wanderingwolf

Art by Wanderingwolf

@BrokenPromise Think of mouth cards exactly like your Chicken Run expressions. I've drawn a few mouth shapes for vowels, and I swap out the 'cards' on key frames to make it look like the character is talking, or looking a different direction. That's what I mean by mouth or eye cards. They're drawn eyes or mouths that I swap in between in order to match the voice acting.

Thanks for the tip, and I'm interested to read some of your writing. And let me know if you are interested in sharing some of your 3D or 2D art.

Art by Wanderingwolf

@BrokenPromise I have seen "Chicken Run," yes, and that's an interesting way to do it. Thankfully, I'm just going for mouth and eye cards with this for simplicity. Maybe down the road, if I find better solutions, then I might make a big change. I'm excited to start using the NLA editor to create and blend looping animations so that should hopefully make things simpler when animating.

I'm interested to hear more about your creative work, in Blender, or out of. Do you share your creations anywhere online?

Art by Wanderingwolf

Been messing around with some Pixar Cars stuff because my nephew just turned 5 and I wanted to wish him a happy birthday! (he loves Cars, btw)

Animation is nowhere near done, but here’s a still from a bit ago:



And here’s a basic animation test with a rig.

Art by Wanderingwolf

@BrokenPromiseThank you for your kind words. Yeah, creating assets, rigging them, animating them, then rendering and adding sound effects, etc. can definitely amount to a herculean feat. Thankfully, for this animation, I went with eevee, so I didn't have to wait long for these 400~ frames to render.

My computer specs are thus!
CPU: i5-9600k
GPU1: AMD RX 6700 XT
GPU2: NVIDIA GTX Titan X (2016 card, but works for the Optix denoising and offloading rendering)
RAM: 32 GB
VRAM: 24 GB (both cards added together)

I actually used the method you're describing above where you render only key frames, then add them back into Blender and space them out to re-render the middle frames, but I did this for the mouth animation and decided against using it, in the end. It was just simpler to my process to render the in-between frames because I wanted animation to be going on in the background, too.

This animation took me about 3 weeks of work between getting the intro set, the characters modeled/animated, the sound, etc. It could have taken longer, now that I think about it.

Do you have any projects you wouldn't mind sharing with me from your previous work? I'm curious what you're using Blender for.

Art by Wanderingwolf

Hey gang. I decided to try and animate our sessions, and I made this first intro to test things out. I had some musical help from Nathan's killer talent. Let me know what you think:

Art by Wanderingwolf

To commemorate our first DnD session last week, I made this artwork.

My Hobbit barbarian casually elbowed the dwarf who was carrying a bound goblin looking for his friend Scortch (sic). Well, he ended up finding his friend… at the bottom of a deep, dark pit…

I’d call it true neutral, c’mon, it’s just a goblin!

Any feedback is welcome.

All done in Blender.

Art by Wanderingwolf

Art by Wanderingwolf

Messed around with a sword I sculpted and a painterly effect. This is the result.

Firefly - Second 'Verse

The Knife Game

The Knife Game

Cal stood in the open doorway of the club Banebdjedet, his hat in his hand. The setting suns cast rays of light around his shoulders onto the floor inside, but beyond that, the darkness swallowed his vision. A few steps in and his eyes began to adjust to the sight of overturned tables, chairs, and supplies from which he surmised he was too late. His jaw tightened as his hand tapped his hat against his thigh.

Turning to leave, his face met the business end of broken-off, brass railing. Cal, reeling into a flipped table, steadied himself in time to see his attacker was just one of two assailants, the larger of which wore some sort of a machete in a sheathe strapped to his leg. That man lazily closed in on Strand, swinging his improvized club at the air in preparation. Cal unhinged his jaw, a finger feeling for the loose tooth that made his mouth well up with blood. Rising, he expectorated and raised his guard.

The railing fell at an downward angle--Cal caught it with his left and jabbed with his right, hitting the man in the nose. As the first one reeled from Cal's blow, his counterpart filled the gap, swinging a table leg. Strand dodged, the leg grazing his shoulder, and turned, jamming his elbow into the man's back, sending the smaller one sprawling. His back was turned to the big one, who caught him around the shoulders in a vice grip.

Thus disarmed, the small one clicked his tongue before closing the distance with a swift fist to Strand's jaw.

Cal, never having learned when to leave well enough alone, spat a stream of blood into the man's eyes, and stomped with all his might on the big one's instep. In a deft movement, Cal ripped the machete from its scabbard on the man's leg and it sung through the air in a semi-circle. On the ground beside him fell a man's right hand, clutched in anger.

The small one reeled toward Strand, table leg raised, only to stop short as a shot rang out--his body slumping to the floor. Behind him, the man without a hand writhed to the ground, whimpering. Cal, who thought himself mighty merciful, shot the second without looking down.

Rubbing his bloody lip on his sleeve, Cal holstered his pistol. As he stooped to pick up his hat, the Captain raised the China Doll with his com, "Yuri, come in."

A smooth voice modulated back to the Captain's brusque one, "It's just me Cal-"

"Change of plan. I need the Doll in the BZ, pronto."

"I'll relay the message, but everyone's tied up right now," the AI replied cooly.

"Well, tell them to get their pi gui's in gear and get over here!"

"The Alliance officers currently on board the ship have discovered the Anabaptists in the hold," her matter-of-fact tone rubbed him all wrong.

"That's not good."

"Don't fret," he could almost hear the smile in her voice, "it looks like you may owe Quill a favor, Captain."

"Darlin', right now? I'll take any and all favors, with bells on."

"With bells, hmm? I'll be sure to let her know," her tone cusped on teasing.

"You do that. Now bring me my ship."