March 25th Update

This was a tricky one to figure out, so many lines:

Figuring out how to draw this building was the biggest obstacle, as good as I’ve gotten with perspective, this has several grids warping, so in the end I used a 3D model again, but used the wire frame of the model for the windows.

I had a really clear idea of this building, its for the Human business district, I wanted to find a different way to make this one stand out without messing with the colour scheme like I did with last weeks concept. So I went with making it a unique shape, the buildings all around it are sharp edges, so adding curves in and making it higher than all the other buildings should draw the eye nicely.

As for the company it belongs to, I named them after the Spire in Dublin and since is sounds like spiral I thought it was a good name for the building, I don’t have any plans for them yet, but all I know is I’m planning on having a fight in an elevator in this district, and this building is a good stop for that.

Anyway that’s it for this week, the progress list is as follows:

• Character Concepts
  • Background extras:42/42
  • Main Characters: 13/13
  • Main character re-designs: 5/5
  • Secondary Character: 14/14
  • Secondary Character re-designs: 5/5
• Weapon Concepts
  • Main Characters: 12/12
  • Secondary Characters: 7/7
  • Weapon Redesigns: 4/4
• Scene Concepts
  • Interiors: 0/24
  • Landmarks:2/15
  • Exteriors:39/39

November 19th Update

A fairly simple one this week, the First of the Alterkin business district buildings:

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These buildings were a really important experiment for me to draw, the next two will be a bit more complicated, but this design helped me to work out a lot of the process, for example, the squarer human skyscrapers required far less planning because they were simple boxes

However in rounded buildings, extra angles mean added complexity:

Up until now I’ve been designing very simple rounded structures, single story houses or smoke stacks, so a multi-floored buildings presented a challenge, one I’ve honestly been procrastinating on until now, but now that I have this method I should be able to come up with some interesting designs, and I’m looking forward to getting creative with it.

Anyway, here is this week’s Update list:

• Character Concepts
  • Background extras:42/42
  • Main Characters: 13/13
  • Main character re-designs: 5/5
  • Secondary Character: 14/14
  • Secondary Character re-designs: 5/5
• Weapon Concepts
  • Main Characters: 12/12
  • Secondary Characters: 7/7
  • Weapon Redesigns: 4/4
• Scene Concepts
  • Interiors: 0/24
  • Landmarks:0/15
  • Exteriors:28/39

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~

Season 1 Background Extras

As Promised, My first big milestone, the Background Characters on the City, here so I can reflect on the amount I’ve gotten done, The are 126 images in this Gallery.

Looking forward to complete more milestones like this in the future.

Until Next time,

Marc Out ~~

First year Anniversary and Review

So today is the Anniversary of the blog and I want to look back over the progress I’ve made in the year. No Images with this post, but maybe in future anniversaries, for now I’m just going to reflect on what I’ve learned.

The Biggest thing I’ve realised is the importance of networking and delegating, things like writing a script and and thinking about ideas are easy, but implementing them often takes more effort than you realise and anyone you can find with a speciality to take some of the weight off you is worth their weight in gold.

After that I’ve learned the motivating power of money, when I started this blog I was hoping that I could find volunteers willing to do it for free, but I realise now that this was a bit naive and honestly unrealistic, which at first was very disheartening. However I’ve also learned that the ways of getting a budget are actually fairly achievable, it just requires a bit  extra work, some networking and a bit of planning.

Speaking of planning that leads me nicely onto the next lesson I’ve taken from this first year of working on Fade, not to jump ahead of my steps. My old plan looks a bit like this:
Scrips->Assets->Storyboard-> Animatic->animate->edit->Market->release to public
This plan is only good on paper, and is hilariously simple, this is what my current plan roughly looks like:

that complicated mess looks more disorganised but is a lot more realistic, and encourages me to go back and edit if something isn’t working. I’m also aware that this plan is going to change again, probably multiple times as I get better overseeing and more importantly finishing projects, which this blog has been essential to teaching me, by giving myself this weekly deadline, I’ve learned how to put myself under pressure to finish things.

Finally I can report that I’m nearly done with my character concepts, which is the brunt of the work I’ve done this year, since I’m so close to finishing off the background extras I’ll do a separate post when I finish them all. At the time of writing this I have 20 images of the main cast and 34 templates with three variations each coming to a total of 103 images of extras leading to a total of 123 concepts done which in one year I think is pretty good.

