#re: the ProjectTM

[astranauticus]

yall i can actually draw VR-LA without reference like completely from memory now 😭😭😭 what does this say about me

[astranauticus]

how in the fuck did Noir draw that wood grain pattern for his C-RA design because if the answer is 'by hand' i'm gonna scream

[astranauticus]

ok one last post about the Project to truly exorcise it from my brain. just some process/design thoughts (also now that it's done if you want to read my liveblogged whinging for whatever reason here it is)

first off some stats because i kept stats like the nerd that i am:

time wise making this animatic took about 93.5 hours give or take (thanks procreate process replay) spread across exactly 2 months

anyway when i said i finished this project mostly through stubbornness and sunk cost fallacy this is what i meant lol like a lot of my thought process through this was just 'no way in hell am i letting some of these drawings disappear into my drafts forever'

on average each frame took about 2 hours 45 minutes but thats a bit of an overestimate since i forgot to count some of the animated bits from the first two lines (so id guess the actual number is more like.. 2 hours 20 minutes?)

btw that line with the starry apparition fading away? 12 hours total

the single longest and most painful frame to draw was the one of the crew walking through tu'narath (5 hours 30 minutes) because a. perspective b. architecture design c. for some reason i put a lot of detail into rendering the armour on all the githyanki i drew why on earth did i do that

(its especially painful bc that frame was one of the ones that didnt... feel like an important enough moment in the actual story of the show to be worth capturing the way the wish or even like, endellion is, i just needed to put that there for the storytelling flow or whatever of the animatic itself and it bothered me so much)

one other interesting little mishap was that i did all of these on canvas size 1080x720px (so that's why the youtube resolution isnt particularly high lmao) which is why procreate let me put an absolutely absurd amount of layers in one canvas (all 8 frames of with memories projected on the astral sea were done on one canvas. 159 layers) because the layer limit for that canvas size is 400 BUT. i accidentally started the starry apparition fade on an A4 canvas (my default canvas size for like all my normal fanart) and i only realised after finishing all the lineart and starting on colouring because i hit layer limit so i had to resize the canvas which did... interesting?? things to the lineart resolution

also if youre wondering how i drew K-LB that many times in something resembling timely fashion the answer is i sacrificed some... amount of sleep to 3d model and rig him in blender which. honestly? i consider it a roaring success

splitting the frames by bar was a Choice and certainly a choice ive.. had doubtsTM about but thats the kind of thing you cant really change without bringing the whole project crashing down so if the frames seem to move a bit too fast im so sorry there was really not much i could do there

idk if people actually noticed the very very tiny drawings of the crew moving around on the ship in the 4th line especially since they sometimes get obscured by the subtitles but the REASON for that is in my original drawings the subtitles went in the top left corner but they kept conflicting with other stuff so i just gave up and threw them to the bottom (also i originally included the chinese lyrics but then i got lazy lmao)

anyway that little detail like VR-LA angstily looking at the sea reminiscing about the JourneyTM and the crew sort of appearing along with the memories of their adventures together was one of those things that seemed SO COOL in my head but once i actually execute it its like. hmmmm not sure if that worked out the way you thought it would buddy. also the tiny crew was EXTREMELY hard to draw so put that down as another point in 'me subjecting myself to deeply painful and out there compositions for no good reason'

anyway i called this my magnum opus but i do actually have some thoughts about another one (a companion piece, if you will) for another song by the same band because now that i know what capcut can do im.. really itching to try something a little different because this like powerpoint presentation style? fully a product of me using iMovie as my only available video editing software for the past like 7 years of my life

[astranauticus]

hilariously, this is the point where i can confidently say that ive figured out what all my frames are gonna be

[astranauticus]

oh come on this is too late in the process for me to be finding animation errors

[astranauticus]

so the overall.. shape and tone of my current project is pretty much set in stone (im SO CLOSE to 50% done you guys) but i was looking through my saved videos folder on bilibili and if im gonna be doing another animatic after this one (honestly pretty likely??? given my. floruitshow obsession that doesnt seem to be going anywhere anytime soon) i REALLY want to attempt something closer to that style of animatic you see a lot on bb that employs more on elaborate editing as opposed to like............... the powerpoint presentation type beat i've got going on now

(nevermind the fact that a lot of the projects that really lodge themselves in my brain were also like collaborations between teams of people with like dedicated editor roles and i still havent fully figured out how to use lightworks. like ive also seen one man projects in this style that turn out absolutely gorgeous so i KNOW it can be done. maybe i'll go figure out if capcut is easier to use lol)

[astranauticus]

me: i just want to finish this project as quickly as possible uwu

also me: choses to draw every frame with the most unnecessarily confusing perspective and composition possible

what???????

[astranauticus]

alright. today or tomorrow

[astranauticus]

started editing even though i'm not done with all my frames yet (yes i'm procrastinating)

[astranauticus]

i got the ios app version so i dont have to keep sending files from my ipad to my laptop and its honestly shockingly easy to use

[astranauticus]

i feel like it should also be acknowledged that for the past like 2 weeks ive been working on this project while putting up with some extreme apple pencil jank

[astranauticus]

alright guys final stretch

[astranauticus]

me, adding a bunch of extra bullshit to the project during the sketching phase: trust me this is gonna look so good when im done

me, now having to colour all that extra bullshit: ough

[astranauticus]

oh come on im so close to being done i cant start losing steam now

[astranauticus]

brother i came here to make the robots sad not to do architecture design

[astranauticus]

NICE