Animations that are Work in Progress #03

Ok, so I thought I should actually show something that I'm actually currently in the process of working on, as opposed to those other ones which are RIP for the most part.

At the moment it's being called Going Nowhere. It's designed to be a serial of sorts, most likely a webseries either on youtube or perhaps hosted somewhere else, who knows...details right :P

It's basically a sit-com, except animated, because that's how I roll, though I have thrown in some elements to this that make it warrent the need to be animated, for instance, a certain key character in the show. I wrote the pilot script for this thing like... I think over a year or so ago, but I had been sitting on it for awhile, just because I hadn't had much time to work on any sizable personal projects at the time. The great thing about doing this though, was that I would forget about it and then find it again and have a read through it, polish it a bit, and then shelve it again; so what I've ended up with was something that I thought was fairly solid and quite amuzing. So if this turns out very un-interesting, then I need to seriously get out more. Hey, what am I saying? I already DO need to get out more!

Now, when I started to initially spend some time taking this project to the next level, I was in a conflict whether to do it as a 2D animation or a 3D animation. As you can see by the first two images that I've posted (below), I initially started this off as a 2D animation, figuring maybe it'd just be worth while belting it out as quick as I could since it has been quite awhile since I've done a full-blown animation, and for a time it was coming along fine.

A frame from the 2D version of Going Nowhere ep. 01 

A frame of two of the main character (Brian and Carter) from the 2D version of Going Nowhere ep. 01

However, then I had a late realization, I believed that there could be genuinely something worthwhile here (and I had already done up some rough outlines for a bunch of episodes which I felt explored some nice story arcs), so the thought of doing it as a 3D animation became appealing again, for a good reason. If I invested the time in creating characters and the key environments in 3D for the pilot episode, then most of the hard, time consuming work will be done for the following episodes, as opposed to having to hand draw frames in 2D all the time, and I'd also be able to maintain the consistancy of the overall style and feel much more easily.

Here's the 3D version of Carter, one of the lead characters from Going Nowhere.

The 3D version of Brian, one of the other lead characters from Going Nowhere.

So at the moment I'm in the process of getting the final look and feel of the environments and setting various things up (props, etc.) to be animatable. The key characters that will appear in the pilot episode are practically all ready, I just need to make some final tweaks to one other character and it'll be almost time to start the animation stage.

A W.I.P. shot of the apartment set. The apartment is a key setting where a lot of the shenanigans take place. Still rather incomplete. Not the final look.

Another W.I.P. shot of the apartment set. You can see part of the living room area and the kitchen/dining space. Again, not the final look.

Here's a W.I.P. shot of Carter's bedroom, one of the sets that will be apart of the first episode. Not the final look.

I'll try and keep everyone posted on the process of this project since I do intend to get this one finished. At the present moment, it's hard for me to put down a date in which I'd probably have this all finished since there's still a fair bit to do, but I'm hoping it'll all be worth it!