Greetings fellow animators and people who happen to be following this blog!
This is the fourth addition to the "Whats going on?" blog post series type thing and I will be talking about what I'm up to right now with my current animation project; LOADED.
All right so where do I begin.
I know! Let's start with how I have not done any work on this project during the summer holidays!
Okay, so in the last post I talked about how I wasn't happy with the characters and how I wasn't finding them fun, but annoying to work with. So then I went on to re make them one last time by making two more armatures, that's as far as I have gotten. Well I did get a little build up done on one character but I'm still not happy with it... This is annoying, but I think I can work on the character a little more to get it looking a little more "Dashing" so to speak.
I'm not feeling animation at the moment, I straight up don't want to work on any animation, I'm not calling off the project and canceling it as I would with any other project though. Just need to wait until that feeling comes back. During this time of lack of motivation/inspiration, I have begun playing the guitar after stopping many years ago, and by many years ago I mean about 7 years ago. Music has actually become a very big part of my life since April, something hit during that month and now I regret telling people that I wasn't interested in music a while back!
So yes, I need to take a little time off animation, I need to stop thinking about it and focus on music, sculpting or drawing until I feel inspired. I'm not going to force this project out if I don't feel like working on it, and if that inspiration is not there then this project will remain unfinished until inspiration comes back. No good doing something if you're not having fun with it, it will look like crap if I force it out now (Ew that sounded kind of wrong) so lets just be patient!
This happens all the time guys, I'll be back into the swing of things soon!
Sunday, 22 July 2012
Tuesday, 10 July 2012
Complications.
I have come across a slight complication which is sapping all of the fun away from the project. You all know how much I enjoy animating those characters I make for projects like OGVTD, I mean those are my signature style and it's just how my characters look when I make them. But for this project, for the sake of style, I stepped outside of my comfort zone when it came to making characters, I instead made clothes and hair for my characters. This is what I don't enjoy, for some reason it doesn't feel fun animating these slightly more detailed characters!
These characters are easily ruined, the colours smudge together and they get dirty easy. I don't even think they look as good as my simple "Guy" style characters so that's why I whipped up two new armatures and started working on making the characters how I should have done in the first place. The only difference is the armatures, but one thing I have learnt from the old characters is that they can really help!
My last animation project really shaped my style and it came out exactly like I saw it in my head, this current project seems to be really weird, I should have never stepped outside of my style just to create a story and better characters, OGVTD had a really fun smooth flow to it when I was making it, this project feels like an awkward bumpy ride into another style that doesn't really work out well. I'm telling you now, I wont be making anything like this, I'll be going back to the fun, but dark ideas. This project is dark in terms of style, but it's far from fun at the moment, it's this whole story and characters thing that just isn't working out very well for me, I just hope it turns out good in the end and if not then I will be moving away from the silly sets and stories to go back to the things I like making.
That doesn't mean tabletop fighting or whatever though, I just mean back to the normal characters and minimal set usage.
Well, here are the two new armatures made at the same size as the last two:
Got a bit of clay slapped on one of the characters the other day but I haven't touched it since as I have been thinking about doing certain things.
Tune in next time to see the third version of these characters! This is becoming a theme now, the same thing happened with One Guy Vs The Dead!
These characters are easily ruined, the colours smudge together and they get dirty easy. I don't even think they look as good as my simple "Guy" style characters so that's why I whipped up two new armatures and started working on making the characters how I should have done in the first place. The only difference is the armatures, but one thing I have learnt from the old characters is that they can really help!
My last animation project really shaped my style and it came out exactly like I saw it in my head, this current project seems to be really weird, I should have never stepped outside of my style just to create a story and better characters, OGVTD had a really fun smooth flow to it when I was making it, this project feels like an awkward bumpy ride into another style that doesn't really work out well. I'm telling you now, I wont be making anything like this, I'll be going back to the fun, but dark ideas. This project is dark in terms of style, but it's far from fun at the moment, it's this whole story and characters thing that just isn't working out very well for me, I just hope it turns out good in the end and if not then I will be moving away from the silly sets and stories to go back to the things I like making.
That doesn't mean tabletop fighting or whatever though, I just mean back to the normal characters and minimal set usage.
Well, here are the two new armatures made at the same size as the last two:
Got a bit of clay slapped on one of the characters the other day but I haven't touched it since as I have been thinking about doing certain things.
Tune in next time to see the third version of these characters! This is becoming a theme now, the same thing happened with One Guy Vs The Dead!
Thursday, 5 July 2012
No dialogue?
Hey guys, I have just come to realize something. Well, you're all probably fed up of hearing about my webcam by now, but I just can't find the silence to record voices. It's literally never quiet enough to record and it's very frustrating! The camera is still not working right, I'm getting the "USB device not recognized" message, sometimes it will work and other times it wont, I'm beginning to wonder whether it is the device or the USB driver thing in my computer.
"Hey Bagi, why don't you just buy a new camera?"
I want to, but I don't want to. I want to get my camera working because the camera itself is fine, just the USB and it might not even be the USB on the camera that's broken, it could be my computer. If I buy a new camera, which I can do very easily, I might end up finding out that I have the same problem with it not being recognized, I can always return the camera I guess. Hmm, enough of that, onto what this post was meant for.
