June 11th update and 3rd year Anniversary recap

Another Landmark concept this week, this week for the entertainment District:

I really liked the idea of a Ferris wheel against the city’s skyline, but I wanted to make it a bit more interesting, its faint but inside there are orbs, I vision these as chambers that contain a floor that stays level no matter what way the wheel turns, so people can stand and look onto n the city.

 

In other news the 3rd anniversary of this Blog was on the 6th of June, I ended up missing it, which disappointing me greatly. I feel those kinda of dates are important. But none the less it doesn’t take away from what I’ve accomplished this year.

The biggest thing was completing the base building concepts which was frankly something I had been dreading, and I can honestly say it really did try my patience but thankfully that has lifted somewhat with the landmarks as I’ve been making them.

Overall I have two years to reach my milestone of the first episode, but unlike last year I’m not so confident I’ll reach that deadline in the time I have with the workflow I currently am using, but my schedule with college and other responsibilities prevent me from working faster.  Its something I’m very frustrated by, I’ve been wondering how I should go about making things easier for myself, I have a few options:

• Firstly I could do the storyboards before concepting the interior sets, so I can plan them out more efficiently but this could delay my completion of the interior concepts and prevent me giving proper care.
• Secondly I can start story-boarding the first episode while I’m working on the Interiors but this will tighten my already tight schedule.
• Third only concept the interior scenes for the first episode before moving onto the storyboards, this would speed up the development of the first episode and reduce my initial workload, but drags out the development of later episodes significantly since those concepts will have to be drawn and built at some point.

I still haven’t decided which of these approaches I’ll take, I have seven landmarks to complete, so I have seven weeks to decide, but I’m leaning toward the third option, since it will help me keep to my original deadline better and break up the work into something that feels more achievable.

I’m still working to follow my initial plan:

But I think in the next year I’ll be tweaking it, moving Marketing to a later in the chain, but I’m still not sure as to where, its a big part of the process and something I’ll probably spend money on, but my initial attempts to gauge my audience from animatics hasn’t gone well with some of my personal animatics. Where I’m going to market it will take some thought too, I don’t want ride on Rwby’s coattails and frankly I think the story can stand up on its own, so I want to find alternative avenues to find the audience.

I still maintain that once I’m done with the concepts I’ll be able to progress very rapidly, I’m faster at 3d modeling and rigging than producing well rendered art, so I don’t thing those parts of the plan will change much.

Overall I feel I’m going into next year with a more realistic outlook in the project, recently the show took some bumps, but I felt I learned from that, and I’m still optimistic for the future.

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:8/15
  • Exteriors:39/39

Thank you all for continuing to follow the show’s development, until Next time,

Marc Out ~~

March 5th Update

Woo! I did it, all of the background city buildings for season 1 are done!

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This fits into more of an office/admin styled building, I’m also going to use one as the station for the city monorail, I wanted to give it a very simple prefabricated look, similar to the modular pre-fab offices I found online.

And with that the two biggest concept jobs for the current season is done, this with the background character designs where the two jobs I was the most daunted by, Next will be landmarks and the interior rooms, which I suspect will take longer than a week per room because of the level of detail each room needs, but I will post progress images when I get to them.

For now the next big done is the Landmarks which should still fit the one per week formula I’ve been following.

That being said next week I’ll be posting a full catalogue of the buildings I’ve done like what I did with the background extras since I’ll be attending Dublin comic con and won’t have time to work.

Anyway that’s it for this week, Thanks so much to the folks who have stuck with the blog through this section, 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:0/15
  • Exteriors:39/39

October 17th Update

Sorry for the late post this week, Life just got in the way, but onto the final Slum buildings:

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With this I only have five more districts to do! Which is pretty exciting, but the tougher buildings are still to come, I’m starting to get to the districts that are story relevant but I don’t have clear ideas for they’re looks, but it will be great to start planning them. After that I’m thinking about which section to take next, the interiors or the Landmarks, the Interiors are going to take a while for each piece, and I probably won’t have time until the summer to put true effort into them, so I’ll probably go with the landmarks.

