Convention Recap: Akon 26 in Dallas, TX

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Chris Biewer

First off, let me say “what a con!” I truly had a blast at Akon this year, so let’s recap the madness. It was about a 12 hour drive from Sioux Falls to Dallas. I actually really enjoy long drives, something zen about driving and gives me plenty of time to think about stuff.

I arrived at the con at about noon on Friday. Getting my badge was a painless process and I also met some of the con staff. I spent a bit of time checking out the con and getting reacclimatized to where everything is. I missed Akon last year. I also scored some autographs before my panel.

The time came for my panel on Friday night and it went really well. I got to show off my newly designed slides and the audience had a good time looking at some bad CGI and discussing what we all have and have not seen. (Picture of the attendees below)

I went to check out another panel, this one on podcasting, before taking off for the night and getting some rest before Saturday.

Saturday was a day full of panels and awesomeness. I met up with one of my friends and we attended a panel on translating manga. Little did we know, the panel head was also a translator who was going to be leading a Q/A session with Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, the “I” in Production IG. He displayed some unseen materials and promos from some of their works and answered questions about Production IG, the anime industry and anything else we wanted to ask. He was even so gracious to allow us to take a few pictures afterwards.

(Me on the left, Ishikawa on the right)

Production IG had some influential titles when I was first getting into anime. Ghost in the Shell was one of the first anime that I saw. This really was an amazing experience, and truly an honor to hear his opinions on the industry.

I attended a panel on voice acting, since I am looking for voice over talent. It was very informational since the panel was run by 3 different people and all came from different backgrounds, directorial, voice over for anime and voice over for gaming. Very cool stuff!

My friend and I grabbed a late lunch and checked out some more panels. One of which, was the Vertical panel on manga. They are the company that brought us the Flowers of Evil manga, which I highly suggested on this blog for just about anyone to read.

Sunday I allowed myself to be a little bit of a fan. I waited in line to get some Attack on Titan stuff signed by the voice actors. I went to the vendor room and picked up some merchandise, or should I say a mini library of art books. My love of art books may have to come in another post, but I picked up the following books.

Attack on Titan 1-4
These books contain the storyboards for several of the episodes and even show frame by frame drawings.

Kill La Kill
Admittedly, I haven’t actually finished this series yet but I had to pick up the book regardless. The show has such a unique style that I wanted to dive into behind the scenes content. I also haven’t seen this book anywhere before.

Terror in Resonance
I am excited for this show to be released at some point, but the overall design of this book was fantastic. I love looking at the background elements and seeing the hand painted detail. It even has a cool character flowchart to see how all of the characters are related to one another in the show.

Shinkai Collection
Speaking of sexy art books, the Shinkai book I picked up was fantastic. His artwork is simply stunning and again, the format of the book alone is worth a purchase.

I haven’t had a chance to really dive into all of these books, but as I get going through them I will get some comments or reviews of them up. I am eagerly awaiting Akon next year already.

And to the Akon staff, a big thank you for all of your work and planning!

Production Update 130: New Scene Production Begins

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Chris Biewer

Production update once again and things are back in order after the slight issue with production last week. The shot I was working on was finished up after another slight production modification as well.

The current scene I am working on has 4 more shots in it. I found out last week when I was starting to prepare the shots, I forgot to actually color and shade the character artwork for the scenes, so I spent the night doing that and also coloring a piece for the dialogue scenes for the e-book. I also got cameras positioned in the scenes so I can start setting up test renders this week. I am hoping I can actually finish up all 4 shots this week.

I also received the first draft of the previous scene I completed with audio work. We have some revisions to make to the scene, so I hope I can get that back this upcoming week as well.

I think I can get these shots done because this past week we spent some time working in our gardens and getting the fences put up for the year. I will probably spend some more time in the gardens this weekend to finish up planting and to also get the netting up to keep the deer out.

Over the weekend I also spent most of Saturday fixing up a cabinet that we are going to add to our apartment. It’s a nice break to get away from the computer for a day and work with some physical materials.

Production Update 122: Slammed

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Chris Biewer

I got utterly slammed at work this week with projects. Feels as if Majin Buu body slammed my work schedule.

I stayed at the office late this week and also worked over the weekend. I did relax on Valentine’s day, it was much needed. I did sneak some Cosmic Rage work this week. I was able to finish up one shot and got a 3D render completed as well. My goal is to sneak in some more production time this week. I will know more in the next day or two. I should get more 3D renders done in the meantime so I will be able to composite soon. I owe you all some production art when I get back on track.

