March 19th Update

A lot to get through this week, first up this week’s concept and the second last weapon concept for the moment, Commander Izanami‘s weapon:

I was searching for ceremonial Chinese swords and came across a number of Dao swords from the Tang Dynasty that I loved the look of

The simplicity of the designs fits the character really well, since she’s a bit of a pragmatist despite the formal clothes. It also contrasts nicely with her counterpart Commander Izanagi’s Weapon which is a bit more technology based. Overall I wanted to keep this weapon simple since it only appears once in the first season.

Secondly, comes the cool thing I was talking about at the end of last week’s blog post, the first animation for Fade’s teaser:

Its a section that comes later in the story, but its a excellent scene for generating interest, it still required some music and some redrawing in parts, but this is a really important milestone for me since its the first thing I’ve been able to show that conveys the tone of the cartoon and shows the key relationship dynamics for three of our four main characters.
That being said there is some extra work to be done, while Ebony’s design is fine for this scene, Ash, and more so Blue have some pretty drastic changes to their looks that I had to leave out. The environment will also need to be planned out, and while I have a good idea of the layout, a few parts I’ll need to find out how to texture and model.
Overall though this minute and a half video I have gotten a much better idea of how to plan out the storyboards of the show itself and over the summer I want to break my work week into finishing environment concepts and storyboards for the Official trailer which will contain scenes solely from season 1. This might seem like jumping ahead when the teaser has only really been started, but in my current situation I’m pretty limited in what I can do technology wise, so jumping into modelling and animating isn’t a good idea, plus with animatics I can actually plan out what I need far better, which will save me building assets I might not actually need, so overall the more storyboards and animatics I do now, the less I have to do later.

When it comes to adding the trailer to the progress list, I’m going to wait until I have a scene list of moments I’m going to include in the Trailer, the idea is the Teaser should raise questions, and the Trailer should answer just enough to make people care, so I want to take my time with it more so than with the Teaser, so it might be a while before I talk about it again, but know that its very much still at work in the background.

Anyway, onto this week’s progress:

• 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: 6/7
  • Weapon Redesigns: 0/4
• Scene Concepts
  • Interiors: 0/24
  • Exteriors: 0/20

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~

December 4th Update

Last set of Otherkin templates, next update will be on regular humans:

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This Template was a reference to the Anime Air gear which is another big influence on the show’s overall aesthetic so I’ll be mentioning it again in the future, the over all character design is based around Kazuma Mikura, who’s design I always liked, he feels like he could switch form background character to main character in a split second, which was actually part of his character in the show

The other colour schemes are based off of the Main character Ikki and Simca I think the fem fatal (her role is strange in the show) But if you want an idea for how future environments in the city should hopefully look, check out the show, because the city in Air gear is nearly a character itself (which is appropriate for a freestyle roller blade anime)

In Other news I’ve given Damson a redesign, simplifying his tattoos, adding a ponytail to give him a better silhouette and rearranged the colours in his outfit to balance him a bit better, and I’m much happier with him:

I’ve left the old version of his design up for comparison, I also tweaked his head shape, its still out of proportion with his ears, but I’m glad that I can actually identify what the problem was before, when I first sketched him out I was largely guessing, It let’s me know I am actually improving.

Finally I wanted to clear up something that was pointed out to me earlier in the week by my reader Cillian Flood (Who you should check out because he has a very uniqe view on everyday life) that it was too early to be working on the show’s official opening, which I totally agree with, but that’s sort of not what I’ve been story boarding, the “intro” I’ve been planning is more of a “Pilot”, Teaser or a preview, but I’ve been calling it an Intro all this time because that’s what I was using as a starting point for this Preview, so From here on I’ll be referring to the clip I’m making as the Preview for the foreseeable future. Hopefully that will prevent any confusion in the future.

Until Next Time

Marc Out~~

November 28th Update

Another week and we’re onto casual Civilians, with another double dose of concept art, First up if the Rabbit girl I posted earlier on my tumblr:

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I like how this one turned out, I’m getting a lot better at picking colours for characters that let them blend in with the background, while also looking interesting, the blue one kind of reminds me of Rei from Evangelion, even though that’s not who I originally based her off of, but more on that in a second. For now here is the second design, this time Male:

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I don’t know if I’m as into this this design as the first, but that may have just been the colours I chose, but the Easter egg these two designs will make kinda makes it worth it, the two white designs are inspired by the Characters Doki and Nabi from There She Is!! Which is an adorable series that I highly suggest you check out, the themes of race and love are a part of what helped inspire the story of Fade and if I can evoke even half the emotions that series evoked in me, I’ll be doing a great job.

In other news, I’ve started story-boarding the intro, there very rough at the moment, so I’m not going to post them up here yet until I have a second or third draft of them, but I wanted to talk about them because its a very different experience from just looking at examples online. With Openings in cartoons or Anime I’ve never put much thought into how deliberate each image on screen is, I’ve done about 8 shots at the time of writing this post, and each time I had to ask myself “What should be in this shot? Who should I frame? what should I foreshadow? Where is in taking place?” and so on, basically things we take for granted when watching cartoons, because it’s done in a way that feels natural, and with the TV and Cartoons having been around so long, the people making them have gotten very good at making them.

