Opening Soon...

Here we are, people. So Fancy has been submitted. I will never forget the night before the deadline, a night made of hopes, dead rendering TDs collapsing on the desk, Super Mario Land tournaments while scenes were rendering, cursing Maya and saleswomen walking trough walls. We had to compromise on a few things to get decent renders on time, but that doesn't mean we've stopped working on this. There are still lots of things that need to be fixed and be made fancy, and soon enough So Fancy will have an official opening!

A Beauty Pass & a Zombie Lynda

We are getting the first beauty shots of some scenes and must say it's looking good - maybe colors are a bit over saturated, but we still have some time (reading: a few days :P) to correct balance. And if you're wondering, Lynda is just missing her skin texture, it's not like we changed the story and made her a zombie. But we're considering the option.

It's been a long day

Here are some test renders of the exterior of the boutique during different times of the day.

Blocking Up

Here are some block and timing test of the shots I am taking care of, the head swapping scene and the last scene where she drags the bag out of the boutique. They may seem ugly (they are) but since those scenes are quite long, blocking is essential to get a satisfying timing - changing things here is still easy if you're not happy. But I am happy indeed, so let's get going with tangents and finesse!

The dream team

What happen when your group gets blessed with an awesome modeler? In case you didn't realize, it was a rhetorical question.

The height of the saleswoman has to be slightly adjusted. Can't wait to slap those cute little thingies on our sets.

They grow up so fast!

Lynda's model development is almost turning to an end. The result is definitely nice and very faithful to the model sheets.

Let there be light

Sury has opened a fancy little blog to update us about the lighting development. It got some nice ligthing experiments with chopped heads. Worth checking!

Home sweet home

The girls really care about the interior of the boutique. How can you blame them? We've got a lot of ideas spinning around, although we believe it's wiser to focus on the most important elements right now.

That doesn't forbid fantasizing about cool tables, tough.

Lynda in the sky with diamonds

If you were wondering who the hell is this Lynda, well, she's now the protagonist of our story. While I'm tempted to write a full post about the origin and the debates around the name, I'll leave you with some beautiful concept art that has been drawn for our heroines.

We decided to give Lynda a slightly less-than-average body before the body swap. This way, her buying a smoking hot body definitely makes more sense.

A Fancy Tale

Here's a nice colored storyboard made by our Amanda that nailed the story we're trying to tell you. Some colors need to be adjusted, but the adorable mood is definitely there.

First, there was a cube...

...Then, a fancy boutique grew up from nothing.

We referenced to French buildings to nail the architectural style. Sadly, the budget didn't allow us to go to France for some real-life studies.

[Modelling department update] - "DAT ASS"

Here's a generic base mesh (the first mesh of the project) of an anime-style female to be used as a template from which the two characters will be formed. Will also be used for block testing.

What was this about again?

Here's the original animatic I submit for the idea pitching for the projects, just to give you an idea of how things should flow and why you should love this so much.

Fancyness is born

We tackled on our first meetings with the enthusiasm of a Spartan army! After a general look at our pipeline, we started concepting the characters and their surroundings in order to give our art directors something to think about while their magic pencils skate on paper, leaving awesomness behind them. Yifan & Amanda presented us a few reference-free concepts and it's amazing how close they were to the vision we came to after brainstorming:

I can definitely sense some mind-reading there. We got a few character sheets running and I'm looking forward to see some concepts of them. Still brainstorming on the shop interior , tough - we should really meet and visit a few boutiques in the town centre. And maybe buy a few dresses. For RESEARCH, of course.