Updates

Hey folks! Not a lot of great, exciting news, but there have been a few developments with our film, "David Hammerfist: Hammerfists of Fury."

1. Sundance doesnt want us.

2. Slamdance doesnt want us.

Sundance doesnt surprise me. I never really felt that was our audience. I'm way more disappointed about Slamdance though. I thought we'd fit right in. Oh well. We're still waiting on 7 other festivals, but it does drop the spirits a bit when your film is rejected from three major festivals, plays at a first time festival but doesnt win anything, and ties at your school's festival.

Oh well! There's always the Comic Con Film Festival and the free passes that come with it!

Anyhoo, hopefully next time I'll have some more exciting news. But until then!

-JJ

We're not dead yet!

Hey all!

It's me. Matthew. Remember me? Yeah Yeah, it's been a while but man do I have a treat for you. First, some good news. Hammerfists of Fury just recently tied for best Animated film at Loyola Marymount's "Film Outside the Frame" Festival. some of you may perhaps be visiting for the first time because that is how you heard about our film and if that is the case we are glad to have you! I'll go into more detail about Film Outside the frame later (and with pictures) but I'm really lacking on sleep.

Why am I lacking on sleep you ask? Or perhaps you're thinking, "Does he even have a job now that he is graduated?".....well, the short answer is "No." But I'd like to think that I am gingerly assisting the post-post-production process of Hammerfists of Fury. As for sleep....well, I was busy creating THIS:



For........

The ASIFA-Hollywood
Student Animation Festival

October 18th, 2008

Admission FREE to the animation community

Woodbury University
School of Business / Fletcher Jones Foundation Theater
7500 Glenoaks Bl
Burbank, CA 91510

visit: http://www.asifa-hollywood.org/ for more info.

Key words up there are "admission FREE" so if you've been hoping to see Hammerfists of Fury- NOW IS THE TIME!

HoF will be showing second to last in the 4-5pm time slot, but don't go just for Hammerfist! There are a bunch of other great student films showing at this thing, not to mention lots of great professionals!

Hope to see you guys there!

Oh, and "you're welcome" for the beautiful poster. That thing didn't even exist 24 hours ago. as usual JJ roughed it and I inked it....I'll post the original sketch later. Can't blow my media wad in one update!

-Matthew

Art stuffs

Hey all! Time for the Saturday media update.... on Tuesday....

Anyway, these are just some doodles I've done over the summer. Not totally on model, and I'm sorry that David looks like a serial rapist in one of them, but hey, they're fun to look at!







No word yet from Sundance or Slamdance, but we're shipped off to both, and we've got a few new ones we'll be sending off to.

Until next time!

-JJ

A REAL media update!

Hey kids! So after months I finally got my act together and decided to actually post a media update! I debated whether to post photos or post drawings this time around, but I figured that photos would make for a more interesting update. In the next weeks I think we'll post some production art. Some early concepts for McCarthy and for the long lost Major Hammerfist. Anyhoo, here's the update!

So, way back in September, when Matt and I decided to use the Griffith Observatory, we went on a field trip for inspiration... and to figure out what the damned thing looks like. This is a picture of the lovely Matthew Mahoney approaching the set of our film.



Next up is Mr. Mahoney over looking Los Angeles. Nothing really clever or funny to say about this one....



Here's a better shot of Matthew, overlooking the city, thinking about how to stage our epic sky battle.



So, once we did our little field trip, Mahoney and I got hard to work! We worked so hard that we werent photographed until April, when Kaitrin snapped these photos of the elusive Hammerfist creators, as well as a member of their pack.

Captured in this photo is the lovely Lis, who saved our ass with the help of Kiki, who is in an upcoming picture. Together they colored over half the film. That's a pretty stingy estimate. It was closer to 3/4.



You might ask "I see the helpers, but where are Matt and JJ?"

You see, it might LOOK like I'm sleeping, but I'm in a state of super focused telepathic animating. Really. I'm not sleeping.



By the way, over my left shoulder is Kiki, the other essential member of Team Hammerfist. The young lady who took these photos, Kaitrin, also helped in the saving of our film, but since she took the pics she's not in any of them. Krom.

But wait! An update from the ever so hard working animator!

Egads! His feet moved!



Anyway, the film was "finished" for screening, even though it was still an unpolished mess. Matt and I spent the next month of our lives polishing up all the mistakes that come when you rush to make a deadline.

