October 1st Update

Last of the delays and skipped weeks for now, and we’re now onto a set of buildings I’ve really been looking forward to designing, the Lower District Slums:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

These are based pretty heavily off of the Slums From Jak and Daxter 2:

I freaking love this area in the game, its easily my favorite area, it has a real feel that it was just build on top of an area that wasn’t supposed to have houses, and I really want to recreate that feeling for the district.

In Fade the slums are build over a waste water reservoir, so all the buildings will be on stilts like the images above, I was a little unsure how to approach the building’s compositions, but by examining the above image of Jak 2 I decided to recreate the wooden supports with corrugated roofs, and I’m pretty happy with the results

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:22/39

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~

February 27th Update

A double helping of concepts this week, first up a set of chameleon slum dwellers:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Not really much to talk about with this one, I based the coat off of Yukine’s from Noragami

The Colours I just experimented around to try get some neutral colours, but I might dull them down so they don’t distract from the main characters.

The Second batch is a set of fox girls:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I based this design off of Kitty from No Evil, a great independent animation series based on old native american legends and fables, its pretty entertaining. But with this second template concept I am now not only done with Slum dwellers, but I am also exactly half way through my background character concepts! It’ll be great to finally be done with them and back to the more interesting things, like the other scripted characters.

In other news I’ve been working on a budget for the show as a whole, and even when I take on most of the process myself it still turns out insanely expensive, Voice actors is the big one, because even hiring people who treat it like a hobby  is going to cost me at the very least a grand, and that’s being very optimistic. This gives me two options: A) build up money and hire one voice actor at a time, or B) Approach hobby voice actors and beg them to do the work on faith or for free. Both this options have signification cons to them, Option A will cause the project to slow to a snail’s pace, and its already at a crawl. And Option B will leave the project at the mercy of people who will have no investment in the project’s completion, or may be unreliable.
I’m also tempted to try crowd funding, however Fade has no real fan base yet, and without a trailer or first episode, there is no proof I can actually do what I’m setting out to do, so the odds of a kickstarter or patreon succeeding are slim at best. Honestly this isn’t a urgent problem yet, but it is an important one. So I’ll probably bring it up again when I’m closer to needing voice actors, but I am curious to hear all of your idea’s because there is very likely something I may have not considered that would help me bring other people on board without breaking the bank, so please don’t be afraid to comment.

That’s all for this week, next week, Military personnel!

Till next week

Marc Out~~

February 19th Update

Otherkin Slum dwellers this week, had a lot of fun thinking about this one:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

All of the Otherkin I’ve made for extra’s have all looked very human with only a small animal feature or two until now, I wanted that to be an underlying theme: that Otherkin that look mostly human are accepted, but the ones that don’t are rejected by the society, it won’t be an expressly stated thing, but I’m hoping that someone will pick up on it. This was also the first time that limbs of the character got in the way of displaying the outfit, so I’ve experimented with turning one wing see-through to show how the head scarf hangs.

In other news I’m negotiating with an excellent character artist to help me do some promotional artwork. Like with my Composer, Maxim, I want to keep quiet on who it is until I have them confirmed. You’re probably wondering as to why I don’t do this myself, well it comes down to reasons: Firstly, My artwork really works better as purely concepts, getting ideas across rather than evoking an emotion which is really a necessity in Promotional material, and Secondly, it gives me one less job to do, theses concepts alone have already taken me 17 weeks so far, and I still need to concept the different areas of the city, and redesign certain cast members, so any artwork I can delegate out is a good thing.

Anyway that’s all for this week, until next week!

Marc Out~~

February 13th Update

Last set of human slum dwellers this week:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I based this design of Eldore from white knight Chronicles(In particular when he first appears with his hood up and his cloak around him), but I feel I altered the design enough to make it unclear that’s what I used:

The Other two colour schemes are based off of Yato and Yukine from Noragami, which if you know the Series is really fitting to make them slum dwellers

Seriously Check out Noragami, its going to be on of the main inspirations for Fade.

In other News I’ve been organising what environments I’ll need to concept when I’m done with the background extras, I’ve counted up the interior scenes and I have 24 rooms to do, not including exterior scenes, and I’ve realised how I’m going to do this is tricky, I could concept them like I’ve been doing with the characters, however its going to take me a lot longer than drawing characters, another idea is to just build them in 3D and design as I go. Its something I’m going to do some research on, but I’m curious to get opinions or alternatives from you guys.

Next week is Otherkin slum dwellers, I’m looking forward to designing them, all the Otherkin I’ve been designing I’ve been making purposefully human looking, I’m planning on making the slum dwellers lean more toward the more animal looking side, so till Next time!

Marc Out~~

Febuary 6th Update

More Slum Residents this week, this time a girl:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This template was largely inspired by this one picture I found online:

I’d love to credit whoever made this, but I haven’t been able to find the original creator, which has disappointed me greatly. I also experimented with the colours, moving from the more neutral colours of the original drawing to brighter hues, while still keeping the design as something someone with little money would wear, The Blue one turned out well, but i feel the Pink one became a little to noticeable for a background character.

In other news I’m happy to announce the first volunteer, Maxim, the Composer I mentioned I was in talks with.  We’re both in this to improve out particular trades, Animation and Art for me, Music for him. If you want to check out his music (which I highly recommend) You can find him here: On his Sound Cloud profile
He’s also created a playlist of the music he’s making for Fade Right Here
I’ll be announcing on this blog anytime he places a new song in the playlist for you guys, its an exciting development for me and a major early milestone for the project and hopefully he’ll be the first of many to join Team Fade!

That’s all for this week, Until Next time

Marc Out~~

January 29th Update

On to slum dwellers this week, the first of a few:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Unlike the regular civilians I wanted to keep the slum dwellers very simple design wise, this particular template was based off of the beggar in Mabinogi, I’ve never played the game, but I found this design appealing, although I didn’t capture the bagginess of his clothes, But I’ll have more templates to practice this on:

I haven’t had a chance to do much more than that this week, I’m back to college after the Christmas break and have been a bit swamped with return, but which any luck I should have more than just concepts next week.

That’s All for this week, till next time

Marc Out~~