30 June 2020

dessin/drawing: Nautilus at 2 months



My new puppy, Nautilus - named after the Submarine in Jules Verne's classic novel 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea. This was drawn on the 12.9" 2015 iPad Pro my brother gave after the upgraded to the newer model. I used Sketchbook Pro but Procreate would have done just fine. 

The new iPad is pretty amazing in terms of speed, power and screen size/quality. Much better to draw on than the smaller base model I had and just sold. I will saw it's so large as to be ungainly. It's not easy to set on your lap and draw, it is pretty much the same size as my laptop. Next photo trip somewhere it will be amazing to have. Normally I have to bring the iPad to get around with and my laptop to process and store the photos taken. I can do all the photo stuff on this and just take my iPod touch with me walking around which will be a lot easier. I can also just sit and draw something when I'm away easily and in great detail as I think this image shows if you click on it to see it larger... I didn't skimp on details. 

It will take a while to get used to the new device... and the rotten pest who is eating something he shouldn't at the moment. 

23 June 2020

Animation: The Cask of Amontillado 2020 6 minutes 14 seconds


After about two years of preparation and animation my animated "The Cask of Amontillado" is finished. Mike Luce is the voice of Montresor and Michael Z. Keamy is Fortunato. I tried to be the voice of Montresor at first but I was beyond terrible and Mike Luce kindly redid that audio for me. I went with human like animal characters this time instead of cartoon humans. I thought it might work better and give me more options with the animation plus added some symbolism. 

I used Cinema 4D as I am not ready for something like this in Blender yet. It was edited in Final Cut X and I did not use After effects for the compositing but used Apple's underrated and often ignored Motion software instead and it worked out great. The animation still has some issues I am having trouble with, such as decent walk cycles and some of the movements were not as smooth as I would have liked but overallI am very happy with the results. Nothing is ever perfect, is it? The settings were a long haul to make as the upper and lower catacombs are huge and cavernous and lit by torches. The sound was a little more complex as I had to record a bunch of foley and sound effects to flesh out the sound and add more atmosphere and detail to the short. 

During the final edit, I noticed a bunch of things I had somehow missed, one was the wrong source files were used for a sequence which made the image looked pixelated and another was a terrible clicking noise during a dialog scene I can't believe I had not heard during the editing process. My excuse is that the noise here is non stop between the construction and the fact I am not in glorious isolation but home with my spouse which does not give me the solitude I need to work efficiently. Constant distraction is death to a project like this so I am glad I was able to get it done and be happy with the end result. 

I have two posters ready in case I decide to enter it in some festivals. I have had the luck to be in one or another over the last 6 years so having promotional stuff ready is a fun way to tie up a project in a nice bow. 

If you like the animation, tell me! Like it on Youtube and pass it around so maybe it can get some attention and love! 



10 June 2020

Star trek poster series - maybe.


Here is a test for a Star Trek series of posters like the others.  If I go on with it, it will have more info, the Desilu logo and some other poster stuff. The shuttlecraft I made form scratch but the enterprise is a simple 3D model I found online and will likely replace with one I make myself.  I like the colour scheme... it's sort of something you might see for toys and it less somber than the 2001 and Star Wars posters.  These 60s Trek ships have more details than I remembered. I might try making new one sin Blender as part of my "learn Blender" effort.

The logos and Shuttle art was all drawn in Affinity Designer and exported to the appropriate format for texturing if needed.

The Klingon ship was just one I found and seems a little more detailed than in the first series but looks nice. Could end up making this myself and a Romulan as well.

03 June 2020

2001 poster series fixes


As mentioned before, the 2001 models I had found were lacking in some ways. Some had issues with the texture maps which was where most the of the details were and other just lacked details. While I am still not trying to be super faithful to every details, it did bother me that a couple of the images were just too simple and slapping on a bump map did not really get the images t where I wanted them. So I kept some elements and made over from scratch others. On the Discovery it was mostly changing the textures and making the main control sphere and the reactor and engines myself. With he Moonbus, it was a matter of adding a ton of details that were lacking. I watched the film again and it then could not just let my fun project stay as it was.

The top image you can see I added a ton to the rear of the sip, there was almost nothing there before which was why I opted to show only the front. For the front - here is a before and after, I think it's improved. It could probably still use some details from inside the cockpit but I think the blue light is better than the yellow.



The Moonbus had many more details than I remembered and so I added a lot more into the existing model. Not sure anyone would notice but me but since these were for me, that was enough to get motivated to do the extra work.

   

*Star Wars got a little love as well.