Anyway, here is this week’s 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:24/39

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~

2nd Year Anniversary and Review

Well its June 6th, which means that I’ve been posting on this blog for 2 years now and working on the project for 3 years, and like Last year I’m planning on doing a little review of what I’ve done over the year.

So the biggest milestone I completed was the background extra’s concepts, which I’m glad to have out of the way, out of all the concepts I had to do that group was the most numerous, even more so than the buildings I’m working on now, it was the most intimidating thing in the project so far, and if nothing else I’m proud of the sheer amount I was able to get down on paper.

The Second big milestone was finishing the main characters and their re-designs, which was satisfying to see all the realised characters on paper, I still want to draw a group shot showing differences in body type and height but for now I’m happy to just have usable reference for modeling each character.

Tying in with that was the completion and re-design of the weapons, this was a big detail character wise to complete since I feel in a fighting cartoon, weapons help show personality, and having reference for each weapon is going to be so useful in the future.

Not everything was good news this year though, I had to part ways with my volunteer composer Maxim, after realising that he wasn’t the best fit for the project, we didn’t fall out, and I’d love to work with him again on a project better suited to his style of music, but it does feel like a frustrating failure on my part for being unable to direct him in the way both he and the project needed. I’ve realised that honestly the only real option is to keep searching and save money to hire someone who can fit the j-punk/anime tone of the show.

Overall 3 years into my 5 year goal I’m actually still confident I can meet the deadline of producing the first episode, I’m actually well over half way through the conception stage, which is by far the most difficult to get through for me, since its working from practically nothing. once they are done I have a jumping off point for everything.

The overall plan still remains the same as last year, if any of you guy remember the spaghetti sprawl:

since last year I have realised a few things are going to be more difficult than I first pictured, like the marketing, but I’ve learned a lot about 3d Modeling and rigging since last year. but if all goes according to plan, I may be able to move onto a few of the next stages in this upcoming year.

Its been a productive year and hopefully I’ll continue building momentum.
Here’s to the progress to come!

Till Next week

Marc Out~~

April 24th Update

Last redesign this week, Ash’s weapon:

There wasn’t a lot to really change with this design, the handle placement was a bit awkward, I also wanted to change the handle colour,

I’m still not sure if I should give it a grip texture, but I’ll have to wait and see when I model it.

And that’s it for character concepts, I’m officially past the halfway point of the concept process, next up is the environment concepts, I’m a little apprehensive to start these, since I’ve so little experience drawing places, but if this project has taught me anything, its that the best way to learn is to jump in headfirst!

So starting next week, we’ll be starting the different sections of the city, I’ve broken it down into four building per section, one landmark building and three generic buildings to break up the background. for sections of the city that won’t be central to the story I’ll still have to provide a landmark to identify the section when wide shots of the full city are shown, but I’m going to place hold them with buildings I’ve already made.
For the progress list I’m going to I’m going to add a separate section for the landmarks, since they’ll require more detail and approach the generic buildings in sets of three, similar to what I did for the background characters.

So, for this week the 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:0/15
  • Exteriors: 0/39

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~

 

February 19th Update

The Next weapon concept, Sho’s Weapon:

I’ll be honest, I rushed this one a bit, I was very limited on time this week, so I largely took the idea of the chakram from Xena warrior Princess, recoloured it and made them split apart into two dagger like blades.

I’m not overly concerned about it not being very original, since Sho doesn’t have many fights in the script, but I wanted to include it for completeness sake.

In other news I’m thinking of doing a few redesigns with the weapons like with the actual Character designs, I’m going to finish the current weapons on my list though first, I really don’t want to be that kind of creator that keeps going back a tweaking things and never finishing the project, but going back and revising designs is an important part of my plan:

At each stage I have to be willing to go back and make sure everything works before moving forward. That being said, this is the most time consuming part next to the actual storyboards and animating, it’s essentially the foundation for everything, so its important to get it right early on.

Anyway, here is 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: 2/7
  • Weapon Redesigns: 0/4
• Scene Concepts
  • Interiors: 0/24
  • Exteriors: 0/20

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~

November 21st Update

Last Character concept for now, a redesign of Mayor Grey:

Its a very minor change to this design, but I prefer it, it looks a little more interesting than the old design, which I feel looked a little too bland:

And with that, I’m done with the character concepts, I would like to re-draw a few, there are one or two minor supporting characters, and there a handful of scene specific background characters, but these can wait until after my next two milestones.

