Health Update & News Announcements

Posted on November 23, 2015 by Chris Biewer

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 154: Back from Nebraskon and Major Updates

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Chris Biewer

What an amazing weekend! I went to my first Anime Nebraskon and had such a wonderful time. I will write more about this con later this week, until then, production update time!

Apologies for the delay on this weeks update, I admittedly was pretty eager to watch the Walking Dead on Monday after recovering Sunday night from the con. There is a lot of updates and I just needed a little time to get them all down.

First off, I wrapped up another scene, below is a screenshot. With this scene completed, I now have 3 scenes left until the e-book animated scenes are all wrapped up. I also sent this scene off for audio work, which is why the production update wasn’t up earlier today.

With only a few scenes left for the e-book, I bet you are wondering how much animating I have been doing. Well, when I was preparing the latest scene for audio, I put all of the existing scenes together to see how long Cosmic Rage is so far. As of today, it is just under 10 minutes! Remember, that is just animated content for the e-book. The final animated version will have new shots for the voice over and may approach the length of an actual TV episode. It wasn’t a mark I was aiming for, I want to make Cosmic Rage tell a story in the time it needs, not just hitting a number to make it long.

I will be starting a new scene tomorrow, this one consists of 6 shots. My goal is to get this scene wrapped up over the weekend. With the holidays approaching at the end of the month, the push is to get a scene done every weekend since I will be traveling for the holiday.

Also, the voice over audition period is closing at the end of the week! I have received some awesome auditions, so if you have been waiting to get yours in, I suggest sending them over asap! I will be going through them over the weekend and making decisions on who will voice what character. Hopefully cast announcements will come soon afterwards.

I also have another announcement waiting in the wing. I can probably share it next week since it isn’t set in stone yet. The announcements and news will be coming more and more over the next couple months as the final push starts.

Thank you all for your support!

Production Update 153: Animation Galore

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Chris Biewer

The week started off a little dicey. I had homework to finish up and some revisions to freelance work to get done. I was really concerned that I wasn’t going to get to log as many hours on Cosmic Rage as I would have liked. However, as the weekend approached, I was able to get almost a full day in over the weekend. I had some shots to finish tweaking and then I was moving on to compositing all of the shots in the new scene I was working on.

Overall I was able to get 12 shots done and completed the scene that I was aiming to get done. Here is a frame from the current scene.

This week I need to go through a scene for audio revisions and also send this scene off for audio.

I am also taking a mini vacation and going to a concert to see a J-Rock band called One OK Rock that is touring in the US since they signed a US record deal. You can check out one of their music videos below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjZqcDYbvAE&w=560&h=315]

I will also be at Anime Nebraskon this weekend to present a panel and check out the con! I am very excited to hit up the con and meet all kinds of new people.

For Cosmic Rage, I am starting to work on a new scene that is composed of 7 shots. MY goal is to get it done or very close to done by next weeks production update. I am starting a new project for school this week but feel like I can use Monday and Tuesday to get a strong start on this next scene. Have a fantastic week everyone!

Production Update 152: Preparations

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Chris Biewer

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 150: Inktober

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Chris Biewer

It’s that time of the year. The colors are changing, our garden had to be cleaned up and of course, Inktober. For those of you that don’t know, Inktober is a month where artists post up a lot of their ink work. Mine is a little different but I have spent quite a bit of time inking so far in October as well.

In the last couple production updates, I have mentioned that I forgot about two scenes somehow and needed to get them inked, colored and shaded. Phase one of that process has been completed as I can report that I have finished inking these two scenes. It feels so weird to be inking at this stage of production. Can’t believe I missed those scenes. Going to push forward on coloring and shading these shots this week.

It was a pretty hectic week outside of Cosmic Rage work. We had to spend half of our weekend tearing out our community garden since it is the end of the season and we have to be out this week. I also spent some time on a couple freelance projects I have going on. I am planning a very busy con schedule in 2016 with episode 1 of Cosmic Rage so these projects are very important.

There are also a couple items that I can’t talk about but are very exciting. They are some things that relate to Cosmic Rage but it’s simply too early to talk about. Just wanted to let you know there are a few things that are going on behind-the-scenes that will be unveiled at the right moment.

I believe I am still on schedule for hitting the marks I have set for myself and the project this year.

Dragonball Z Resurrection of F Review

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Chris Biewer

The time has come for me to review Dragonball Z Resurrection of F. It’s no secret that I am a huge Dragonball Z fan, it is one of the first series I watched and one of the biggest influences into me deciding I wanted to be an animator.

I am going to review Resurrection of F as a Dragonball Z fan so SPOILER ALERT, there will be SPOILERS below. Check out the trailer below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z_nWwKBiRw&w=560&h=315]

Quick rundown of the story, a henchman from Frieza’s army organizes a small army to find the dragon balls on Earth and bring Frieza back to life. Piccolo and Gohan realize someone has summoned Shenron but are unsure of what is going on. Frieza and the troops who resurrected him head into space to train to get revenge. At this point we find out a startling revelation, Frieza has never trained a day in his life. They also spend time gathering troops to come back and try to destroy the Earth and get their revenge on Goku and company.

