Dave/Zictor's Projects

I notice it all the time now! It used to be a bit more subtle than it is now. It’s pretty much in everything made these days where someone gets shot, killed knocked over or is generally injured in many ways… I wish I was still deaf to it for it yet to be discovered and for me to think its awesome… I actually have the sound effect myself and I will most likely use it at some point…

If you don’t know what it is go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Scream

And now you know, and will notice it all the time.

This is a blog… I mainly like to babble about Films/TV/Video Games or stuff I’ve made… I don’t really find anything else that interesting etc… I’ve been using my other blog to show off my daily artwork but perhaps I could use this one to write down project ideas etc… This blog will still continue after the 2012 challenge is finished, but that one will stay as 366 posts…

I don’t like the way this blog has been used in the past, it was set up to document my uni project but that’s been over for a fairly long time now haha… Hmmmmm….

I only need 2 more followers on my OTHER BLOG, please can the ones on this one that aren’t following the other one go follow it, you get a pretty picture or something every day! :) http://zictor2012.tumblr.com

At the moment I’m doing a daily artwork project and I’m updating my other blog daily, yet every time I follow someone and get followed back they follow this blog and I’m unable to change it to that one. I’m not updating this one as often and its full of shit compared to the other one… so please go follow it. http://zictor2012.tumblr.com - You’ll only need to follow it until the end of the year or like the facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/dailyart2012

Testing posting on certain dates.

Check out my other blog that I actually update

I posted a few days ago about the project but forgot to mention I’d set up the new blog for it so: LINK 

Starting tomorrow I’m going to be making and sharing 1 image, video or animation per day and uploading it on various places across the internet and posting the links here. As well I will be adding them to the gallery on my as yet unpublished website that I’ve built with the HTML5 app, Hype by Tumult.

After this post the next 366 posts will be of the content I have made and uploaded on each day of the year. It’s very ambitious but I hope to learn a lot of new techniques etc and improve my skill set by doing this project.

I’m now going to move on and tell you about the “rules” just so it’s clear what I’m doing.

I will be making content to upload each day, but due to the nature of some of my work (CGI) and long render times I will most likely be making things and preparing them for each day, rather than sitting down on say March 12th and making my piece that day and uploading it that day.

It’s a bit confusing now I’ve written it down but basically you’ll see an image or animation each day of the year, but they can potentially take longer than that day to make. - Think that explains it a bit better… It’s kind of like, a cinema release date… but daily.

So now onto the nature of the project…

Basically I like thinking up new stuff each day and I’ve always done it. I can never really choose one solid area of art to focus on as many of them interest me. Since the early 2000’s I’ve made a LOT of digital art and that seems to have become what I do most but I still get inspired to make things by hand, or I come up with a story that I want to see as a film, or I want to make a film poster, or draw a tribute to something I like, mix two animals together or something. (I could do a cryptotaxidermy project… ewwwwww).

As of yet I’ve not figured out how to upload something if I’m unable to get to the internet on a certain day, say for instance I’m attending a Wedding or a Funeral or I get hit by a bus or something like that, it’s a bit inappropriate etc… But I’ll cross that bridge when/if it happens.

Anyway, Happy new Year and I hope this is clear. If not just enjoy the stream of images animations and videos that are coming your way. :)

Yeah most people’s Tumblr things are quite short or just an image. I usually don’t bother updating the world on what’s going on but here’s what’s going on…

I’m working Freelance! Had initially planned on working for a company first then gain experience before becoming freelance… got the opportunity a couple of weeks back to go freelance and thought, what the hell I’ll say yes I really want to have enough money for Christmas and do upgrade my “Office” suite. (New Mac)

So yeah, I’m now doing motion graphics, have only done stuff for the one company but as long as they keep giving me work I’ll be fine! Not overly sure how to go about getting more and I literally have nobody to guide me except myself. It’s like I’m walking on lillypads on a lake through fog… Could probably have come up with a better metaphor but yeah…

I will release a new personal project soon I promise… I actually suck at getting things finished because something new always comes along.

So much for being short!

If you are a creative person and you like to make things for various websites, such as YouTube or Vimeo, or are a Flash animator and use Deviant Art or Newgrounds, you’ll more than likely receive some kind of message from someone who thought your work was absolutely amazing and they will love you, and ask you to do things and pretty much annoy the hell out of you seeking attention for their art, or their video which you couldn’t give two shits about because you’re the one with the tallent…

But they do have their uses. If you’re friendly to them instead of telling them (kindly) to go fuck themselves, you could look at the following ways that such a person could be useful to you.

5. You’ll receive fan art which will get viewed by their other annoying friends.

4. You post a link on your blog or Facebook (if you’re a fool and accepted their friend request… (I know you’re secretly trying to bump your numbers up!) to your latest work, they are likely to re-blog it saying OMFG AW3SUM!!!!!1!1!11one!

3. You can moan to your friends about the fanboy who won’t leave you alone, which makes you feel more awesome, but in reality makes you look like a whining jackass.

2. If you’re lucky enough you’ll end up with a nice team of fanboys that’ll do anything for you.

1. They are willing to do anything to get some form of appreciation from you!

Number 1 is most important. As a creative, you need someone to do all that shit you can’t be bothered to do or are “too busy” for. So they’ll go and gather images of stuff for reference, or find some textures, music, tutorials etc that you can use. The fanboy can be a tool.