In this time the wonderful and immensely talented Corey Eccles did our sound design. Unfortunately, I lost all the photos from when we went to POP Sound in Santa Monica! All I have are Corey's. So, here they are!

First up is a shot of Nick and Dante, our sound mixers. Nick is a stud. He worked 3 hours extra at no charge. We still need to hook him up with a DVD... crap.



Here's a shot of the directors, hard at work. Look at us, all prettied up. Matt with his Vegetta shirt, me with *shudder* brushed hair!



One of the nifty things about POP Sound is that they feed you. I got Meatloaf! It rocked.



After lunch, hard at work again.



After lunch, people who are actually working hard. This is Nick working on the final stretch of the film.



And so there you have it! A photo-history of the production of David Hammerfist. If any more pictures pop up, I'll post them and fill in the gaps. I hope you guys enjoyed this trip down memory lane as much as I did.

Next week, I'll post some kind of drawings. I'm not sure if it'll be concept art or just Hammerfist art I've done since. Maybe Matt will have a better idea! Find out next week, here at davidhammerfist.com!

Until then,

-JJ

Hmmm, that sucks.

So...There seems to be a problem with the trailer and teaser on YouTube. In short, they're %^&$ed up. I don't know what YouTube has against David. Perhaps YouTube is a communist or maybe it just doesn't like the .h264 codec. Either way, we (as in me) are working hard to fix the problem. The trailer isn't messed up so bad since it only gets weird around the end. But the Teaser just loses all of the "punch". What a bother.

They're here!!!!!!

Here they are ladies and gentlemen, the teaser and trailer to DAVID HAMMERFIST HAMMERFISTS OF FURY!

Enjoy!




I know, I know, not much animation in there eh? Try this trailer on for size...



How's that? Excited? You should be! Now go tell your friends! Remember, you can now access this blog at www.davidhammerfist.com or www.HammerfistProductions.com

Stay tuned!

Comic Con trailers and more....

So JJ and I were at Comic-con this weekend promoting Hammerfist and it was TONS of fun! We Met a lot of cool people and we saw a lot of bad cosplayers.

While I know this might be a shorter post than you guys would want, let me just reassusre you that wheels are still moving. In fact, they are moving so well that we will have not one, but TWO trailers for you all to see! That's right, we will be posting ACTUAL ANIMATION from David Hammerfist: Hamerfists of Fury tomorrow!

Why not right now?

Well, the .mov files that we burned to our DVDs are on other computers in the Loyola Marymount animation lab and I am opting to use those master files rather than just rip it from our DVDs. Actually, given the time of this post, you are probably reading this post AFTER reading the post that I will post within the next 12 hours. Confused yet? DON'T BE! All you need to do right now is be psyched as hell for this short. I know that we have been really quiet as of late, but that is going to change very soon.

I would also like to announce that this blog is now accessible through the domain names www.hammerfistproductions.com and www.DavidHammerfist.com Right now it just redirects you here but, like I said, things will be changing soon...

I'll be back later with some moving pictures.

Heh...

...yeah.... so about that last media update....

We've all been "busy" with non-Hammerfist stuff. Matt had a birthday while I've been living in movie theaters seeing "the Dark Knight." Cant forget watching "Venture Bros" every week. But anyway, the film is done, so I guess there won't be any super cool updates except for behind the scenes photos n stuff. Speaking of which...

I really will post production pictures soon! I just found some more, making the total like, five! Also, expect a trailer soon! You know it'll be done because Matt and I plan to hand them out at Comic Con to people we meet! I just finished pass one of the trailer and I'm waiting for Matt's notes on it.

Now, onto festival talk. We'll be shipping off to Sundance and Slamdance in the next few days, so we're crossing our fingers! There are a number of other festivals that we'll be looking at, but those are priority one right now.

In sadder news, we were rejected from Telluride. They wouldn't specify, but I'm sure the fact that we sent off 2 days before the deadline for rolling admissions didn't help our chances...

In other news, we've got some fan are that I'll let Matt deal with on his next post, since he had a great idea of how to post it. It's pretty hot and sexy.

Anyhoo, glad some people still read the blog, and hopefully we'll be updating with some exciting news! Until next time...

-JJ

Not a whole lot to say...

Hey kids!

Not much to say right now. Matt and I are enjoying summer, even though we still need to change a fade-to-white to a fade-to-black. But once we do that, FINISHED. FOR GOOD.

