We were tasked to get started on storyboard for our showreel. I decided on an approximately 1 minute and 30 second showreel covering very general skillsets rather than focusing on one, starting with a clever mix of programming/game design and concept/2D art and sprite art.

I plan to go more into 2D and sprite art, maybe character design as well after this, and finally, I'll close it off with 3D modelling. The look and feel of the showreel video is pretty solid in my head, and I'm hoping to do it justice.

We were tasked to use the storyboard from last time to get started on creating our showreel in Adobe Premiere Pro.

I've used this program before in my own free time for personal projects, so I'm somewhat accustomed to it. Though generally, it kinda comes naturally.

We were recommended to use the template transitions, but I wanted to be extra by making my own using keyframes. I'm stubborn with how my stuff looks, and I'd rather have as much control as possible. Plus, I think it's kind of fun to do it manually.

My idea for the introduction panel would be to have some kind of blurry stock footage in the background, under some kind of weird filter.

Something like this.

Got plenty of work done for my showreel today. I decided to go into a friend's class after my last one ended so I could get some extra work done on the video.

It really is fun to get back into video editing. I should do it more often. I managed to get the first showcase, for Mycelial, finished, as well as the subsequent behind-the-scenes showcase for it.

Much like the vibe for the intro slide, the transition to Mycelial's showcase and how it'd play out was very vivid in my head. I wanted to have the logo slide across the screen and land where it'd be positioned on the game's main menu, and then have the screen flash and fade into footage of the main menu. It was really fun to execute this idea, and it turned out really good, unlike the intro screen, which I'm still thinking of ways to improve on.

I chopped up some footage and put it all together, adjusting the timing until it felt right, and I added some title and subtitle text at the top left of the screen with a simple fade in slide transition.

With specifying the software each piece was made in, I initially wanted to use just the software icons like how it was depicted in the storyboard, but I figured it'd make it clearer for the viewer if I used full logos with text instead.

The behind-the-scenes showcase was fairly simple. Just a few fading and sliding transitions I threw together with a little bit of rotation to give it some more life. This is where I left off for the day.

This time, I felt I had enough to export as a wip. Here it is. I'm really proud of how it's coming along.

I continued where I left off yesterday. Once again, I got a lot of work done, but I didn't get a lot of screenshots...

This time, I managed to get the second showcase and behind-the-scenes showcase, for REPAINTED, started and finished, as well as a third showcase, showing off my Unit 10 Tower-Climber project, Dream-Eater.

I started off by working on a transition between Mycelial and REPAINTED. I knew I wanted it to relate to REPAINTED's central theme of painting. Thankfully, Adobe Premiere has a built-in paint splatter transition preset. It took me a while to tinker with it and make it work how I wanted, but I eventually got it. Along the way, though, I thought it'd be cool if the transition also had the previous slide take on a sort of paper-like texture while paint covers the screen, using two images as an overlay rather than one to give it some movement, almost similar to line-boiling. This was pretty straight forward to execute, though I did run into some minor issues along the way, but I managed to execute it well. I think it adds a lot.

From then, editing the REPAINTED showcase was very straight forward. I just reused some things from the Mycelial showcase and got the timing how I wanted.

The transition between REPAINTED and Dream-Eater was a little more difficult, though. I had experimented earlier with a fractal noise preset while thinking of ways to spice up the intro slide, and decided to reuse that preset to give the transition between REPAINTED and Dream-Eater a sort of dream-like feel. It took a bit of trial and error before I managed to execute it right, and I'm still not 100% with it, but I got it.

Again, from then, the Dream-Eater showcase was easy work. Easier, in fact, as I had decided that game design showcases past REPAINTED wouldn't have their own behind-the-scenes segment, not only to save time for the rest of the showreel, but also because I felt there wasn't as much to show off.

Finishing the Dream-Eater segment, I decided to call it a day. I planned for the segment after to showcase my Level 2 FMP, Orbital Crash, so I used the last few minutes of class to lay the groundwork for the next transition, having the final Dream-Eater clip slide upwards and out of the screen at the end. I wanna play into the outer space theme of Orbital Crash by making the transition a sort of pan-down into footage of the game.

Once again, I exported the wip and uploaded it to Youtube. I likely won't be able to finish the showreel video in time for submission, but it's been fun working on it regardless, and I'll find some free time to continue it at some point. Here it is.

Since today is submission day, I used a bit of time to sort of wrap up what I had. I decided to use a song one of my friends made for a fan project she was working on a while back, inspired by Tyler the Creator. Surprisingly, after cropping it a little at the start, it worked surprisingly well with the transitions and timing.

Besides that, the first thing I set out to do was fix the timing of the transition between REPAINTED and Dream-Eater. I received some feedback telling me that there wasn't enough room for the REPAINTED mock-up slideshow to breathe, and it cuts to the transition way too early. 

