Getting back into the action

Oh this blog update was long overdue.

I’ve been busy over these past few weeks/months. I’ve relocated to another state for a job so I’ve been a bit preoccupied with the move and haven’t had much time to get around to posting blogs.

However now that I’ve settled in, it’s time to get back to work. I’m still working on my ‘Dogs Of War’ animation, but progress is a little slower than I’d like as my job takes up most of my day and it’s an animation job, so coming home to work on my animations isn’t really the first thing I want to do after I’ve spent all day animating in the workplace. Also, I’m still in pre-production, making all the necessary assets. The idea was to get them all done then start on production, but this is taking far longer than my patience is allowing so I’m probably going to just make the bare essentials, start animating and create/update assets as I need them.

Anyway, in the meantime, here are a couple of animation samples of one of my characters. I didn’t set out to create the best animation in these clips, they were really only done to test my character rig style, so please excuse the imperfections. I promise do a better job in my main project.

Boarded!

Well, I've just finished (more or less) the story board for my Dogs Of War animation project. It took a little longer than I hoped, mainly due to distractions from computer games. Things won't get any better, as there are a few highly anticipated games set for release later this month.

Anyway, with the story board done, I have now started pre-production. Time to construct character rigs, props, vehicles (both 2D and 3D models), backgrounds... good grief, what have I gotten myself into?

Yeah... I'm not expecting for the actual animation to start any time soon. Pre-production will take a while.

I was going to put up a picture of one the board pages, but decided not to as I couldn't decide which one and also, it wouldn't give anyone any insight as to what my project is about. I know I've been rather vague on details regarding my Dogs Of War concept and putting up some of the board wouldn't be enough to whet the appetite. Still, I'll be putting up pics of stuff as I work my way through asset design.

Dogs Of War - it's time

I was going to post an entry about how I need an animation project to keep me busy and argue the pros and cons of three projects I'd like to create, only one of which I'd have the time to make.

However that's been thrown out the window as I have made my decision. I do believe it is time for me to create an animation of my beloved 'Dogs Of War' series. What I plan is to animate one of the episodes that would appear in the series, if it ever was to be produced. This will not be easy. This will be a half hour animation done just by one person. Not just the animation, but character, background, prop and other asset development. The bulk will the 2D computer animated but some 3D scenes will be thrown in too. This means for some assets (mainly vehicles) I will need to build both a 2D and 3D model. Sooo, yeah. I'm going to be busy and I hope I have the patience to get through the design stage. That in itself can take ages.

The good thing is that as I go along, I'll be creating lots of stuff I could put up on this blog site. So finally I'll be putting up things you can actually look at.

So far it's been a week and I'm half way through drawing up the storyboard.

Here's hoping I can get through the entire project.

War's probably not what it used to be

Yesterday I watched an episode of Two And A Half Men. It was an episode that involved Walden and an old business partner of his developing a bit of software that ultimately, could be used to turn off the power to any region in the world. I hope the producers of the show realise that Walden would be legally accountable for any accident that may have occured during this 'blackout' and quite frankly, such an act could also be considered terrorism. Think about that next time you watch the show.

As much as I love to nitpick, this is not what this blog post is about. This episode actually raised quite an interesting point. We live in an age of information. Just about every aspect of our lives can be fulfilled by a gadget or computer program. Now, with my Dogs Of War TV series idea, I try to be as accurate as can be when it comes to how a world war may be fought. As you'd expect from the title, my series is all about war, with fighting, shooting, explosions and soldiers rolling in to smack the crap out of everyone. In other words, conventional warfare. However after watching the aforementioned episode of Two And A Half Men, perhaps my apporach is all wrong. Imagine if you could do something like remotely deactivate the power grid to any nation. You could cripple a country without firing a single shot. Yes, various institutions may have backup generators, but for the most part you could bring a nation to it's knees. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but a computer mouse trumps them all. I know warfare today is still about shooting and blowing things up, but these are smaller engagements. I'm looking more at what a World War could end up like, should the world go mad again.

I feel I should say that I'm not planning to go to war, goodness no, nor am I encouraging anyone else to do so. The reason I have such an interest into how a war can be fought is purely for research purposes for my TV series. There. That's the legal kerfuffle out of the way.