August/September 2024 Update-
Added 2024-10-03 23:19:29 +0000 UTCHey everyone, apologies for missing out on last month, but it's time to get a new update out the door.
First off, thanks to everyone who watched the Higher music video! For those of you that caught the Rhythm Heaven Studio version from earlier, this was an attempt to flesh it out into its own small video that I worked on in my downtime.
Thanks to Kevin Fagaragan for the thumbnail art!
https://x.com/KevinFagaragan
https://www.youtube.com/@kevinfagaragan
In case you haven't seen it yet, you can find the link here-
https://youtu.be/1oYPRkGyTGk?si=dfzpWQJjKUnCewPv
In video news, unfortunately I don't believe we will be able to have the video ready in time for this October.
People's schedules have not lined up in such a way that I think we have the momentum to finish things up for this month. In particular, background art has been difficult to get in due to artist availability. We do have layouts ready for most of the backgrounds at the moment, it's just a matter of getting fully cleaned up versions of them.
We are approaching the end of animating shots. I believe we will be wrapping up around a month's time, which will leave us with tidying shots up and making sure everything flows together. After which we will be focused on getting the special effects and backgrounds in place.
I apologize that we will not be able to get the video out in time for the 10th anniversary date. I hope we'll be able to get things ready to go soon for all of you.
Once again I thank everyone for their patience.
-Ben
Comments
Take your time and don’t rush! Your team are phenomenal for all they do!
Brenna Goble
2024-10-07 17:23:45 +0000 UTCTake your time guys i may not be animator but i know good content takes time and patience. I'm the final results of this is gonna be stupidly amazing!
Zarakinshi
2024-10-06 23:18:19 +0000 UTCI guess it was kinda a question of is this kind of BG work still 100% an animator thing or like do people who don't work in animation do that sort of work. I've only ever put together a few frame by frames myself so I was curious about the semantics.
ShadoCadInk
2024-10-05 02:39:07 +0000 UTCAlso, Mystery Ben did mention that the backgrounds were part of the hiccup with the schedule, and I kinda skimmed over that part, oopsie. It's a huge job though, making backgrounds, and once you get someone to make one, you'll want everything to line up and look the same. Plus, rendering a background specific to a scene is a huge task and the background artist needs to take multiple steps to actually make it perfect, so it can be expensive. I remember working on an indie project as a rough animator, and the director had paid someone to make the backgrounds, but they were super past the deadline and looked like traced stock images when they finally arrived. It was a big setback. Whoever you get for the job, you want to be sure they actually do it, and sometimes unpredictable and unprofessional people can take a huge toll on a project like that, too. Being an indie creator is rough sometimes.
Avalon Bernd
2024-10-04 20:16:24 +0000 UTCThis is a big answer so bear with me- Background Artists and Animators are both capable of creating backgrounds. It really depends on who you pay or have, but it's actually very common for Animators and storyboard artists to draw a sketch of a background while animating and then flesh it out later. It's up to the style of the director and producer of said animation to decide how they want it done, and with indie animation, it can vary from do it yourself to hire one person to do everything to hire multiple different people to get a scene done. That last option would necessitate 1) a storyboard artist 2) a rough animator 3) a clean up animator 4) a colorist 5) special effects/shading/lighting 6) props artist 7) background artists, etc. Usually an indie creator has a mix of skills in that regard and can do multiple things by themselves, and when you take into account how much money it is to pay multiple members of your team by the hour to get something that takes sometimes days to be done... Sometimes the indie creator just cuts out all the middle men and does everything. This is also why it takes so long for an animated series to produce an episode when it's indie. It depends on the time the creator has on their hands. Considering both characters are placed in this scene, and there's an indication of a horizon line, I'm sure the background, or at least a sketch, is already done. It'd probably be mad spoilers if we knew what the background was, though, or it might just be something Mystery Ben doesn't feel like showing yet.
Avalon Bernd
2024-10-04 20:05:38 +0000 UTCdon't worry ben! and besides, instead of planning for halloween you can plan for christmas lmao
sweesbees
2024-10-04 03:31:52 +0000 UTCLike is background something that needs an animator or just like a digital artist?
ShadoCadInk
2024-10-04 03:07:34 +0000 UTCDon't feel bad in the slightest, Ben! We're all just excited to see this project still going!! I sorta missed the first 3 years after making some small fanarts back in 2014, but I've been here since then and to see this still going a decade later is incredible! Tell the team to keep going at their own pace, take care of themselves, and know we're all happy to still support y'all after all this time!!
Cherry E A
2024-10-04 00:10:49 +0000 UTCTake all the time u need!!! We’re all rootin for ya!
Belle
2024-10-03 23:52:45 +0000 UTCWe'll be here! Hope everything works out for you the best it can. Also, you know things have gotten serious when the big bad doesn't groove to the beat. 💪👻🦊😈
Avalon Bernd
2024-10-03 23:26:35 +0000 UTCTake your time! Yall got this! 💙
Dotty Davis
2024-10-03 23:21:13 +0000 UTC
