November 18, 2012 : A Cool Article On Regular Show – Yayuh!
Being a fan of Regular Show, I enjoyed reading this interview with creator J.G. Quintel. He discusses his love of everything retro, which explains a lot of the episode content for the show.
The fourth season just started up last month, and it has already been renewed for a fifth season (just happened last week, in fact) – so there are plenty of episodes on the way.
As a side note, while brainstorming Halloween costumes for last month, one suggestion was for me and Moridin to go as Mordecai and Rigby. Unfortunately, that required more time and planning then we had. Perhaps, that’ll be a future costume. While not many people would probably get the costumes, it would be a blast staying in character.
posted by Pi Visuals at 2:03 pm
Tags: Regular Show0 Comments | Post a comment
October 31, 2012 : Halloween: Street Fighter Style
After taking a year off, I got back into the Halloween spirit this past weekend and dressed up as the infamous Ken Masters from Street Fighter (yeah, I didn’t know his last name either until I googled it). It was sorta last minute, which is why Moridin and I were unable to find anybody else to join in on the theme.
Many people recognized the costumes, which isn’t always the case with our choices. As a side note, the ‘Hadouken’ fireball was created in After Effects. I ended up using a technique similar to the flamethrower effect from the 12th and final episode of Ninja Tales.
posted by Pi Visuals at 9:19 pm
Tags: Halloween , Ninja Tales0 Comments | Post a comment
October 18, 2012 : FOX Launches ADHD (Sorta)
Earlier in the year, I mentioned how FOX will attempt to create a late night animation block on Saturday’s – in the same vain as Adult Swim. The block is called ADHD (Animation Domination High-Def) and is supposed to be a multi-platform property. While programming won’t begin airing on TV until early next year, that hasn’t stopped them from performing a ‘soft-launch’ for the product. A beta website has gone up this month, and they have also uploaded two videos onto their YouTube channel. Below is their latest video:
Meh. It’s not too far off from much of the original programming now shown on Adult Swim, which isn’t necessarily a good thing in my opinion (excluding Venture Bros. of course). The website is also a mess. For the most part, it’s just a bunch of gif’s thrown up there. Apparently, ADHD doesn’t believe in web designers.
Still, I will wait to pass judgement on the programming block. As of now, only one series has been announced – Axe Cop, which I know nothing about. Yet again, I know very little about ADHD overall: how long will the block be on Saturday nights? How many shows will they have? Will they syndicate existing shows or will it be entirely original programming? So ultimately, I guess we’ll have to wait until early 2013 to see the finished product.
posted by Pi Visuals at 11:31 pm
Tags: ADHD , Adult Swim , Venture Bros.0 Comments | Post a comment
September 27, 2012 : Genndy’s Hotel Transylvania Opens This Weekend
Being a huge fan on Genndy Tartakovsky, I am curious how well Hotel Transylvania will do this weekend. He was the fifth director signed on to the project, which has been in development since 2006 – so clearly there is some extra baggage associated with this film. However, it’s worth pointing out that Sony Pictures liked his work enough on this film to sign him to direct another animated feature (sadly, it’ll be a movie based on Popeye as opposed to new material… or Samurai Jack).
While the concept doesn’t blow you away, I do like how the movie possesses a cartoony feel despite being a 3D movie. This was intentional, as Genndy himself stated in an article for the movie. I certainly enjoy the realism of 3D animation, but I’m also a huge fan of traditional 2D animation; so I’m interested to see how a 3D movie is executed by someone with such an accomplished background in 2D. Now let’s just hope the story doesn’t ruin it.
posted by Pi Visuals at 7:55 am
Tags: Genndy Tartakovsky0 Comments | Post a comment
September 6, 2012 : Arjuna Exposed To American Audiences
Arjun: The Warrior Prince is an Indian animated film that was released in India last May. The story comes from the Mahabharata, an epic Hindu tale I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Disney co-produced this film, in conjunction with an Indian movie company.
