20.08!! Going! Going!! Gone!!

Well I hope everyone had a smashing Christmas! I know I did.

Me mum, gawd bless her, she got me the art book of Howls Moving Castle to help me with my work... and me Dad got me Gears of War 2 to not help with the work. Awwww bless um.

So yeah, as well as a lot of gaming, I've been keeping busy with work. I've been trying to redesign one of my characters, TearGems. I've made about 5 concepts in total, trying different looks. I think I've finally got it sorted. I'm not gunna post any pictures, this is just an update.

I've been trying to sort out my presentation too. I'm currently re-writing the script, creating some background templates, animating a short clip, rendering, and video editing. Whew... Got a lot more to do though. If everything works accordingly I should be alright for hand in and presentation. If it goes according to sods law, page 32, section 5, paragraph 2, line 2, everything will go balls up -_-

Anyway!! Its about midnight. So I'm gonna go get the bubbly ready.

Here's to the new year!! Let's make it a good'n eh?

Presenting...

I've got to that stage where I've done all of what I can for this term. So I have started the presentation video do dah.

So for followers of this blog, I wont be posting on here for a little while, unless it's things I'm doing on the side... which I shouldn't be doing because I've got so much to do for the presentation.

For those who know me and remember my gawd-awful presentation from last year, you'll be glad to hear that I am once again trying to do a freaking voice recorded video! Huzzah I hear you cry -_- Give me a chance, I will try my hardest to make this thing work this time round! I'm going to voice it myself and shout so loud that the heavens will hear me!!! (Not saying that Nick and Abby did a shabby job on the last one. It was my fault for not increasing the sound)

This one's going to come from the heart! It's going to go out onto the screen loud and clear! and magical fairies will descend from the sky and bring chocolate to everyone! well... maybe not that part, but it'd be good for a few extra marks. ¬_¬

Also, why I'm going to spend a lot of time preparing this, I'm creating an opening animation to the story and character presenting part. It wont be anything major. It'll be set up like an interview. In fact I've already got about a third of the animation done. I just need to finish it up, render it, voice it, compile it, edit it, format it... and i think that just about does it.

So, from me, and all the hallucinogenic people I'm going to be seeing from overworking, have a festive holiday, happy christmas and a bloody good new year!

Characters in pic (C) Eiichiro Oda's One Piece

Following the crowd

Well since everyone else I'm watching is saying it, I might as well too...

"Wow!! I haven't updated this in a while!!"

I honestly don't know what came over me, one minute I was moving back home for the festive season and BOOM! No updates! So sorry.

Despite not updating, I have kept myself busy with my work schedule. I've now managed to complete the modelling, texture and rigging on my main protagonist - Iron. I'm hoping to have an little animation ready for my presentation to show off all the technical progress I'm making.

I have also changed a few of the designs on my other characters: ChibiKitteh and TearGems

I did try and make a simplified version of TearGems, but it looked stupid. So I finished up with this design.

On the topic of characters, I've done a little research into what the story's going to entail. I've got the main gist of it, I just now need to fit the characters into it somehow and build the world around them etc etc. For inspiration, I looked to the genius of films. Specifically "Little Nicky" The story of the devils son (Nicky) trying to save his father and the world from his brother's rein of terror. Also Constantine, a tale of an exorcist going to hell and back to prevent the son of Lucifer from reaching the human world. I have read that the film isn't accurate to the comic publications, so I might try and take a gander into those.

I managed to get hold of the demo of Derek Thompson's story boarding tutorials off Imagine magazine and all I can say is WOW!! He's got some handy methods for navigating Photoshop and quickly setting up a story board scenario. I sure hope MC can get a hold of his DVD cause it's most definitely worth the cash.

... Let's see... what else... I've also managed to get hold of some 'One Piece' Pencil test and Design pages. They're basically set out like storyboards and show frame by frame how the animation is directed. They have some pretty insane perspective shots.

I'm now working on getting all this research together for the presentation in January. Should be fun! ^_^

Protagonise this!

A few days ago I finished designing of the main protagonist in my game, Iron. I went for the in between of the comic artists I looked at.

I tried mixing in some of Yoshitoma Nara in, but it didn't look right. I'll try and add that style into another character...

Also, I have been working on a proper nice res. (neither low res. nor high res.) model for Iron.

It's still a work in progress, but here it is thus far -

I'm still working on the hair, feet, tail and several parts of the head. I'm hoping to have it finished by the end of the week AT LEAST!!

For creating the model, I studied the latest 'Sonic Unleashed' models, as they bare small similarities to mine... well... more then other models... >_> <_<

Oh! And on a side note! I've finally started using AfterEffects. Better late then never, eh? So far I've learnt how to slow down and speed up moments in video clips... hardcore! Next thing you know I'll be King of the world.

Animation and Sound studio

I was lucky enough to get into the Sound studio tutorial last friday and man, was it inspiring. There's a lot fo equipment on offer that I would love to use for the end of year show. They've got these lil portable microphone things (forgot the name of them), they have an awesome sound editing program called Logic 8 Pro, they have a sound proof studio with a voice recording studio right next to it! Brilliant.

I was planning, for my end of year show, to create an animated cut scene, and with this equipment I'll be able to increase the quality of it by leaps and bounds. The last time I tried to do sound recording for a presentation it was a nightmare! This new equipment should give me more courage in the future of this project.

Side Note - I'm looking into the newest Sonic the Hedgehog game for modelling referencing. Preferably the faces on the models.