Production Update 121

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Chris Biewer

It was a good week getting back to Cosmic Rage and not having to worry about final projects and being able to focus in on my artwork. I had a couple events at the end of the week to attend that did hinder production a touch, coupled with the nice weather we had, I needed to get outdoors. Thursday I hosted a monthly animation meet up and on Friday I checked out a local art gallery reception. It was a good time to reconnect with a few people and artists I haven’t seen for a while.

The cool thing about the art gallery, is that it has some art spaces for rent. I have really been on the fence about getting a space, maybe this summer sometime. Speaking of new spaces, I got approved to move into a new apartment, so the end of the month will mark the beginning of a new apartment. I will be sure to get some photos up of the new space and my desk when I get things organized.

This week I was able to get 3 more shots done. I am sitting at about 40% for this current scene getting it wrapped up. The goal is to have it done by next week for the production update. I will be back in 3D this week and will need to get some background renders done for some of the upcoming shots. The good news is my laptop will be able to render all day since I won’t need it for work. I would also like to get some new production art up for next week since it has been a while.

Other than that, I have been submitting a few things for panels, artist alleys and more for con season. Once I hear back on those I will get notifications and such posted up on the site and maybe we will meet up at a con!

Production Update 120: Final Project Complete!

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Chris Biewer

What a week, lots of exciting news and even a project to share with all of you. On a personal note, I actually spent some time apartment hunting this week. Found a new apartment and hopefully will get some paperwork done this week to get it wrapped up and official! I already got a sweet spot picked out for the desk and all the toys that need to go with it!

Now the moment you have all been waiting for… FINALS UPDATE. So around two months ago I decided to take a 6 week intensive course (didn’t know the final project would take 2 weeks). I took it for a variety of reasons. One being it really pushed a tool in After Effects called the curve editor. It was something I never really utilized since I spent a lot of time in the sports graphics world with tight turnarounds and tight deadlines. It was something that got looked over unfortunately.

The second reason was seeing how this class would be taught. I have always had an interest in education and art education so I wanted to see the style of the class just out of curiosity. I can say that I learned a lot in this course and I really enjoyed meeting new animators.

So without further delay, my final project!

I hope you enjoyed it, I certainly had a blast working on it.

With Cosmic Rage back on top of my priority list, I am looking forward to spearheading the current scene I am working on. I was able to get some final backgrounds rendered for the next few shots I want to work on. I am setting the goal of Valentines day weekend of having this scene wrapped up. I currently have 9 more shots to do.

Finally, I am working towards getting things gathered up to apply for an art grant for the project. I looked over all of the paperwork today and have some questions I need to get answered before going forward with that. It needs to be in by the end of the month.

More conventions, panels and artist allies may be in the works as well. I will keep you all up to speed on this front as news comes in!

Looking forward to getting back on Cosmic Rage! Let’s get shit done this month!

Recent Reading: Jaco the Galactic Patrolman

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Chris Biewer

Closing in on wrapping up my homework for my online class, but wanted to take a bit to write about some manga I recently read, Jaco the Galactic Patrolman from Viz Media. As you may know, I am a big Dragonball Z fan. I credit the show for inspiring me to get into animation and it has influenced my career path and when I found out that Viz was releasing Jaco, created by Akira Toriyama, earlier this month, I had to check it out. Here are my thoughts.

The cover is a little bit of a precursor into the story and some of the themes and comedy you will see in the story. That fellow on the cover, is our main character Jaco, he’s a galactic patrolman. He looks an awful lot like a former Dragonball Z villain too, down to the exact color scheme. Check out the trailer for the new Dragonball Z film, the Return of F, coincidentally that comes out in Japan later this year.

In the story we see some of the same elements we see in Dragonball Z, the story starts on a tiny island that is inhabited by an old man, Omori, sound familiar? Omori is a super smart scientist that is working on figuring out time travel. Jaco’s spaceship crash lands on Earth and decides he is going to live with Omori until it can be repaired. However, the ship requires an expensive material to fix so Jaco is stuck on Earth for a while.

Over the course of several chapters, we see some comedy that is straight out of Dragonball Z. Jaco saving the day when a stranger is in a bad situation against a group of bad guys. The story continues to follow some of the same Dragonball Z humor.

The book ended with a slight twist, but in hindsight I should have seen it a little sooner given the closeness to Dragonball Z. The book even ends with a small, unseen chapter of Dragonball Z, which makes sense considering the book was to get Toriyama’s work out there more before the new Dragonball Z movie in 2015.

