2007 is over already? Where was I? Talk about going by fast. I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything. I’ve mostly jumped around from project idea to project idea, 3d program to 3d program, MMO to MMO and quietly managed WirePop. I haven’t really done anything new.

I think I’m in a creative slump and don’t even know it yet. It used to be that I had ideas for stories and project that I couldn’t wait to get out there. Now every idea I come up with feels like it’s been done before. I go from one day thinking of something cute and fun to the next day thinking about something dark and gritty. I have a folder on my computer full of random story ideas and yet none seem to really do it for me.

Right now I’m still on my 3d animation kick, but the truth is all I’ve done so far is jump around playing with many 3d apps trying to pick one I like to move forward with. I think the fact is that I’ve falling so out of the loop that even Lightwave, my old go-to 3d app, feels foreign to me. I’m almost starting from scratch. On top of that when I was at the top of my 3d game I was mostly good at modeling. I have little experience in the actual animation department.

Not to long ago I bought a digital training kit on character animation in Softimage. I think I should start the year by sitting down and actually going through the lessons.

As for a story… I don’t know what that will come to me.

I’d like to actually get somewhere this year. Especially somewhere towards 3d animation. When January 09 hits I hope to look back at this and not wonder where the year went again.

~gp~

So I’m still toying with the idea of getting back into 3D animation. While going through my old files and moving them to the new hard drive I found some really old 3D work of mine from back in 1998. Wow, was is horrible. I wonder if I kept at it instead of stopping to pursue my web career where would I be now?

Right now I’m trying to figure out what exactly I want to do. Just stating that I want to do character animation is not enough. I’m still not even sure what 3D program I want to use. Chances are, right now, that it will be Lightwave. Mostly because I know how to model in it fairly well. They also just recently released the Universal Binary version. So that should run nice on my Intel Mac. Of course I need $400 to get the upgrade, but that’s better then $1000s for, say, Maya.

I’ve been looking around the net for some inspiration. Something that I like and I feel that I could potentially actually do. So far all I found was this animation. It was done in Japan on Animation Master. I’m not sure how I feel about the cel-shaded look. But it does lend itself to the style. The point, though, is that the animation isn’t really hard. No running, jumping or battle scenes. Just a lot of talking. That begs the question, though, what kind of story could you do like that? Would anyone really care to watch it?

Of course beyond that there is also the whole thing of music, sound effects and voice overs. It’s a lot of work and I sometimes wonder “do I really want to do this?”. Thing is, I can’t stop thinking about it. So I guess I’ll just see where it goes.

Well I finally got a replacement to my hard drive that died on me a while ago. I only later started to remember all the files that I lost. Stories I was working on, comic files etc. There is nothing that can be done about it now, though. Next month (Oct) the new update to Mac OS X will be coming out and it includes a nice backup program. If I can manage to squeeze out some money for that and another HD I can rest a little easier with a backup in place.

Now I just need to start moving my old files to the replacement drive and try to get back to some normalcy with that.

I’m happy to finally announce my latest project. It’s a how to DVD called “How To Color Anime Style with Photoshop”. It’s over 100 minutes long and goes from start to finish coloring an image of a Japanese school girl. The DVD is professional quality complete with menus and files to work along with the lessons.

This is something I’ve had on my todo list for a while and I’m glad I finally was able to finish it. Check it out and watch some samples. howtocoloranime.razorstudio.com

Well another hard drive eats it. This will be the second one in less then 12 months. Last time it was my main (programs) HD on my PC. This time it was my projects drive on my Mac.

I usually have two hard drive on my computer. One with all my programs. The main drive and one with all my personal and project files.

Luckily, I’ve only lost about 5 months of work. So that’s not too bad. It’s still a blow to my daily routine. It will take a while to get things back to normal.

You’d think by now I’d have a backup setup, but alas I am too poor.

~gp~

I spent the last several weeks working in 3D. It’s almost scary how absorbed I can get in a 3D program. Time seems to fly like nothing else, but I do have something to show for it.

As you can see in the image above I’ve been working on a character. She was modeled in Lightwave and edited and rendered in Modo. I’m far from done with it, but I’m actually fairly please with the results so far.

I’m not sure “exactly” what I will do with her just yet. I would love to do some kind of animation. Something I’ve wanted to do for over 10 years now. I’ve been toying around with story ideas, but nothing concrete yet. Once I’m somewhat settled on the model I hope to sit down and rough out some story ideas and character sketches.

Like I stated a few posts back I’ve been playing around with various 3D applications. Lightwave has been my staple 3D program for most of my 3D life. I spent thousands to eventually learn Maya. I even toyed around with the open source 3D program Blender. Most of them have not stayed up to date with the times, are just to darn expensive or I just can’t wrap my head around how they think. So why am I talking about all this? Have I finally found a 3D program to settle on? Yes and no. I decided to give Modo a real good try. I’ve been playing with the evaluation version and I have to stay I really love this program. It’s clean, modern and very powerful. As you can see from the renders of my character they look beautiful. They have both SSS and GI and render in a minute or less. Only problem is Modo can’t do character animation. It is coming, though. Maybe next year. I’m at a crossroad here. Should I just get Modo, build up all my assets for an animation then hope and wait for them to add character animation? Or bite the bullet and get another application instead? I can’t afford two applications. Modo and something for animation.

