My Senior Capstone Blog

Thank you all for supporting and keeping up with my capstone project, with the IRIS project! 

Here is a link to my YT channel where the series is uploaded! 

Thank you again and good luck to everyone with their future endeavors!

UPDATE #7 

Hello Hello everyone!~~ So for the past 2 or so weeks I’ve been scrambling to get together the animations. The first character short has been made and is in the process of being finalized and the last two are in progress of being put together and animated. I believe I mentioned this briefly in my last update, but if not, so initially I was going to do 4 character shorts but have shortened 3 due to time and lack or certain resources. That being said, I unfortunately have experienced a pretty bad hiccup for the second and third animation where my computer crashed and I lost a couple assets for more meticulous animated bits. This loss has caused a week set back the project. (The video above is of some of the assets I had lost and inserted as I finished comprising the short.)

So for the next two weeks to the end, I will be scrambling to finish putting together the animations and work on the series trailer~~

We’re in the home stretch now so please look forward to the link to my YT channel where the series will be posted. 

As a side note, I would actually like to continue this series post graduation and will be updating that channel with more going into the future of things!

Hello everyone! It has been a while but here's an update of what I’ve been working on for the past 4 weeks~

Getting right into it, for update 4 I finished recording VA work. Recording over at the new UHWO ACM building was a dream, also ideal for getting very good sound suppression as I’ve found. Although that is to be expected but while getting extra recordings outside of my recording time on campus, there is a distinct difference! This was also a great opportunity to visit campus once again after the long absence due to covid. Over this time, I was also getting a few more assets done.

In the more recent weeks for update 5, I’m nearly completed with the first animation in the IRIS series, Perse, as we speak I’m finishing up the assembly over in after effects. In completing this first animation, I’m realizing the length of time taken to create a single animation. Most time in my opinion taken in this journey is a fight between asset creation and story writing. Recording and assembly is pretty straight forward. In this realization I’ve also come to understand that 4 characters may have been a lot to handle given the time so I’m going to be reducing the work load down to 3 animations instead and replacing the 4th character’s animation with a series trailer instead.

Now I’m on my way to completing the other 2 animations. Wish me luck~~~

Over the past 2 weeks I’ve been hard at work in assets for each of the animations as well as finalizing VA paperwork~ 

If you’ve been following not too long ago I got all of my main cast filled and announcements for such will come in the coming weeks.

Recordings will begin within the next two weeks as we head into spring break including recording for extras.

For the nature of my project, I’m trying to reflect current collective identity which includes the mass diversity that now more regularly featured in present day media. As such, when I was recruiting extras one of my VAs were questioning whether or not her heavy Japanese accent would be an issue. My honest response is that our current comminute consist of all these different ethnic groups so its better that she utilizes her accent. I want to emphasis diversity without having to explicitly express it so I believe this is the best way.

Now as for my timeline, surprisingly I am pretty on top of things according to my pre-made schedule. Despite the early crunch to catch up I’m in a pretty good spot. Now we’re in the chuck of the aesthetical portion of this project and its going pretty well. 

Here are some of the backgrounds and assets that have been completed~

Im... Why did I make his room so detailed

Also why are they all back shots haha

No update video but we were really in the crunch of all things!

Storyboards and scripts have been more-less been completed~

Over the past two weeks I’ve been focusing entirely on finishing the comprehensive story and have completed the necessary storyboards as well as respective scripts.

(Here’s some of the more detailed boards~)

Perse:

Saito:

Liz:

Harold:

(Progressively, I’ve noticed that people start to loose their faces the further I went on haha)

I do have to say when you come up with an idea, you should definitely write/sketch it down immediately. 

I found myself doing some of my storyboards on sandwich bags while at work or staying up until 5 am just trying to finish laying my ideas for the script. In all, its safe to say that my sleep schedule is completely screwed up but honestly the hardest part of this project is almost over!

Now starting this week following is the beginning of key framing! A lot of my storyboards I ended up making pretty detailed so this process is basically line art and coloring! 

Over the past two weeks I have also been looking for my appropriate voice cast and I have most of my voices lined up with the exception of Harold, one of my main cast characters. He’s supposed to be a sweet old man who is pretty naïve to the situation of the world and is a bit lonely but he’s happy to try anything! I still haven’t found someone to play him but the others are almost set to go. I just need to finalize documentation then get started on recording.

All in all I’d say were doing okay. I’ve lost a bit of time finalizing the story but it should be straightforward from here.

UPDATE #1

Current progress on the project consist of finishing up storyboards and script writing. Schedule on such was pushed back a week due to issues concerning story writing but after receiving advice from a professor, were back on track!

What we’ve got in the mean time are finalized concept art of the main characters Perse, Saito, Liz, and Harold! 

Initial designs

Final flat colors

Idealized end product for the series will consist of 5 total animated episodes with the first 4 focusing on the backstory of each of the main characters along with the story of the world. Then the final animation acting sort of like a piolet episode bringing the characters together but it should be able to conclude itself enough where it’s not just a cliff hanger.

Other than that, current hurdles is focusing on audio and voice acting. I have a good idea of who I want to voice the characters and getting permissions won’t be an issue but we will see! 

Hi hello! Welcome to my Senior Capstone blog~ This is just a quick intro into who I am and the research on what my project is based upon going forward!