Production Update 161: Another Scene Complete!

Production Update time! It’s been a pretty hectic week. I had to play catch up on a lot of real life stuff and school is getting started for the semester too so I a lot of “adulating” to do. Having said that, I found a bit of time over the weekend to get some work on Cosmic Rage in. Let’s get into it.

I have recently been working on the first scene of the episode. After I received the VO and shuffled some things around, I decided I needed a couple new pieces of art that I didn’t anticipate. So I was able to get those pieces of art drawn, inked and colored. With the new artwork in hand, I started working on animating the new scenes.

As I sit here typing out the production update for the week, I am also uploading the new scene 1 to send off for audio production. So far, the first 3 scenes are completed animation wise. While this doesn’t sound like a lot, there is one thing to understand, the opening scenes needed a little more fleshing out in terms of new artwork to handle the voice over capacity. When I start getting into the meat of the episode, there isn’t much for artwork that will be needed and production will go by quickly. I believe right now, there are 4 or 5 more scenes that need to be fleshed out a bit and the rest don’t require as much work.

I am still working on finalizing the VO cast. I’ve run into a couple hiccups in regards to a couple roles, but nothing that is hindering production at this point.

As things start to settle in again, I aim to be back on for blogs in the middle of the week(s) again and looking forward to revealing the voice cast as well!

Voice Over Cast Update

I thought I would give an update on the voice over front for Cosmic Rage. My elbow and infection has put me a tad behind schedule, so I have been working to catch up to where I want to be. I have to say THANK YOU! to everyone who auditioned for characters. I had a blast going through and hearing everyone’s take on the characters, giving the their own personality and tones.

If you haven’t heard anything from me by this point, it doesn’t mean you are out of the running for any roles. I am shuffling some auditions around and trying auditions for characters on others, so a lot of mixing and matching right now. I have picked some front runners for roles but I haven’t sent messages to everyone. I had some questions about updates on the VO front this past week so I thought I would address it. Having said that, I do plan on having the cast lined up next week some time.

Again thank you to everyone who auditioned and everyone for their patience in the process. There should be a lot of exciting news up until out premiere date.

Health Update 2

Things have been a little quiet around here lately, here is what’s going on. First off, I was traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday to spend some time with family and also rest to get healed up. Typically over holidays I go dark in terms of social media and being online. I use them as reasons to unplug and be offline. Plus I had to get in several games of Sushi Go.

But of course things couldn’t go that smoothly over the holiday right? I started developing an allergic reaction to one of the medications I was on. I was pretty nervous for a few days until I got back here to go to the clinic since the rash was pretty localized to the same elbow.

Traveled through a series of storms to get home, rain, ice, snow, the typical midwest travel hazards for this time of the year. Even a massive traffic jam in Oklahoma due to one lane road construction over the holiday. Don’t get me started on how little sense that made.

After all of that, I spent most of yesterday afternoon at the clinic seeing a couple new doctors for my elbow and new-found rash friend. In the end, I got a different diagnosis on my elbow. One that let’s me get off the meds to heal up the rash and my elbow may not have been as bad as originally diagnosed.

Having said all of that, I start my time off to work full-time on Cosmic Rage. YAY! But I wanted to give everyone another update since things have been a little dark here. Aiming to get back up to full speed this week, it will be nice not being on sleep-inducing meds and being able to stay awake for more than 8 hours a day.

Back to kicking ass!

Health Update & News Announcements

I wanted to try to get back on the blogging track this week so I wanted to update you quickly on my health and some news. First off, I am recovering from a skin infection that was triggered by some elbow inflammation. I seem to be on the mend now, the skin infection for the most part is gone. The infection required some IVs, steroids and antibiotics. The medicine makes me sleepy from time to time, but I guess that is the process of healing.

This past week I missed a bit of work and all of my classes. This weekend I have been spending time catching up on some work, freelance projects and my schoolwork. Hence why this week’s post isn’t a production update. Which leads to my next update.

