Sarah Lynne ReulThesis Update: Woo hoo!!
Posted on December 30, 2014
On Wednesday, December 17th, I passed my final thesis review! 
With all of the holiday stuff going on, I didn’t have time to post right away. The final review was an online video chat with David Nethery, the Online 2D Animation Director; Sam Fleming, my advisor; Dennis Blakey, the Visual Effects Director and Stewart Lew, a 3D animation/effects instructor. It was a huge relief to finish up the project and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. There were a few small suggestions to improve the film that I’ll be working on over the next few weeks, but overall it was big success and I now officially have my Master’s in 2D Animation!
Since I’ll be submitting to film festivals, I can’t publicly post the project up just yet, but there are pieces of it in my updated demo reel here:
If you’re dying to see all three-and-a-half-glorious-minutes of the whole film right away, shoot me an email and I’ll see what I can do ;).
I’ve updated the rest of reuler.com, including the thesis overview, which includes link to the final review book PDF with lots of background and production info for the project. I’ve also spiffed up my illustration portfolio – I’m hoping to have time to create some more overdue blog posts about new pieces in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I’ll be working on some freelance illustration and enjoying a bit of non-crunch time.
Collaboration = Awesomeness
Posted on October 13, 2014
Working from home can be a little isolating. Through online classes through Academy of Art University I’ve learned a ton about animation and illustration, but the often lackluster community aspect of sparse discussion boards and “good job!” critiques can leave me a feeling a little empty.
I’ve been trying to brainstorm ways to get myself out there with other real people doing the same kind of work, even though my time is pretty limited these days between finishing up my Master’s thesis, working on freelance illustration and taking care of my two lovely, ridiculous, time-consuming children. Through the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, I’m working with a few other illustrators to start up a local critique group (in person!) and I’ve attended another writer’s critique group to test the waters.
But over the summer, while on a long road trip with the family, I stumbled upon a super way of combining two of my favorite things – drawing silly stuff and playing with Miriam, who’s now 5. We made pages and pages of collaborative drawings (don’t worry, I wasn’t driving) – here are some of my favorites:
In this one, I drew a creature and asked “What is it looking up at?” Apparently a pink tree and a spider sun… and now she has a fancy hat and necklace.
One of many princesses I have been commanded to draw:
Miriam’s additions: balloons in hand, green rapunzel hair, a skirt, shoes and teeth.
Sometimes she’d come up with an idea that I’d illustrate, then she’d customize the drawing with color and her own drawing additions. Other times I started with some simple shapes and then she’d add a bit, and we’d go back and forth until the drawing was just perfect.
Nick and I also collaborated on a fun project back in August – I’ll be posting more on that soon!
Thesis Update: Scenes 52-58
Posted on September 28, 2014
Finally, (*cough* *cough*…this whole “posting regularly” slips so easily…), here are the last few roughed-in scenes for my thesis. Now you know how it ends.
Since I finished up those scenes, I’ve also worked on improving the concept of passage of time within the film, to make the day seem longer (to give more impact to the ending) without adding too much more animation time.
This semester should be my final one at the Academy of Art University (fingers crossed!). I’ll need to complete all the cleanup – that’s polishing up rough animation. I’m using my Cintiq and TVPaint to redraw everything and so far the process is going well, just trying to stay on target each week. I love the rough look of pencil tests so I’m trying to keep some of that spontaneous, sketchy line in my cleaned-up drawings, while making sure that the characters stay somewhat on model and not too jumpy with wiggly lines.
I’m also tackling color for all of the scenes, using the super “LazyBrush” plugin for TVPaint. Rather than having to carefully color beneath all of the linework, I can make squiggles on a separate layer approximately where I want each color to go, and then the plugin runs a script that fills in the spaces (amazingly well especially considering that my lines are so rough and pencilly).
Over the next few weeks, I’m hoping to post some more examples from my thesis as well as some other illustration & animation projects I’ve been working on. It’s my goal to get back up to weekly posts…once again, fingers crossed!
Thesis Update: Scenes 48-51
Posted on July 22, 2014
Ok! Finished roughing in the last 10 scenes of the film. Here’s four scenes just before the end of the film, will post up the final six next week.
Still have tons of notes on improvements, details to add like splashes & floppy bits (ears, ponytails, etc) and of course the sound needs a good deal of work, but it feels good to have the rough animation for nearly the whole film. Still need to go back in to finish a layout for the first scene and to do a little bit of rough animation on the second scene; have those scheduled for the next few weeks.
Thesis Update: Scenes 43-47
Posted on July 1, 2014
Another quick post with a few updated scenes. Gargantua is really fun to animate, he is so big and meaty. I’ll need to add more splashes and after some feedback from my instructor, I realize that I need to update that camera move so that it follows rather than anticipates the action.
Thesis update: Scenes 38-42
Posted on June 27, 2014
Since the summer semester at the Academy of Art University is double-time (with two modules per week rather than one), I am trying to blast through the remainder of my rough animation. There’s a total of 58 scenes in the film (I count it as a scene each time the camera direction changes) and as of now I’m up in the forties, hooray! Here’s a recent update of a few scenes, more to come:
Spring thesis update!
Posted on June 10, 2014
Just finished up an excellent spring semester. Through a one-on-one directed study course with animator-extraordinaire Sam Fleming, I managed to knock out the rough animation for scenes 3-37. Incorporated new voiceover material from the multi-talented Alison Potoma as well as from my ever-patient, wonderful husband Nick (who provided the voices for two of the monsters here).
Here’s the latest version of the animatic – as you can see, some scenes have changed and a couple have been added/switched around – I’ll probably come back with some posts on the process for a few of these. About 18 or so scenes left to finish up this summer – classes start next week.
I have some catch-up posts planned for the next couple weeks, including some examples of work from my recent internship at FableVision – stay tuned!
Effects: Splash
Posted on February 13, 2014
This one was daunting at first – it’s said that water is one of the most difficult things to animate effectively. However, once I found a method of attack (envisioning an ellipse in perspective, and a path for the overall form of the splash) it felt a lot more comfortable.
Effects: Vortex
Posted on February 3, 2014
This effect was one of the hardest for me to grasp – we studied vortexes, including water vortexes, tornados, fire whirls, etc.
I do like the way this turned out, although my instructor pointed out that it has a sort of “spinning plates” feel to it. Here’s a page of exploratory sketches:
I almost chickened out in favor of a jellyfish animation, with little vortex eddies coming out (instead of tackling the tornado effect): 
Effects: Wispy Smoke
Posted on December 30, 2013
This one is an exploratory version of a monster for my thesis: a smoking, hooker-esque fish. It’s based off a real animal, the red-lipped batfish (which does not, to my knowledge, actually smoke).
I think the smoke’s going to have to go way slower, maybe need to inbetween all the frames here.
Here are some of the sketches I made of the smoke from blown-out matches. It is really neat to observe wispy smoke up close – I’m not a fan of incense but I probably should pick some up for further studies. 
I'm an illustrator and 2D animator who likes lots of stuff, including science, bright colors and figuring out how things work.
Sarah Lynne Reul 