I have come to realize that sometimes having multiple projects in the works isn’t always such a bad situation to be in. Occasionally, I find myself stuck on one detail in a drawing and I can’t seem to make any progress. It feels like a car spinning its wheels in the mud. So much energy and time expended, yet very little progress made. My initial reaction in the past would have been to push even harder. However, I eventually learned, creativity can’t be forced and sometimes, the best thing to do is move on to something else.

This time around, working on a shorter animation while a much bigger project is in the works, has cleared my head and provided me with fresh ideas. While I’m still a firm believer in paying attention to one task at a time, I am warming up to the idea of occasionally alternating between two (maybe three) projects at a time. Alas, only time will tell how this new strategy pans out!

For the past couple of months, we have been working hard on the third animation short "The Western Outpost". Like the last two project it's been a mostly enjoyable experience, with a few road bumps thrown in for good measure. After a bucket full of blood, sweat, and tears (metaphorically speaking of course...mostly), we can finally see the end at last. With the last couple of scenes in the post processing phase, it is time to shift our attention to music and sound design.

At least, that is how it was supposed to go, if we hadn't decided at the eleventh hour that the art style we were going for needed to be "tweaked" and the resolution needed to be increased for "visual clarity". While this turn of events was a major pain in my proverbial buttocks, we did agree that this was a necessary course of action in order to provide the best overall experience.

Now with that all said, I won't lie and say that the perfectionist in me hasn't gotten the better of me before. Ask any creative out there and I'm sure most of them would agree it is difficult to know when to "finish" a project. Because the truth is, we're never actually done with what we are creating. There is always more to do, ways to improve, and "what ifs" to explore. But at the end of the day, this would culminate in an endless cycle of revision after revision and at that point, nothing would ever get released!

So, I guess the trick in the end, is to know when it's time to end the race and finally cross that finish line.

As a former architect student, designing buildings was something I always found enjoyable. However, I will admit that nothing prepared me for the time it would take to make a small city. At first, it was tempting to focus on the details of each individual building, but then you find you only have a tiny handful of structures completed after a few hours. So eventually, we had to modify our approach and instead focus on creating a few specific shapes, then combine them in unique positions. We found that by playing with different scales added a bit of variety as well. It was a bit tough hiding the fact that there were several repeats scattered around the scene, but I think we managed to do a good job in the end.

Just when we thought we had finished, we quickly realized that the city was missing something. Something...important. We realized that all the structures needed windows. Admittedly, this was pretty obvious from the get-go (what kind of building doesn't have windows anyway?), but we had hoped that we could skip adding this detail in the interest of saving time (okay we were being lazy). Retroactively going back to each and every building adding windows was quite the task, even though the windows were essentially copied and pasted on the various walls. While it was a mind-numbing activity, the windows really did make all the difference in the end.

Lesson learned for next time, I guess!

For one of the scenes in the upcoming animation "The Western Outpost", the main protagonist arrives at the industrial city seated in the middle of the desert. As the protagonist looks upon the city, there will be several ships traveling about. To emphasize the fact that the Western Outpost is a bustling metropolis, we wanted to have a good variety of ship designs flying about. Even though the scene is less then ten seconds, I ended up making eleven different ships. We were planning for twelve, but found out the last one wouldn't be necessary due to the scene getting quite crowded. Besides, we had quite a lot on our plate with the ships we did end up creating.

Creating vehicles is something that is quite fun and challenging at the same time. There are so many factors to think about while designing, like "how is the vehicle going to be used?" or "does it fit in the given setting?" or my absolute favorite (and most important), "does it even look cool?". In this particular instance, the airships I imagine as more industrial freight vehicles. So, I went with a boxy, "heavy" look.

That being said, it's surprising how mashing different shapes together can sometimes go a long way as well.