Welps

Ahahaha I suck.

Well, I timed out the thumbnails in AE. As I was doing it, I thought of a TON of new ideas and locations for the fighting, and now it's going to be on a roof. A bit of a cop out, but there's something awesome about a rooftop battle. I also thought it'd be a cool shot to have bugs crawling the building to get to her, and then--yeah. Also figured out some story and staging issues that were really bugging me, so that's great.

Started the 3D animatic, and it's going so slowly. I'm roughly twenty seconds in, and welllll...this movie might be five minutes long. I don't want it to go over four, but I'm shooting for the sweet spot of three and a half. I fully realize how crazy that is, and after hopping into Maya, I've forgotten a lot. It's depressing. It's been...wow, almost two years since I graduated, and a year and a half since I've done some heavy animation work. So it's a good thing that I'm jumping back in to this program. You really can forget a lot really fast.

Anyway, yeah. I'm hoping to get a minute done this weekend. If I can. I'm just so angry that my skills have depreciated this much. Sigh. It's my fault, really. Should've kept better notes. This project will get me back up to a good level, and then I can see about reentering the industry with money behind me. Will also need to do some short animation tests.

Other than that, I'm building a new computer! My Mac is lovely, but frankly, it won't be able to handle the workload I'm going to put on it in the coming months. Looking at around 1500 bucks right now...yeesh. I can more than afford it, and really, it's like 400 dollars a year before I'll have to upgrade it again at all.

So, yeah! Strongly considering making something slightly smaller, maybe a test model and rig. I don't have a lot of time to myself, though...it's a little sad.

But that's where I am now!

I think I've locked my story to a good degree. Remember that giant arm? Yeah forget it. I mean if I ever do a new installment ( I won't) it would happen, but I've changed it to a giant BAT. It's just easier overall and lets me do this really cool thing I wanted to try. I also locked the armor more:

I am surprisingly not great at drawing back views. WHO KNEW. I think I've only drawn a few, and that's when modeling characters. Wow. Anyway, yeah, that's what I'm going with for now. There'll be some tweaks once I get to the modeling phase, but I like it. I don't like the green things on the back; doesn't really show that it's wrapping around from the front, but shrug!

Now I'm in that area where I'm like 'oh crap, I need to start actually working.' I've got the story mostly locked and everything, there'll be some tweaks of course but eh. I thumbnailed it all out e xcept for parts of the fights since i want them to feel organic. I guess now I'm going to jump into Maya with a premade rig and start working on the 3D animatic!!! oh snap. Actually, maybe I should take photos of the thumbnails and time it out with base music and sound? Yeah. I'm so afraid of Maya at the moment. I'm like that with EVERYTHING. I know I can do it, but it's like, scary to start. you know?

So yep that's the plan gonna work on the thumbnail animatic time it out in AE (?) add music and sound and then go into 3D animatic where i'll really start getting into camera work. while im doing that because im a loser procrastinator ill be working more on the bad guys since i haven't fully locked them down yet.

good talk team break

Wow this is a slow project. I haven't even finished thumbnails! So um, even with a new dual screen monitor I can't seem to get enough done. This weekend I'm going to throw everything into getting the base thumbnails done, and then I'll start putting together a 3D animatic while tweaking the story flow since there are a couple of places that need work. I also skipped over some fight stuff because I want it to feel organic and not so planned. Totally gonna wing it!

I've been planning how I want to do the robot:

I'm thinking of only giving him one 'eye' so that he looks more like the Mars Rover which I find really effing cool. This is like a super preliminary design with a hasty texture thrown on to show that he's made of stone. The back of his head is going to be different I think, doesn't fit with what I want to do. He also originally had four 'wheels', but two felt a little goofier and clumsier and I wanted him to be more unstable. Also worked a tiny bit more on her armor:

 

Don't know how obvious it is what that giant arm is about, but I hope it's cheesy enough at least :P Really drawing from the ridiculous battlizers, though I'm going to go back and make it look more 'tech.' Maybe it needs to be looser or something, I don't know. Also going to redraw her armor this weekend if I get some time!

The bugs are going to be a pain. I'm thinking they're going to be humanoid right now, maybe drawing from mosquitos. She needs something to fight that is her size and can move like her in a way. This is the bug I was drawing ref from for the longest time:

 

The story's a bit different now, though. For the 'Boss', I was thinking of using a centipede:

Seriously look how EVIL and TOUGH this thing looks. Can you imagine fighting a giant one of these? Yeahhhhh. I'm going to take some liberties with it's head, but the body is going to stay the same for the most part, color scheme and all. Originally her left arm was going to be red and black, but I couldn't get it to blend well. Might have to edit the colors a bit.

