Production Update 216: Studio Coming Together

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Chris Biewer

The process of storyboarding is continuing! I have moved onto the second scene and am close to finishing it up. This past weekend my wife and I took our last weekend trip and headed to Minneapolis for a concert and some hiking. We made some time Saturday morning to sit and enjoy some coffee and work on projects, in my case, I continued to work on storyboards. I promise I’ll break these down more soon, which leads to the next item up for the week.

Last week I had to take apart the studio to get the carpets cleaned so my desk and everything got moved out of the space.

My plan is to get everything put back in place in the next night or two so I can get my mic and everything set up for recording. I do have some videos I need to get recorded and uploaded, I promise those will be uploaded real soon 😀 I really appreciate your patience! My plans for the upcoming videos include an updated Patreon video for episode 2 and also more of an in depth look at the script for episode 2. Let’s get to work!

Production Update 213: Panel Refresh

Posted on August 7, 2017 by Chris Biewer

This week I spent some time refreshing a couple of my panels before I head to AnimeFest at the end of the week. This week I am going to be spending some time expanding on my animation panel. This panel is still in it’s early phases, I performed a strip down version last year at Nebraskon and it did really well, the room was packed. So I want to polish up a few areas and also expand some areas that other attendees had questions on. My goal with the panel is to help people understand more about animation but to also help give some resources to people who are interested in animation and to help demystify it.

Last week I also met up with another local content creator to just pick his brain a bit. The reason for this, is I want to update and relaunch my Patreon page in next couple months, with more focus on content creation and what all goes into animation production. I have another meet up planned for this week. Speaking of meet ups, I am also relaunching the local animation meet ups. I used to organize these a couple years ago but things tapered off a bit and our venue also went through some remodeling. However, I have met some more animator’s and wanted to bring them together in a place where we can learn and talk shop together. I will be sure to bring the content I make to the site and more. I am looking forward to these meet ups and can’t wait to see what everyone is working on!

Production Update 210: Moving Forward

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Chris Biewer

Writing this weeks production update from California! I’ve been here for almost a week now for a wedding but I have kept things progressing forward as well. I spent one day out and about looking for old artbooks and imported CDs. I was able to snag a few CDs, didn’t find much on the artbook front. I have recently been digging a band called FACT (disbanded) so it was awesome to find a handful of albums that I was able to purchase. I have been able to also find some time to get into Cosmic Rage a bit inbetween rehearsals, and getting things prepared for the wedding and family gatherings.

I’m in the process of reworking and rethinking a lot of stuff, which I will be getting into more depths with very soon, I really appreciate everyone’s patience in the matter.

Anyways, I am almost done with the book I mentioned a few weeks ago, Independent Animation. I have a few chapters left but I anticipate plenty of reading time on the way back home on the plane and in some downtime post-wedding.

Before leaving for the wedding, I did record a video on the first lesson of my animation class I am taking. It will be posted up soon and covers the process of keyframing and roughing out timing of the first animation/exercise in the course. On the same front I created some bumpers for videos that will get posted to Youtube in the future. This goes hand in hand with some revisions I am in the process of making on Patreon as well, but again, more on that in the near future!

I hope you had a great holiday and we’ll talk again soon!

Production Update 198: Pause

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Chris Biewer

It has been a little bit of a rough past week. I ended up tabling my animation tests due to migraines all week. The previous week before I had a cold and a sinus infection and I am not sure if the subsequent migraines were a result of just getting back to full health or if they are part of something else. I have been exploring a new diet recently to see if that will help, it seems like when I try new things to see if they work it solves the problem but then it comes back. It could also be a result of not being able to get out doors and naturally spending more time in front of the screen too. I am going to find a solution to this.

On the animation test front though, I completed a minor test that I mentioned before, using 4 mouth shapes of dialogue scenes. The next test I want to do involves using 7 shapes and seeing if that offers a more fluid solution. My aim is to render these scenes out side by side and share them.

This past week I also started a new session for teaching assisting through School of Motion, something I have been doing for a year now. I love to help get people into animation and that is what I love doing at School of Motion. My aim is to bring some of that animation eduction to Cosmic Rage as well, I am still working out the best solution for that. But this also allows me to build up some funds to cover the recent tablet I purchased and also going to help cover costs of VO for episode two along with funds from Patreon.

I really appreciate all of your patience as I get back into the full swing of things this week.

Coming Soon!

Posted on November 30, 2016 by Chris Biewer

I took some time over the holiday break to start formulating a list of topics and other things I want to cover as progress for episode 2 starts to get underway. I still have some recap type content I want to share, so it will be a little bit of a mixed bag here as things start to transition. I am very excited and somewhat surprised by the list of things that I have planned to share.

My first pieces of content will be more directed around things I learned on the overall process of Cosmic Rage and the first episode. I also have some restructuring of my Patreon page planned as well. This weekend, I am aiming to get into some workflow tests as well, since i have a couple routes I want to pursue for the second episode.

Lot’s of things in the works! Let’s do this!

Production Update 187: Catch Up Week & Podcast Appearance

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Chris Biewer

I had one simple goal this past week and that was to catch up on the many fronts of things I had to get done to free up some time to get back into Cosmic Rage. So how did I do?