Also, we've sent "Hammerfist" to our first film festival! I have no idea when we'll hear back, but rest DAMN assured that you chaps will be the first to know! You'll know before we know. We gave them the password to the blog and told them to post our acceptance. God I hope they dont post porn....

I'm rounding up a few behind the scenes pics right now, and I'll be sure to post them on Saturday. MY GOD! A MEDIA UPDATE!! WOO!

Until next time my young vikings!

-JJ

New Logo

Oh my god that is hot.

So JJ and I are compiling what will be for lack of a better term, the "festival cut" of HoF. It's not really going to change between now and...well....ever. I hope that we can cobble together a trailer soon.

One thing all of you can look forward to is seeing both JJ and I at Comic-con. No, we don't have a booth, but we'll be around so drop us a line of you want to talk with us and maybe if you're REALLY REALLY nice we'll show you some Hammerfist stuff....maybe.

Anyway, I'm going to try and update this page as much as possible, but for the foreseeable future there will not be much going on here. But by no means though are we done yet.

-Matthew & JJ

Update time!

Well, not much of an update. We're in this really obnoxious phase where we think we're done, but then we watch through the film and notice "Damn! David's hand isn't colored in frame 23 of seq03_scn21." So, we go to fix it, watch it again, and notice ten more things.

So, I guess I'll tell you about my day. I went to the premiere of a movie I interned on, and it was awesome. I then watched the season premiere of my favorite show ever, "The Venture Bros." It was amazing.

Oh! I've also been doodling some versions of David and Steve in different style, in preparation for my portfolio. Yes my friends, I plan to get a job one day... Anyhoo, if Matt approves, maybe those'll show up next week, since there's not much media-wise to post....

Tomorrow we have a meeting with Kathleen McInnis. She's the festival coordinator at LMU, and she's going to give us some advice about festivals. Hopefully, if the film's as sexy as everyone says it is, we'll be coming to a town near you! Assuming of course that there's a film festival in your town....

Anyway, I'm just procrastinating sleep at this point. Thanks for checking the blog, I hope I've held you over until we've got some juicy stuff! Hopefully in the next few weeks we'll have some festival info!

-JJ

PS. I still feel wrong that we let a 3 1/2 year old watch "Hammerfists of Fury." It's really gorey....

Damn Damn Damn!

Hey Guys!

So right now we are in the middle of Sound mixing. Literally, JJ and Corey are at POP sound right now putting together our final mix. Why am I not there? That's a very good question dear friend.

about a half hour ago I was there and we ran across a MAJOR hiccup in our final quicktime. So major that I have had to come back to Loyola and render out a new one while they go and continue to mix the audio. So yeah......real professional eh?

Anyway, after todays session Hammerfist will be pretty much done. Excuse me, Hammerfists of Fury will be done. David has quite a ways to go. Hopefully.

I just thought you guys would like an update as to what we are doing. We're submitting the film to a few festivals so we'll tell you guys about those when the time comes. JJ was taking pictures today so we'll probably post those later.

Gotta get back to the Studio! Later!

Hold up! We're still here!

Hey guys! Wow! It's been one hell of a week (two weeks?) and I'm sorry we haven't updated the blog lately. Anyway, let me give you the down and dirty on whats been going on with David the Hammerfist of Fury:

May 7th we premiered the film at LMU's Mayer Theater during the Animation department's screening. It was a packed audience and there were a bunch of great films shown. DH:HoF was the last film on the bill and the audience ate it up! It was a resounding success that ended with the Dean of our school complimenting JJ on our hard work. But the best part is that She also offered to help us revise our sound design

*Short story*

In the last few hours of production JJ and I were throwing everything together like crazy and then we realized that we had not finalized sound. We quickly taught ourselves Soundtrack Pro and threw together a "final" mix for the screening.

*End Short story*

The mix $&%#ing sucked. Levels were off, you couldn't hear our wonderful score by the great Ric Zimmerman and....well if there was a weak point to the film, the audio mixing was it.

Well now that has all changed! We got introduced to Corey E. and now she is helping with the mixing of the film. And from what we've heard so far, things are sounding 1000 times better than they were. at the end of the month we are going into the studio to mix the whole thing into 5.1 surround and after that, this film will be done.

Don't worry though! We will still be updating this blog. We're going to have a trailer up soon and then who knows what. The sky is the limit, and you guys could very soon be seeing some good old fashioned David Hammerfist comic strips popping up here. Anyway, hope this clears up our reasons for the long silence.

Talk to you guys soon!