Anyway, that’s enough nerding out about the subject, See you next week

Marc Out~~

September 26th Update

Here is this week’s character concept, Sakata Kintaro:

I really liked the story behind his name sake, and it was this character that inspired basing the support cast around Japanese mythology. there are little aspects I added from a gender bend version of the old legend that I decided unbend back into a male character:

if your thinking the image is a little washed out, that’s the style of the whole film, Kai Doh Maru, honestly I don’t suggest watching the film, but I really liked this character’s design, in particular the tattoo on the left arm.
As much as I like the design I made, I’m probably going to change it to look more European, the same with Haru and Sho from previous posts, to help highlight the differences between the two species, but I’m still going to post up all version here to document the evolution of the designs.

Also in concept news, I’m finding college very time consuming, so I’m giving warning that these character designs are going to get a bit sporadic, I have next week’s done, but after that I’m not sure I’ll have one done in time, I’ll still post every week, but it’s probably going to be more experimenting with Blender and planning my next step.

Speaking of Blender and 3D work I’ve added a tiny bit more to the blue business district in my city:

Its not a huge change from last week, just a few buildings at the lower side of the district, but its that area filled.
I’ve also been thinking in how i’m going to add more detailed buildings to the city when its all full, I think the best course of action is to take an orthographic render, make some template buildings and use the render as a blueprint to place them, its a puzzle I’m still working on.

Also I’ve started planning the second season script out, it might be early days for it, but I really want to hit the ground running with this project, I’ve decided that I want each season to have a theme, and each theme is a step in the hero’s journey, so the first season was the ordinary world, so this season will be the call to adventure, will I do each stage of the hero’s journey? Probably not, as far as I know, there is around sixteen stages, and I haven’t got the story even close to that well planned out to do a season for each, but I really enjoy applying the hero’s journey in different ways to tell a story and the different ways of using it for the foundation of a plot. Basically my little writing challenge in Fade is to see if I can use it to tell both an over arcing and season to season story at the same time. Time will tell.

That’s all for this week

Marc Out ~~

September 19th Update

This week’s character is Commander Izanagi, the counterpart of last week’s character:

I wanted to show a contrast between him and Izanami, so I took a number of European military uniforms for insperation

While it really wasn’t my intention he actually ended up looking a lot like Credo from devil may cry:

I think there may still be enough differences to have him considered “original”, plus Devil may cry is going to be a BIG influence on the animation of the series, so I think I’ll be keeping him as is.

In other news I’ve added more to my city:

Nothing major other then filling up the Otherkin business district (light blue) and the lower sector (black) I’m still trying to think of how I’ll do the final detailed view of the city, but I’ll worry about that once I’ve done some concepts of each district

Finally I’ve started my animation course, which I’m really excited to get my teeth into, learning to use Maya is a bit jarring, especially with all my blender muscle memory, and I’m having a little trouble with the life drawing, but all in all it feels just right for me, challenging, but achievable, I’m planning on placing my work on my tumblr page: Which you can find here

I can’t wait to get good at it

Anyway talk you you guys next week

Marc Out~~

September 12th Update

One of the first characters I drew for fade, Commander Izanami

This was one of the first characters I sat down and drew. I would have put her up first, but I wanted to place the main characters and supporting cast of the story up first. Overall I like the design, but I’m not sure it fully fits the character, she’s from the non-human side of the conflict (I should have pointed it out on the image, but the face markings are not makeup or tattoos) so I wanted to have a real contrast of cultures, but many of the characters previous to this one have Japanese influences so I might have to rethink a few of them. I was going for a imperial empress look with her and used a lot of traditional kimonos in references

in particular this image inspired the head piece, which I really like, and I think will stay in the design regardless of the changes I make

In other developments I’ve added a slum area (which I’ve coloured black) to my city along with a few other changes:

While these are still very rough, it was fun coming up with how to visually show this area, so I decided to place the roads in this part, to show how densely packed this area is supposed to me, I think I might do something similar in some of the other areas. I’ve also increased the height of the central tower to make it more visually striking, and finally I’ve added a few more buildings to the blue business district.

Finally in non-fade related news, I’m starting my animation course tomorrow, this shouldn’t affect this blog too much, but the size I usually make these blogs may shrink a bit. I’m actually hoping that I’ll be able to use the course to work on show with better equipment and make some contacts that will be willing to help out, not to mention get some do’s and don’t’s for concepting and animation.

Wish me luck!

