One of my newest Short Films WIP

[detbear]

Hey Everyone,

 

This is one of several personal shorts I've been working on.

For this one, I edited different parts of the 1980 Flash Gordon Classic and came up with a Spoofy Screen Play.

 

This is a WIP.....thus still rough and no back drops as of yet.

 

Ming_Movie_All.mov

[robcat2075]

Hey, that looks good! Is that The Duke playing Ming?

[detbear]

Hey Rob,

 

Thanks Big Guy!!.... Yes...That's "Duke".... He was the closest character I have to fit the "Ming" look.

[John Bigboote]

Great!

[Xtaz]

great... Was it made in A:M ?

[robcat2075]

Yes, that's made in A:M.

[Rodney]

Too much fun!

 

I have a new favorite quote of the day...

 

"You pitiful fool."

 

 

MORE PLEASE!

[robcat2075]

I have a new favorite quote of the day...

 

"You pitiful fool."

 

I used to think that Mr. T came up with "I pity the fool..." but I caught once it in an old movie. Wish i could recall the title.

[detbear]

great... Was it made in A:M ?

 

Hey Big TaZ!!

 

Yes...In A:M. It's such awesome animation software. I did edit and composite the rendered clips in After Effects Though.

 

"You Pitiful Fool!!" is definately a Ming--Ish quote.

 

I'm trying to decide whether to keep it true the 1980 vibrant colors or wade out into B&W.

 

I'm leaning towards a retro 70's colorscheme. But I have to tweek the animations.

 

The Line......"This Ming is a Psycho!!!" Makes me laugh in that context everytime.

 

I've been playing around with the FAO plugin and the Mat Cap shader on a different project and I'm finding that those

two work really well together. I hope to add those two elements into this short as well.

[TheSpleen]

Nice work

smooth

[Xtaz]

great... Was it made in A:M ?

Hi William ... beautiful work there. I asked that because there is a character like this called "Bishop" and it is used by students at Animation Mentor (Maya users).

What rig it is using ???

[detbear]

Hey XTAZ,

 

You are correct. I'm using the Old A:M Version of Bishop. Has the TSM2 body rig and a specialized face set up. I am an Animation Mentor Graduate with their

very first graduating class back in 2006. It was a great experience.

 

The other "Ming" character is my own character developed for my film Adventures with Boomer. That model was done by

me and rigged by Rob Cat. Although not used in this case, I contracted Nancy to texture the "Duke" Version. She did an Awesome

job of course. But for this Ming version I'm not using those textures.

 

Cheers,

 

William

[thefreshestever]

very cool:)

[Xtaz]

Hey XTAZ,

 

I am an Animation Mentor Graduate....

This is one of my dreams !!!!!

 

Congratulation William !!!

[zandoriastudios]

great job!!!

[detbear]

Hey XTAZ,

 

I graduated with Fernanda Velosa.....I'm pretty sure she is from Brazil too. She has since gone on to animate at

a few of the big studios including PIXAR.

 

You should check her animations out. Part of her short film was featured in the 2007 Animation Mentor Reel. Here's the link:

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

William D.

[detbear]

OK.... so I've been experimenting with a title page and color scheme.

 

This is a Sepia version with little color.

 

The file was really large so I had to make the resolution really LOW to make it

manageable.

 

Ming_Movie_All_Sepia_low_res.mov

 

Cheers,

 

William

[robcat2075]

That looks good. More than enough res for me!

 

I didn't notice the globe flickering out before. Is there a reason for that?

[detbear]

Hey RC,

 

Thanks man.... Yes!! The idea is to have a holographic earth rotating and then it "Blips" out.

[detbear]

I'm trying to decide the best way to make the ray gun blasts. Especially Mings freeze ray.

My idea is to have a "circle" wave style beam.

 

The other blasts by the robot arms will be a typical blaster beam.

[robcat2075]

I wonder how a spiral ray might look.

 

There are lots of novel possibilities in color but if it's going to be B&W not so much.

[NancyGormezano]

LOOOOVE the sepia look and Title page! and yes that's plenty good resolution for me as well.

 

Funnneee!

 

Wish you would use a different character for the Bishop character. He's so overused IMO, I immediately tune out of the story when I see him (that's probably just me). Maybe you could modify him to not be so ubiquitously (is that a word?) recognizable? I know you've done other great characters all your own.

 

Loving the animation style as well.

Edited November 6, 2013 by NancyGormezano

[robcat2075]

How about if the freezing ray had icicles on it? And when the ray stops they break and fall to the ground.

[detbear]

Hey,

 

Nancy-- Yeah..Bishop is pretty dated. Face rigs that work well are hard to find. That's one of the hurdles.

It's too difficult for me to rig characters faces. Actually I did try a different character after the fact, but the

animation didn't transfer well enough. So I would have had to do everything over again. I may still investigate that,

but the options are limited. Any suggestions on that would be awesome. I thought about using Larry, but he just didn't

seem to fit. Plus I'd have to take him out of the armor again and back into his original. Maybe I could put his head

on the current body. But I'm not sure how that would look.

 

Rob----Icicles might be cool. I have a bunch of options on the table. I may animate something in A:M and

render the motion out to be used as an alpha channel in AE. Or match a Particle illusion beam in with so icyyy parts.

Not using color will limit it some, but I think it will be O.K. if I stick with the B&W. Particle Illusion has some really

neat freeze ray blasts with snow and dust particles, but the sound effects in the clip are more electronic than snow blast like.

 

There will also be a glow under Ming's platform for the lift source. And also....Flash will be frozen at the end. So I might make an

ice shell for him to be encased in.

[Rodney]

I like the idea of the sci fi rays more than a freezing ray... the effects like ice rays were difficult to pull off in the B&W days when Flash Gordon was created.

If you do go for the ice though, the Tinkering Gnome has a nice example of a character encased in ice: HERE

 

I added an example of it melting away HERE.

But I guess that would be the next episode.

 

 

P.S. I also like the sepia/old school treatment!

[Vertexspline]

detbear----- very awesome indeed. I like the sepia look and well.....just very well done .

[Doobie]

 

 

 

 

That's is really great!