-Matthew

40 hours to go...

Matt and I have about 40 hours until the final deadline. In that time, we've got to:

1. Color around 60 scenes
2. Clean two final scenes
3. Assemble a rough sound design
4. Finish watching the "Star Wars" trilogy
5. Assemble the project
6. Render the project
7. Ignore the need for sleep

Lock and Load!

-JJ

May 1st! Wasn't that deadline?

Yes indeed it is/was!

So hear is the deal. JJ and I have basically been living in the studio for the past 4 weeks and I think two weeks ago we hooked our vital organs into the wall. Translation: we have been living and breathing Hammerfist. And the status?

Close. Very very close, but not done yet.

All of cleanup is done and half the film is compiled. We've been slowly working on sound design and will wrap that this weekend. As far as this thesis goes for a grade, it's averaging pretty well. The officially premier of the film will be on May 7th at Loyola Marymount University's Mayer Theater. But Monday is the definitive cut off date for the student project of David Hammerfist: Hammerfist of Fury. After that day everything that we will fine tue in the film will be just that: fine tuning.

JJ and I have already thrown around some ideas on what to do with Hammerfist afterwards.

But I'll get into that at a later date. We'll update with some media sometime this weekend.

5(?) Days until Deadline.

Don't really have time to talk. Must. finish. Badass. Animation.

Here are some pictures for your perusal:

Toonshading.

Hey cats!
Here's my late Saturday night/Sunday morning post for the week. We've got some great and exciting news.

1. 12 days until due date.

2. Matt got an external hard drive, so now our project exists in three places. I pray that's enough to avoid a catastrophe this close to due date.

3. 90% of the backgrounds are completed and dropped into scene files. They look awesome, and we've been getting nothing but positive feedback from everyone we show. In addition to that, Matt's expected to finish phase one of the cleanup tonight. That excludes two particularly long sequences, but aside from that, all the cleanup will be done.

4. We've just about completed the biggest crapshoot step of the process. We're lazy, so we decided that instead of drawing a biplane, we would animate it in Maya and composite that into the ToonBoom file. Sounds great, but we had no idea how we were really gunna pull it off.

I guess we always knew we would toonshade it, but I was super skeptical about toonshading because I almost universally hate the effect. The shader creates a "2d" looking image, but the shadows/shading still moves like a 3d object, so it looks like crap. With that in mind, I came up with a solution that I think works pretty darn well.

Note: the BG in this scene is a temp. The David is also rough and uncolored. The plane effect is completed.

STEP 1:
We start with a simple model from Maya.



STEP 2:
From there, I use the toonshade effect in Maya. This makes all of the colors a flat tone. No shadows or gradients that are usually present in 3d images.

I intentionally rendered it as one tone. It is possible to render a toon-shadow, but as I ranted above, I think it looks cheap and crappy, and I found a better solution.



STEP 3:
This is where I was sold on toonshading. Rather than using the above-mentioned "3d shading," I imported the flat toonshaded biplane into ToonBoom and applied a "highlight" and a "tone" effect to the image, giving it shading/highlights that are consistent with the rest of the film and that move like a 2d image, rather than a 3d model.



This isnt the coolest render of the effect, but those ones would be spoiler-ish. Anyway, Matt and I are really happy with the effect, and we're even happier since most of those scenes are finished now. I've got two left, I think.

Speaking of scenes left, I'd better get back to work. Look forward to next week, because if we dont have some clips and/or a trailer to show, that means this film's f**ked.

-JJ

Hey folks! Is this actually an update on Saturday? Eh, technically its not, since it's 2:30 on Sunday morning, but close enough, eh?

Here's some final, rendered stills from "David Hammerfist: Hammerfists of Fury." Matt and I are pretty darn excited with how well this film is looking, and I certainly hope you all are too!

Anyway, words are boring, so enjoy some more stills from our thesis film!






-JJ

background Backgrounds BACKGROUNDS!!!!

Hey guys!
I've had a really great night, so I thought I'd drop a little update!

First thing's first: Garlic Scrambled Eggs.

Incredible meal. I needed a 12:30am dinner, so I cooked these babies up and said "Hell with it! Garlic works on everything!" I am one step closer to proving that idea. Three eggs with Garlic and Tomatoes shall be my new favorite meal.

Next: I'm finally starting to get into a groove for Sequence 03! Last night I got five BGs done, and tonight I got six! To put this into perspective, the most I'd completed in one night was probably 3... yeah....

