Moho Forum

Hey all,

I'm pretty new to anime studio, but I have had experience in a lot of 3d and 2d work, video game creation, music composition and production, things like that. So I am coming from a lot of creative background, and would like to share with my anime series I am currently working on.

The premise is in each episode, the character "Beoug" will go through very mundane and simple routine-life experiences, but in an epic anime context. Molehills into mountains.

For instance "Beoug staples a packet of papers" will be the epic struggle of, well, stapling a packet. It will start by him recieving a memo about the task. During this, he will have a "freak out" face, and "beuouuguguughh ughh meuhhghhh" sounds. Out of nowhere, suddenly, Beoug recieves a debriefing of the procedure through his headset from "beoug central station". The procedure will be explained very quickly and with outrageously technical jargon. Beoug will finally find the strength within himself to do the overtly simple job set before him. It will then go into slow motion and incredible zooming effects, all done in over the top anime style graphics and shots, including a massive view of the staple penetrating a paper landscape, and the paper tearing apart as if it were a volcano erupting... just to give you an idea of the intensity and hilariousness of the idea. I have many more ideas but don't want to give them all away.

I am expecting maybe 30 seconds per episode, but not sure.

I have already created the overtly 80's cheese anime theme song, where I plan on making a title sequence of completely nonsensical and random epic events that have nothing to do with the series at all (maybe unicorns, stars, robots fighting, etc):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08WF43l_qgg

So right now, I'm in the template (design, rigging, etc) phase of the project. Beoug of course will have a lot more accessories and most likely look very different from what you can see, but here are some pics of the progress, which is pretty much just a generic hairless, tshirt, and jeans male template:





I will post updates as I progress Thanks for checkin it out!

RonC

Sounds entertaining and ambitious.

It's not the first time I've taken on a project - I actually used to work with one other person on a 3d mmorpg which actually got pretty far in development... so this really pales in comparison.

I have seen works made in anime studio on here by seemingly younger kids who could pull off 8 minute cartoons quite well, given the context... So I'm really thinking when you say ambitious, it may not be as accurate as you may think.

I don't plan on making it very complex, I want it to be animated in a very cheesy way, if you have seen minimal parts in anime cartoons you'll know what I mean. A lot of foreground/background pans, reusing of character templates, very simple mouth cycling during talking shots... Mix that with extreme emotion changes in the face... A lot of layer panning... I can do voice impressions really well.. I think if I can really whip it up in this minimal style, it will be quite a creative success for me.

I've been inspired by adult swim shows such as "Tom goes to the mayor" and "aqua teen hunger force", watching those and analyzing how they did it... I think I can pull this off.

For now, I will just see how well I can do this character templates, and run a few tests which I will be posting on this thread, and then see how it all pans out...

RonC

-Fixed line widths on my template character

Okay I finally added hair:



And his fists are ready for some fighting:



although notice there is a blue vector from the jeans (?) showing through the bottom of his shirt... any advice on that part?

Much better with the hair. That blue bit is a hard to guess at without seeing the vector construction. Try recreating the shape or perhaps just change the shape order.

A wonderfully cynical approach to the anime genre. In my books nothing can quite match the exquisite cheesiness of the Prince Planet theme song. Do you remember that one? Sounded like it was sung by school girls.
Maybe your hero character Beoug is the first carbon based, biological, sentient being ever manufactured by Microhard Corporation.

frankly im not into anime besides the movies akira, princess mononoke, and spirited away

but im familiar w cheesiness somehow, if any of you have any images or youtube clips for reference feel free to pm it to me

RonC

I'm surprised that you aren't into the anime genre, when the eyes of your character are identical to Kimba The White Lion's. Has that type of character design become a accepted standard, regardless of culture and genre?

Look up Prince Planet Title Sequence on youtube

anime eyes are anime eyes these look identical to a lot of anime eyes i've seen I did use a lot of different images for reference.

i mean i love the artwork style, dont get me wrong. i also love epic stories, for instance akira... i just had a running joke with this voice that I do with anime characters, and how thats the sound they always make... it somehow developed into this cartoon idea.

Wow. Rigging is harder than I thought... Still much more rigging tests to do but here's what I can do so far...





his left hand arm looks really rough... not sure how to make it look any better haha...

work on figure drawing huaha

Looks like you could stand to move the pivot of the upper arms (shoulder) closer into the torso. That way they don't look so odd when rotated that far. You might not even need to change where the arms are. The bone doesn't always need to be in the center of the shape.

Looks great - the side stripe on his jeans definitely helps with the volume/break up the flat look.

Rhoel

ive decided im going to break this guy up into even more smaller bits. it will stop deforming things

RonC

Ive got nothing against the design, I like it.
Unfortunately, it is unlikely that one master pose or template with be suitable for all situations. A set of poses in various perspectives are usually required and also make sure the bone setting is regional, rather than flexible binding.