After a brutal and exhausting battle, only one man survives. But can he stand up to what follows next? Will he truly lose his heart to the girl of the North?
I have only been a fan of Robert E. Howard since 2007. That was when I was first introduced to his talent, stories and the long line of characters he created but I first learned of Conan in 1976 thru comic books. Ever since, I have had a passion for this genre that not only influenced who I am and my love for history but also inspired the creative side of me, starting with pencil drawings in my youth, My leather tooling and leathercraft with celtic animal patterns and knot work to chain mail and movie props.
Conan the Cimmerian has been portrayed in movies, videos, books and comic books but as I have come to learn, none of them compare to the original. So when I think about the movies and see the eye rolling of people when they hear the name, I can not help but to feel that the character has been misrepresented to the public and in such given the wrong idea of who he is and what he is about.
Conan grew up in a hard land with a black, square cut mane and volcanic blue eyes. A natural born leader and a man to fear if you crossed him. He spoke many languages in his travels and lived for the adventure. He had his own code to live by and most of the time he was dressed in more than just a loincloth. Intelligent and respected, he has constantly stood up for the weak and proving to the strong that they are just not strong enough. However, I don't feel that just saying it in words can give one the images that is conjured when you read the stories and so I wanted to bring those images out, The ones that I see to tell the story.
In this animation, I am not hoping to change the way the world sees Conan but just a chance for everyone to join his adventures thru Robert E. Howard's writing with the visuals to see his world thru my eyes and for all to enjoy thru my art.
I chose this story to work on in 2008 because of the length. the story is 12 pages with 5 moving characters and 3 are for a short time. It was also top of my list because the landscape was the easiest to model, or so I thought, but mainly it was chosen because of the variety of emotions it invokes from the reader. Robert E. Howard has a way of doing that in his stories and I hope to capture at least half of that magic in this animation.
work in progress
A Little About Me
I began drawing at an early age because of artists like Frank Franzetta and John Buscema. Over the years, I got more focused on computer art than traditional so I laid my pencil down for a stylus. Now I am a self taught computer animator and I am learning my own style of art in computer animation.
In 2003 I started a small, local business call Keen Digital Artz, doing mostly weddings, live events and webcasting for clients such as Chevron and Santa Clara County Bar Association but also delving into indie film making. I closed my doors at the end of 2011 and returned to animation, learning a new program called Blender which is a free open source program that has been doing some amazing things. Not to mention the incredible community of Blender artists that are always there to help
What The Funding is For
My laptop does well to render the still Images that you see here but when it comes to calculating for cloth simulation, particle movements and collision effects, it just crashes and the style of animation that I am going for is aimed more for adults because this is an adult story. As a fan and for the audience, I have to pay close attention to detail and to help with this, High poly counts and high resolution texture is needed for the best production value. If I can reach $12,500, it will go towards a new mac pro with enough storage, ram, CPU and GPU power to put this animation together and a tablet to help me work a little faster.
If by some chance that funding goes up to $18,000, it will also go to hiring the voice talents for the characters. Also, any additional funding would go for creating the original score for the animation and a sound designer to create the bone chilling sounds described in the story as I wish to stay true to the original source material.
Conan model work in progress
What I am asking is the minimum needed to keep me working on this story, Of course more is better as it would allow me to get more animators involved to make the story more compelling by extending the scenes or making the scenes more breathtaking. larger storage drives in the center of our network for us to put our shared files to work from. It would also help us to get into some of the festivals as the entry fees and travel can be expensive.
I would like to do a showing at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Film Festival and the Toronto After Dark film festival with a premier here in San Francisco at the Castro theater for anyone who will be in the area. I will also try to get showings in festivals near you, the backers, so you can see the movie play on the big screen. The Festival showing schedule will be posted in the Facebook group.
Giants work in progress
Other Ways To Help
The rewards to the right is one way but passing the word along is another. Letting your friends and family know that you like or support this project can inspire enough support to help this project succeed. Liking us on Facebook or Tweeting about us will let others know that this project is happening.
Some of the risks
The biggest risk is of a hard drive crashing but from past experience, I learned to constantly backup my files and to have more than one copy.
I guess another risk would be the computer dying but since it would be a new computer and under the extended warranty plan, it should be covered to be fixed. I only use macs now because I have found macs handle graphics and animation the best or at least in my opinion
Meeting the deadline. While it is true that I have a full time job, A wife and 10 year old son, They are very understanding and supportive. More animators would give me more time with them but I do have time to work on my art to make this short happen. My son is also learning to be a computer animator and this would become another of our together time. he has a g5 to work, learn and play with the program. My wife is very well organized and keeps me on my path so be certain that she will be behind me pushing me to finish.
Of course there can always be some unforeseen risk that one can have but ever effort will be made to move past it and forward with this project.