Frieza was never really my favorite villain, I was more a Cell guy. Although the battle between Frieza and Goku was too good to pass up for seeing in theaters. The animation for the film was great. Some of the impact frames that you only see for a split second are amazing. Large bloodshot eyes, fantastic effects, just such great accents and details were spent on those impact frames that made the fights more intense.

Overall I really enjoyed Resurrection of F… Except for 2 points, here we go.

I am going to sound like a Vegeta fanboy, but hear me out. Towards the end of the film Goku let’s his guard down and gets taken down, opening the door for Vegeta to kill Frieza. Vegeta steps in and takes Frieza down with a series of attacks. Before Vegeta can finish Frieza, Frieza destroys the Earth. Whis, then reverses time backwards to right before the moment when Frieza destroys the Earth. This allows Goku to destroy Frieza before he can blow up the Earth.

My problem with this, is it felt like a bad cop out. If Frieza was just going to destroy the Earth, why not do it at the start of the film or after he brought his army to the planet or when he couldn’t beat Goku? I wasn’t super harsh on this part of the movie. The reason was because they mentioned Whis’ time reversal power earlier in the film, so as an audience we were set up for this result.

Quick side note, I really expected more from Jaco. His character brought nothing to the movie other than a couple chuckles that Saiyaman could have achieved.

The main thing that had me disappointed was the timeframe in which Frieza returned to Earth. So after Frieza was revived, they left Earth so Frieza could train to beat Goku. We find out in the film that Frieza was only away for 6 months to train before returning. 6 months.

Now you can say that Frieza didn’t know any better or that his ego was in the way. The reason I don’t buy tho argument is that Frieza witnessed Goku’s battle with Buu from hell. We also find out that Frieza held Buu and Beerus in the same tier as fighters. So clearly 6 months was not going to be enough to destroy Goku, which brings me back to my main point, why not just destroy Earth right away.

Overall I really did enjoy the movie, I felt the animation was great, and the fight scenes were exactly what I wanted to see. The fight at the end of the Battle of Gods left me wanting more. My critique of the film was I feel that they used Frieza’s ego as too much of a crutch from a storytelling perspective. Will for sure be buying the film when it is released.

Production Update 136: Post-4th of July Recap

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Chris Biewer

Last week I mentioned that I wanted to get some artwork colored and also wanted to get all of the crowds composited into the shots that make up this scene. I didn’t get that done this week, but that is because I picked up a freelance project to work on to continue to fund the project. So I logged hours during the week and weekend on that project. With that said, I did get the piece of artwork colored that I needed to and I also was able to get some crowd work done, just not all of it. I have 3 shots left, which I aim to wrap up tomorrow night.

I spent most of the holiday weekend working in the garden. I had a lot of weeding to catch up on and I also needed to build a couple supports for a few plants that are growing. Both garden plots look really awesome now and should now just require the occasional weeding session instead of an entire day.

On the actual day of the 4th, I went hiking at Split Rock Creek State Park in Minnesota. It was a nice little park that had a dam you could check out and also about 3 miles of trails to hike. I would like to go camping at the park sometime before the fall. After hiking, we came back to Sioux Falls and worked in our gardens again.

Finally on Sunday I spent some time on the freelance project and also went to the garden for a bit and did some cooking. I spent the later part of the day working on Cosmic Rage and getting caught up on a bunch of small things that have piled up. The goal was to free myself up for the week to work on Cosmic Rage. Building crowds tomorrow and then looking to get into animation!

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.

Remaining Flexible in Production

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Chris Biewer

I thought I would actually be writing more posts about this kind of subject, but to be honest production has been going pretty smooth. However, I ran into one of my first small changes I needed to make which is what I want to discuss.

As you may know, I complete all of the backgrounds in Cosmic Rage in a 3D animation program called Cinema 4D or C4D. Some of these renders can be slightly time consuming and others go by pretty quick. Lots of things go into effect when setting up these renders and also many things contribute to how long these renders take.

The current shot I am working on involves a 3D city view with a nice camera move to travel up close to a set of doors since the shot is setting up where the scene takes place. I spent some time this week putting together some test renders to get some of the texturing and lighting right.

During these tests, it isn’t uncommon to knock the settings down to get faster results. Once I was happy with the camera move I set up the final render. The final render time estimation was simply too long to wait, so I needed to lower the settings. I spent most of today letting my computer render while I was at work, but when I got home I felt that the quality of the render wasn’t good enough to keep the computer rendering to finish it. The reason for this is an effect called aliasing, which makes the image kinda flicker in areas and most noticeably in areas of high contrast. Given the grungy nature of the scene, it simply wasn’t acceptable.

As a way to compromise on quality and movement, I rendered out a larger image and will have to do a scale instead of having a camera move. This way I can get moving onto the next shot and not have to worry about the shot looking bad. Can’t wait to share more next week!

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!