Archive for February, 2010
SNOWED OUT:: ::
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Well… things are moving a bit slower than we’d like here at the Fictory. The northeast coast has been bombarded by snowstorms and we’re no exception. In other words, we didn’t get a damn thing done. That’s what happens when you can’t get into the studio. But just because we’re not blogging this week don’t worry, check back Monday.
And stay warm!
- Joseph
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HELSINGARD, A LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP:: ::
Friday, February 5th, 2010
When we started this short we all knew Helsingard would make an apearance. Scott and Brian had pointed out that whenever Helsie appeared in the pages of Robo he had a different configuration, so we should feel free to design our own for this short. Awesome…right? We all took shots at designing a Helsie for this short. Now the tricky part with animation is providing “interesting” character design that isn’t overly detailed. We argued and redrew but ultimately none of us was 100% happy with what we came up with.
We recently added another production artist to our ranks, a Mister Steve Becker. Steve is a cat I’ve known since we both attended the hallowed halls of Pennsylvania College of Art and Design. His first job was to design us a kick ass Helsingard. He took it and ran wild generating a LOT of art for us to pick and choose the best bits. I’ve included a few pieces for you guys along with a good shot of what Helsingard’s main design will look like. It’s still a work in progress so stay tuned for the final full color design with a complete turn around
-Jeff McComsey
Posted in Atomic Robo: Last Stop, Fictory Production Blog | 2 Comments »
META BOARDS:: ::
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Hey all, Dominic Vivona, production director here for this installment of The Atomic Robo blog.
This blog will deal with a little bit of concept work and also a thing we like to call, “Meta Keys”. After the script had been written and before we went to the storyboards/animatic, I talked with our director to see what he thought about doing a pre-visualization to the pre-visualization. A sort of overview of the entire short to give us a very loose working visual guide before we had each scene broken down into storyboards. We found these “Meta Keys” a lot of fun and very useful as we could eliminate and keep panels before launching into the more detailed storyboards. Since the last few blogs have dealt with character concept and storyboards, the images that we will show here will deal with the same subject matter plus an additional peak for all of you who might be chomping at the bit to see more of our vision of the animated Atomic Robo.
Don’t mind the censored panels on the Meta Keys. Our intrepid director will free up what we all can see as the animation keeps truckin’ on to ultimate Robo animated glory. Cheers!
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BEHIND THE SCREENS – PART 01:: ::
Monday, February 1st, 2010
Laying out Helsingard piece by piece
Stephen working on Shot 09
Another fantastic production day here at the Fictory! This week we ironed out some kinks with our Helsingard model (yes, Helsingard’s in the short). Adapting Scott and Brian’s creations for animation can prove tricky at times. Any animator will tell you things that work on the page don’t necessarily work on the screen. But our boy Steve Becker is lending his pencil to insure that we’re solid. Look forward to a production still from the animation next week. Jeff has a killer background I composited with one of Dominic’s frames I’m dying to show the world!
This week I managed to nail down the issue of Robo’s glowing eyes. I won’t bore you with the technical details, but my solution actually involved the same technology used in Green Screening. All I’m going to say is it works great and, the Foundry is to thank. Only the most die hard vfx nerds out there will know what I’m talking about. Anyway, we’ve got some great blog posts coming at ya this week, so be sure to check back in.
- Joseph
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