Getting Creative

I've been flexing the creative muscles lately. Ever since I got back from Dragon*Con, I've found myself inspired. I guess being surrounded by all the films, animations, music, and crazily creative people just lit off a spark in me.

I'm currently working on an animated short film that revolves around aviation. It will be completely in 3D, but rendered in a cel shaded look. If you look at the background art in Futurama or Ghost in the Shell, that's the style I'm going for.

I've done a lot of 3D modeling over the years, but it's mostly been for custom game vehicles, game maps, and web videos. Game art is a completely different animal from film, since game models are generally low resolution in order to lighten processing loads. For the film, I'm shooting both for High Definition 1080p output and for the cel shaded look. I've never done anything on this scale before, so I want to make sure I do it right. The past few days have seen a lot of self-study and a ton of tutorials to ramp up my skills. Thank goodness for the Internet and helpful people on web forums.

The film is largely set on an airport. Here are some of the sets that I've been designing.

Fixed Base Operator Office

T-Hangar

AvGas 100LL Fuel Tank

I hope the end result comes out well. It's one thing to think of an image or shot, and quite another to execute it. I hope I'm up to this...

Based on the script, the film should be about five minutes long. With regards to completion time frame, I'm adopting the Valve Software "When it's done" mantra. This is a labor of love and I'm not going to rush it, especially since I'm doing it all on my own. Not only does that include the animation, but I'll also be writing the music for it, recording the sound effects, creating special visual effects, motion graphics, etc.

It's a pretty big project. Wish me luck!