Speaking of which, what comes next? Well now that I have the characters, I need a world with objects for them to interact with, which is a bigger hurdle than it sounds. There are two important milestones I need to complete, First I want to design weapons for the main characters, second I want to design buildings for the city, The buildings are the bigger job, and I don’t want to jump straight into another year long milestone right after finishing one, so I’m going to focus on designing weapons for the next few weeks, so I’m adding some new categories to the end of 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: 0/12
  • Secondary Characters: 0/7
• Scene Concepts
  • Interiors: 0/24
  • Exteriors: 0/20

With any luck the progress for these new milestones won’t be as slow going as the characters.

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~

July 17th Update

Only two more to go, another Hojo member this week, But this week its an Otherkin:

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I’m a little worried that the levels of contrast in the first two are a bit much, they are based off the colour schemes of two Vocaloids, Miku Hatsune and Haku Yowane respectively :

The Third Scheme is based off of the Anime Black Rock Shooter, which I think might be heavily inspired by Miku:

I’ve also been thinking about the trailer for the show, and while its still a while to go before I focus all my energy on it, its still turning into a tricky task to plan, I want to show off the best parts of my story, but I don’t want to give spoilers, so I have walk a tightrope of what to release.
At the moment I have two options I’m planning:
The First is taking a big plot point from very late in the series, and then flashing back to a short prelude to foreshadow the big event, however I haven’t planned out that big event very much, and I don’t want to release a teaser that might not pay off.
The Second is to to little action preludes showing how each member of Team Fade reached where they are, simlar to the Rwby trailers, which were very successful, the only thing is that I’m worried that this could give too much information and spoil the story ahead of time. I’ll think about it more in future updates, but I wanted to get my thoughts on the matter on paper, but I’d be curious to hear any thoughts on the matter.

Anyway here is this week’s status on concepts:

• Background extras:40/42
• Main Characters: 13/13
• Main character re-designs: 1/5
• Secondary Character: 7/12
• Secondary Character re-designs: 0/4

That’s all for this week
Until next time

Marc Out~~

June 19th Update

Last of the blindfold code followers, after this one I only have six more background extras to do!

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Its pretty exciting seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on a big milestone like this.

I also love the the logos I designed for these followers, I’m going to for a punk anarchist look with them, so that’s kind of inspired the logos as well. I’m going to really focus on using these for inspiration when I’m re-designing some of the blindfold code members.

I’ve also bee brainstorming how I’m going to handle concepting the environments and scenes of the show, and I think I have an idea, I’m going to handle it in a similar way to how I’ve been handling these background extras. I’m going to start with just buildings and draw only three or four buildings for each section of the city. However I’m still going to hold off on those until I have all the character concepts for season one done.

So here is my current status on concepts:

• Background extras:36/42
• Main Characters: 13/13
• Main character re-designs: 1/5
• Secondary Character: 7/12
• Secondary Character re-designs: 0/4

These numbers may rise and fall as the series develops, but I’m going to start including the milestones on whatever I’m doing with each post from here on out.

That’s all for this Update
Until next week

Marc Out~~

June 12th Update

Another blindfold Code follower this week, one more to go:

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I’m happy with how these ones came out, like last week their based off of the Main blindfold code members. Making the unique logos were really fun, I went off the idea of someone trying to make their own t-shirts and just doodled some ideas directly onto the shirts.

With this concept I only have 7 out of 42 templates left to do, and its looking like I’ll have them done before the summer ends, although I’m left with a dilemma, I want to move onto concepting environments next, but drawing wise its really time consuming in comparison with drawing characters, and the guy I had hoped to help with the drawing out won’t be free to work on it for the foreseeable future. I’m not sure how to get around this because I want a certain level of quality, but I know literally nobody that specialises in environment art. But it’s early days still, I haven’t reached that stage yet and I may still find someone yet, or I’ll find a faster way of doing it myself.
For now, I’m just righting down notes on each location in the show, both for my own reference and for giving anyone who comes on board direction, which I think will prove really helpful later.

That all for this week,
Till next time

Marc Out~~