Eric Scot Dales wins honorable mention in the “Education Animation” category of the Reallusion 2024 Animation at Work contest. In his own words, he takes us through the workflow that brought his winning entry, “Why Do We Dream?”, to life.
Eric Scot Dales / BlinkyBarky Animation
Hello, I’m Eric Scot Dales. My interest in computer graphics and 3D animation began between 1989 and 1995, during which I worked on small projects for college. Professionally, I spent my career in government as a computer engineer.
After retiring, I returned to my passion of studying and exploring 2D and 3D software and AI diffusion models. Today, I am a freelancer, laying the groundwork for a small business. I’m also launching YouTube channels to make a positive impact while also building a source of side income.
Follow BlinkyBarky Animation
Entry Concept
I’ve been a fan of Tales From The Loop by Simon Stålenhag and was drawn to its unique blending of what I would call sci-fi in nature. The idea of rural life interwoven with advanced sci-fi technology, used in a way that brings ease and fun, really resonated with me. Inspired by Stålenhag’s work, I introduced technology into my story that you wouldn’t normally find on a country farm. The story centers on the relationship between a grandson and his grandpa. The grandfather gets upset after being splashed by the boy, who finds a clever way to cut corners while doing chores. His reaction of basically grumbling “no respect” served as a comical close to the piece.
The idea began forming in my mind around July 2024. By September, I started shaping the rough story, character concepts, background ideas, and voice lines. In mid-2024, I was preparing for an animation project for a 2024 contest with Reallusion, although I had no idea if or when it would actually be announced. Storyboard development took place over September and October — two months filled with drawings and visual references to help bring the concept to life.
I started basically defining the video project style, characters, props and environment. I used a combination of StoryboardThat online software and Storyboarder software. StoryboardThat gave me a way to get raw concept characters for storyboard scene creation. I used Storyboarder locally on the computer because I liked the structure of the interface and the way to incorporate the various parts of the scenes. I acquired screenshots from Polygon Farm Pack by Synty, I used Unreal Engine to position the view in 3D to capture the screen and bring it into Storyboarder. The Storyboard went through refinements over three months before the contest ended, as I fine-tuned the story scenes in CTA5.
Using XPPen
Currently, I use the XPPen Artist Pro 24 (Gen 2). I had other drawing display tablets (1080p models) starting in 2020 and had been considering acquiring a 4K tablet at some point. When the Reallusion contest announcement came out in 2024, and I saw there was a contest for XPPen; Which led me to think about the models XPPen offered, along with their price and feature offerings.
I noticed a sale in late November 2024 for XPPen tablets on their website, with some free financing options. I wanted a 4K tablet that would fit the table I was using and match well with the 4K monitors I had. So, it has only been since December 2024 that I’ve been involved with the XPPen brand.
Using Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo
I started acquiring the Affinity suite of software in early 2020. After I purchased training materials, extra brush packages, and later upgraded to version 2 of their software. I primarily use Affinity Photo 2 and deepened my knowledge while working on a project for a contest.
I’ve always gravitated toward software that offers strong features and a perpetual license model, which is why I chose Affinity back in 2020. My real test of Affinity Photo 2 and the XPPen began in December 2024, during that project. The pen was highly responsive on the screen, making it easy to navigate menus and perform both drawing and editing tasks.
To enhance my workflow, I used a separate 48-key keypad on my left, with custom shortcut keys assigned, alongside the pen to interact with the tablet display. I didn’t transfer those shortcuts to the XPPen remote during the project. My goal was to complete most tasks in Affinity Photo 2 without needing to use a traditional keyboard.
Integrating Cartoon Animator
There are several features that I adore and would like to share. One is the rigging and morphing abilities applied to objects and characters in CTA5. The functions in the 2D Motion Key Editor, Face Key Editor, and FFD Editor were enjoyable to use for achieving the desired result in keyframing. Specifically, when used on the same part of a character (such as the face, as I did with the grandson’s facial movements in a few scenes). The “Transition Curve” feature was especially helpful for smoothing the interpolation between keyframes.
Another feature is the ability to integrate audio, both as background sound and voice clips, and then modify the character’s mouth within CTA5 to match the voice. This was incredibly helpful for achieving a natural voice-to-mouth motion flow. Lastly, Motion Pilot allows real-time motion recording with a mouse or pen and applies the resulting path directly in Timeline editing. This feature greatly enhances animation flexibility and speed.
Affinity Workflow & the CTA 5.33 Update
I saw two videos when they came out on YouTube: the ones that Kai did with version 5.33 , using Affinity Photo 2 and Affinity Designer 2. Kai did a wonderful job outlining the integration flow between the Affinity packages and CTA5, and how to edit in Affinity Photo and bring back changes to selective layers (as in the background shot for the Raster video).
I also saw the new vector tutorial, and again, Kai explains and demonstrates the process with the SVG and the multistep workflow, including working with layers in Designer (grouping parts of an object) when the images come back to CTA5 before bones are added.
Video Compositing
A tip I learned from Mark Diaz, that I always keep in mind, is to split a large CTA project into smaller CTA project files. This approach helps maintain better performance when working on bigger projects. Another important habit is keeping track of which keyframe you’re on while making modifications across the timeline, which ensures more precise edits.
Understanding the various media types available in the “Create Media” dropdown menu, such as Props, Scene, Image Layer, and Background, is also essential. Early in my journey, I made the mistake of importing a background using “Create Media > Background” when I actually needed to modify the image after placing it in the scene. In that case, “Create Media > Props” would have been the better choice, as it allows more flexibility with edits.
For final compositing, I imported all my MP4 files into DaVinci Resolve Studio 19, which I use as my video editor. I made sure that the frame rate (24 FPS in my case) matched between CTA and DaVinci to maintain visual consistency. I also balanced the audio using a YouTube preset in DaVinci, ensuring the final render had proper volume before completing the project and uploading it.
Closing Thoughts
I am glad to spend some time challenging myself after work and come up with this piece. In which I learned a lot from the competition, and there was a lot of back-and-forth checking the tutorials from the CTA tutorial on Reallusion’s LEARN portal. I highly recommend that future contestants bookmark, so you can always come back and learn a new thing in Cartoon Animator by yourself. It is rewarding, and I have become a better creator after this challenge. Thank you so much!
Related Posts
Affinity Designer,Cartoon,Cartoon Animator,Character Animation,Character Creation,Facial Animation,Lip-sync Animation
