Project Development - A Problem

I'm gonna have to change my idea.

I was so proud of my first idea, to draw on a train, and to make THAT move to animate each image. I thought it was genius!

It is also incredibly impractical, and as much as it breaks my heart to do so, I'm going to have to adapt my idea.

I've been delaying the inevitable for so long, but it looks like there's just no way I'm going to be able to MOVE the train in order to animate each frame one by one.

I knew the train yard was abandoned, I just hoped I'd figure something out when it came to it. What I did have in mind was to maybe make a camera dolly or something, and run it alongside the train on a parallel track, making the camera move instead of the train. But the site is just too over grown, there tracks without trains have trees and weeds growing out of them, and the only track that really runs parallel for the same distance isn't really long enough to run the whole animation length.

So yeah, need a new plan.

From the looks of it, my best option is to do a photo montage like in the research videos I looked at, and the test I did of the method.

I shall still be drawing each image afresh on a train, that much remains, but I will be animating them myself after. So it's still got the same backdrop and meaning behind it, the setting is still perfect for my intent, but the idea of an actual object moving and doing the animating for me is something I will save for another time, when it is actually achievable.

I won't lie, I'm a little gutted. I don't like dropping any idea I have unless it's for something better, which I don't feel this is, but what can you do, it's out of my hands. And I'll just have to put even more effort into making what I CAN still do, that extra bit special.