La La La

Last update was a little less than a month ago. Whoooooooops. Where have the updates gone? Well, I've been busy and only update this blog when I remember I have it.

:)

So onto the animations. Must Have Done Something Right is trucking along. I keep adding details meaning it will just be longer before it's released. I'm about 1/4 fully animated an colored (not secondary shading though). Once I get past the next section production will speed up since there isn't as much lip sync( I might not do any as to speed up the release process).

Some other news, I have started production on another Directionless animation. It's not the pilot though, that is still on hold. This animation is more "part two" of the Jobs animation. The jobs movie was envisioned in two parts, the job search and having a crappy job. The having a crappy job part was supposed to be the credits but at the last minute I decided not to(too much work for a credits sequence, would have rather made a full animation with the concept). Well, now I am making that animation. It does not have any of the Directionless cast in it (other than Jeff).

And the song Toes by Lights really strikes my fancy. I do not like the official video to the song and feel it could be so much better so I am in the idea phase of putting that together. Honestly at the moment I have no idea. My free association for the video as of right now is neon lights, pixels, love, stalking, scores, banging. Hopefully by the next update I'll have made progress with it.

And sadly, the Tim Minchin video is on hold, for now.

I would upload screen shots of stuff but I'm currently Animation Collective and don't have anything of the project files on this computer.

Must Have Done Something Right Update 2

My goal with the video is just to make people smile. I haven't shaded the girl in yet.

As of right now the first 40 seconds are fully animated. I still have to color the girl and do secondary shading. And also put in the backgrounds. Though, for backgrounds I plan on using After Effects to create some great motion graphics.

I included the first 20 seconds of the video in my animation reel from June.

"Sing to me"

"OOOOHHH"

"Hey baby, I can show you a reeeeeal good time if ya let me!"

I animate the mouths separately.

The video goes into a wild direction(which right now is only storyboarded, so not worth uploading).

Approximately the video is 10% done. The frame by frame animation takes the longest to do. Then color/touching up. Then shading.

Adding backgrounds and adding the motion graphics will be the final segment of production and I do not know how long it will take. I don't image it taking more than week since most of the effects involve hearts/flowers floating around.

Must Have Done Something Right

So I am still chipping away at the Tim Minchin video but a few youtube comments made me revisit an animation I put on hiatus in June. I decided to begin to work on it again. Since it is currently well ahead of the Tim Minchin video it will most likely be released before it. It also has less characters and is shorter.

Must Have Done Something Right is a music video (the song is by Relient K). It's about the "male" character expressing his feelings of love/happiness because of his new relationship. I said in a previous post it's about 1/4 done but I decided to redo some sections(mostly because the shots were uninteresting) so the completedness remains the same. With my newfound motion graphics skills I plan on making the backgrounds much more interesting and adding some effects that none of my animations before it have included. I'll post some stills(maybe) in the future when I get to those shots.

Progress

So here is an update on all the projects I'm currently working on as well as some exciting developments for the future.

First off, the Tim Minchin video is coming along. I'm about 5% done with the video as a whole. Still a ways to go. It's a lot of fun animating Tim. There isn't much else to say about the video as of yet.

Ever since uploading one of my animation reels to youtube I've received a number of requests to upload "Must Have Done Something Right". I'm thinking of picking it up again. It's further along than the Tim Minchin video(about 1/4 done) and since I have started water coloring I might be able to paint the backgrounds for it rather than have it all be digital.

I have been learning 3D and motion graphics. I kind of fell into motion graphics through some freelance projects but I didn't have much experience. I began to teach myself how do do motion graphics and found out motion graphics and 3D animation use the same programs and very simliar techniques. I plan on making a short "Pixar Lamp" parody, hopefully this week. Either something along the lines of "drunk lamp" or "clumsy lamp".

(yes this is a still from it)

I do think I have a future doing 3D animation. I have begun storyboarding a video that has been in my head for a number of months now. A Dear Hunter music video. It's much darker than any of my previous work and wouldn't resemble anything I have made before. With my new blossoming 3D animation/modeling skills it's actually possible for me to make such a video. If I like the way it turns out I might even pull out the Midnight Show ( by the Killers) music video.