Well, things are definitely moving forward. I started doing a bit of packing this week for my move in about 3 weeks, which one of those weeks is going to get lost due to vacation. I was able to get some file sent on my freelance projects as I am making some headway on those and getting close to get them into more of the final tweak steps. Things are going well on these projects and they are looking pretty good. I am very excited to get them out into the real world for people to see 🙂

In the middle of all of the work this week, I did get a chance to appear on the local Sioux Empire Podcast to talk about Cosmic Rage, Colin Kaepernick, a tasteless 9-11 commercial, humanity and more. Things got pretty deep. It was a great time and I had a blast chatting with the crew of the podcast and hope to be back someday, you can check it out at The Sioux Empire Podcast.

I was able to get some back end things working too. There will be more updates on this soon, probably after the move. I am mulling over some revisions to my Patreon campaign and moving more towards Youtube with more video content and things along those lines.

This week, the goal is to get back on the e-book and get this revisions knocked out so I can get that submitted into the store.

Production Update 186: Life Event in the Works

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Chris Biewer

Not really too much to report this week in terms of production. Something came up this week and it really took all of my attention outside of work and freelance projects. It’s a pretty big announcement so I will get it shared once I can.

It’s been a crazy summer so far with all of the con travel for screenings, panels and getting engaged that I am really looking forward to putting in some serious hours on Cosmic Rage soon. I have a ton of things I want to try out and explore. I really appreciate everyone’s patience with this. I owe you all a serious video update when things calm down a bit.

Thank you for stopping by and don’t forget you can support Cosmic Rage on Patreon!

Production Update 184: Preparations for AnimeFest

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Chris Biewer

AnimeFest is quickly approaching, so this week I will be putting the final preparations on my travel plans before hitting the road to Dallas, Texas! I have two panels scheduled for the convention, one is the History of CGI in Anime and the other is of course, a screening of Cosmic Rage. This will also be my first time at AnimeFest so I am very excited to check out a new convention and see what it has to offer as well as meeting so many new people too. I will have a follow up to AnimeFest next week when I get back from the event.

As for production news, the e-book is mostly done. I am sending it to an editor this week for one final pass before I get it submitted into the iBooks store so that should be coming soon. I got my final pages designed for it and just need to do one final run through on my end, probably tomorrow, before it goes to the editor. I got a little sidetracked this weekend with some life stuff, this house hunting business is not for the feint of heart. Quick sidetone though, school is all done and I am good to go on that front, I just need to file for graduation.

I am looking at another freelance project this summer yet too. The funds for this project would go to get me a new tablet for my setup. I am looking at getting a Cintiq so I can get back to more frame by frame animation in the second episode. Lots of good stuff going on. Stay tuned for more!

Don’t forget, you can support the project on Patreon!

Production Update 175: Birthday Week!

Posted on May 22, 2016 by Chris Biewer

This past week was pretty awesome, mostly in part because it was my birthday 🙂 But not only that, for some strange reason, I have an abnormal percentage of my friends that share the same birthday week as me. I work with person who has the same birthday, and our office is only about 20 people. One of my closest anime friends has the exact same birthday as me. And two of my closer friends have birthdays in the same week. So needless to say this week was a fantastic time to catch up with a lot of people that I have missed while I was finishing up Episode 1, Convergence.

On my birthday, I got some balloons from my parents sent to the office. So we decided to have a little fun with them at work and take some great photos and some video too.

That night, some friends of ours threw a party at a local retro arcade/bar called the Bonus Round. We got to throw down in some Mortal Kombat 2, Rush and some Pinball while having a few drinks. It was one of those places I always talked about going to but never got around to actually getting there.

Later in the week, my friends and I went out for hibachi and ate some great food. Afterwards we met up for some board games and some catching up since I finished school and a couple of them just got back from their honeymoon.

It wasn’t all birthday party fun this week though! I got some images gathered for the e-book cover and laid and I also gathered some images for a thank you card I want to make for Patreon supporters. I also got word that my panels for SoDak con have been approved , so I will be screening Cosmic Rage and also presenting on the history of CGI in anime. It should be a great time. It will be the first time I will be traveling across state to finally get a chance to see SoDak con.

Mid-week I am looking to write up a review of Persona 4!

Production Update 173: Art Show Scheduled!

Posted on May 9, 2016 by admin

It was one of those weeks where a lot of the work I did was behind-the-scenes type stuff and catching up on some loose ends. I have started submitting The first episode, which has been named Convergence, to some animation festivals. This requires some filling out of paper work and other details that once I get things done, I can hopefully submit with not a lot of work. This is actually the first project I have submitted to animation festivals which is a little new to me.

I have also been gathering some materials that I find inspiring for the e-book cover that I am going to be working on this month. I will have these materials posted up for Patreon supporters to check out. Speaking of Patreon supporters, I also got the storyboards for episode 2 posted up as well. The boards are pretty rough since they are more reflective of the e-book format. So part of May will be fleshing these out more and refining the script.

I also have organized an art showing for some production art and more at a local coffee shop for 2017! I love Dunn Bros coffee, ever since I had them when I lived in Minneapolis. I am extremely excited to have plenty of time to prepare assets and get things printed for the show. There will be lots of artwork to share and some new pieces will be created just for the show too.

I’ll be rendering out some clips for the second scene of Convergence to get posted on Instagram this week as well.

More animation coming your way soon!