Not entirely relevant, but what the hell - I went to see ‘Waltz with Bashir’ the other day, an Israeli animation about the first Lebanon War, told from an ex soldier’s point of view. 

Wow – amazing animation and quite a powerful film. It’s done in both 2d and 3d, though it’s done so seamlessly it’s practically impossible to tell what’s what. Not many animation films are as innovative and ground-breaking as Waltz with Bashir is. 

After the screening there was a Q&A with the art director - David Polonsky.  He came across as unusually honest, intelligent and modest; some of the audience questions seemed pretty odd and unfair (“Would you donate the income from the film to [such and such] Palestinian cause” to name one). In all cases, the answers were genuine and non-evasive. 

In the process of trying to promote your film, it’s often tempting to get swooped into the hyperbole machine. If there’s one thing that this night reminded me of is that honesty should never, and does not have to be, compromised anywhere along the creative process or afterwards. 

On the more practical side, this has also shown me the level one can reach with 2d flash animation. I’ve spent time since then refreshing my memory in the program. It’s proving relatively easy, considering I haven’t touched it for about 7 years. I’ve decided not to abandon 2D animation, and try to keep practicing on the side, as well as progressing in 3D.

 

 

Modelling is all done. They're quite badly modelled, in terms of movability or rigg-ability, but as far as modelling for the sake of decor goes, I think it'll do just fine. I liked Jared's comparison to a movie-set: from the right angle it looks amazing, but walk behind it and it's cardboard and cellotape. It's more or less the approach I went with.

Blah. Trying to learn a bit about texturing, UV thingy, bump mapping, and other stuff. I'm way over my head here, but hey - the first step to failure is trying right? 

And this is the modelling proccess, so far:

My attempt at texturing.

To be honest, I quite like this. Ah well..

So the decision was made to go with Post-Apocalyptic again. In terms of script and story ideas, I thought it would be interesting to examine the environment through a narrative that is emotional. We talked about having a woman leaving a voicemail to her loved one, just a moment before the disaster hit. I went as far as writing a script for it, one that can be seen earlier on the blog.  This was the theme and the story. Dan brought up an artist that he’s quite keen on – John Virtue. We were all quite taken by him – we liked his rough and dark textures, his play on shadows and lights. 

I’m not one for traditional art, the type that was painted hundreds of years ago and can be found in dusty museum. When I think exciting art, I think comic books. I’ve looked at a few comics artists that to get inspiration from.

 Bill Sienkiewicz

Dave McKean

And the magnificent Michael Gaydos

Y the Last Man is a comic book by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra.  Again, this demonstrates the effectiveness of entering a scene of destruction, and entering it late. Nothing hooks an audience like immediate shock, I’ll argue. These are excerpts from the very first issue. Worth checking out.