The artwork of Jaco is Toriyama’s distinct style and it was nice to see it in a new story. However, I felt the overall story was a little lacking and in my opinion, was solely used as a piece of promotional material for 2015’s Dragonball Z film (not that there is anything wrong with that). With that said, I felt it was a little too promotional and felt a little too much as a spin-off. It is only a one volume story, so if you are looking for a light read it might be worth checking out.

Production Update 119 Finals Week

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Chris Biewer

I’ll keep this week’s update short and sweet. This week I was able to sneak in one shot before being assigned our final project for my online course. So while it wasn’t a ton of work I got done, I have started piecing together this scene and the first shot is wrapped up. I might be able to sneak in a little bit of work this week, but no promises.

I say that because last week I found out that final project for my online course is going to last this week yet. I am not complaining, because this project will be a fun way to test my skills and everything I learned over the past 6 weeks. As a reward, I will post up the video on this blog so you can all see what I have been up to.

I am looking forward to wrapping up the class and getting back full throttle on Cosmic Rage!

Production Update 118 Animatic Complete!

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Chris Biewer

It was nice being able to stay at my own apartment this weekend and getting some work done. Most of the actual weekend was consumed with my online course homework. This is the final week of the course! I did have a little bit of down time this week in between my homework and a blizzard to wrap up the animatic for the new scene I am working on. Which means I have started working on the actual shots. As I type this, I am rendering out the background for the first shot. This upcoming week I do have homework and I am sure it will be pretty crazy, but my goal is by the end of January to finish up this scene (10 shots).

I also spent time this week applying for some panels at conventions and gathering a few things in preparations for a potential art grant. My goal is by the end of January to have all of my materials outlined so I can write and finalize things in February. So the remaining weeks in January will be busy mocking things up and getting things ready for the spring.

I hope to get some more production art up for you guys real soon. I appreciate all of you being so patient this last month with my online course. It is a small price to pay for great things in the future and I can’t wait to share them all with you. 🙂 I am just getting started.

Production Update 117: 2015 Here I Come!

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Chris Biewer

The first post of 2015, the start of a very exciting year. Big things are on deck to happen and I am so excited to get the year off to a great start. I spent the last week celebrating a late Christmas and enjoying lots of time with my family and my sister who lives almost a thousand miles away. I got some fantastic gifts including some movies, kitchen stuff (since I enjoy cooking) and some desk/office stuff to make 2015 even more productive! One of the items was a new desk chair that was long overdue, and it has been put together already. I also sat down with my dad over the holiday and drew a blueprint for a standing desk. I have been pretty antsy sitting at a desk all day and doing the same when I get home, and in 2015 I also want to put an emphasis on continuing to improve my diet and also my lifestyle. Since I spend so much time in front of a desk, I decided to go the standing desk route to help be a little more active.

I wanted to get an animatic done this week, but with all of the traveling and catching up on things on my to-do list, I didn’t get it done. I know, I said I was going to and I didn’t and that isn’t a good way to start 2015. I came home on Sunday night and spent the night cleaning my apartment, washing my new kitchen stuff and getting my workspace organized in a moment of zen.

I will hit the ground running this week and have the weekend to work on things as well. 2 weeks left in my online crash course, which has been going well and looking into some new exciting things.

One last thing I have, is that if you have any suggestions as to what you would like to see more of on the blog in 2015, please let me know through comments, email, Facebook etc. I would love to help share content that you want to see! Let’s kick some ass in 2015!

Production Update 116 Let’s Get Started!

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Chris Biewer

I hope everyone had a good holiday break, got to spend some time with family and also got all the Christmas goodies you asked for! Personally, I enjoyed some time with some family but we didn’t celebrate Christmas yet, since we are waiting for my sister to travel up here to actually open gifts and such. I did get some good stuff I ordered from RightStuf to tide me over; titles such as Persona 4 and Blast of Tempest. At some point in 2015 I will be able to provide reviews of them. Let’s get down to business though.

I have reached the halfway point of the online animation class I have been taking, it is a 6 week intensive with lots of homework but I can see the course already paying off and I know it will be fine tuned from work and also on the Cosmic Rage project. I did finish up framing the remaining shots for the current scene I am starting. The next step is an animatic, which I aim to get done before next week’s production update. This will depend on the homework assignments through the week and also some travel time, but I feel I should be able to get this completed since I have the compositions laid out and also have the assets pieced together, leaving me with laying some keyframes down this week for timing purposes.

Next time I post it will be 2015!