I'm a little all over the place these days (what else is new?). The site has gone
through a bit of a revamp, mostly I added a new section to the front page, The
Trash Can, and reworked the WIP gallery so that its part of the xzevlin
section. More revamping is coming as I update the store to include the new posters
I just finished (mini versions of which are available in the xzevlin section
under Fantasy and Horror), and I try to incorporate everything back into
the whole adventure game theme.
I've all but dropped Griff at the moment. It sucks because I have 2 minutes
of animation complete for the pilot, sets and characters built, storyboards, and
about six 22 minute episodes plotted out. I still plan to do the show and have a
few minutes of the pilot ready by the Ottawa animation fest, but the character
models were lousy. I started doing them before I figured out good modeling techniques,
and so they have alot of weird issues, mostly in the way the shoulders move, and
the topology of the heads are terrible.
The good news is that I have almost accomplished something I've been trying to
do for at least 2 years, probably more, which is to create a base set of character
bodies that could be easily customized to create new characters fast. The thing
that made Shocking Tales! so easy to work with was that all I had to do to
make a new character was pick a nose size, add a moustache or hairpiece, and throw
on a new texture. I built up a library of dozens of characters and spent
no more than a few hours making new ones.
That was because they were so simple. Making better looking characters that had
as much customizability was beyond my scope, though I tried it a few times with
the Bruce Wayne and Joker pages I had done for fun.
So anyhow, I started a new base body a few days ago that's slightly cartoony,
but not as abstract as the ST! folks. I now have an average sized male body,
a fat male body, and a heroic male body. I'm working on different outfits for each
one, some different pants, different shirts, maybe jackets, a few pairs of shoes,
and other accessories. When its all done, I'll have pieces of characters I can quickly
throw together when I need a new character. Heads should drop right into the shirts,
so I can rig those separately and just make a new one when there's a new character.
I'll be writing a paper on the whole thing when its done, which will show
up in the Trash Can
by
Elvis Deane!
