astartesfilm

Update on My Two Indie Projects: Yatra & Project Valhalla

I wanted to take a moment to share some updates on my two ongoing indie projects: Yatra and Project Valhalla (working title, and formerly known as Valhalla 45). Both are in different stages of development, but things are moving forward in a promising direction.

Yatra is an ancient/future tale that blends retro sci fi with grand fantasy. Exploring the soul's journey across lifetimes. A deal has been signed to co-develop the project with a New Zealand studio led by former Weta employees. ...

V45 Mysterious Explorations

As much as I love the storytelling aspect of blocking things out, it can get a little dull living in the grey world of previz...super important though! 

V45 Previsualizations

Not the most exciting sequence but sometimes you need a breather in-between the action. Part of a future episode. It's crude looking and WIP stuff but I've always liked seeing previz from other's projects.

Shot in the dark but...any professional Scandinavian voice actors out there? Shoot me a message :D

...I am alive!

...I am alive! To those who have been wondering and concerned I appreciate the messages, to those who want to slap me for my lack of updates and communication, well...I can't blame you. On a platform like this my performance of late has been disrespectful to you and I apologize.

I haven't stopped animating & especially learning new skills to improve content, but it has been tough with time split between various projects, some burn out & my attempts to hopefully raise the quality...

V45 - Aircraft and Pilots and Mecha, Oh My!

Some tasty Warsuit Pilot illustrations from the legendary Christophe Young and a load of sketch concept works from @patso_catso exploring some aircraft and other goodness.

Time to start translating some of this stuff to 3D...if anyone is a master of this style of hardsurface mixed with curved organic shapes I could use the modelling help!

V-45 Warsuit Pilot Design Exploration

Excited to start some design exploration of the Warsuit pilots with the awesome Christophe Young. Aiming for a unique lo-fi sci-fi style that feels advanced but in an analog way, developed by humans in an alternate world. 

www.artstation.com/christopheyoung

V-45 Concepting

A little drop of world-building and mecha concepting for V45. Much more lore artwork coming that will piece together a full backstory video to set the stage for the setting. Credit to Alexander Joseba and Patrick Wagesreither for the concept work. Also big thanks to Patrons Davey Perron & Sean Grady for the great music piece and logo redesign!

Full resolution images linked at bottom of post.

2022-06-28 07:38:32 +0000 UTC View Post

V45 - Alternate Timeline vs Completely Fictional

While much of the narrative tone and overarching ideas for V45 are clear in my mind, some big pieces such as where it's all set are still up for exploring.

Originally I planned to set it primarily within our Solar System but on a very different & alternate timeline. I'm talking alternate to the extent that the Earth and planets have physically developed differently, or it's set at a point i...

YATRA Intro All But Complete AND New Project Revealed!

Alright, time for things to get busier around here. The Yatra intro is ALL but complete, edit and sound locked down, animation and all visuals on my end finished. Unfortunately there are a batch of Digital Matte Paintings 'DMP's I'm waiting on and the artist I had lined up has had to push the work further down his schedule. Once I have those things will be looking pretty...MEANWHILE, music! Music news is bad and good, bad in that it isn't done but good in that POWER GLOVE are on board to scor...

2022! YATRA WIPS - 1st Finish Line In Sight

Hello and happy 2022 everyone! I'm looking forward to this decade starting to get its act together :D

I took a few weeks out over the holidays to completely unplug from the computer for the first time a long time, didn't realize how much I needed it! Hope you all enjoyed the break too, I managed to do a little YATRA-esque hiking myself :)

I'm back in the work groove now and have a bunch ...

Horsing Around

A bit of a complicated wrangle but rider and ridee are alive and moving! Still some FX passes to do on these shots and audio is still rough, but it's nice to have all the 3d assets I need to get through shots now.

(Note to future self... don't include quadrupeds and lots of hair/cloth simulation in your next project!)

Also, Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everyone! Hope everyone has a good break and eats too much like I will, need to share the guilt.

Quick Darksun Character Test & Shot

Having some fun with the almost completed Darksun character! Looking forward to having him command his men and do some battling...

BTW if anyone understands the line at the start and it makes zero sense please forgive me! I like to grab lines from foreign films because they sound badass to my English ears and make good placeholders. I believe it's a challenging shout from a Russian movie but I've lost the original context...would love to know what it means if anyone speaks the language ...

Darksun Character WiP

A little lookdev for the Darksun character...hope everyone had a nice Halloween weekend!

YATRA - 'Rider' Finished & Scene WIPS

Assets and scenes finally flowing through now! Although I'm still struggling to find background/matte painting artists with much spare time, the Marvel MCU machine consumes all talent!

Attached video shows some of the scene workflow with more coming soon. Also someone remind me not to give characters beards in the future! I'm happy with the look but when it comes to animating it can be painful.

Some good news on the music front for those digging the synth vibes. 'Power Glove', th...

Reinforcements for Yatra

Thanks to everyone's amazing support I've been able to convince some real pros to spend a little more time at their desks and help on the project! :D Sharing some of their work below. Super excited to work with them and looking forward to posting some juicy updates with their assistance!

Pawel Widelski - Character modeler from Splash Damage games

Damien Peinoit - Environment artist fo...

Character Cards

Some new character concept updates and just a little bit of background on them :) A little more, 'retro fantasy in the future' this time compared to the 'knight' shown earlier, who will be updated more along these lines.

Cheers to the awesome Guillaume Menuel! www.artstation.com/grizz

2021-07-16 05:42:54 +0000 UTC View Post

Yatra Follow Up & 'Knight' Concept Poll

Just a follow up to the previous post to thank everyone for the positive reception! And officially confirm 'Yatra' as the current project supported by this Patreon page :) 

At this stage support will be going towards finalizing the, 'Knight' character concept and his mount, then having his 3d model created. Also will be looking for 3d environment artists for the next phase.