Hell, if George Lucas were to ask me to do anything I’d do it in less than 12 parsecs. (That’s a reference to Star Wars you moron. If you don’t know what a parsec is then just go hang yourself)

I think I should turn this into a Vlog… start doing that. People get to see my ugly mug every day spamming their youtube with really crap images of my fucking face in poor lighting saying absolute bullshit that they don’t even give a shit about… but for some reason, people watch it!

I bet my writing comes across as angry… I don’t actually feel angry, I feel sarcastic… which a lot of people don’t say comes across in text form… That’s what the :P smilie is for… and they’ve not created a better image for that than the one that came on MSN years ago… that is one cheeky :P.

Well this turned into a pointless rant… that’s why I should be asleep at 4am. I could have done something productive, instead I wrote an article that nobody is going to read more than 2 lines of.

One year ago possibly on this very day, I found a video on YouTube called The Manly Tree, and the story really appealed to my sense of humour.

I have been contemplating making the story into a short animated piece for quite some time, and I have the creator’s permission to adapt the piece.

I want to give it a storybook feel, in a similar style to stories told on TV when I was a child.

I intend to do this using Flash, After Effects and Cinema 4D and working once again with Mr. Patrick Casey on the sound design. I have already created a transcript of the original youtube video, and intend to use one of my Manly voices to Narrate the story.

The Look: I’ve been toying with the idea of making silhouettes, but I’m also thinking about giving it a burnt/tea stained paper cutout feel, which would use a lot of Drop Shadows and 3D layers to give a sense of depth to the scenes.

I would be using a variety of Textures from the resources section on Deviant Art to give the paper feel I envision. I may even explore the possibility of having some elements look like they are drawn with wax crayon.

If I am able to record my voice very soon I will be able to begin constructing this Manly story and I will be releasing it online in the next couple of months.

Watch the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPMcr6jC-gI

I’ve been making a lot of progress on relativity getting some almost final shots, it’s starting to look really good. I need to get the walls to look a bit smoother as the texture seems too heavy now so some tweaks are going to have to be made. However It won’t be hard to re-render and replace the backgrounds which is good.

My main issue is that the walls don’t look realistic enough, also some of the edges need re-doing so I’m going to need to up the anti-aliasing on the renders… anyway here’s a shot of how it’s currently looking. Only things I really have left to make are the 5 car shots.

Haven’t posted in a long time, can’t remember what I said last time but I’m bored right now so I’m going to update you on the progress of RELATIVITY.

Finally shot all the footage I need to composite into the CGI environments, and have finished the rough cut.

Now all that I need to do is finish modelling/3D animation then I’ll be ready to composite the footage. Keying out the green is my first task, however I’m looking for a method of exporting from Avid that won’t wash out the colours so I can actually key the green. Software is annoying sometimes! On top of which I’m using my older mac as my newer one is currently broken, but it was WAAAAY Faster. On the other down side, I have nothing to do whilst rendering happens… that’s always been the great part of having 2 computers, non stop work flow, only render on one machine at a time, work on the other one etc. Can’t wait til it gets fixed.

Anyway. My plan for the day other than going to uni to see an External Examiner is to get all of the shots for the film keyed out with perfect edges etc so I can drop in the backgrounds for the sound editor to get to work… So I’m imagining a lot of software problems etc before I finally get the result I’m looking for. Oh the joys of technology!!!

I’ve not posted in a while because I’ve been very confused about where my project is going. I’ve had various tutorials with different tutors who’ve all said very different things and trying to take them all into consideration just fucked my head up.

The basics of what I’ve been told are to “Narratize” the piece, which I got confused with “Make A Narrative”. And I was trying hard to think up a complex story to put inside the visual playground I want to create… After being really passionate and almost having an idea about a guy lost in a Tube station called “Escher” with lots of crazy stairs and escalators, which yeah, it sounds pretty awesome but it’s really complicated…

So after some more tutorials expressing my confusion its been suggested that I come up with a simple narrative, like telling the time or making a cup of tea. These went into my head and I was like… “great, so I’ll have this hopefully visually interesting piece but with a boring story”… which is not true at all.

After being pointed in the direction of the book “99 ways to tell a story” I actually realised how something as simple as telling the time could be interesting, as there are many different ways of telling the same thing… So I’ve decided to revert back to the simple “Man sets off slinky down the crazy stairs”

Now I thought that having him go crazy trying to get it off of the ceiling was a good idea before but I realise it’ll probably be classed as psychotic as the man is running around like he’s lost all his marbles… so instead there will be a build up to entering the room and then pulling out a slinky, as it’d be a fairly quirky ending.

I can’t believe it took me so long to come up with something so simple!!!

Also, including an outside to the room will allow me to set it in a futuristic city to develop some matte painting skills.

So now I’ve got this dilemma out of the way I just need to progress and get to work!!! Now I just have to learn Maya…

So, I joined tumblr to start keeping a blog of my current Uni project where I’m going to be creating a short film heavily influenced by the image “Relativity” by M.C. Escher.

M.C. Escher 1953.

Being a lover of puzzles such as the Rubik’s Cube I figured that this would be a nice challenge to accomplish, and would be something fantastic to add to my show reel.

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