I have the entire month of December schedule to work for Cosmic Rage. Meaning I am limiting freelance work, regular work and everything else so I can focus full-time on Cosmic Rage. I am very excited for this! I have one shot to finish up one scene and then I have two more scenes after that to finish up. The infection really derailed me, I had these scheduled to be done this week. Just have to stay adaptable.

The infection also delayed my ability to go through the voice over auditions and award roles for characters. I am hoping to get to this shortly after the holiday, so I appreciate everyones patience.

I should be back on Cosmic Rage this week and over the holidays. Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things!

Production Update 152: Preparations

Last week sure was busy. I had something going on just about every day and had homework to fit in between everything. I went to a local art critique and had a gallery reception to attend as well. I got reacquainted with the Cosmic Rage files I was animating in since it has been a little while since I worked in the files due to coloring and inking the last couple weeks.

Over the weekend I had to get caught up on homework. I will lose one night this week finishing up the project but it will be worth it and will be something fun to show off. The rest of the weekend was spent running errands and getting caught up on adult things that have piled up a bit. I also had to reorganize my desk since it turned into my office for a few weeks. The fall weather made quiet the dirt storm since I work with the windows open, so it was in need of a deep clean.

What I am trying to say, is that I worked to clear my schedule so this week could be a heavy production week. Let the animating begin!

Production Update 151: Behind-the-Scenes Work and Moving On

It’s been a busy week with lots of behind the scenes work, so let me fill you in on everything from this past week. First off, I got all of the inking, coloring and shading that I had missed previously all done. From here on out, should be nothing but animating going forward. Also, as you have previously seen on the site, the closing date for voice auditions has been announced as well, November 13th. More information will be coming out about voice over roles once they are awarded.

I had to get caught up on some homework this week. I am really excited for the way this project is turning out. I would like to post up the final project once it is completed. I might post up my previous project on the site this week since we just got them back from being graded.

I also had a bit of freelance work to keep pushing forward on as well. These projects will be the ones I use to pay for the voice over talent on Cosmic Rage.

Finally, I have been working on getting things laid out for 2016 and setting up screenings for the first episode of Cosmic Rage at conventions. So, if there is a con in particular you would like to see Cosmic Rage at, shoot me an email, message or even tweet at me and I will see if I can fit the con in. 2016 is shaping up to be a very exciting year for Cosmic Rage.

This week, I am back on animation!

Behind the Scenes 2: Shaping Cosmic Rage

Last time, I shared with you about how the idea of Cosmic Rage came about. Now, I have lived in the midwest almost all of my life. Living in cities no bigger than 150,000 so when I moved to Minneapolis shortly after college, I was kinda surprised. I mean I never imagined myself living in a larger city to be honest. Probably because it was something I never gave thought to. I was always cared more about what I was doing for work than where I was living.

Cosmic Rage was something I started in high school, but shelved for a while as I was searching for my next move after college. It was about 6 months into my job in Minneapolis and I became friends with one of my co-workers. One day we decided we wanted to collaborate on a project. Cosmic Rage was that project.

In the early days of the project, we wanted a motion comic aspect to the game we wanted to work on. Over a year or so, life took us both different ways and our priorities changed. He took a larger role for work and has made some amazing work at his job and undoubtedly mentored a lot of people so far too. As for me, I decided to keep the motion comic going in my spare time.

So why was a motion comic something I wanted to make versus other methods of storytelling? I have always been visual person, so I knew artwork needed to be made. I tried a couple variations of comic and manga style but I wanted the viewers to have the full experience, moving pieces, audio, and color. I didn’t have a way around this all though. I spent some time researching motion comics and found some interesting ones, but they all were basically still comic books, just with faded in type and subtle effects. I wanted to take Cosmic Rage further than that.

One night in Minneapolis I was channel surfing and stumbled across Archer. I was intrigued by the artwork, the characters looked like rigged illustrations but the backgrounds looked painted, yet 3D. I took to the internet after watching the show and found a blog on how Archer was made. This video got my wheels started on how to make Cosmic Rage.

A few render tests later, I was convinced this could work out for Cosmic Rage.