Speaking of the, 'Knight', I'd like some input on which helmet direction you like best! (See image and ...

Introducing YATRA

Hello everyone! :) I'd like to share a short-series side project I've been developing when I get the chance. 'Yatra' is an alternate universe, future/fantasy blend following a man's journey across lifetimes. Initially planned as a 3 min intro cinematic, hopefully it could lead to more.

The project is obviously still in early stages but the concept and initial cinematic has been planned out and is ready to be completed. Along with the 3d work and animation tests you're seeing from me, I'...

Patreon Update

Hello everyone! First of all it was great to see the reaction to Astartes being picked up by GW and their Warhammer Animations team. Stay tuned to their channels for updates!

Just wanted to update & clarify the status of this Patreon page as it now represents myself personally and has no connection to the 'Astartes' project. This Patreon page is currently inactive with no billings/payments etc being processed while I work with the official Warhammer Animations team....

ASTARTES Goes Official! Big News On WH Community Website!

ASTARTES GOES OFFICIAL!

Hop over to www.warhammer-community.com for more!

This may feel like it's coming out of nowhere but I'm happy to announce today that from this point on I'll be working with GW to continue Astartes and transition the project to an official one with the Warhammer Animations team.

Many of you have no doubt been wondering what the status of the project is lately, but work on it has never stopped and now it's at a very exciting place, with everything I've ...

Full Project Update Coming Soon

Hey everyone!

Firstly I need to apologize for the silence, it's not good enough from me and you guys deserve better. I have to admit there's been some burnout personally for me after diving back in shortly after finishing Part Five, but that's no excuse for the lack of updates when operating from a platform like this, I just hope that the work you will see from me will make up for that.

Just a video snippet accompanying this post but a complete update on the Astartes Project and...

Favourite 40k 'Quotes'

Hey guys, currently hunting around for some cool quotes within 40k lore/novels that nicely setup the mood and or 'situation' of the universe. Doesn't have to be something long or all encompassing like the full classic 'in the grim darkness of the far future...' quote. Just a little evocative snippet would be cool. Also trying to find similar Space Marine focused quotes, but not ones that are overly self-glorifying. Even a quote from a marine on a more lowdown practical combat doctrine subject...

SceneX Dev Vlog 03

Apologies for the gap in updates! Had to jump to some other scenes I'm getting assistance with and move them along before resuming. This update has the marines painted up as the 'Void Hounds', the owner will have to speak up as I'm unaware of their Patreon name!

Starting off is a little breakdown of the lighting setup so far, faking some general ambient fill with dome lights, and then a box with holes poked in the top to let in sunlight from another dome/image light :) Basic scene setu...

SceneX Dev Vlog 02

SceneX continues. Overall polish, finished off the 2nd marine animation, cleaned up shoulder pads and other armor pieces, and slipped in the 3rd marine. Threw in some lighting for a quick test and hit render which you get to enjoy watching haha, don't worry it's on fastforward, lucky guys ;) Did the quick test render as sometimes your animation will read a little differently at 24fps with motion blur etc. Happy with the marine's movement now but will review and tweak once the Hormagaunts and ...

SceneX Dev Vlog 01

Got some more work in on this scene today. Recorded some mocap to use as a base for the motions, which I then tweak to match closer to the key poses I framed up earlier. And then it's a whole bunch of clean-up and fudging keyframes around until it goes from something I hate to something I'm somewhat happy with. Still a bunch of polish and little timing tweaks to make it pop better but for now I'm happy enough to move onto the other marine.

SceneX Dev Vlog 00

Hey guys! 

While developing the next chapter for Astartes I also have a trailer in the works that will officially announce the project as an anthology series. This trailer will mostly be made up of material that will be used for the future chapters but will also have a few one off moments for pure fun. I thought it'd be cool to record some timelapses and vlog my process on one of these scenes. In this first video I'm doing a basic rough-out of the shot composition, character poses ...

AMA Going Down on Reddit! May 15th, 12pm PDT

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer/comments/ghsp5v/ama_announcement_syama_pedersen_creator_of_the/

Bring your finest questions and hopefully I can provide some answers without making a fool of myself!

Wallpapers and Shoulder Pads

Fresh batch of wallpapers! Hopefully I didn't forget too many, will get 'em next time! Also included all previous ones, files attached at bottom of post.

Retributor shoulder pads! The guys at Kromlech now have some nice sculpted Retributor shoulder pads up here, https://bitsofwar.com/prime-legionaries/1325-retributor-chapter-shoulder-pads.html - If you decide to pa...

Chapter Call to Arms! And Misc...

Hey everyone! So while pre-planning and asset creation gets into gear for the next chapter of Astartes, I'm planning another one off video in the meantime that will establish Astartes as an anthology project. This piece will have some opportunities to feature different Space Marine chapters and I'd like to ask you guys for some suggestions. A lot of you probably know I have an affinity for homebrew and lesser known chapters so if anyone has a suggestion along those lines please send an email ...

Damn What a Response! Thank You Everyone!

Holy moly! Every time I'm blown away by the incredible response and support, thank you so much everyone! I thought I was rolling the dice a little there with a slower paced and more mysterious/horror styled ending but it's awesome to see you guys enjoyed it.

Just to clarify the current plan moving forward. Yes this marks the end of the Retributors story (for now?) but by no means the end of the Astartes project. As hinted at in the after credits clip the concept is to jump to different...