Inside the Editing suite

OK folks.  For weeks and weeks, I was trying to figure out the best way to relay how all the editing stuff worked for the videos.  I have learned all sorts of lessons, mostly hard ones.

There is not much in the way of tutorials for this software, and it can be pretty arcane to figure out.  That is not a huge surprise, really.

My apologies for the fuzzy pics, but the program does not like other programs to be open at the same time, so snapping pics was the easiest way.  I took these a while back while working on a basing video.

Here are the opening credits.  This alone took many hours to construct, and I had to keep tweaking it so that it could be more easily repeated 53 times.  Using still images turned out to be far easier than the original idea of using rotating footage of minis

Thank goodness I didn't, since that would have taken a huge chunk of additional storage space!  It would also have added many hours of rendering time.

This is how all those individual clips are entered.  First, I constructed the entire film by linking these pieces together.

These next few steps show how those clips are brought together, with titles in between...

Here is the text block mechanic.  I will be seeing this in my nightmares for years to come.  It is a lot like the interface for the kickstarter text blocks.  You can only see a portion of it, which makes it incredibly difficult to manage!!!  

Making typos is shockingly easy.  In fact, when I go back in to try and fix those, I usually make two more.

The timing of these breaks is critical, and all the fades have to be determined by watching them.  Over and over.  And over.

Resizing them can be tough as well, since the preview window is small, and it will lag in playback when you have text blocks with shadows.  Unfortunately, the shadows are a must given how much is going on in each frame (all the paint colors, etc.)

This shows the small title sitting above the video and sound layers.

Another big surprise was the camera, which breaks up segments that are a certain length automatically.  It might be a memory management thing... I don't know.  It might only happen when filming in HD.

Sadly, this has created countless extra hours for me, as I have to merge these pieces in editing.  For whatever reason, the sound can be impacted a bit, while the picture is fine.  very frustrating!

Now we get to the closing credits.  It took 2 days to construct this template.  Again, once it was done, it could be repeated through each video.  Sorry, folks, the music choice is the same for each one, because I would have smashed my face into a wall if I had to do this again!

The Last Hurrah...

Here are the last of the images dug up from the archive.

These guys were painted about 5 years ago, which seems like a million years ago, and yesterday all at the same time...

I would imagine that it would take me a lot less time to paint these today.

So, once more, we bid goodbye to the past!

Practice makes Perfect

This piece was done a while back as practice for a few of the videos.  I practiced the flesh tones for the Demonette video, as well as the big Ultraforge demon.  Obviously, freehand was in that practice session as well!

All of the Mantis Warrior figures from Raging Heroes are easy to put together, and have a ton of variety, considering they are metal minis!  You can mix and match parts of them without having to chop them up.

This one will be part of the third auction wave, coming tomorrow or Saturday!  Stay tuned!

Is this your final Response?

OK, last of the Response team before the group shots.

Again, these were probably painted sometime in 2008...

I may be seeing them again next year at Adepticon, if I ever get the time to be in the dealer's room! :-)

Consider yourself conscripted

Some of you may remember the concept behind the combined I.G. Sisters army, and that it was going to have mass amounts of conscripts.  The idea was to have 'locals' recruited as these conscripts.

While the female warriors generally go on to become Sisters of Battle, or officers, the lads end up as conscripts like these.

I took some plastic historical Celts and added a few pieces of gear.  Some of it was I.G. bits, and some backpacks were from Victoria Miniatures.

These are some partially complete conversions, minus some green stuff straps and purity seals.

I still have to determine exactly what kinds of base they will go on.  Since they occupy the underhive, I think it will be quite dirty. :-)

I am looking forward to doing some color tests on these.  Obviously, there will be some stripes and some plaid going on!

I believe that there are 40 of these guys in the army list, so that's why the plastic Celts seemed to be the way to go.  I seem to remember boxes of 20 for $40, or an even better price per mini ratio.

I did one set of 10, and these are the first five of the bunch.  Again, the basing will likely change.

For those not familiar with it, here are some images of the Sisters of the Raven, and their color scheme.  The Celtic look carries through all aspects of the two allied armies.

The Raging Heroes Kurgonava Sisters made outstanding Commissars!

More iconography...

and a link to a previous post:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-future-holds.html

Here's a sketch of the leader of the army, Living Saint Morrigan.

Cathy's Malifaux Bases

Here's a brand new set of bases that Cathy made for her new Malifaux crew!

She did some really neat work with the sculpey, getting lots of fun little details.  In fact, I kept noticing new ones each time I took an image from a different angle.

The sewer grate is very cool, and the wood platform even has a little knot hole!

Cathy was the first one to carve barrels from a piece of sculpey.  This technique was included in one of the videos!

Cathy loves to make green stuff cobblestones!  I have always had a tough time with that.

Here is the whole set.  I loved how the hand is coming out of the water!  Her first try at using the Secret Weapon Miniatures body parts.

I will take some more WIP images of these with the figures on them next...

Stay tuned!!

Dominating the conversation

Well, when I posted the first images of this the other day, I did not expect to create such a gigantic firestorm of angst and rage.  No matter how many times I tried to explain that this was just a fun piece made for an Inquisitor RPG, that was ignored and the flames grew higher.

The whole idea behind this was for it to be outlandish, powered as it was by Xenos tech from a corrupt Inquisitor.  It was that technology that made this 'fly'.  The engines that you see are mere directional thrusters.

Here's a close up of the unit insignia, which was a lot of fun!  I love creating new logos :-)

I will still try to finish this off, especially now with all the Secret Weapon products that I now have!

Aside from the wings, the majority of the work went to creating the crew cabin.  That had to be enlarged to that it could also work as a transport for the retinue.

Any named vehicle needs nose art, so here we go!