如何创作一个夺人眼球的故事板

本文为蓝铅笔翻译专稿，转载请注明出处。

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Improve Your Storyboards Instantly（原稿标题）

如何迅速提升故事板

If you’ve studied or done animation for any length of time you’ve no doubt come across some absolutely fantastic storyboards out there. Single images that tell the story at hand with elegant brilliance yet wonderful simplicity. To create such pre-production masterpieces it takes a lot of skill and a huge amount of hard work and practice, of course, but there IS something you can do right now to make sure your storyboards really pop visually.

无论学习或制作了多久的动画，你都肯定遇到过一些非常出色的故事板——一幅幅能既能展示故事情节又绘制得优雅动人的简单图像。要在前期制作时创建如此精彩的作品，除了高超的既能外，还需要注入大量的心血和汗水，当然，也确实有一些可以让故事板夺人眼球的小诀窍！

The secret? Add simple tone.

这个小诀窍是什么呢？就是做出色差！

Hardly a secret at all, really, as contrast is the number one aspect to keep in mind when creating something. Big to small, hard to soft, fast to slow. When you add in contrast, things become much more interesting.

这很难算得上是个诀窍，对吧？不过话说回来，在创建作品时首先要考虑的就是对比性，要有大有小、有软有硬、有快有慢。在添加了对比性后，一切就变得更有趣味了。

Take a look at the image below, from our very own Ferdinand Englander’s article “Finding Ideas: A Feature Film in an Hour.'

先来看看下面这张图，这是Animator Island的另一位编辑Ferdinand Englande在文章《动画窍门之——如何用一小时创作一部长发》使用的一幅插图。

Here we see several examples of contrast, from color on the words to size of the different text to simple shadow on the character himself. Your eyes are drawn around the page to different locations because of these contrasts. Watch what happens, then, when we remove these contrasts.

在这张图中，我们看到了三组对比，分别是字体的颜色、文本的大小、角色身上的阴影效果。读者的双眼也会随着这些对比而在整个图片中搜索相应内容。那如果把这些对比去掉了会怎么样？下面来看看效果：

Suddenly the image has a lot less appeal, and your eyes aren’t completely sure where to look first, second, or third. The separation (contrast) is gone, and it becomes a less compelling image. (Though personally I still find the expression on the character hilarious! I’ve sure felt that feeling while brainstorming before…)

仿佛图像突然间变得乏味，读者也无法明确到底该先看哪里，以什么顺序看下去。因为不同信息的隔离带（差异性）消失了，所有内容都变成了一团糅合的整体。（虽然我个人仍然觉得角色的表情很喜感！我在冥思苦想时也经常是这幅德行……）

Applying Contrast and Tone Specifically to Storyboarding

根据故事板内容加入对比性和色调

Contrast is useful in all aspects of your work, but when it comes to storyboarding it shines brighter than ever. Storyboarding is all about telling a story with one image and leading the viewer’s eye to exactly what’s important. It is normally just one part of a sequence, but an essential bit that the viewer absolutely needs to see in order to fully grasp the story being told. It may linger for a split second or much longer, depending on where in the story a certain board falls.

动画的任何环节都需要体现出对比，但在故事板阶段尤为突显。故事板旨在用一幅图讲述一个故事，引导观众关注重要之处。它往往只是一个场景的一部分，但也是该场景中最为关键的部分，观众只有了解了它才能完全理解整个故事。它的持续时间可长可短，由其在故事中的位置决定。

Here then contrast through simple tone can do wonders. It can transform a line drawing with a lot going on into a simple composition that everyone knows the focus of instantly. Take a look at this amazing storyboard panel by Michael Lester who works over at Dreamworks:

实际上，做出色差就可以创造奇迹。因为色差能将复杂的线条画整合成简单的图像，让人一眼就看出重点。下图这幅精彩的故事板就是个很好的例证（由梦工厂动画师Michael制作）。

There’s a HUGE amount going on in this subway car, with a large cast of characters, but thanks to tone and contrast your eyes are drawn immediately to the most important aspect (the dog in the hat) and then allowed the freedom to look over all the happy riders around him. The darker tone for the dog also plays nicely into the sad pose he’s taking. (Truth be told we could study this image all day for a treasure trove of artistic goodness, but let’s get back on topic for now.)