All right, so I have realized something, and that something is a major change in this project. And that is to not have any voices! What? After all that work and you're not bothering with voices? I've realized that this will be for the better, firstly I can't even find anywhere quiet to record, and secondly this will actually be closer to the over all feel that I was after at the beginning of the project. It wasn't originally going to have voices but I decided to have voices so people would understand the story a little more. I realized that the actions in the animation are enough for the audience to understand, not only will it be easier for me but it will also look better in the end.
Whilst writing that, I decided I'm going to try out the camera one more time and if I get the error message then I'm going to blow £30 on a new camera, even if I still get the message with the new camera, at least I'll have a better camera in the end! Just gotta install the camera into another drive, in fact I'm going to try that with my Quickcam and I'll see what happens.
"Hey Bagi, why don't you just buy a new camera?"
I want to, but I don't want to. I want to get my camera working because the camera itself is fine, just the USB and it might not even be the USB on the camera that's broken, it could be my computer. If I buy a new camera, which I can do very easily, I might end up finding out that I have the same problem with it not being recognized, I can always return the camera I guess. Hmm, enough of that, onto what this post was meant for.
All right, so I have realized something, and that something is a major change in this project. And that is to not have any voices! What? After all that work and you're not bothering with voices? I've realized that this will be for the better, firstly I can't even find anywhere quiet to record, and secondly this will actually be closer to the over all feel that I was after at the beginning of the project. It wasn't originally going to have voices but I decided to have voices so people would understand the story a little more. I realized that the actions in the animation are enough for the audience to understand, not only will it be easier for me but it will also look better in the end.
Whilst writing that, I decided I'm going to try out the camera one more time and if I get the error message then I'm going to blow £30 on a new camera, even if I still get the message with the new camera, at least I'll have a better camera in the end! Just gotta install the camera into another drive, in fact I'm going to try that with my Quickcam and I'll see what happens.
Monday, 2 July 2012
The First Shot. (Practice, or final?)
I did what I said I would do and animated something, I animated the first shot according to my storyboard and I think it turned out pretty good. I feel like I did a decent job capturing the emotion of the character, it's quite obvious that he isn't happy here and he is fed up with "Something". Nothing will make sense to anyone to anyone yet, just gotta wait until this is done and you should be able to understand it.
I actually uploaded the animation which I did but I set it to private as I don't want many people to see it, I only want the people who are interested in seeing it to see it which is why I'm posting it on my blog and in my WIP thread on Moulding Minefield, with the previous project I posted way too much information so all the work in progress and stuff can go on my blog rather than my youtube channel where everyone will see it.
The lighting is a little funny but it's ok for now, this was just a practice. The animation is ok and I would totally use this in the final thing but the lighting doesn't seem right, needs to be whiter rather than orange. I shot this on doubles because it's not going to be high speed action or anything like OGVTD was, it's going to be a slow going story driven animation.
That's all I have to share for today, and this is also the only shot in the entire animation that I can do right now, the other shots without dialogue can't be done without.... Well you will see in the end.
I actually uploaded the animation which I did but I set it to private as I don't want many people to see it, I only want the people who are interested in seeing it to see it which is why I'm posting it on my blog and in my WIP thread on Moulding Minefield, with the previous project I posted way too much information so all the work in progress and stuff can go on my blog rather than my youtube channel where everyone will see it.
The lighting is a little funny but it's ok for now, this was just a practice. The animation is ok and I would totally use this in the final thing but the lighting doesn't seem right, needs to be whiter rather than orange. I shot this on doubles because it's not going to be high speed action or anything like OGVTD was, it's going to be a slow going story driven animation.
That's all I have to share for today, and this is also the only shot in the entire animation that I can do right now, the other shots without dialogue can't be done without.... Well you will see in the end.
Sunday, 1 July 2012
No new camera, but I fixed my current one!
I got my camera working, simply by uninstalling the driver and software, something I didn't want to do because the last time I did this it took me forever to get the right software since there wasn't anything for Win7, at least from what I could see. Microphone is working very good too, no buzzing like it was before and no more sound card conflicts.
Since my last post, I haven't done anything on the project but at least now I can move on to more exciting things. Still some little things to add to the set which I keep putting off for some reason, need to record the voices when I have some privacy and complete silence, I mean you don't want to hear cars in the background and my usual neighbors stood outside my house shouting and comparing dogs or whatever.... Actually that could add some atmosphere! I'm kidding, but not a bad idea hehe..
Well I guess the point of this post was to let you know that I have a working camera now and that I can make some progress, I should animate those scenes that I can do as soon as possible otherwise this project will never be finished!
Since my last post, I haven't done anything on the project but at least now I can move on to more exciting things. Still some little things to add to the set which I keep putting off for some reason, need to record the voices when I have some privacy and complete silence, I mean you don't want to hear cars in the background and my usual neighbors stood outside my house shouting and comparing dogs or whatever.... Actually that could add some atmosphere! I'm kidding, but not a bad idea hehe..
Well I guess the point of this post was to let you know that I have a working camera now and that I can make some progress, I should animate those scenes that I can do as soon as possible otherwise this project will never be finished!
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