Production Update 19

I apologize for the late post, I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. I had an enjoyable holiday break and traveled out of the cold weather to the warm weather where I could relax in shorts again, very nice stuff πŸ™‚ Anyways… it is official! The scheduled drawings for the first episode of Cosmic Rage have been completed! Just to give you an idea of the scope of the project, At this point there are 114 drawings/shots and most of the shots have multiple layers which means more drawings.

This week I am hoping to get the final scene drawings all scanned in and start the inking and coloring processes. I would like to get all of the shots inked and colored by the end of December but I am not sure if that is doable or not with sharing my laptop with various freelance projects, which I will have another to show soon.

Some of you may be wondering what is next. Well, let me tell you πŸ˜‰ The first item up for business is continued work on the trailer. While I have renders and such going, I will actually be starting on drawing for episode 2 with the coloring, inking and animating for the trailer and episode 1 taking immediate preference over the drawings for episode 2.

Continued work on the other projects as well and look forward to providing more updates on those as well. Thursday will be the final entry in the chronicle of my Japan adventures!

Production Update 18

This last week I was able to get 3 drawings done, which brings the number of drawings left down to 6. With about two weeks left in November I am confident this goal is still attainable. In fact for next weeks production update, I am aiming to have the remaining 6 drawings done. That’s right, by next week I would like to be done with all of the scheduled drawing for the first episode of Cosmic Rage. Only 6 drawings left.

Before you start think I have been slacking over the last couple weeks πŸ˜‰ let me fill you in a little on the latest. This week I will be traveling down south to visit my sister, seems like I get around a lot these days again. Anyways, I have been trying to wrap up a lot of my freelance work this week before the holidays, because who wants to work over the holidays? On that note, I can say that I am all caught up with my freelance work unless something pops up in the next couple days. Monday nights have usually been good for drawing, I hope to get a few busted out tonight.

On another note, if you recall a couple months ago I was talking about 2 other projects. Well one of those projects had to be put on hold for a little while, and I can now say that after a couple weeks we are starting up on it again and in a very aggressive manner. We have a hard deadline so right now we are working hard to get it polished and ready to go for the holiday season πŸ™‚ There will be more on this project as the deadline comes near.

Finally, with the holiday this week there won’t be an update on my final day in Japan. The update will get postponed one week. Also with traveling for the holiday the production update might not be up until late Monday or early Tuesday. Have a happy holiday and travel safe πŸ™‚ Check back next week for more updates!

Japan Adventure Day 12

After recovering from the Mt Fuji hike and not getting a case of pneumonia we left the hotel in search of more adventures in Tokyo. In our planning phase of our trip, we both had decided that we wanted to go to a museum and get a little bit of a “learn on” while we were in Japan. Our online searches had directed us to the Edo-Tokyo museum, where we could learn about life in the period and the development of Tokyo to its present day.

One of the things I enjoyed about the museum was all of the models to show castles, cities and bridges. At one point the museum had a mock storefront of a print shop with all sorts of ukiyo-e art and how the woodblock printing process works.

Later in the museum we started to see the western influence in Japanese society, in architecture, cars and clothes. The museum contained items all the way up until post World War 2. We also learned a lot of what life was like in Japan during the war. Kids were forced to the country because they were afraid of fire bombs and raids in the cities. It even had artwork from kids in school at thte time about the war.

Before we left the museum, we watched a few performers at the museum do tricks with umbrellas and balance things on them. It was quite an interesting show.

After the museum we went to Ikebukuro to find the Sunshine aquarium. It happened to be the one year anniversary for the aquarium so it was jammed packed. We saw all sorts of cool fish and a crab that was the size of a small car. Little kids were taking all sorts of videos and pictures with their Nintendo DS.

They had several tanks that you could walk under and see jellyfish, and even sharks. There were tanks of lizards, seals and turtles also. We had the chance to see a lot of interesting creatures.