Sadly, the official trailer has recently been taken down, but I thought it looked interesting. I believe it was done with 3D cel shading; and while it didn’t match Disney’s extremely high quality, it still looked pretty solid.
The film had a small Hollywood opening/ premiere this past weekend (I believe to qualify for Oscar consideration). However, I heard that the movie can be viewed through Netflix… so that’s good news for anybody that lives outside the area.
posted by Pi Visuals at 5:17 pm
Tags: Arjuna , Mahabharata0 Comments | Post a comment
August 25, 2012 : Ninja Tales Group Action Shot
In addition to creating a silhouette of Ninja Tales, I spent some time working on a group shot with all four of them. I like how it turned out.
I didn’t want any of the ninjas in a static pose, and I had each action shot correspond to their respective personalities. I pulled the 3D render into Photoshop to do a little more sprucing up to create the final image. This includes the shadows, the fried chicken, the bucket, the blood, and the twine between the nunchucks.
posted by Pi Visuals at 9:27 pm
Tags: Ninja Tales0 Comments | Post a comment
August 23, 2012 : Squa In The Nuts
While no new episodes of Ninja Tales are planned for now, I had to work on creating a comedic still shot of a our favorite sub-par ninjas. Below is a first pass of this painful pic.
In case you didn’t notice, Quick Stab and Cold Steel don’t have any facial expressions. The reason for this is because I am taking the render and turning it into a silhouette – thus they are not necessary. Below is the end result (for this version).
Another tidbit, the nunchucks in Cold Steel’s left hand did not have any chains/twine connecting them in the Lightwave render. This was added afterwards in After Effects… hey, now I get the title of that program. While I still need to tweak a few things, I like the posing and can almost feel Quick Stab’s need to vomit and pass out.
posted by Pi Visuals at 1:25 am
Tags: Ninja Tales1 Comment | Post a comment
August 16, 2012 : New DBZ Movie Coming In 2013
After a bunch of rumors and a barrage of nerd speculation, it has been confirmed that there will be a new DBZ movie in 2013. The teaser of all teasers was released a few weeks ago:
Unlike the previous 13 movies, this one is supposed to be in-canon: taking place after the Majin Buu saga but before the ’10 years later’ epilogue in the manga. If Akira Toriyama was smart (who will be involved with the writing and production), he would set the movie right after the Cell Saga and reveal everything after that was a dream… a horrible, sub-par dream.
Ultimately, in-canon or not, the movie will probably be alright at best – but still, it’ll be kinda cool to see new DBZ anything. In a perfect world, Toriyama will realize how much he missed the DBZ world and erase the GT episodes from everybody’s memory banks by creating a real 26-episode sequel to this infamous series.
posted by Pi Visuals at 12:07 am
Tags: DBZ0 Comments | Post a comment
August 1, 2012 : Regular Show’s For Nerds
As a fan of Regular Show, it was cool to read this list of nerd references made in various episodes.
While I remember the episodes mentioned, there were some references that I didn’t catch (or only sorta caught). Still, the list is a reminder of why I love the show. The show has appeal to a pretty broad audience, and the writers do a great job of giving adults a lot to laugh at in addition to what a ten year old finds funny. Either that, or I never really matured.
It might be a mix of the two.
posted by Pi Visuals at 11:02 pm
Tags: Regular Show0 Comments | Post a comment
July 19, 2012 : Freak Out Over Ninja Tales Episode 12
The twelfth episode of Ninja Tales is complete, thus wrapping up this batch of episodes. It is called “The Overkill-erator” and is below:
Just about everything associated with The Overkill-erator was done in Lightwave 3D. The obvious exception being the fire – that was done in After Effects. I also spent a good amount of time adding in sound effects to better sell the actions of the weapon.
Now that all 12 episodes are done, it’s time to reflect on the project as a whole. I plan on watching them consecutively. May I suggest you do the same? Oh, okay… nevermind.
posted by Pi Visuals at 2:18 pm
Tags: Ninja Tales2 Comments | Post a comment