I still have a lot to do and a long way to go even before I start marketing and gaining a budget. But its been a fun ride so far.

Till Next week

Marc Out~~

May 29th Update

Missed last week’s update unfortunately, College project got in the way, but for the next few months I’m free, so I can promise it won’t happen again. So without further delay, onto the last Businessman extra:

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I decided to go for a richer looking design, so I decided to add a waistcoat, which I think adds an elegance to the design, The colours are recycled from some of the earlier designs but I decided to darken them to help them fade into the background better.

In other news I’ve been looking into project management and figuring out how to let people keep track of the project without having to decipher the massive amounts of notes and spreadsheets, and I found a project managment App Archmule, which will let you know exactly what I’m working on at a given time, you can check out the objective list here:
https://archmule.com/@marcconroy/fade-season-1/

I was also planning on starting to gather voice actors over the summer, but after listening to another episode of tip of the tongue (Which I totally suggest you check out) Made me realise that I was jumping ahead of myself again, so I’m altering my pipeline a bit to compensate, music and Voice acting will be left till a bit later, and for now I’m going to continue producing concept art, the hope is that I can build an “Art Bible” for the show, so if I can bring on other people to model and animate I can just show them the rough ideas for assets and they can build them. I’m also going to redouble my efforts for the story boards and animatic, since I can use temp music and my own voice to work out timing.
I’m reluctant to use temp music, since I wanted an original score and honestly I wanted to avoid it, but in the efforts of producing a proof of concept it’s a necessary evil. The great thing about keeping everything just to an animatic is that their far easier to edit that a rendered animation.

That’s basic plan for the next two or three months, next week we’ll be onto a new background extra template.

Till next week,

Marc Out~~

May 15th Update

Last female business woman today, only one Male one left and that’s it for people in suits:

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Not much to talk about this one, Clothes wise, I did the same as last week, I took a previous suit and removed the suit jacket, the Hair was a modified version of android 18 from Dragonball Z:

In anticipation of actually finishing the majority of my extras, I’ve started setting up a deviant art account as a sort of gallery to view all of the artwork I’ve done so far, it will be far easier than scrubbing through the blog posts I’ve done up until now, I’ll post a link to it once I have all the art uploaded to it in a few weeks.

That’s all for this week, till next time,

Marc Out~~

May 8th Update

A fairly simple businessman this week:

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Honestly I’ve be really busy with college work this week, I wasn’t sure I’d get this one done on time, but I managed.

Overall not much to say about this one, I’ve been working to keep these designs as simple as possible because the next two sets of background extra are the ones I’m most excited to design so I want to get to them as quick as I can. The hairstyle of this design is based on Bruce lee’s, and the colour scheme is based on Salary-man Kintaro:

That’s it for this week, next week might be a little bit tricky because I have two college projects due, but I will do my best to update on time.

Until next week.

Marc Out~~

May 1st Update

Another business woman this week:

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I realised as I was thinking about this design that all the women I have as business times all half skirts, so I decided to give at least one pants and this is the result.

Only 12 background character concepts left to do, honestly I’m getting really excited to start working on the main character revisions and get the designs of the characters I haven’t drawn yet done. After that I’m hoping to get a few environment concepts, which honestly I’m not totally sure how to attempt, I have a few ideas, but landscape drawing is very time consuming, not to mention that I have some key buildings that I want to set aside time to design, but that’s something I’ll work out when I get to it, right now I’m happy to be close to reaching this objective. When their all done I’ll place them into a separate slideshow so the can all be viewed in the one place.

Anyway, that’s all for this week, until then

Marc Out~~

April 18th Update

Argh! I’m a bit behind this week with the background character this week, Back to the business types for a while:

 

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I looked over some of the earlier Business men and women I roughed out before, and decided I wanted Human business people to look a little more casual, so there are going to be more open jackets and rolled up sleeves in these designed than the Otherkin ones I started with. I’m not sure I’m Ok with the hair I designed for this particular one, particularly the division along the side, but I’m going to give myself a bit of time to process it.

Other than that not much else to report, things have been a lot more hectic than I’ve expected over the Easter, but I am hoping to have myself a bit more organised this week.

Till then,

Marc Out~~