Hello everyone and welcome to the first Progress Report of the year!
As briefly mentioned in the previous Update, these videos are meant to serve as a quick summary-
-of what's been done in the last 30 days or so. In this case we're talking about the month of January.
But considering this is the first Report I'm also going to give you an overview-
-so that you can get up to speed with the current projects.
Another little premise: I'm still figuring out the format for this type of videos so I hope you can all bare with me for now
This thing is much less scripted and more about bullet points, not to mention under-animated because I'm literally recording this at the last possible minute.
With that being said, here we go.
Most of the month was spent on the Update Video itself, actually.
I wanted to finish it by New Years but then it was Christmas time, and then New Year's Eve...
And then I decided to make it more interesting with more animation and stuff...
So it ended up taking more than I expected.
About three weeks in total. That includes scripting and recording.
At the same time, however, I was also working on an original artwork that I've been tackling on-and-off for a couple of months.
The self-imposed deadline for this one was January 22nd, which kind of has a special meaning to it-
As it's this character's birthday.
I miraculously made it in time and the artwork is available on my Patreon for free.
So if you want, you can find the link in the description and treat yourself to it!
While you're at it, there's a second artwork (Also free) containing some info about this character.
Her name is Janet, for instance.
She was supposed to become this channel's mascot-
But we can talk about her in more detail in another video.
Speaking of details: Let's get a bit more technical now,
Because a fair amount of assets from the Update Video were recycled from the previous one.
We're mostly talking about backgrounds, logos and other small elements.
The Update Video also introduces Cartoon Jan for the first time.
So we can safely say that most of the actual work was put in his sections.
The rest went into the actual transitions and the more silly stuff.
After the animation was done, everything was sent out to Blake for the addition of sound effects.
I realize now, talking about projects that've been completed and are already out is a bit "Meh".
This is supposed to be a Progress Report. Not a Behind-the-Scenes thing.
Eh. Moving on. Vulpwood!
Where to start?
This project is without question the most ambitious thing we've tried yet.
Like, forget "Button's Adventures", "Don't Mine at Night" and "Pony Rock Anthem". Even "Game Over".
If we were to put them on a scale this is what it would look like.
We can probably go over the history of it in a future video but, long story short, it's myself and Blake's original project.
And it's been in development for... a few years now?
But don't be alarmed! Here's a fun fact.
DID YOU KNOW?
An animation is usually divided in three phases.
Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production.
The Pre-Production Stage includes Writing,
Concept Design, Voice Recording, Storyboards,
Character Design, Environment Design, Prop Design,
and Animatic. Just to name a few.
This is why the Pre-Production Stage is the absolute longest part of any project.
Even more so when you're starting from scratch.
Needing to think about ideas, characters, settings and all that. Which was our case.
Production phase wasn't hit until early 2018, when we finally got everything we needed to start the actual animation.
As of today, we're still pretty much in the middle of production, but-
The way this works is that the more assets you build, the more you can recycle and the faster you can get things done.
It's the animation snowball-effect.
We hoped to get the first episode done by the end of April 2019 but...
...Yyyyeaah, we might have jumped the gun there.
There's a lot of work still left to do and it's hard to give an estimate because some shots require more work than others.
For instance, there's a short scene containing a lot of information all happening at once and every little element has to be accounted for.
There's a research on Computer parts and models?
Well you gotta design those!
Thankfully, one of the Concept Artists we have on board is taking care of this.
And might I add - wonderfully.
Just look at these concepts!
Most of these have all been made last month.
Major props to Kressent Rhodes for this work.
These last bits of animation on screen right now also have been made last month.
As you can see I'm mostly focusing on Character Animation, leaving the backgrounds and lipsync for later.
Speaking of leaving things for later:
Before we shifted our focus to Vulpwood, a second Yooka-Laylee short was in the works.
This is project YL2.
it's been on hold for more than a year now and by the time it's released it's hardly gonna be relevant anymore.
But we like what we have, so we'll definitely finish it.
I'll probably come back to work on it on-and-off in the next months.
It all started back in 2015 with the animation "Snakey Dealings" that Blake and I made for Mashed.
That video turned out well but it was made on a tight schedule.
So we thought of making a second one on our own time.
Longer, better and with a higher production value.
To give it proper justice.
So I went back and redesigned the characters.
Putting extra love on the rigs and ramping up the number of angles to a total of 16 views for a full rotation
against the minimally required 5.
Making these some of the most advanced puppets I've built yet.
But what exactly IS a puppet when it comes to animation?
A puppet is essentially a pre-built character made out of different parts.
These parts can skew, stretch, pivot, scale-
-and change appearance based on how many drawings are nested inside.
This allows the puppet to move in a virtually infinite number of ways.
It makes it easier to stay on model and it doesn't require you to redraw everything each frame.
With some tricks and technique Puppet animation can look very convincing.
I feel it's a very underrated animation method, as I see it most of the times used for cheap, quick-and-easy animation. Which is kind of a shame.
Maybe I could make a video on how to build and use puppets in the future, if you guys are interested.
Let me know in the comments!
Now, let's go over some of the stuff I'll need to work on in the following months.
Meet Dumpling.
Remember earlier when I said Janet was supposed to be this channel's mascot?
Guess who stole the spotlight!
You might recognize her by this little run cycle here and this little artwork I use in my streams' starting screen.
Dumpling started out as just a random concept for a hacker girl.
This was the first Concept Design I made of her.
The chat took an instant liking to her and it wasn't long before "Blame Dumpling" became a thing.
Basically every time something weird happens, like a program crashing for no apparent reason, we blame her.
I recently starting designing and building an actual puppet of her.
So I can maybe start using her in this kind of videos.
I was excited to come back to it and continue the build-
-but then one day I take a look at the design and I'm like:
"I wonder what happens if I shrink the head a little bit."
So I did. And I actually liked it way better. So I was like:
"Well I guess I gotta start over now!"
Well, not exactly. I'll just need to do some tweaking.
No big deal.
Another thing I'll need to keep working on, this time for Vulpwood, is Prop Design.
Prop Design is when you basically establish the shape, structure and most importantly the size of every object.
It doesn't matter if the characters interact with that object or not. If you want your props to remain consistent...
Well you gotta design those!
Almost every object in Vulpwood has been built in this blueprint sort of fashion.
The reason is that, this way, a 3D model can easily be made.
At that point, you can simply move the camera around and get the angle that you need.
Without having to redraw every single item every single time.
Check this out!
My 3D modelers are doing an incredible job here.
Shoutouts to Ashley Garcia and Dawson Harvey for everything they've done so far.
It's all still untextured, as you can see, but that's on me.
Once we get to the texturing and general color design of the environment things will look a bit more like this.
With added effects on top.
This is merely a quick test I made for Project YL2 back in the day. An experiment, if you will.
The result was interesting, so I'll be using a similar approach.
But for that - stay tuned for the next Progress Reports because that's it for this one!
Thanks for watching!
Sorry if I rambled a bit. I don't expect the next reports to be nearly as long as this one, but hey -
-if you like me rambling I can consider some extra content with the help of Cartoon Jan. What do you think?
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section!
Take care!