The aquarium had an outdoor area where we saw seals, penguins and some other birds. The seals had an interesting tank that you could walk underneath and see the seals from under them. The same seals also performed a show with all sorts of tricks and acts.

After the aquarium we stopped at a restaurant for some food and I had an awesome bowl of soup. Ikebukuro had a little bit of a nightlife that we decided to enjoy that evening. We spent most of the night at an arcade playing crane games and a pokemon game that gave us tokens that had computer information on them that we could use on other pokemon machines.

As we searched the arcade for other games before heading out for the night, I found a crane game for a show called Penguin Drum. The machine had all sorts of penguins in it. I deposited 500Yen and got an extra play, I ended up dumping out 6 penguin toys. I also grabbed a pepsi in the flavor of “salty watermelon” and we headed back to the hotel. Next week is the final day in Japan!

*(First image: The sign for the Edo Tokyo Museum, the second: a bomb from WW2 that was found well after the war, theΒ third: penguins from the aquarium, the fourth: the seal tank that you could walk under).

Production Update 17 & Project

This last week I was in Vegas again for some freelance work. So I didn’t get too much done on the Cosmic Rage front. Usually when I go to Vegas to work with my client I put in longer days. This includes working and at night usually drawing out what things I need to get done the next day and also draw out storyboards for those things as well. Yesterday was my travel day so that is why I am posting my entry late.

I did experiment with some new lighting and color schemes on some of the trailer images that I think I am going to go with, so I need to re-render some of those shots. Before I left to Vegas I did get a chance to rough out some drawings, should be a good week of completing artwork.

Halloween Pop Culture Favorites 2012

This is a video I created for an awesome info graphics studio called Lemon.ly. We wanted to showcase some of the top 2012 pop culture halloween costumes, while still featuring some stats on Halloween. All of this was achieved by telling a short story. Make sure to check it out! Thursday will be another entry in the Japan travels series.

Japan Adventure Day 10 & 11

Days 10 and 11 in Japan were solely focused on hiking to the top of Mt Fuji. We slept in that morning because the plan was to start hiking Fuji in the afternoon, sleep on the mountain and then get to the summit in time to see the sunrise. This method is pretty much the norm among hikers and we were hiking during the busiest week of the year. My friend and I stopped at a Subway (yes the sandwich place in the states) and had breakfast. We also stopped by a nearby convenience store to grab a few extra eats and some water for our trek.

In my pack I had a pair of pants, a hoodie, 2-2liters of water, spare socks and some food. *Spoiler alert* Notice the above paragraph and notice the lack of certain things packed, such as a light and more clothes.

The morning was spent train hopping a bit until we got to the place where we were to switch to a bus. At this point it was the middle of the afternoon. Our originally planned bus was actually canceled so we didn’t board the bus to get to the base of Fuji until almost 3PM. We grabbed another quick bite to eat and boarded the bus.

The next hour and a half was spent on the bus driving through fog, and clouds to get to our base station. We got to our starting point around 4:30, we were already a couple hours behind where we wanted to be at in terms of time. We purchased a couple walking sticks so we could get wood burnings in them as we reached certain stations.

The base of the mountain was pretty wooded and the trails were pretty easy to hike. Certain areas of the early path was even paved for hikers. We kept up with our fluids and took small snack breaks every so often to keep up our calorie intake. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to have to suffice on granola bars and bananas too much, so I wanted to keep kind of full as I hiked.

As we hiked through the woods, we would find some outlook points where we could look back and see down the side of the mountain and get a peak at the peak as well. It was a little unbelievable at the time to think we were going to make the journey. The clouds were really moving by the peak and the summit would clear at one point and then behind the clouds and fog another.

At this point we had put on our extra clothes since the elevation had made it drastically cooler than we had experienced before we got on the bus. The air was a lot cooler and humidity wasn’t a factor.

We reached our first check point and got our first wood burnings as well. We sat at a table and took a little bit of an extended break. We were making pretty solid time as we were making our way to a hut that we had reservations for that night.