Marc Out~~

September 4th update

I’m going with a new way for naming my post updates, because eventually I’m going to run out of concept art to show at some point, that being said here is this week’s character Sho:

his full name is Sho Tsukuyomi, like Haru from last week he’s based partially off of a Shinto god, in this case Tsukuyomi:

However I also took a lot of ideas on the color scheme from the shin megami tensei versions:

I kept with the Japanese inspired look from Haru, and worked on making a male counterpart overall, while its a little plain in comparison to previous characters, I really like it.

In other news I’ve been adding rough building to my city, and its starting to fill up nicely:

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I’ve added buildings to four sections of the city: a residential sector(yellow) , a warehouse sector (brown), a dojo region (Purple) and a factory area (Orange, which looks a little off because of the shine), and I’ve started adding a second business sector which is light blue.

I’m Also trying to decide the best way to move ahead with Rigging my template models, I have two options: A) Pre-rig the models with a complex rig for talking/body language and a simple rig for fight scenes and rapid movement, or B) do only the simple rig for templates and create the more complex rig for after I create each character’s unique appearance, and customise it for each appearance. Its a choice I have to be careful how I approach because it could lead to slowing my work flow later on. Either way I’ll keep you guys posted as I go.

Till next week

Marc Out~~

Haru and 3D Models

Here are two possible designs for the first support character of the story, Haru:

I’m basing her largely of Amaterasu from Shinto, but also slightly from Okami too:

I’m pretty on board with the colour scheme, its just how to apply it, I feel the one on the left is a bit more distinct, but the one on the right looks better overall, and since she’s a less important character I feel that she doesn’t really have to be that distinct

In other news I’ve basically got as far as I can go with the modelling of my male template, and its looking pretty good:

I’ve already placed seams on him for UV unwrapping and texturing, the next step is said texturing and rigging, hopefully that will stop them looking like aliens finally!

I’ve also done a little bit with the city, I’ve added a road and rail system to my rough map, and it has made a real difference, in the new area I’ve been adding:

The roads aren’t visible yet, but it’s helped to place buildings in a manageable way rather then just plonk them downs anywhere. I also think the rail system is going to add a nice touch to the city for the big sweeping fly-bys. I’m going to be spending time building up the different structures of the city over the next few days, so all those empty planes are going to fill up rapidly now, knowing were all the roads go automatically lets me know where plazas and open areas should be, and will really help the place look authentic!

I’m really looking forward to working on it now

Until next week!

Marc Out~~

The masked man and template update

Here we have the character that I was looking forward to designing the most, the Villain of the first season, The masked man:

I really wanted to go with something simple but striking, so I started with the Mask and worked outward, so the mask would be the main focal point of the whole design. The Mask itself is a combination of two masks, The Court of Owls from batman, and the white half of Shuuya’s mask from Mekakucity Actors:

When i looked at Shuuya’s mask I got the idea of the black teeth and used it to make the court of owls mask look more beast-like, I also toyed around with the idea of giving the mask nose holes, which I think I’ll keep it gives it a more skull like appearance and sets it apart a bit more from the court of owls.

In other news I’m making steady progress on my male template, partially thanks to my earlier female template, all that’s left is the hands, a little more definition around the legs and once again softening the face again:

Overall I’m very happy with the result, but I have always found modelling guys easier than girls, after this I’ll have to work on texturing, I’ve largely been putting it off with the female template, but once I’m done with the Male template model I’ll have to cross that bridge. I’m also predicting a few problems with rigging, in particular the face and fingers and with creating Hair, in particular eyelashes, Blender has a few robust hair simulator, but that’s really only for larger masses of hair, rather than finer, more detailed ones. I’ll be looking up a few tutorials online, and if I find any good ones I might link them in future posts.

On a final note I’ve decided to rethink the city layout from a few posts ago, partially due to a massive oversight on my part: I forgot to include roads. It’s a pretty hilarious thing to overlook but it wasn’t until I was actually placing down blocks that I realised that I wasn’t leaving any space for people to get around! But I’ll keep you guys updated as I detail it out.

Till then

Marc Out~~

Anguis and template progress

The final blindfold code member Anguis:

I really like the design of this character, I wanted to have one character in bight colours to really highlight the darker colours of the others, he’s based largely off of Shuuya and Hibiya from Mekakucity Actors.

I also really liked the mask shuuya has in several pictures of him, so I’ve used it as inspiration for another character I’ll be showing at a later date. The One thing I don’t like is my actual artwork, I’m really not at a professional standard, and while it works for concepts, its going to be a pain if I ever need to do any 2D artwork. I have an illustrator who said they would help, but until I have some way to pay them, I really don’t feel comfortable having them do the massive amounts of artwork that may be required. I’ll update you guys as I brainstorm this.

In 3D news I’ve been working away at the male template character, which is coming along nicely:

Most of the work went into the face, which I had to rebuild a couple of times to make it easier to unwrap later, but so far its really benefited from my work on the female template. Like with the female template I’m planning on leaving the hands and finer muscle detail till nearly till the end, but overall its progressing nicely.

So now that our villains are out of the way what’s next? Well next week I’ll be going into the supporting cast of the show!

Till then

Marc Out ~~