Some Stuff

[Kanastrous]

The interior set in the pictures is matched to a picture truck that started life as a newsvan.

With a paint-and-graphics job and some plant-on antennas, it became an FBI mobile surveillance and command post.

[Kanastrous]

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[Havok]

Cool. I love these glimpses you give us.

[Kanastrous]

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[Havok]

Kanastrous
Hey man, you should re title this thread so that people randomly looking through know who's it is. "Some Stuff" is pretty ambiguous and certainly doesn't do it justice.

[Kanastrous]

Kanastrous' Stuff...?

[Havok]

Maybe Kanastrous' Tech and studio work?

[Kanastrous]

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[Havok]

Question: Aren't these, like, studio secrets? Is it OK for you to be sharing these? I certainly wouldn't want you to get in trouble just to appease us.

[Kanastrous]

The short answer is: not to worry.

[Kanastrous]

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[The Grim Squeaker]

Maybe Kanastrous' Tech and studio work?

Kanastrous konsolidated kraft? Kanastrous Inc? Kanastrous's sKetches?

At any rate, this is amazing stuff, it's good to have you back posting on the board so that you'll also add some of your future work to this (Eventually) .

[TheMuffinKing]

I like the hovertanks. They remind me of vehicles from the battletech universe, or descriptions of stuff from "Hammer's Slammers".

[Kanastrous]

So there’s this thing, of very large physical dimensions and mechanical nature, which I have the weekend to reflect upon before beginning to render it as sketches and models on Monday (I would offer more detail, but the studio has already once smacked someone for being too cavalier with the proprietary stuff – and the specific name of the thing is beside the point, anyway). Research turns up some interesting variation in the details of the thing’s antecedents over time, plus it’s not hard to imagine other variants which are doubtless unpopular with good reason but look cool anyway.

But the research is mostly good for proportions and basic working principles because the one we build has to not only look right, but look right in the specific context of the scene for which it’s being created. Not only materials and finishes but, since it’s a large thing with human-powered parts, it should function in such a way as to give the extras and actors interesting things to do for camera. And those functions have to look interesting from a number of different angles and focal lengths, as much as is practical, because the thing must be completed long before blocking around it will take place. And the thing’s design and operation must be intelligible to the digital crew who will create some proportion of it in animated form, for reasons of budget and safety. And of course the major physical operation of the thing must look powerful and menacing when it’s triggered – whether it’s shot for beauty or merely in the deep background.

So in a sense the thing is a character, or more accurately ought to have some character. Wood, steel, or fiberglass? Combinations? Not only a matter of visual texture, but different riffs for the sound guys; the creak of wood isn’t the crack of fiberglass isn’t the groan of steel. How it looks drives how it’s lit drives how it’s shot. Chain pulleys or levers? Shock absorbers or springs? Linear movements, or rotary? What proportion of each? Same deal; how it looks is how it sounds is how it shoots…

There’s a pleasant period of meditation between absorbing the research, and picking up the pencil or mouse to start developing forms. It’s an interval before working with form, during which you decide upon the Nature of the thing, the character which its physical design conveys, sort of like writing a part before casting it.

Sorry to drop so much text on what is supposed to be a gallery thread. To the degree that anyone is interested in some of what the process is like, perhaps this is informative. To the degree that they’re not – shame on you, for wasting your time reading this.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Sorry to drop so much text on what is supposed to be a gallery thread. To the degree that anyone is interested in some of what the process is like, perhaps this is informative. To the degree that they’re not – shame on you, for wasting your time reading this.

If there wasn't anything to debate or comment on, then the thread wouldn't be interesting. Text is just another artistic/mental venue . (Same as comments on style and technique in photo threads or style/design artwork threads).
Or in short, keep on the informative stuff! (Oh, and the awesome designs and whatnot )

[Kanastrous]

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[Beowulf]

Dropped from Gallery.

[Havok]

So... uh, what happened here?

[Old Plympto]

I'ma think Kanastrous thought it would be prudent to drop some stuff from here, perhaps for legal reasons? In any case, thanks for the peek into something that I love, and would love to have a career in. The postings were appreciated.