Anyway, these are thoughts that are currently going through my head these days.

To give a little update on my last few posts. Not long after I posted about my little MMO addiction did I stop playing them almost completely. As you can see my obsession with 3D is stronger. I’ve since cancelled most of them and have only kept a couple. The only game I’ve actually been playing is Test Drive Unlimited. It’s an open world racing game and great to just jump in and drive around. Also a great way to get ideas while I cruise around the Hawaii coast.

I did buy Anime Studio Pro and it seems like a really powerful program for 2D animation. Though, after I got all re-obsessed with 3D I kinda have forgotten about it. I do think it’s a great program for my arsenal. I certainly could use it for some unique animations like logos etc.

Besides all that I am also working on two other projects. I won’t go into details just yet. One is a product I hope to sell that I think many of my fellow Manga artist will like. The other is a site, which also has something to do with Manga. So I haven’t forgotten about my Manga endeavors either.

Till next time.

~gp~

After receiving a package today that I had actually forgotten about I came to the realization I might actually have an addiction problem. Inside the package was a game box. The game, Lord of the Rings Online. Why do I say I’m addicted? Because when I looked at one of my bookcase shelves I notice that I have a growing collection of these games.

I laid them all out on the floor and took this picture. That’s a few games if you ask me. This is also not counting the many digital downloaded games I have. They are all MMO’s. Online worlds to which people like me escape to spending countless hours.

This “addiction” started way back when a friend introduced me to Anarchy Online. That was the first MMO I played and the beginning of the long journey… into this, um, hobby.

There is little point to this post, I guess, but it’s a little glimpse into what I do when I’m not drawing something. Now I have to go and… play that new game I got.

~gp~

During my recent research into 3d animation programs, I bumped into this little gem. Anime Studio by E-Frontier. Well actually it used to be called Moho and was bought by E-Frontier. In any event this program utilizes vector and imported graphics that can then be animated using a system of bones and virtual cameras. It’s quite ingenious. Granted it won’t have the animation flow of a true cel animated cartoon, but I’ve seen some pretty impressive animations done with this app.

Here are a few:
La Reine Soleil
Gone in 60 Seconds
Drowtales 6th Anniversary Animation

Fairly impressive if you ask me. If projects like D7Peacemaker can become fairly successful with even less animation then those above then this seems like a great application to tell a story. In my case it also seems like a natural transition from 2D comics.

The price tag is also not scary at all. I may just be picking this up…

~gp~

3D Image

2D Image

With my new machine, Final Cut Pro video editing suite and completion of my second online comic I’ve been toying with the idea of “trying” to do something I’ve always wanted to do, which is 3D animation. It is what I went to college for and spent tons of man-hours and money learning. Yet it never happened. Life just kept getting in the way. Of course it is also my fault. Making a 3D animation is a big production if you want to do it right. It is something you need to plan and not something you can sit down and do in a couple hours. So I never felt I had the time to really get into it.

Since I’ve spent the last several years of my life making websites and online comics I’ve slipped away from my 3D background. In that time a lot has changed in the 3D industry. Alias was bought by Autodesk, the Lightwave creators left Newtek and formed Luxology etc. Also now that I’m using a Mac that limits my selection a bit. On top of that these new Intel Macs need programs to be Universal to take advantage of the processors full power.

So as I’ve been toying around with story ideas I’ve also been wondering what 3D application will I use. I have been using Lightwave for most of my 3D life. Recently I’ve been spending time in Maya learning that as well. Both of these are available for Mac, but they are not Universal yet. On top of that my version of Lightwave is pretty old and Maya is very expensive.

For a while I was considering Animation Master. I had this program way back in the 90s. It has a lot of features, but it uses a modeling method not common in the industry. I know how to model with polygons and Sub-Division Surfaces fine, but I’d have to learn a lot of new ins-and-outs with their spline modeling.

The other day, though, it dawned on me… “Blender!”. I have little to no experience with this application, but I did play with it a little on my PC. It’s a completely free open source application that has been around for some time. The main reason I thought about it was because they recently produced an animated short called Elephants Dream. Because of this project they added a ton of new features to Blender. Many of which deal with character animation. It also sounds like there are more character animation features coming down the line soon. Blender is available for nearly every OS you can think of and one being OS X Intel. After reading a bit I’m amazed at how complete this program is. It can rival many of the commercial applications. Add that with Yafray a Global Illumination / Photon Mapping renderer that works with Blender and Gimp the open source paint program and you have a full suite of highly capable and free software.

This could be the thing that really opens the doors to the independent animator. The communities for these applications are huge. Books and training material are growing regularly.

I know I’m going to give it a shot. I’ll see if it can really do what I want and I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

~gp~