Freelance Project

[largento]

Working on a freelance job, which means I get to work on something other than Wannabe Pirates. :-)

 

Storyboards and character design have been approved by the client, so I'm working on the modeling.

 

Close to finishing his head:

 

[itsjustme]

Looks great so far, Mark!

[jakerupert]

Great model so far.

 

Only the neck I would move more to the back.

 

But I guess, it`s just that style.

 

Congratulations on achieving a freelancejob in the 3D field.

[KenH]

Without WBP, you wouldn't have honed your modelling skills. Very nice model and good to hear you got some other work!

[agep]

Nice looking head. Looks very smooth. I would love to see a shaded wireframe?

[John Bigboote]

Yuppers! Lookin good so far!

[largento]

Thanks, everybody! It's not going to make me much money-wise, but hopefully it will let me get a foot in the door.

 

Here's the full body. I don't normally do much decalling, but decided to give the models for this project some texture. The bump map on the hair is probably too subtle to be noticed in the actual animation, but I like how it looks. The character is only going to be seen folded up in a little car, so his body won't really be seen.

 

 

And a shaded wireframe for you, Stian!

 

[wedgeeguy]

Can you tell us a little bit more about the project? ... Or is it one of those "hush-hush" kind of deals?

[largento]

I don't think it's hush-hush. It's just a couple of little 15 second broadcast spots for a local company.

[Paul Forwood]

Looking good, Mark.

[agep]

And a shaded wireframe for you, Stian!

Thanks Mark. Very nice splining!

[largento]

Thanks, Paul!

 

Thanks, Stian! Coming from you, that's high praise!

[robcat2075]

That's looking good! I'm looking forward to seeing the whole project.

[largento]

Thanks, Robert!

 

And here's a first look at the new 2011 Largento 1-seater, no-door, economic, convertible, electric, sports mini car! Everybody's going to want one! :-)

 

 

[EDIT] Here's a shaded wireframe of it...

 

[robcat2075]

I admire your talent for distilling out the essentials of an object when you are modeling.

[largento]

Thanks, Robert! The Largento company is known for its minimal-as-possible work ethic. :-)

[itsjustme]

Great stuff, Mark!

[largento]

Thanks, David!

 

This will probably be the last thing for awhile. I've still got more rigging to do and some other pieces and parts for the animation, but not interesting enough to post.

 

[Fuchur]

Thanks, David!

 

This will probably be the last thing for awhile. I've still got more rigging to do and some other pieces and parts for the animation, but not interesting enough to post.

 

 

Very nice! I like the smoothness and the characterfeeling of it.

Go on!

*Fuchur*

[jakerupert]

Hi Mark,

 

You have developed a great unique economic modeling style matching that of the great Andrew Hickingbottom, I feel !

 

I wish you a similar economical succsess like he has sooner or later.

[largento]

Thanks, guys!

 

I'm reminded of an interview of comic artist Howie Post I read awhile back. He said doing the humor books was easier. Doing the serious books took twice as long to draw, but you still made the same amount of money, so he stuck with the humor books. He said they called the guys who did the serious books "wrinkle artists."

 

I am *not* a wrinkle artist. :-)

[Gerry]

Mark, good looking on all counts! You've developed a very distinctive, fun style that should get you some attention. Broadcast spots = real exposure!

 

"Wrinkle artists"! That's good, hadn't heard that one before.

[largento]

Thanks, Gerry! We shall see.

 

So, here it is! Probably not going to win any awards, but as always, each one of these projects is a learning experience. The original job was supposed to be a 30 second commercial, but by the time I got the gig it had been transformed into two 15 second commercials. When I came in, they had the scripts, the audio and some very generic idea of what the visuals could look like and they wanted the white screen background. I think my ideas were probably too complicated for the short amount of time I had, but I was able to work them in as best as I could. Because I wanted to incorporate the on screen words with my animation, I went ahead and volunteered to do all of the visuals. The "iPhone" dialing was created in Illustrator as an illustration and then I created the frames in Photoshop. I could then time them to the audio in Premiere. The endscreen with the company's logo, I did in After Effects.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't push to get the final specs right away and did most of the work under the assumption that it would be widescreen. I only found out a couple of days ago, that it needed to be 4:3 standard def. I didn't have time to figure out how to create slaves for each of my processors, so I used multiple instances of A:M (seven, since I have 8 cores) to render and it went really fast. I did all of it using the v16 Beta and it was fast enough that I could do full quality renders along the process.