The next section of trail was again wooded but trees were starting to thin out a bit. As we made our way out of the trees we were now hiking in the wide open space and night time was starting to creep in. We made it to another checkpoint and my friend was starting to get tired.

After a long break we started our journey again as night time fell upon us. It was now pretty dark, the lights in the cities below the mountain were starting to turn on. A little time passed after we started hiking again and my friend couldn’t go any more. We formulated a plan where he would go back down to the station and we would meet up tomorrow. There was a distinct trail we were on so we knew if we stayed on the trail we would meet up the next day.

I continued to climb up the mountain solo, for all of the things we read online about the busy season, we didn’t see a whole lot of other hikers. I reached another check station and got my second wood burning.

I tried to make up for some lost time, so I had a brief stop and kept pushing on. As the night sky continued to get darker, I could see fireworks from cities below having their festivals for the season.

It was starting to get cool out, so I hiked to stay warm. The night sky had gotten so dark that it was hard to see in front of your face without a light. With no place to rest at I pushed on through the night.

Between the hours of around 1AM to 4AM I had several thoughts of climbing down the mountain to the station where my friend was staying. These 3 hours were some of the mentally challenging times. I had no light to see the path and the temperature was well cooler than hoodie weather. At this point I had used my bandana to cover my mouth from the wind and I had used my spare pair of socks as mittens. I would sleep outside a check station for less than an hour before I was so cold I had to move, in which I would hike to the next station to warm up and repeat the process.

At each check station i would look for the station our reservation was at to sleep. After not finding it at a few stations and with the hours winding down to when I would have to start my ascent I decided to bypass the hut and just hike. At around 4:30 in the morning I reached a checkpoint where two paths merged and it was jam packed with people. Hikers filled the entire camp, finally I saw the amount of people I read about online.

Hikers had started their ascent to the the top, there was so many people, that there was a line of people hiking towards the top. The line of hikers was so long that by the time people were preparing for the sunrise you could not hike to the top because it was full.

I was one check station below the summit when the sun started to rise. Hikers were cheering as the sun rose and many were taking photos. A storm started rolling in and clouds were blocking the sun at points as they rolled in and out quickly.

After the sun rose people started to descend the summit allowing for others to get to the top. I reached the summit and got my final wood burnings in my hiking stick. I slept at the top of Fuji for a while in a big shelter.

The wind ripped through the summit and clouds rolled over the top that you could see them. The other side of the mountain was even more foggy then the side I climbed.

Our original idea was to climbdown the other side of Fuji but I had to go back to find my friend. The plan we devised last night I was to wait at the top for a few more hours for him. With it being so cold at the summit, or me being so underdressed, I headed back to find him.

As I worked my way down the mountain the fog started to roll in and it started raining. I hiked down to the station he was staying at and didn’t see him. I figured he headed back to the bus stop because we had to be back to the bus my mid afternoon.

The rain continued to fall and the descent trail was soft, loose dirt that filled my shoes as I tried to not fall face down in the dirt. Some hikers were running down the mountain in the dirt, some people slipped and some used the guide rope to stay upright.

I reached the bus station at the base and found my friend, who was dry and was able to stay out of the rain. We hopped on the bus back to the train station and slept for most of the way. As soon as we arrived at the train station we boarded and slept some more.

That night we hung out and talked about our hikes. My friend captured some beautiful sunrise pictures because he was low enough on the mountain he was between cloud layers. My pictures were blocked by clouds.

We grabbed some beef bowls that night and crashed to recover from our hike. I was pretty sure I was going to get some kind of sickness, at least a cold if not pneumonia from that hike, but I actually came out unscathed even when I got back to the states.