Also, I am putting Directionless on hiatus. I'm focused on getting all these music videos done that I can't give the proper focus needed for the story. It's only hiatus and I will work on it again in the future.

Thank You God

So production has begun on the next animation. I will keep an animation log here with updates and goals. Currently I'm hoping production lasts 4-6 weeks, pending on how much frame by frame animation I need to do. The entire video is going to be around 6000 frames. I've storyboarded 3000 frames worth of animation(which is subject to change). I should do the next 3000 tomorrow.

The video focuses on animated Tim Minchin "trolling" his friend Sam about his belief in god. As the video progresses it gets more outlandish and more humorous. It's almost like animating a musical, the lyrics are so well written that it is very easy to make them come alive.

As of right now there are three characters. Tim, Sam, and God. Tim is almost hyper active in his talking to Sam. Sam is very annoyed at Tims behavior and kind of tunes him out. God is shy and like a little kid except when it comes to Ophthalmology. It's a lot of fun going back and forth between the three characters.

I wil be including elements of satire in the video. Yakko's world is one that I will be satirizing.

I also reference Super Mario Rpg.

Here are some early sketches and storyboard frames.

Sam and Tim.

God.

Sam and Tim again.

On a side note, this is the third time I've tried to animate a Tim Minchin song. The other two didn't work out but I have a feeling this one will.

Tim Minchin

I think my next cartoon will be a music video to a Tim Minchin song. It's been a number of months since my last cartoon(Mellow Brick Road) and many more months since my last actual animation ( Directionless - Job Hunt). Quite a bit of thought has went into what will be the next animation and it has been a race between multiple ideas.

Must have Done Something Right by Relient K was the front runner for my next animation but it seems to have fallen out of my interest. It was started pretty quickly on a whim to make a happy animation about a new couple but I didn't think it through enough and met a road block in the story. Then life came in and I just haven't picked it up where I left off. I still would like to resume making it but we'll see.

Night Life by Scissor Sisters was the next front runner. It is the story of a quiet suburb girl who is introduced to the underground New York City night life and over time becomes a completely different person. This is an animation I would really like to make but I need to work on my drawing skills before I am capable of giving it the type of detail I think it deserves.

Dan is Late was another idea on a whim. My friend Dan has a habit of always being late to everything. We were supposed to hang out one day, and he was running late. So in that time period I wrote a short song capturing the emotion of Dan rushing to get to things. The idea for the animation was to show why Dan is late to everything and show him rushing around trying his best. It seems pretty unlikely I will make it but who knows, if I really want to make a short minute long animation I have a plot waiting for me.

Thankyou God by Tim Minchin. I have tried to animate a Tim Minchin song before but I did not like the result. I will use a different animation style and approach for this one and hopefully it will work out. I would like to have an animated version of Tim talking to "Sam" about his disbelief in god. Loose drawings, but very cohesive. Tim is essentially "trolling" Sam throughout the song about praying to god so I feel I can do carefree imagery and just make it a lot of fun. I'll begin working on it full time tomorrow. I would like to get it finished as soon as possible and hopefully make up for my lack of releases throughout the summer and maybe make a viral hit in the process.

Introduction

Hello and welcome, I'm Nate Ziller and this is my personal art blog. I'll be posting all sorts of fun stuff ranging from my work work to work that inspires me. If by chance you don't know who I am I go by the user name ActiveObjectX and make flash based animations and videos. I also am the author of the comic strip Directionless. At the time of this posting my latest animation is Mellow Brick Road. I had a pretty rough summer so I don't have any animations ready to release at the moment but hopefully I'll be able to get something out by the end of the month.

I do not plan on telling anybody about this blog so if you are here good job on finding it. I want to try to do at least one post a week but most likely will do more.

*edit - I decided to make this blog more open to the public since my orignal post here.

*edit - I have only been posting about once a month. It was quite optimistic of myself to say I'd be posting once a week or more.