 

The woman I was working for told me the client "loved it." I feel confident that I at least gave them more than their moneys' worth.

 

My first animated commercial:

 

30sec_spot.mov

[ptiversen]

Great job Mark. How long did it take you?

[robcat2075]

Wow! that was fast turnaround! I like that. Congratulations on the gig!

 

I bet they'll want more spots in the future.

[ptiversen]

Hey Mark, your client need to insert that on their web site and remove the 2d character that they already have. Your character is much better.

[HomeSlice]

Way to go Mark. That's awesome.

[largento]

Hey thanks, guys!

 

The timeline was pretty rushed. I started the storyboards and character design on Saturday, the 16th. So, from then to now is 13 days? Admittedly, there was a lot of time lost to learning. But there's no better way to learn than by making mistakes. :-)

 

Hey Mark, your client need to insert that on their web site and remove the 2d character that they already have. Your character is much better.

 

Tony, do you know that's the first time I've seen their new website? The one that was up before was all blue with red type (why do people do that?). That 2D image was the character design I did for this. I think I'm a little bit put out by the fact that they are using it. I told them it wasn't for public consumption.

[NancyGormezano]

Excellent! Fun, fun ideas. This would be a commercial I would enjoy watching, and would catch my eye. Congrats!

[itsjustme]

Great stuff, Mark!

[jakerupert]

Excellent job Mark!

 

Some questions on the professional economic part, if I am allowed?

 

>I told them it wasn't for public consumption.

 

Didn`t you make some written contract?

 

What did you base your pricecalculation on?

timewise, days/ hours or finished seconds of the spot maybe?

Or did you make an all inclusive total price?

 

Did you split the parts of charcterdesign, storyboard, layout and finishing.

 

And also important (see above): did you set up an extra amount for the using rights specifically?

 

for instance for presantation purposes, comercial tv, internet, chara for print, for one year, limitless?

 

Just want to sharpen the awareness hear in this forum, that for pro work a whole lot of aspects should be watched.

[Rodney]

Congrats Mark. Very nice work.

 

I predict they will approach you to do more animation... eventually with some damaged vehicles.

Better get to practicing JohnL3D's Explode plugin workflow and Robcat's distortion map methodology.

[largento]

Thanks, everyone! That means a lot!

 

Jake, this was definitely a case of me taking almost no money just to get my foot in the door.

 

That said, I do normally set a price for the whole project rather than an hourly rate. The reason for that being that I'm usually pretty fast and think it's unfair that I should be paid less for the doing the same amount of work as another person, just because I can do it faster. I should be rewarded for that.

 

I broke down my schedule into parts for the time estimate. It was originally based on what was supposed to be something simpler, but I allowed:

 

Storyboard & Character Design: 2 days

Modeling and Rigging: 5 days

Animating and Rendering: 5 days

 

My expectation was that there would be days in between while I waited for approval, but they were really in a hurry, so it was pretty much continuous.

 

I think I should really work up some sort of contract to use in the future, that's a good idea. This one was kind of by the seat of my pants.

 

Actually, Rodney, if you'll look closely, you'll see the car is wrecked in both 15 seconds. It's backed into a pole during the first part, and it's messed up pretty good by the time it gets to "3rd" chance. That one goes by pretty quick.

[Gerry]

Mark, excellent all around. Congratulations! And the learning is often the most valuable part on a job like this.

[Rodney]

Actually, Rodney, if you'll look closely, you'll see the car is wrecked in both 15 seconds. It's backed into a pole during the first part, and it's messed up pretty good by the time it gets to "3rd" chance. That one goes by pretty quick.

 

D'oh! Can't believe I missed that.

Very nicely done.

[largento]

Thanks, Gerry & Rodney!

 

For the newer users, here's a couple of images showing how I set up the rig for the car. Very simple to do and it worked very well!

 

 

[Paul Forwood]

Congratulations on a job well done, Mark!

There are a couple of places where I think the front wheels could have turned a frame earlier but otherwise pretty amazing, especially for the time in which you put the whole thing together.

[largento]

Thanks, Paul!

 

I am counting on the speed of the commercial to cover a large quantity of sins. :-)

[TheSpleen]

inspiring

[Rodney]

Love the mini-tutorial on car rigging Mark.

Too much fun!

[largento]

Thanks, guys!

[jimd]

just caught this

great look and style, it really sells the whole thing

 

j