otaking77077

SPOILER - blood & guts.

Hello there, all of you. And a very very happy Easter to you all!

I have two versions of a shot in the film and I'm not convinced Youtube will like either of them. Do you see videos getting pulled down for having blood? I just don't run across much of that on my feed.

I personally started my "career" doing blood-drenched art for a gory point and click horror game named The White Chamber so it's all good with me, but what do you think?

Anyway, here's the shot - AVOID IF YOU ...

MONDAY poster draft

Well well well!

Paul here. Guess where I am? In America!

ANYWAY, here's the official poster, 99% of it. Ignore the placeholder text at the bottom - that's just there for compositional balance and will be replaced with the actual staff for our film at the end. So don't go printing it out and sharing it around just yet, please! Especially because I'd like to finalize it to be the cover of the artbook. This one was yet another very close collaboration, with Maki doing the layout art...

New TIE scene

Hello, hello!

I'm just finishing the poster for Monday and in the meantime here's a couple more shots from the Total Conversion opening cinematic I did over the weekend. One of the issues with making something like this is that the cockpits just keep changing from game to game and TV show to film, etc! And of course I want to make them faithful to the actual game this opening movie is for, as well. Still, I managed to amalgamate a few different iterations of the X-Wing cockpit to make s...

Monday Artbook preview 2.

Production update:  

We're deep in the 20 part of the Pareto Principle. It's the idea that 20% is responsible for 80% of results an audience notices/interact with first.

Rewatching our inspiration, 1979's Alien, really opened our eyes to how greatly sfx builds the atmosphere a...

Star Destroyer Clip

Here's a shot that follows on directly from the last TIE Fighter game post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/97784298

It's nice being able to animate those very underappreciated assault gunboats from the game! They only appear in the game and, as far as I know, don't show up in any other Star Wars media at all, so quite a rare item.
As before, the background took the longest to do, though...

-Paul

Monday Artbook preview 1.

Hello!

Here's a couple of pages from the artbook draft that I quite like. It's rather gratifying to be actually putting together something like the many art books that I used to collect from anim...

Winter Print Poll!

Hello there!

It's time for another print to be drawn and shipped out to you. Yes, YOU!
For the options this time, we thought why not take all the runners up from previous polls and give them a new chance? 

-Paul

Voices of Monday

Hello, all!

I wanted to showcase the talents of Monday's voice actors.

Sara has done an excellent job as the main character Ashlin, and Phil (who I've actually worked with since my very first project back in 2005! Also behind Guile's voice in my past trailer) is fantastic as always! This time portraying the highly useful ship's computer Conrad and providing some extra juicy screams as the Captain. 

Should you so desire, you can check them out at their websites:
www....

Completing TIE Fighter Total Conversion

Whilst the film was rendering out, I completed a couple more scenes for the side project I began to collaborate on way long ago (really wanted to push Monday first). The opening movie of TIE Fighter Total Conversion is what I'm working on (see older posts https://www.patreon.com/posts/54811070 &  https://www.patreon.com/posts/555701...

Emergency Box animation

It's a box! You use it for emergencies! Here it is animated and coloured.

You can click on it for full-screen goodness.

This one was a bit of a last minute addition whilst Maki and I were going through the film for final animation corrections. It just kind of needed a shot like this for pacing and to make the scenes before and after gel together nicely. We were originally going to have the override box on the dashboard panel, but then I'd have to redraw a bunch of backgrounds to i...

Monday Swag Poll

Vote for which swag/rewards are worthy of your collection!
Elite tier will receive digital editions plus some unlisted things, but would you like physical copies you can hold in your very hand as well?

We will consider the top 3 highest voted or favorited in the comments if you have a better suggestion.
Have your say in the comments below~

- Producer Maki 

3D + 2D animation intergration!

Hello again!

Here's a quick rough of our main character pulling down a security box inside the driller cockpit and then pulling a switch down. As you can see, the box, etc are 3D and the hand is 2D drawn by looking at my own hand as reference. 

Oh, also, all the additions and changes from last week after Maki and I went through the film have now been put in place! We're compiling a list of all the people that have supported the project from it's inception to put in the credit...

Colored Corridor!

Hello there!

Well, I caught a cold from the family home over Christmas. It's been a real nasty one and had me out of action for a few days, but I'm back at it now. Producer Maki is actually at my actual home right now and also recovering. Hope you are all in good health and having a good new year.

Watching the accumulation of all the work through I have to admit... it's actually looking pretty good! Spooky, even (which is hard to pull off in animation). We're doing our last roun...

INFLUENCES III - Nobuteru Yuki - the character design king

Welcome to another installment of artists who made me who I am today! People whose style I studied and copied and obsessed over for all my teenage weeb years! Today I pay homage to another king and ask you to go and watch all his stuff!

This time, it's someone who isn't as heard of these days, but whose work you'll definitely have seen in perhaps some surprising places. It's the animator and artist Nobuteru Yuki.

This gentleman has worked as key animator on everything from Dirty P...

Run Animated Lines! - Scene 6 Shot 9

Greetings all~

The shot is inked and Otaking now proceeds to shading.

I’d say it’s quite an upgraded iteration compared to the first 3 versions…maybe I’ll compile them for you to see. Finding real footage for run references is a bit harder than we thought it would be, but hopefully the action helps carry the mood of the previous and post scenes that tie together. The FOV is exaggerated with the from-below angle to enhance a feeling of dread.

After this shot is comp...

Youtube Shorts

Hello all!

