A Head On Our Way...

          So since i got kind of board waiting for stuff i'd rather leave up to "professionals", i went ahead and started making some things on my own for the FF/Sonic Mash-Up. One of which is a few facial expressions that a "Hedgehog" character might have (cuz in the Sonic Universe, certain 'species' have different facial feature constuction - like eyes that are connected or eyes that are seperate from one another).






          So I took this "Shadow" (as only he would look so angry by nature) profile picture DJ drew and erased the majority of the arching 'eyebrows'.

          That gave me this picture. I took this image and went over it a couple of times, drawing in the rest of the eyes as they might appear for various expression (much like eyebrows are used.....though evidently Hedgehogs, through some evolutionary marvel, are without eyebrows and have the capacity to camoflouge their mouth when not talking). So after i thought of the most common ones, the ones i'd need to make Blend Shapes for, i put them side-by-side and got this:

          I then started to go over them with pencil to plot out my edgeloops (*wink* Alex *wink*) and how i'd need to deform the default face to get good representations of these expressions. I haven't finished doing that yet, but i'm well on my way. One of the main hurdles is that i haven't plotted edgelopps on the defaul expression.....so i don't really know how which loops would move since i don't know how many and where and what-have-you.

          But to remedy that, i started making a clay head for what Cloud would look like. I only got about an hour and a half on it (a little less after getting situated and figured out what not to do). I only got as far as his 'jaw' and the left half of his eyes (and while i threw a crude ear in the picture....that's no where near what it's going to look like, just to show where on his head it is and how it looks prior to putting in spikes/hair).

          So this is what i got so far. The eye/pupil is just for kicks...i won't need to plot edgeloops on that - so the finished model won't have any iris/pupils. With the exception of the ears and the spikes, the eye/face is probably only every going to get as far as what i've got now, since it's symetrical i only need to model have and just mirror it when i'm finished. I'll model both ears since they'll be helpful in determining where the spikes go on reference pictures.





          Since it won't really matter unless I got way further than the scope of this 'Short', i figure i might has well post it somewhere...otherwise it'll just be on paper forever.

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          So everyone pretty much knows the elements that compose a Sonic The Hedgehog game right? Robotnik/Some evil force threatens the world in some way and Sonic is seemingly the only who can stop him with his carefree attitude, disregard for personal safety, and a psychopathic desire for the consumtion of Chili Dogs. Early in the Sonic games, it was possible for the player to beat the game without need of the 7 Chaos Emeralds, but not too long ago (i think it might have been Sonic Heroes as the first game to do so) Sega started making it part of the sotryline to collect all 7 Emeralds in order to completely beat the game. If you didn't have them all, you'd get someone of a happy ending, with a little teaser at the end of it.

          And I'll be the first to admit it....Final Fantasy isn't for everyeone or even just anyone. So not too many people might be familiar with the elements that make a Final Fantasy game (although to a certain extent, they're the same as Sonic sans the Emeralds). So rather than generalize it for a Mash Up, DJ and I picked a specific scene that is basically Iconic in the FF Realm - where Sephiroth kills Aeris (and i really don't care what people say.....it's ends in S not TH!)

          So how we're combining the two is by taking the general character designs of Sonic characters and transfering Final Fantasy 7 characters to match the Sonic universe. We're really only going to focus on 3 characters; Cloud (Hedgehog), Aeris (Hedgehog....probably much like Amy), and Sephiroth (Echidna...so as to allow for long 'hair' rather than spikes). We're retelling 2 parts of the FFVII game; where Seph. kills Aeris, and the end where Cloud uses Omnislash. We're also going to encorporate a "Super Sonic" element to allow for the Omnislash (which will be similar to the upgraded version at the end of Advent Children).

          We'll encorporate the Chaos Emeralds too, although they'll basically be like Materia and have powers by themselves (more than Chaos Control too i might add).

          So below i'll go over the concepts for the Emerald/Materia breakdown as far as i took it (and i'm just using stock imagery of gems, actual materia/emeralds might have their own unique look to them - definitely color).

