Olga Ulanova

It doesn’t. 

XD Storyboard artists are not required to perfectly time out their boards. My job is to create a storyboard. Someone else will then time it and get it ready for the animators.

But in the digital age of boarding, Storyboard Pro gives us the option to time the scene - and many of the artists I have worked with take that option. And run with it. X) I myself prefer to do rough timing even though it is not required.

It is a very valuable tool - to be able to see how your scene plays in real time, catch any wonky camera movements, maybe try out some fancy camera stuff, make sure I’m not horribly over/under allotted time, see if the action reads clearly and any place needs additional pose outs. I think it enables a greater level of sophistication. I almost can’t imagine working without it now.

BUT, yes another but, it is very easy to fall into the trap of perfectionism. Just because I have this new ability to time and pose out my board till it’s practically animated (and some guys do that), there is no room for it in the schedule. Whatever time I spend on tweaking the timing and making sure it plays juuuuuuuust right, is the time that’s taken away from the boarding process itself. Yeah, the board is gonna look great, but at the cost of my personal time. 

So, I do time my boards, but I do it because it facilitates my boarding process, and I keep it pretty rough. At the end of the day the director and timers are going to go in and fix it up how they need it.

Thanks, good question!

Nope, no convention plans this year, cozin.

Thanks for the kind words! I really enjoyed boarding the beginning of 308 (season 3, episode 8), the first 4 minutes. And also the very first scene I’ve done on the show is still one of my all-time favorites – episode 302 where Korra attempts to recruit the slacker Ryu. 

On Young Justice I’ve only done the one freelance - so it wins by default. XD

As for Green Lantern… y’know, I was just learning storyboarding at that time (and figure drawing, and perspective…), which was very challenging and frustrating. So I can’t say I really like anything I produced… early work, ya know? But I do remember having a lot of fun boarding for “Prisoner of Sinestro,” cause we got to play with suspense staging and it was something different from the usual fare. 

And sometimes a scene is fun for totally weird reasons. There was one on Beware the Batman where he fights a bunch of thugs in a warehouse. YAWN, amirite. You know who’s gonna win, so it’s just a rote action scene. But it takes 2-3 weeks to draw it all out, so you live with it for a long time. I made it interesting for myself - I gave all the thugs names and personalities, and backstories about how they got into the life. So I wasn’t just drawing blank extras trying to take on Batman, I was drawing some misguided, desperate guys try to take on Batman and fail miserably! By the end of those 2 weeks I was a little sad to see them go… XD Make your own fun, is what I’m saying. 

You don’t even have to ask. :D Totally go for it!