At this rate, backgrounds will be done by next Wednesday. I'm giving myself until Friday though. I like buffer zones.

Lastly: two completed scenes from "David Hammerfist: Hammerfists of Fury" were screened on Wednesday in Mayer Theater as a color test. Sadly, I had class and Matt passed out, so we missed the screening. Good news is that everyone seems to really, REALLY like what they saw. So, expect a still or two show up with this weekend's "Saturday" update.

Anyway, time to move the computer chairs into bed position and get some sleep. Naked people class is at 9:30!

-JJ

87/158

That fraction represents the number of completed background over the total number of backgrounds. I've got a long way to go, but I'm pretty confident that I'll be finished in the next two weeks. We'll see about that...

Anyway, I thought I'd hook you guys up with a background from sequence 03 that I did last night. I think it's pretty keen!



Anyway, I'll try to update a little more frequently.

Matt and I have some help with coloring the images, so we might be able to cut a trailer pretty soon. We'll keep you posted on that! We'll certainly have a trailer up before the screening, which is on May 7th.

-JJ

Hammerweek= semi sucess

So it was a grueling week, but I got a lot done. I'm not into the stages of coloring just yet but I did get a few people to start prepping for the color jobs. I'm not completely done cleaning up either. I still have half of sequence 3 to do. But I got a lot done. And it will look all the more rad when it is finished (yes, I said "rad").

JJ is hard at work on backgrounds too. Those are looking better and better each day. All in all the project is running semi-smoothly. We don't get outside much, but it is still fun.

On a completely different note, I'd like to take a moment of silence for one of the most manly of men to have ever lived: Mr. Charlton Heston.








I don't think it is a far assumption that the manliness of David was somewhat inspired by Mr. Heston. Everyone loves a character with a "I don't give two shits" attitude.

And David does have that attitude. David is the type of man that will dine with the devil just to find is weakness.



And on that note, I will return to working like hell to finish this movie.

HAMMERWEEK!

Wow! It's been way too long since an update. We've been going full force on the film these past few weeks and it has eaten away at our school, social lives and sleep. It'll all be worth it though. This week is especially important as I've dubbed it HAMMERWEEK. Basically, HAMMERWEEK means that I will live on campus for the next week in an attempt to maximize productivity. There is still about 1 third of the film left to clean up and that isn't even counting coloring. With less than 5 weeks left to finish this film it will be a much needed bridge to cross.

I'll be sleeping in the Animation labs, my girlfriend's futon (who still lives on campus) and perhaps other places as well. Here are the rule for what I've dubbed HAMMERWEEK:

1) 15 hours of working time in the lab everyday.
2) At least 4 hours of consecutive sleep each day, and a shower.
3) Only one 30-60 minute nap in the middle of the day.
4) I can only leave campus to get food once every two days. All other meals are either delivery or on campus dining.
5) I am only allowed one extracurricular event to attend to during the school week. Once Saturday begins, the rules will be adjusted accordingly.
6) Coloring also needs to start making a head way-whether that be by my hand or someone else that I train to do for me.
7) By the end of the week, the majority of Clean-up should be done. If not, HAMMERWEEK extends into the week after one day of rest.
8) HAMMERWEEK begins at 10pm this Sunday (March 30th) night.

And those are the rules of HAMMERWEEK. Crazy? Yes. Required? Yes. Healthy? .....we'll see.

Wish me luck guys! I'll update through the week on my progress!

And the time keeps crunching

Hey guys. Sorry it's been so long in-between updates lately. The heat of the productions is wearing JJ and I down, but it's nothing we cannot handle. Principle animation is completely done and we are in the middle of cleanup and finalizing backgrounds. There are almost as many backgrounds as there are scenes....so about 150(!)

Due date is about 6 weeks away so things are beginning to come down to the wire. Lots of coloring and sound editing to do. I'm gong to be gone this next weekend because of the holidasy, but that is why I'm busting my ass extra hard this week so that I can stay on track. I just finished cleaning up the hardest shot in the entire film and I would say it looks damn good. I wish we could show you some video but why ruin the surprise. All of you will see it soon enough if you really want to. For now though, ou guys will just have to settle for some screenshots. Here is another one of our beautiful backgrounds from JJ!



Simple yet effective.

A picture's worth what?

Well...THAT didn't happen...