It was an awesome hike and it pushed me farther in mental toughness. I was well prepared on the food and water front of the hike but under prepared in terms of clothing. Which is good to know for next time. I had my hiking light and such laid out to take to Japan but they were forgotten at home. I really want to hike Fuji again and hope to get that opportunity again someday πŸ™‚

*(First image is the path pointing us to the trail, second is the wooded area that we hiked in, third is looking up at the summit through the fog and clouds, fourth is a look back at the foot of Fuji, fifth is the same thing only later in the day as night started to fall, sixth is the hike up inΒ the foggy morning, seventh is my clouded sunrise shot, eighth is a shot down at the cities covered by clouds, ninth is the line heading to the summit, tenth is how foggy and cloud covered the summit was, eleventh is how foggy it was at the start of the hike down, and finally the foggy trail further down the mountain).

Production Update 16

This last week was a little more relaxed than the last few. I had some family in town for an extended weekend but I was still able to get 6 drawings completed this week, which means at this stage I only have 10 left to get done for the remainder of the month. I have been pretty happy over the last couple weeks with the new drawing process I have been utilizing.

I have also made some notes for some revisions to the trailer as it stands now. I am going to splice in some rough changes and see if I like the flow of it better than it currently stands. Part of the lack of working on the trailer has also been in part of I am currently finishing up another freelance project which requires me to use my own laptop so I sometimes can’t afford to render or work on Cosmic Rage on my own machine.

No worries though πŸ™‚ I am making some cool new content that I can add to my portfolio and also post up here. For this week I am also flying out for another remote motion graphics job so my goal this week is to get in some quick gestural drawings in for some of the 10 remaining shots. Thursday will feature what will most likely be an extensive post on my hike of Mt Fuji and hopefully I will get a chance to talk about one of my previous freelance projects. As always, stay tuned πŸ˜€

 

 

Japan Adventure Day 9

Today was our final day in japan with the group πŸ™ I had a great time getting to know some fellow travelers and had so much fun over the previous week or so of adventure. The majority of the group was flying back to the States and a few of us were staying in Japan and going our separate ways.

For the last few days there was a handful of us talking about going to the fish market for sushi breakfast. Admittedly, some of us had too much fun at the beer garden so morning came a bit too soon but never-the-less a small group of 4 including myself made our way to the market.

We had options of breakfast sushi platters so i went with the variety platter that included, eel, salmon, sea urchin and many more. At the end of breakfast, our guide had suggested we try one more type of sushi. I am not sure what it was called but it was a slightly seared piece of fatty tuna. It was seriously the most delicious thing I had ever eaten, hands down. Nothing has ever come close to that.

After we made our way back to the hotel we waited for a few other travelers before we hit up a couple areas. In the meantime we wandered a nearby temple and took some interesting pictures.

Around lunchtime we made our way to a mall that I was itching to go to since I started planning my trip. The reason I wanted to go, was to score myself some anime cels. The mall we went to was 4 stories tall, and covered a lot of ground. As we got to higher floors we started finding nothing but toy stores. So naturally I bought some more gachapon figures.

While roaming around looking for the cel shop, we discovered a small art gallery that focused on Rurouni Kenshin, featuring cels, figures and more. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside so I was only able to get one off the wall.

As I continued to look for the cel shop, I finally broke down and called the guide for directions. I was able to get a vicinity to the shop and I found several cels to my liking πŸ™‚ My objectives of the trip were almost complete.

We decided to stop by in harajuku again and we showed a couple travelers where the Neon Genesis Evangelion store was at. To our surpass, they had a lot of new content in the store from when we were there a little over a week ago. I was eyeing an Asuka figure earlier in the trip but they were now all sold out. I picked up a couple more art books and we were on our way back to the hotel.

By this point the other travelers were nearing their departure time. We hung out and swapped information with some of the travelers and watched as they boarded the shuttle bus and headed to the nearest station. It was now just me and my friend in Tokyo and neither of us speaks japanese. We went out for some eats at a chain place called Yoshinoya, which has some awesome beef bowls and went to bed early that night. We had a long day with the short amount of sleep and tomorrow we were starting a new challenge, Mt Fuji. Stay Tuned!


*(First image is my variety sushi platter for breakfast, the second is of lanterns at the nearby shrine, third is the wall outside of the Kenshin gallery showing and the final image is one of thousands of glass cases filled with toys at the mall.)