I also went back and polished some of the timing in the Dream-Eater section, and made the title and subtitle scroll up with the footage during transition.

I went and recorded some footage to use for the Orbital Crash showcase. I wanted there to be a fun little gradient effect coming off the top as it pans down to the game footage, to create the illusion that there's more above the screen and to make it look a little less jarring.

Easy work from there, like with the Dream-Eater segment. This time, I intentionally used the music to guide the timing of each clip. I'm kinda glad I decided to use this game, since it's a lot more visually action-packed thanks to the high-speed and explosive gameplay. It adds some flare to the overall video and makes it a little more eye-catching, I feel.

I cut myself off from here, knowing it'd be unwise to linger on the video too long. I exported the wip and uploaded it onto Youtube. I'm really proud of how this came out, and I definitely wanna continue working on this at some point. Here it is.

(WASN'T ABLE TO GET TO THIS)

We were assigned Children's Cartoon for this week's showreel theme. It took me a while to think of something to start with. I initially considered some sort of lovably dense cartoon super villain, then an alien, but eventually, I landed on a kindly Florist character, visually based on a bouquet of flowers.

I got a pretty quick idea for what I wanted her to look like immediately. I had sketched some characters of similar concept before for personal projects, which would end up as a sort of base for this character's final design.

The idea was that her body would resemble a bouquet of flowers, having a sort of hourglass shaped design. She'd have a big bowtie adorning her neck, tied, fluffy, petal-like hair adorned with a head scarf which would resemble the top of a bouquet of flower's container.

Here's a sort of visual diagram of the design's shape and how it takes from a bouquet's appearance.

Once I began designing the character and putting my ideas onto paper, I initially struggled a little with translating the flower-hair adorned by the head scarf idea. There were a bunch of sketches I removed before being able to screenshot them, so this screenshot only shows the initial headshape, the initial scarf shape, and then the final head. I wanted to give her some big wide eyes to give her an innocent, friendly and cute appearance.

From then, the rest was simple. The design is intended to be cute and simple, appealing to younger audiences, so the head would technically be the most complex part of it. I designed the rest of the body, a simple triangle-shape starting from the bowtie to represent the dress and to complete the bouquet shape. I gave her a little apron sort of thing, some arms, and some legs. I initially considered giving the bottom part of her dress a sort of ragged/wavy shape, but I figured something flatter would work better.

Did some silhouette tests and I was pretty satisfied. The only thing left was to pick out some colours. Immediately, I wanted some bright or pastel, yet soft colours. They'd be easy on the eyes and would reflect her kindly, mild-mannered personality, but would be colourful enough to be eye-catching to a child.

I wanted to go for something pink and yellow, with perhaps some green or a soft red in there. I struggled with the colour scheme for a while, a process which I did not record, but I eventually landed on something I was happy with. Here's the final design sheet.

Some feedback...

1. The colour palette of the character is fitting. Love how the character has an innocent happy face, that could give a warm and safe feeling for the kids. I really enjoy different sides of the character, alongside the shadow. Gives off grandma vibes.

2. Whats the cartoon its based of? It looks good I dont think it suits many children cartoons but its good art work. It looks like it would fit in a cartoon.

3. Good designs, but what are the characters based of off?

4. I love the design, it is very cute and the pastel colours seem fitting for a kids’ cartoon.

5. Simplistic enough to be memorable for children with fun colours, where is lil bros mouth?

6. Very memorable sillouhette, bros got broccoli head. His colours are nice and pastel but he could look washed out after a while. Ur glasses are mine now btw

7. Little pastel fluffy fella has a cute design with shadows

8. The design and style is really cool

I decided to go off theme for this week. I wanted to make a 3D model recreation of a teaser image for the upcoming 3rd chapter of DELTARUNE. Here's the reference image I used, the teaser image itself, as shown in the UNDERTALE and DELTARUNE Newsletter.

Here are some progress shots.

1. Great work even with on the 3D models. Could add in showrooms

2. good work creating the models and concepts. need to add proof that the work has been added to the showreel

3. The work is made with a keen eye for details, which I really like. Having references and annotations is very impressive, and could be used for representing your work. I would add your character art first before the models, if you are following that path for the showreel. The storyboard for the showreel seems well planned with timing etc

4. great work itb seems that you have a good idea for the showreel.

5. Great work, easy to tell how you think through your artwork. Looks like you just need to develop your actual showreel video, otherwise very good work.

6. Planning is incredibly in-depth, and your character design skills are impressive thanks to how you draw inspiration for your characters and other pieces. 

7. Storyboard is well done and clearly shows your intentions. Good progress on your showreel video :). And plenty of work towards the showreel weekly, presenting the steps you took and the process you took to get the final product. :D