New design for Oxiliant... woot!

Here's the new design for Oxiliant (and most Humanoids) 's look. Let me know what you think on the comments bellow. Does it look good or should it be different?

v. 7 Oxiliant's new look.

Here are the earlier versions:

v.6 (aka cutie)

v. 5 (early character sketch)

v. 4  3d render (aka creepy face)

 v.3 rough sketch

 v. 2

v. 1 (aka Mark Zuckerberg)

Today's Twitter:

"Thinking of redesigning the Bull and Fox. Let me know what you think in comments"
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=634946229868104&set=a.455677077795021.118804.219184954777569&type=1&theater


From this:

To this:

Weekly Update- 5/6/2013

Watch all five episodes of Pokemon Tower Defense Saga
Check out Joel & Sam Make Comics

  

Life finds a way!
My wife and I are having a boy in July, so excited!

I need 10 likes on my Facebook page to become "legit", if ur a fan, head on down to the page and like it :D 

Click here

Work In Progress:

       Been working hard on my new day job, now that I'm more situated I can work on my personal projects for Aperture Eye Films!
  
PTDs Episode 6:
 
       Storyboards are in for episode 6 of the PTD saga and I'm blocking the assets this week.

      
    
Other projects:

        Been collaborating with friends to get some projects going. One of those projects is (working title) "Bull & Fox: Labor Force" or [just] "Labor Force". comedy cartoon pilot in association with RK Productions #rkproductions . Here are some images of the main characters.

      
Oxiliant Pilot "Prologue"

Going to spend a couple of hours looking over the material and re-assessing the fate of the project.
  





This week:

• blocking scenes for PTD Episode 6                                                in progress
  
• running animation tests for the Bull & the Fox                               in progress
• re-assessing Oxiliant Pilot                                                               in progress

This week's progress list:

 
PTD Saga episode 6 (animated web series)     status:  in production

• script                                                               (100%)
• storyboard                                                     (100%)
• master file                                                     (100%)
• assets                           (50%)
• Layout(0%)
• Animation(0%)
• Effects(0%)
• Edit first cut(0%)
• Post sound(0%)
• Edit final cut(0%)
• Post on Youtube(0%)

Oxiliant pilot (animated web series)      status: re-assessing

• script                                                            (100%)
• storyboard                               (75%)
• master file                                                    (100%)
• assets         (10%)
• Layout(0%)
• Animation(0%)
• Effects(0%)
• Edit first cut(0%)
• Post sound(0%)
• Edit final cut(0%)
• Post on Youtube(0%)

Labor Force (animated web series)     Status:  Animation Tests

• script(0%)
• storyboard(0%)
• master file(0%)
• assets(0%)
• Layout(0%)
• Animation(0%)
• Effects(0%)
• Edit first cut(0%)
• Post sound(0%)
• Edit final cut(0%)
• Post on Youtube(0%)

Please like us on Facebook. As always let us know what you think in the comments below!

Episode 5 It's here and it's hot!

It's here and it's hot!

Catch up on the Saga, watch 1-4 now!

Pokemon Tower Defense Episode 4

Took me some time, but here it is, Pokemon Tower Defense saga episode 4. Try to say that 4 times fast.

Joey vs Team Rocket.

(Spoilers below)

Update:Behind the Scenes videos.

      I thought of this after posting Episode 4, what if I post some "Behind the Scene" videos that show part of the process of making the episode, what if I post one each week while the next episode is being made. Is this a good idea or what?

Placing the background trees is the hardest thing in the entire process.

     Well, it always takes me more time to make than anticipated, but I put some love into this one, with a new intro screen grabs. My wife keeps wanting me to do the "previously on..." thing, but to me each episode is so short, that if you want to know what happened previously, you can just watch the last one. No offense.

     I wanted to show what the outcome of Joey vs Team Rocket would be. In the game, you see this play out really fast with Team Rocket kidnapping Joey and hypnotizing him and his Pidgey. That's the first time you meet Joey and his poke-singing antics. In episode 3 I wanted to show Joey before those events, to show what he was up to in that area (route 1). He was a simple trainer in my mind, doing what trainers do best, trapping the user in an all out battle confrontation. [This is all my speculation, not canon at all ;)] Then I had the problem of Derek not having any Pokemon to fight with. I had to resolve that to keep moving forward. Route 1 became a 3-part arch because of this, much longer than I anticipated as well. So I came up with the loop hole that if you don't have a Pokemon to battle, you can skip any trainer that challenges you along the way. That's my logic in episode 3.

    Now in order to show what happens to Joey I had to break free from Emma and Derek and concentrate on Joey for episode 4, and give you an epic fight and explore the attacks of these two very distinct Pokemon. On one side you have Pidgey, a common Pokemon that with a bit of a short temper and funny quirks can be very compelling. Add to this, his gust attack, and he can be quite impressive on the battlefield. I wanted to highlight the "gust" attack, because in the game it is quite effective.

     On the other hand you got Drowzee and Hypno, psychic Pokemon are very challenging to interpret, luckily for me Sam had made it pretty clear in the game what to make the hypnosis look  like, I just polished it and gave it a meditative sound to make the viewer immerse in it like they're being hypnotized too.

    Keeping Team Rocket a threat was my goal from the start, I have yet to see this in the anime, and I've never agreed with it. It's for kids, but what age, 5? I made them feel like they were super human monsters that could beam themselves behind you for a sneak attack, hopefully it translated. I know they're not really that, but to a little boy (Joey), anyone with a costume, might posses that power. 

    Now that these events are setup, we can enter the final act of the route 1 arch, introducing the Pokemon army that will try to steal the rare candy and it's up to Derek and Emma to defend that candy. But that's all I'll say for now. Until next episode.

As always let me know what you thought of episode 4 in the comments below and like us on Facebook. Also share this saga with friends that might enjoy Pokemon tower defense saga as well. Thanks!

Making some comics with Sam Otero!

It's week three of our web comic and it's a goodie. Our movie/game crossover of the week is Star Wars and Portal, sorry no Disney, well maybe a little Disney too.

To check out our web comic page go to here:

JOEL & SAM MAKE COMICS

If you just want to see the comic, here it is.

Click to enlarge.

Feel free to download, share and discuss if it would be cool to have portal guns in the Star Wars galaxy, or is the Force enough? Let me know what you think.

Pokemon Tower Defense Episode 3

Click here to watch episode 3 of the pokemon tower defense saga. After much wait and delays, I'm finally able to say it is released. Enjoy!  subscribe or follow me on youtube , twitter, and/or blogger to get first look at each episode and behind the scenes footage, plus more!

Episode 3

Episode 3 post-mortem -

New system- When I made the initial push for this episode it was really fast. In two weeks we had a draft of the episode done.

Problems-

1. I hadn't realize that a new system that had been implemented in making the episode had rendered the clips unusable. I had a faster computer so when compositing all these different layers I didn't realize that extending the captions' length would mean that I would have to redo all the shots.

2. My 3d station blew up. All my 3d backgrounds were gone and the footage I made was to short and moved too fast. I had to cut all the 3d camera moves out of the episode. The episode looks static and lame.

3. Rendering a forest took a lot of time to get just right. Which would be fine if not for the delays all the other problems brought.

good stuff-

1. We introduce Joey in the episode. He's funny and full of energy, along with his pidgey, are great in the episode.

2. Team Rocket appear to be ready to do some mischief, most likely in the next episode.

3. The noob battle was great. It will get so much better when they start getting moves and more pokemon which will be soon.

I like this episode a lot and am looking forward to making more, with 3d next time.