Neil Sequence 1 Shots WIPS

Hi everyone! Hope you are doing amazing!

Kahl here sharing with you some WIPs of this sequence. We've been working hard to polish those shots I showed you previously, and they are finally coming together.

In the first GIF, you can see the final animation of Neil's general shot we showed you previously. Finally, we get to see some acting with facial expressions! There are some small missing details like some glitchy lines, missing drag animations for the hair, and a nice subtle change of the highlights and shadows between poses. But our amazing Chip, who helped us with the character models, is handling those details, so they should be fine for the final sequence. 👌

Meanwhile, I've been focusing on the maturbation cycle. This shot is another important one since it's helping me understand the workflow for these kinds of shots that are more focused on the deformation and sensoriality rather than the movement of the body only. So I wanted to share with you the general steps I'm following as well as the results of each ;3

1. 3D "Raw" Animation: I polished the movement of the rig so it looks more natural and organic. But it can only go so far, so...

2. Key Drawings for Reference: Sketches are back! :D Using the 3D animation as a base and some nice references, I sketched the main key poses to understand how I wanted it all to deform.

3. Color Tests: I also made a 2D paintover since I noticed the sheath was feeling like a separate piece from the body. With that, I realized I need to polish the texture on the model for it to look more natural. It also helped me to previsualize better what I wanted in 3D

4. Initial sculpt on 3D animation: This new workflow requires me to manually sculpt some frames in order to get that nice deformation. But using my key drawings as a reference, this is a lot easier. What you see in the GIF is my initial attempt at that in some of the main keyframes, so there's more work to do, but I wanted to show how it's looking. You can already see a big difference!

What's missing? I still have to add more sculpted frames, replace the models texture and add secondary animations, as well as inner lines, shades, and highlights (the current ones are being generated dynamically and thus give this very CGI look), but the goal is to get to a similar look and feel as the first GIF (the general shot of Neil).

We wanna thank you all again for your patience. We know that this whole change of workflow has dragged things and made some of you uncertain about the new aesthetic. However, we promise to do our best to ensure this is an enhancement in all areas. We'll put this whole system to good use to keep the good stuff coming! 🍆

Lots of love to you all and our best wishes. 💛

-Kahl