This thing is kind of huge honestly. Going to get all of the thumbnails into after effects(?) and get a basic animatic going. I don't have a scanner, so I may have to use my phone to take pictures. :I

That's it!

First images, FINALLY.

Well, okay. This is a slow moving project. I started storyboarding it and then I watched Kill La Kill and realized quite a few elements were the same. I'm thinking of going the original route of the story again. When I first thought of Hahdko, it was more of a space story. A coworker got me into the Apollo missions somehow, so I'm exploring that as sort of an origin-you-never-get-to-see thing. But hey, I found her look for the most part! She's based off of a friend sorta:

  

I'm hoping the fact that she's absolutely not afraid to kick your ass comes through in her general body language, and I took her out of the 'tough' clothes she was wearing before because it felt too obvious I guess. What do I know. The armor is just concept right now. I laid it over the top of her base to get a feel for how it comes together and the pieces I want in it. I'm mostly happy my drawing skills haven't atrophied a ton like I thought, what with being a web designer and barely drawing at all.

But, yeah, this isn't going to be a film that's going to take more effort than its worth, if that makes sense. I'm not going to use a technique just because it's unique or innovative in this one–I'm going to use what I think will look the coolest and fit the theme. The theme that I DON'T HAVE. Storywriting tonight, yes! Honestly I have zero confidence I'll ever get to the animation phase unless I do what I did in high school and just jump in with both feet while hoping for the best. A step in the right direction might be not typing out long paragraphs of me blabbing so okay bye!

Hahdko

The name derives from the word 'Hardcore.' One of my friends has a bit of an accent and I kept making fun of her for it until it eventually became an actual word to me and wow I am a mean person. But it became a word of it's own, and then I went 'hey, what if there was a superhero named Hahdko? Nobody would understand unless they said it out loud!' Right now, it's an acronym. I only really have two words I know I want: Highly Advanced Heaven, Hella Defense, Dope Kernal Operator I also want there to be an ongoing joke where certain character (including the hero herself) will ask 'What does Hahdko mean, anyway?' only for the person who knows the answer to get cut off. The story is about a hero learning that real strength is in fighting for someone else. Cheesy as heck, but that's like a super simplified version of what I'm going for. I'm having trouble really finding something that'll grip the viewer. This is basically the film I've always wanted to make as a Tokusatsu fan, and I don't want to mess it up with a weak story. I'm not overly worried about the graphics, which will be a mix of 2/2.5/3D. Contemplating using Blender since I technically don't own Maya and the version I use will expire before I can finish. At the current point in time, I'm working on the girl's outfit still. I can't decide how I want her to represent herself to the world. I'm toying with the idea of giving her somewhat bright and pop punk clothing. I don't have a reason for her to dress that way though. I know for sure that I'm going to put things on her that I like though--for one, there's gonna be Zettai. So she's a superhero who fights vicious murderous bugs. I can't really delve too much into where her power came from becvause of the short time of the film and wow let's sotp here I'm sleepy.

It's been almost two years since my last post, and over a year since Mural was finished. Wow, time has flown. I'm frankly extremely proud of myself for making a film that, while not the best, is still pretty good. Here it is: I saw this blog on my Google account and decided to just put my new film's progress here. I mean, why not, right? I'll make my first official post about the project later!

oh

Three weeks left until school starts back and I'm a liiiittle behind. As it is, I have to rig both characters still. I mean, girl is ok, the boy hasn't even started. I'm thinking of just using the girl's skeleton and adjusting it to fit the boy instead of creating from scratch. Will probs do that actually. Yeah. ok. So basically, it'd take a day to get the character done and skinned. I could very well make it if I pushed really hard. Whoa exactly 21 days until school starts! this post is scrambled.

Did some texturing tests on the girl. She looks ok. Right now I am around 60-70% done with Senior 1. Just need to do texturing, some small modeling, some small UVing, and some small rigging stuff. That, plus putting things together like the sets and cameras and story poses. May also attempt to record some reference footage. Plan to start animating at the break, where I'll hopefully be able to finish at least 3 shots. that'll leave 12 for Senior 2...uh. Okay that SOUNDS scary but like three of the shots are really easy like one is literally just the camera looking around so I guess that leaves 9 for Senior 2. yeah ok it'll work out if I can animate one shot in senior 1 that'll be even BETTER. I think I'll have to develop a workflow where after I finish a shot, I start lighting/rendering/compositing it in order to not get too bogged down at the end? Esp. since I have to account for stupid hiccups that are bound to happen along the way.

Also I was gonna use ncloth but I was thinking of doing it the normal way with a wrap deformer :T I'm not sure how I want to do it yet, though. The girl's pants will def. be wrap deformers; that's all I know right now Her shirt will probably be ncloth, and the boy's whole wardrobe might be ncloth.

ok i can seriously type better than this but im just vomiting my plans out right now ok.