largento

Well, after dipping down in the red, my enthusiasm has popped back up into the black! I've laid out the basic plot for a 12-chapter serial that I think will work for me! There are some fun adventure elements I've come up with for it and it will feature elements from the Arthurian legend! I'm in the process of writing it now, which is a special challenge since all twelve chapters will be told by the narrator in rhyme. This device will allow me to keep the pace of the story moving forward and also free me from having to worry about a lot of different voice recordings with all the quality issues that come with this. Ditto extensive sound design and scoring. A simple music track can play under the narration which will suffice. I think this will fit the story very well and free me from having to *show* everything. (Also, it means almost zero lip sync.) My goal is to finish the first 3 chapters before I start putting them up on a one a month schedule. That will give me a 3-month buffer. [EDIT: or would that be a 2-month buffer?] The new story brings with it some new characters and such that I need to model and that suits me fine! At long last, I really feel like the adventure is about to truly begin!

Sage advice, Rodney! Somewhere down the line, I may very well do that. But first I've got to figure out where I'm going. I think I'm starting to get an idea of it. Just have to see if it pans out.

Martin, I'm going to have to go look for that pill. I seem to have a chronic case of it. :-) Chris, I think that's something I'll do on a cursory level, but the Wannabe Pirates can't (and really shouldn't) be taken too seriously. And although we've been introducing things to populate and define it's "world," we're really pushing towards a sort of permanent status quo. That said, I do think the animated version allows for a slightly more serious tone. The webcomic's structure requires constant gags. Plot has to be woven into it, whereas the cartoon chapters wouldn't be bound by that... of course, it would be taking that structural requirement and trading it for another: cliffhangers. But cliffhangers are a great way to build an audience... there becomes more of a reason to come back every time. I just need to figure out a way to balance the results with the effort. How can I satisfy myself and an audience without killing myself in the process? That's where I think the micro-length of them comes in... but can I really make this work in 1-2 minute chapters?

Just an update, although there's nothing new to report. I've been giving a lot of thought to how I next want to proceed. I think the micro-shorts are the way to go, but I'm trying to decide if they should just be random bits or serialized chapters in larger stories. I'm also battling a bit of the "is it worth all the trouble" blues. I think I'll be able to weather them, though. I've come too far and done too much work to just toss it all aside. :-)

Very cool, Mark! You're making me wish I'd been able to rig my characters with this rig!

Haha! That's awesome, Rodney! Thanks! If my choice is walking the plank or getting thrown overboard, I'm thinking I'm really not such a strictler for tradition. :-)

Have you checked your Normals?

Thanks, Rodney! Hopefully Kidjutsu will take off. I like the idea of there being a hub where kids can go to read comics. I like their Flash reader. Isolating the image from the usual background noise is helpful and showcases the pages well. The navigation is pretty good and I found that the pages loaded pretty quickly. And thanks to Martin, too! I really appreciate the comment on the page!

I uploaded the first volume of The Wannabe Pirates to Kidjutsu last night! Kidjutsu is a website where kids can go to read kid-friendly comics. The Flash reader works pretty well. You can view The Wannabe Pirates book here.

The hair looks pretty good, Paul... and the model looks GREAT! Now you can have Clint tell the Academy what he thinks about them snubbing Gran Torino. :-)

Thanks, Rodney! I'll let you know when/if it goes on sale. ;-)

We've been invited to join a website that puts up free comics for kids. Since it's more geared towards comic books, I've been working on putting together a small book that will reprint the first two storylines from the webcomic. As I've been working on it, it occurs to me that it would probably work as a print version, sized similar to a children's book, saddle-stitched with a card stock cover and 20 pages of interiors. Going to see if I can find out how much it would cost to print. It would give us something to sell on the website and at any conventions we go to. We could also donate some to local libraries. Here's the working cover for the book:

Thanks, guys!

So, it looks like I'm going to take a little side trip before I get to working on the theme song animation. It hardly seems possible, but the beginning of February will mark 1 year for The Wannabe Pirates webcomic! Readers here know that we started it earlier than that in order to build up a 20 strip buffer before we launched, but it was on February 1st of last year that the first strip went online. (The strip that went up this Tuesday was #100!) McCrary and I are discussing a few things we may do to mark the anniversary. One of them, I think, will be a micro-super-short short animation. I'm toying with some ideas, but I'll update here with progress. Another short deadline to tackle! When we do put up blog posts, we do it on Wednesdays, so it looks like February 4th will be the date for getting it finished. It should be fun! Still can't believe so much time has passed so quickly!

You know, looking at your video render, I was reminded of an issue I ran into last year. I had taken a model I created using the Mac version of A:M and brought it into the Windows version to animate and when I rendered it, random patches would disappear from frame to frame. At the time, the only think I could think was that it had something to do with the porcelain material, but I never did figure out what was causing it.

I don't even use projects. I make folders for and save out models, actions, cho's, materials, etc. When I load a choreography, it will automatically load everything it needs.

Haven't started on the other models yet. The weekend got away from me. I did do a new skyscraper ad for the website, though:

Spleen, you could also contact Anzovin and see if they still have any left to sell.

Thanks, Gerry! With the weekend coming, I hope to get the rest of him finished and move on to the next one. I also was taking a look at things and realized I'd never finished the monkey model (I only did the head), so I need to finish that one off, too. It's interesting how doing the webcomic is influencing this. As it grows, I realize that I need to modify things to keep up with it. My first "micro-movie" is going to be what would be the opening titles to the longer "mini-movies." There's a Wannabe Pirates theme song that was just instrumental in McCrary's home movie, but I've written lyrics for it and am going to work with a local musician to get it recorded. I think it will be fun to have on the website and we can use it as a sort of commercial for the website on places like YouTube.

I got a bunch of stuff when I first started that were really helpful! My favorite and number one pick is Barry Zundel's Animation Master Training DVDs. Doesn't look like he offers the DVDs anymore, but you can buy the videos for download here. By far, I learned the most from these. Jeff Lew's DVDs are here. Good action stuff and done in a really entertaining style. I need to watch these again, since it's been a looong time. In the M.I.A. section are: Christin McKee's "Animate!" CDs and Justin Barrett's "Animate a Face!" both from Anzovin and sadly no longer available. Will Sutton's "Decaling/UV Setup," "Smartskin/CP Weights" and "Patch Modeling" that were all very useful and informative, but also aren't for sale anymore. Anzovin's TSM2 was made available for free here on these forums. Do a search for it. For my money, Barry's video tutorials are the best money spent. He takes you through the interface, modeling and rigging a character and animating, giving tips and insights that really turned things around for me.

Thanks, guys! I'm trying. :-) "Swallows and Amazons" doesn't sound familiar, Paul. Should I google it?

Haha, thanks Nancy!

A little more progress with Nash...

Very cool, Eric! I'd wondered what you'd been up to...

The new version comes in two licensing options. A year-long subscription version, which is downloadable, doesn't require the CD and expires after one year; and the CD version that doesn't expire and requires the CD.