Work in Progress (emphasis on WIP) of the upcoming animation I told you about, called Punk n' Gunk: Gregorio the Has-Been:
Essentially, this is to assure those of you who are understandably concerned I might be yet another random Internet artist who makes bold claims about my upcoming projects, only for the projects to be quietly cancelled anyway. I am indeed chipping away at this project, I am indeed working on this alone without even one other person to make this easier (because I'm crazy, I guess), and perhaps the only fly in the ointment is that the final release of this project might be delayed a bit, because I found it would be better for the final animation quality (and my work-life balance on weekends) if I only animated one character per shot to a more polished standard per weekend, rather than rush to do get an entire shot's animation done in a single day.
Most shots have two to three complex character rigs to animate (plus 2D FX like sparkles and blood splatter, though those take far less time), so this means it will likely take two-three weekends just to fully complete one shot in the future. Forget about my guesstimates of having this done by May best-case scenario, for now, though on the other hand I just realized I completed 23 whole seconds of CG animation in only a month...
The nice thing of having this preview out there for me is that it allows me to detach from my work a bit and figure out already what could be improved--for example, the color correction (this is technically a "preview-quality" Workbench render, but it's remarkably close to what the final Eevee render will look like, real-time rendering in Blender has come a long way...) and maybe adding some ambient bird and nature noises at the very beginning, because it seems eerily quiet compared to what comes after. Unfortunately, I'm not able to change and accept any feedback on pre-production stuff I finished months ago (the modeling, texturing, the story itself), but these are little things I can do to improve the final product before I hit "Render Animation."
Maybe in the future, I could upload WIP shots to the Work-in-Progress section of my favorite 3D-specific forum, BlenderArtists, to finally get the feedback I need to improve my animations BEFORE I upload them to the Movie Portal here, not afterward. I've griped a lot about how I can't seem to get any good critiques from my irl/offline family and friends, due to them being impressed I can even draw a stick figure at all, and obviously quietly chipping away at my projects alone isn't helping, so this might be a good way to get the feedback I need while still keeping the project somewhat of a secret until it's fully done, to those of you that merely want to wait for the final, polished animation on Newgrounds and YouTube.
TheMiamiDeSantos
yo, one month for 23 seconds, 3D animation really looks like a lot of work indeed. Interesting style, it's pretty different from other 3d animation we have seen before. Also, i that blonde guy looks a bit familiar lol
jthrash
The main challenge with 3D animation is essentially fighting how computer software like Blender tends to make the animation look "perfect," and therefore boring and stiff. "Stretchy" 3D animation like Hotel Transylvania and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is the standard I'm shooting for with this animation, so a lot of my time is spent making the characters look more "off-model," which is arguably best done with frame by frame 2D animation, but can be done in 3D animation if you get really good at rigging.
But believe me, 23 seconds of animation in only four weekends is FAST, probably TOO fast, which is why I need to slow down a bit and only work on one character per weekend to ensure the animation looks good (at least to me) in the end. If this were 2D frame by frame animation, it would probably take me a year to do 23 seconds of quality animation--maybe 6 months if I quit my job and worked on the animation full-time, which is not something I can afford to do. Once all the pre-production stuff (3d modeling, texturing, rigging) is done, animation in 3D is pretty straightforward--think using auto-tweens in Flash, but you have to make sure the animation looks good on three axes (horizontal X, vertical Y, depth Z), instead of just two (horizontal X, vertical Y).
As for the blonde guy (Gregorio), I essentially based his hair and face on Fabio and the typical "mysterious romantic novel" man that middle-aged women seem to really be attracted to--the twist, of course, is that he REALLY let himself go (gained a ton of weight, particularly in his belly), which is something that actually happens to a lot of "sex appeal" actors and actresses once they retire and no longer have to look good for the camera and fans--for example, do NOT look up what the actress who played Buffy the Vampire Slayer looks like nowadays. Really emphasizes he's a "has-been," past his glory days of his youth.
I guess the exaggerated "Handsome Squidward" chin, combined with the simple fact he's 3D, makes him look a bit like Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story, too.