Christmas is approaching fast! I hope you're all having a happy time of it so far. If it's your favourite time of year like me, I put together a playlist of all the greatest Christmas music I listened to growing up in the 80s. Some real classics on there, and some that you might never have heard of unless you lived in the UK at the time! Feel free to imagine me playing on my Atari 2600 in 1985 as you listen:

2023-12-09 19:40:52 +0000 UTC View Post

Corner run test! - Scene 6 Shot 9

A look into 2D animation on top of a 3D background! She's not naked- there will be clothes in the final! And added in-between frames for a smooth scene. Smoke out of vents and water slowly dripping from the ceiling will answer why there's a random puddle on the floor. 

For the art being mailed out- I signed each print myself like last year's. Those should be in time to hang on the mantel and toast with mulled wine! 

-Paul

INFLUENCES II - Haruhiko Mikimoto - the cel shading king

When I was first getting exposed to anime in the early 90s through VHS releases over here in the UK, one of the first things I saw was a 6-episode OVA called Macross II. Back then you would watch whatever you could get, even if it was a sequel to a show you'd never seen, so I snapped it up on 3 VHS tapes and loved it. I was especially taken with the incredibly well-drawn characters and the beautiful ...

Pod Animation - Scene 3 shot 1-3

I tried adding a door and eye close up to make scene 3 a bit more atmospheric.
Eye closeups are one of my favourite things in anime! Do you think it works here? 

-Paul

Xeno Closeup

Happy spooky time, everyone!

I decided the alien needed a bit more of a reveal when we first see it, so I've drawn these sort of airbrush-y closeups, trying to be all fancy and HR Giger.
Hopefully it gives a bit more atmosphere to the proceedings!

-Paul

2023-10-31 19:40:29 +0000 UTC View Post

AMA livestream this Friday!

I'm answering your AMA questions from previous posts live Oct 27, Friday at 10pm UK time, 5pm America EDT time! https://www.youtube.com/user/OtaKing7...

Join me, if you like!
-Paul

Autumn '23 print: DUNE!

The spice must flow! See the last post for more details on the process for this one!

We did a lot of visual research for the 1984 David Lynch masterpiece and I was surprised by just how many of the models and miniatures that they painstakingly designed are only on the screen for like 2 seconds.

You never see the back of the big Harkonnen frigate, for instance.

2023-10-17 04:54:43 +0000 UTC View Post

A simple parallax shot.

Hello!

I'm just going through the film and adding in any establishing shots and atmospheric things here and there, and here's a shot of the main bridge. In 4K!
I think maybe the final film should be 1080p on Youtube, and full 4K resolution download for you fine folks here.

But yes! A pretty simple panning shot. I've been a massive fan of parallax scrolling ever since I saw the frankly insane amounts of it in this game back in 1989 in a local Dixons computer store on the high st...

Dune Print WIP

Oh. Hello!

Here's some lineart and work in progress background work for the Dune print.
The process on this one, possibly more than any print so far, was a colab between myself and Maki, with paintovers and alterations flying back and forth on every subject from poses and expressions to lighting, mood and composition. The current almost finished version I have open in Photoshop has a ton of shading on the characters and a nice, moody late evening rendering for the background after Ma...

Fall Postcard Winner!

Hello again!

Well, we got quite a few votes on the Autumn postcard image, and Dune won (36%).

Anyways, Maki and myself have been going back and forth over composition, characters, mood etc and we've come up with something quite nice and sandy for the Dune postcard. Even though it's coarse and irritating and gets everywhere, I'm sure you all like sand, so we're going to fill your eyes with it.

Thanks for voting!

-Paul

2023-09-20 00:55:49 +0000 UTC View Post

Fall Postcard Poll

We're almost free from the SEARING HEAT of the sun! Which means it's almost time for the Autumn postcard to be voted on by you, drawn by me and tirelessly mailed out to you by Maki.

According to Youtube's evil algorithmic data, most of the people watching my channel like space opera. Not much of a surprise there, but with that in mind see what you think of the following options - almost all of which I've never drawn in my life!

- Paul

INFLUENCES!

Hello, all!

Today I’d like to share with you a huge influence of mine. It’s the 1991 artbook Intron Depot, by Masamune Shirow of Ghost in the Shell, Applessed and Dominion Tank Police fame.

Around 1995, I think, I was living in the seaside town of Skegness and going to the high school there. They had this work experience thing where you could go and “work” at a local b...

The OtaKing Setup

It occured to me that some of you might want to imagine (envision, even) what it is exactly I see all day every day!

So here you are. I'm quite a low tech worker. Two screens, and the one on the left is an ancient square one. Pretty much everything happens on the right, which is me animating for 12+ hours a day whilst cramming my horror podcasts into the top left of the screen and any reference images in the bottom left. I tend to have a ton of folders open as well, as you can see.

Skybox

Hello, all of you!

I'm still cracking on with this 10 second TVPaint job, and here's a skybox I panted for the big money shot. The camera rotates 360 degrees around the main character as she's falling through the air, so I needed something that seamlessly wraps around with no visible joins. It's pretty huge, so feel free to download it and zoom in 100% to see all the little details if you like.

Here's a bonus "normal" background as well!

2023-08-17 02:54:08 +0000 UTC View Post

Transform!

Hello all!
I've been contracted by TVPaint to animate a quick 10-second transformation sequence for the end of the year. I'm still working on Monday in the meantime, but I thought to share the character design me and Maki have come up with. As you can see, the power armor is a bit complicated so I modelled it in 3D to reference it from any angle.

Above is my rough 3D attempt! I've tried to make is as MASAMI OBARI as possible.

2023-08-09 22:12:24 +0000 UTC View Post