Here’s a little information about my storyboard and animatic process, since that’s what I’ve been working on today. This is not the animatic we’re advertising as a goal of this Kickstarter — these are the sketches that I make myself. To keep clear which is which, I call this my “sketchy-matic”, since my storyboards are pretty sketchy. I start with 4″x6″ plain index cards, which I draw on with colored pens. The drawings are very sketchy because 1) I’m not a great comic artist and 2) because it only really has to communicate what the shot, so it’s not necessary to have a whole lot of detail. One of the better likenesses in my storyboards — but still quite sketchy 🙂
Well, I didn’t get them finished on Friday or Saturday, but the artbook is basically done now. Just need to proofread and fix typos and stuff before sending it to the printer. I’m printing a copy now so I can go over it with the red pen (no matter how many times I proofread a work digitally, I always find I need to proofread a hardcopy version or I’ll miss stuff). While the artbooks are off getting printed, of course, I’ll be finishing up the storyboards and getting the data disks finished. With any luck I’ll have it all neatly wrapped up in just over a week and be able to start shipping out rewards.
This week I got most of the open questions about the soundtrack music settled. The only problem is that opened a new question too. I also started a (mostly separate) Kickstarter project for the “Lib-Ray” video format, and I probably need to explain a little how that connects to Lunatics.
We’ve crossed a pre-production milestone — the modelsheets for the eight colonists (our main characters) are completed. Daniel is now moving on to the artwork for secondary characters. This puts us on schedule for our (recently slipped) delivery goal of early May.
We’re breaking a lot of new territory on the project, at least for us, and this isn’t the first and probably not the last time I’ll misjudge the schedule. I had estimated model-sheet production based on Daniel’s time on the concept sheets, but he’s doing a much higher quality of work on the model sheets, and it takes some time (and unlike some of us, Daniel has a full-time day job to keep up with, too). I suspect I could’ve gotten my part done on time, but I have to admit, an extra month makes me feel a little less stressed, too.
Posters I got the concept art posters back from the printers today, and they look really nice. As I mentioned earlier, I printed enough for all backers, because they really didn’t cost much after the first 10 or so which were already spoken for. So, if you’ve received a survey notice, be sure to fill in your address so I can send you the poster. For those of you who selected “no reward”, I sent out a regular email — I’d still like to send you a poster. Just email me (i.e. at “digitante at gmail dot com”) an address to which you’d like me to send it.
After doing several of the others, I thought I’d come back and try putting shadows and highlights on Sarah’s portrait. I also decided to color her hair more naturally. “Dr. Sarah Allison is one of the foremost authorities on moon morphology and geophysics. She has clocked over 100 hours exploring the moon’s surface. She holds the George P. Kokh Chair in lunar planetology at New Mexico State University. Currently she is to be found at the European University Collectives Marius Hills Lava tube expedition in the Ocean of Storms on the Lunar surface.” Drawing by Daniel Fu. Digital ink and paint by Terry Hancock.
Wow! We are past the halfway mark today. I’m really pretty excited by that. Each of you probably has a circle of friends who may not have heard about this project, so if you each were to get a friend or two to back it as well, we might just make it before the deadline tomorrow night. I’ve also just added a new $8 level for which I can send out folded copies of the Concept Art Poster. That’s both because we’ve already offset the cost of the first few prints, and because they are much cheaper to ship folded.
Drawing of “Anya Titova Farmer” / “Anya” by Daniel Fu (from the concept art sheet), digitally inked and colored by Terry Hancock. “Anya Titova Farmer (M.B.A.) is business manager of the ISF lunar colony. She comes from a long line of Russian entrepreneurs, astronauts, and rocket engineers. Her father Anatoly Titov and her Uncle Konstantin Titov manage the Titov Space Industries, founded by her grandfather Igor Titov. She received a degree in international business from the Russian Academy of Economics (RAE) and a Master in Business Administration from the University of Arizona. She is also founder and part owner of Sputniki Zvezda Serebryaniy (Silver Star Satellites).”
