see, I don't have much artistic talent. But I have enough to show you how I want to film my movie. Also, more importantly, this rough storyboard shows me if my series of shots will work together. Look at the final thumbnail storyboard to the right.

The next lesson

Once you have quickly created your thumbnail storyboards, you can begin the course on 3D Storyboarding.

Contact your instructor

Your instructor for this filmmaking class is Robert Elliott. You can email me by clicking here.

Reference materials

Reference materials for Seduced by the Dark Side! that you might need.

All the Lesson 4 Storyboard Frames. This sheet will give you ideas for your storyboards.

The storyboard outline. Print this script outline and use the numbers on this script for your thumbnail storyboards.

The original story. To get additional information for your storyboards, look at the original story.

The formatted script.

A possible floor plan for the movie set. This will help you plan your shots.

Completed Homework Assignments - Thumbnail Storyboarding

Thumbnail storyboards from the lesson on Thumbnail storyboarding

Click on the image to see larger version.

Kasturika has completed this assignment (pdf) (23 May 2007) Good job! 10 points

Kasturika says, "I used the Microsoft paint application.

I took a screen shot of the storyboard, converted it into bitmap image, made the frames separately and pasted them.

Then I used OpenOffice.org Draw to export the bitmap image as PDF."

Click on the image to see larger version.

Niri0n in Sweden has completed this assignment (png). Click on the image to see larger version. (23 May 2007) Good job! 10 points

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Wachapon2 has completed this assignment (png). Click on the image to see larger version. (2 June 2007) Good job! 10 points

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Tunderboy9 has completed this assignment. (13 July 2007) Good job! 10 points

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	Vijay Singh has completed this assignment. (17 July 2007) Good job! 10 points

This is the first storyboard which looks like a movie. The figures are positioned as in a movie. The size of the figures are as in a movie. Yet, these are still very simple thumbnail storyboards. Please look at these storyboards!!!!	Click on the image to see larger version.
	Mok has completed this assignment. (21 July 2007) Very good job! 10 points

Here is a very artistic thumbnail storyboard.	Click on the image to see larger version.
	Fred has completed this assignment. (5 August 2007) Very good job! 10 points