这辆小小的地铁车厢所包含的内容非常丰富，光是角色就有好几个，但由于合理地运用了色差和对比，我们能清楚而快速地看出重要之处（戴帽子的狗 狗），随后顺势看到了它身边的欢乐角色，而它身上昏暗的色调也很好地展现了它的悲伤之情。（坦白说，这幅无价的艺术珍品能让我们耗上一天来细细研究，不过 我们还是回到今天的主题上吧。）

Behold, like a magic trick, what happens when we remove the simple tonal contrast!

看好了，现在我们把色差对比去除，看看它变成什么样子！是不是和变戏法一般不可思议？

Suddenly you notice a whole lot more lines than the partially filled piece. Where exactly are you supposed to look? Is the focus the large cat to the left? Perhaps the laughing character? Maybe the story is following the child to the right, off on his first subway ride? Eventually you might make note that the dog character has a nice aura of negative space (not touching any other characters) so it may be the story is about him. Without the tone, though, getting to that point takes a lot of thinking and a long time. Time storyboard artists need to keep moving along quickly.

你会突然发现，与上图相比，这幅图中的线条多了很多，让人不知道该往哪里看，也不知重点是什么，是左边这只硕大的猫咪还是那位大笑的角色？也许 这图讲述的是关于右边那位小朋友第一次坐地铁的故事？最终你可能会慢慢发现狗狗角色周围有些负空间（它与其他角色无肢体接触），故事可能跟它有关。因此， 在没有色差的情况下，要找到要点变得非常不易，需要大量时间进行大量思考。

If you’d like to see more examples of superb use of tone and contrast in storyboards, Michael’s blog Ninjerktsu(http://ninjerktsu.blogspot.com/) does not disappoint. It’s filled with storyboard-like-comics that are as hilarious as they are beautiful. (This one about a “Cat Lady” is one of my personal favorites.)

如果想看更多使用色差和对比来制作精彩故事板的例子，就去Michael的博客 Ninjerktsu（http://ninjerktsu.blogspot.com/）逛逛吧（温馨提示：天朝子民需翻墙），一定不会让你失望的！他 的博客中有许多类似故事板的漫画，精美地制作了一个个令人捧腹大笑的故事。（其中《Cat Lady（猫咪女士）》是本人最爱）

Keep It Simple

尽量精简

While it helps to use tone as shadow, you don’t need to know advanced lighting techniques to add this aspect to your drawings. Simple blocking of three or four tones is enough to do the trick. Things you want to draw the eye to should have the highest level of contrast, while the areas that you’d like to fade into the background should blend in with less contrast. As an exercise, try adding in these five tones to a line drawing you’ve done (or add them to another artist’s line drawings just to practice).

虽然用色调作阴影很有效，但你大可不必用高超的灯光技巧来为这些图画蛇添足。用三四种色调制作出精简的构图框架就已足够。最需吸引眼球的地方就需要加大对比，而需要淡化成背景的地方就应减少对比。你可以试着为自己的线条画（或是他人的作品）增加若干色调，权当练练手。

lay around with changing levels of contrast, blocking in tone vs adding shadows, and drawing the viewer’s eye to different places. Feel free to be messy, you don’t have to fill in every last pixel here. It’s through experimenting like this that you’ll discover where and when to use simple tone, and just how powerful of a tool it can be.

试着用不同层次的色调上色或增加阴影，以此引领观众注重不同的细节。不要在意作品是不是变得乱成一团，你并不需要对每个像素都进行填色，而只有通过这样的尝试，你才能发觉应该在哪里、在何时添加色调，才能认识到它是一种多么强大的工具。

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