So here we have the Materia of Force. It allows it's user to control Fire based Magic and gives them great physical strength.

Here is the Materia of Agility. Its user can manipulate Lightning based Magic and gains unparalleled speed.

This is the Materia Longevity. User gains limitless Stamina and the power to control Earth based Magic.

This one is the Materia of Mentality. It bestows upon its user the skills of Air based Magic and great Mental Fortitude.

The Materia of Knowledge grants upon its user Water based Magic and unbelieveable Wisdom in every aspect.

This is the Materia of Being. It allows its user to conjur Spirit based Magic and provides Imortality.

This is the rarest of Materia - it might not even truely exist. It is the Materia of Unity. It allows for the manipulation of Time and all Magic and gives its user the ability to assimilate any and all other magic and Materia.

What A Fucking Sabbatical

I can't believe it's been 3 whole months since my last post. There's been a shit load of stuff that's happened since then. I got a girlfriend, finished the spring semester, and a bunch of other little things (like starting collaborations with DJ and her friends).

So i guess i'll start with my girlfriend, Crystal...Naw. I'll make that a whole seperate post once i've got some good pictures of us to include in it (and now that i don't have school i should be - and i know i've said this before - more regular with updates). But since i'm going to be working on a few things this summer - mostly Maya related - I hope i'm better at making regular posts so the people who need to know what i'm doing can see it at their leisure.

So the main thin i'm going to be working on this summer - mostly after the middle of june since i need to make up some art assignments to get a better grade in my Figure Drawing class and not have to retake it - is a collaboration with DJ that involves taking Final Fantasy 7 characters (just a few of them as the project isn't that big; it's just working on a kind of teaser trailer) and translating them into Sonic characters. DJ is going to be doing the conceptual drawings as well as character layouts (defining certain features in great detail so that i may create better models with ease) and storyboards once it comes time to render the trailer.

We haven't, as of yet, come up with a plot for the whole thing. We might just leave it as a trailer and never come back to it, or we might make little webisodes since we'll already have all the characters made. u we're probably going to have Sephiroth, Cloud, Aeris no way am i ever spelling it with a "th"), Reno & Rude for comic relief, and maybe a secret antagonist. Who knows, we might not even have Sephy in there at all...could be some new enemy - screw Jen, Seph, and their stupid Kaddy. One thing that'll translate over kind of effectively is the Materia into Chaos Emeralds. Materia can be a pretty common thing in the realm of FF7 - kind of like cubic zerconias in the real world - they're pretty but nothing special as everyone has them. But like the end of 7, there were the Huge Materia you needed to blast apart the meteor...and of course the Black Materia used to summon it.......which lead to the Holy Materia used to destroy it.

So if my memory serves me, there were 4 pieces of Huge Materia, 1 Black, and 1 White...which makes 6 extremely unique pieces of materia. In the Sonic Realm, there are always 7 Chaos Emeralds (and depending on the timeline or story, 1 Master emerald). So it'll be no problem to translate the materia into emeralds if i wanted to...so if i wanted to retell the events of FF7 as Sonic Characters and Emeralds....i totally could.

I think i'm going to eventually name them - the emeralds that is - because you're either always going to refer to them by the location they were found ("you know, the emerald found in the such-and-such stage") or by their color...which isn't a bad thing by any means....but it'd be nice if they had names - even if it were something like "The Emerald of Power" - of which Red is an Archetype for......why do you think Gannon's triforce piece was red?

DJ said she had started a collaboration with her friends using RPG Maker 2003 (a bit outdated, but still just as good as anything if you want to achieve that 'old school' feel) and asked me - if i remember our convo right - if i wanted to help out. So i said sure because i think it would be nice for me to get out of the directive position and be delegated to for once. I'm just surprised they didn't do this a long time ago because i had RPGM2003 a long time ago and tried messing with it myself, though it didn't get very far because my understanding of games and their inner-workings wasn't as good as it is now.

So i guess i'll leave this post where it is and go work on the Sonic Collaboration.....in which i'm about to disucss with DJ since she's calling me right now....Lates.