I am not at the 2/3 mark in clean up like I wanted to be at the end of this weekend. I won't make the 2/3 mark by tomorrow. *sigh* These fight scene sequences are HARD. Usually full bodied poses and multiple characters. YIKES! I'm not trying to give any excuses but I just thought I should have an explanation for you guys. It has been a fun week though. I literally was in the lab all day long each day working on scenes. Also, JJ and I broke down and bought the Blockbuster all-access pass so we can check out as many movies as we need to keep us from going crazy.

I'm also told that rough animation is pretty much done. WOW. That's quite a feat considering what this beast of a film is, and it is just that: A Beast. Opening, main animation and credits included, this film is going to run close to 10 minutes-far from the original 5 minute plan and miles away from our teacher's "recommended" 2 minute thesis length. The way I see it, I wanted to tell a fun story and not worry about going all "disneyish" with the animation. Although I think our animation creeps a bit away from the Hanna-Barbera dold-for-4-seconds-and-move-mouth-and-eyes and goes into...well, lets just say that JJ wasn't really taking any shortcuts (that most of you will notice) in his primary animation work.

Anyway, it's late and I have to get up somewhat early tomorrow. Sorry there is no media update this week. I promise we'll have something good next week. Maybe even something for Tuesday if you guys are good and give this site plenty of hits. And no, refreshing your browser doesn't count...I'll know.

Til' next time!

-Matthew

Holy CRAP!

Only 0:59 to go?! Man....I have to catch up. I have plenty to work on this week but I'm hoping to hit a nice 2/3s done mark for our film. All in all things are shaping up.

WHile JJ may have nothing to show, the 0:59 factoid shows that he has clearly been doing something. Me on the other hand, I've been in San Francisco...not doing Hammerfist stuff (Shame on me shame on me)! I'm not happy about it, but that is the way the ball rolls. While I was there, I got to go to that comic shop a top the Sony Metreon. They were having a 35% off sale so I couldn't help myself-I got Young Avengers Hardcover, Madman Vol. 1, and Spyboy Vol. 2. I love Peter David, and I loved the entire first volume of Young Avengers but Madman? Well, it was a shot in the dark for me and I must say it is absolutely FANTASTIC!

Anyway, I thought I'd rant about my weekend a bit to you guys. And hey! You guys got two updates today...Consider yourself lucky.

As for later ths week we should have a solid update as to where we are in Hammerfist. Coloring will be starting this week as well, so we'll be getting finalized images to you guys more and more as time goes on.

Hope you guys have a great week! And feel free to suggest any movies that JJ and I should watch this week. I think I'm going to convince JJ to watch the Robocop movies with me....I have yet to see them.

-Matthew

"Stay on target..."

I've got nothing to show, really, but I do have a little update:

Over the weekend I've watched quite a few things. It keeps me entertained while I work!
1. X-men
2. Suspiria
3. X-Files, season 1 (yes, all of it)

I'll update as time goes on!

-JJ

PS: I've got 0:59 left to animate!

I'll be back....on Tuesday

Hey all,

Well, I'm in San Francisco right now for a journalism conference so I have a couple days off from Hammerfist. While I'm grateful for the downtime, it does feel like I'm wasting my time. With a little over two months until the deadline JJ and I have a lot to do! Thankfully it is spring break this week and once I get back on Tuesday, I'll start on my ridiculous quota of cleaning up 20 scenes.

Speaking of scenes, the film is officially 1/3 cleaned up. Not too shabby. Well, I've go to go, but JJ and I put together something special for this week's media update. You see, up until last week I had never seen Terminator 1 or 2. JJ found that completely unacceptable and we rectified it with a nice little marathon. Gotta admit, they live up to the hype. Anyway, we put together what we like to call........

HAMMERNATOR 2!

enjoy

The Week Before Break

Hello all! Long time no see! And I do apologize for that. JJ and I have been working our asses off lately trying to get sequences done. We're still on schedule, but GEEZ! we have a ways to go.

In order to get this project all done we have enlisted the help from a couple of our friends in the grades below (Don't worry, they came willingly to the project) and some of these guys are amazing. One of our longest shots (a full twelve seconds) was animated by our friend Brenden and it looks fabulous! The character model is rough though so it makes my job a bit hard. At the same time, the primary animation within the scene needs to be cleaned up well to do it justice. The scene is 174 individual full bodied frames of David running (among other things) and will be a pain in my side for the next week or so as I slowly chip away at it.

Speaking of next week, Loyola Marymount has Spring Break starting this Friday! I will be in San Francisco until Tuesday at a journalism/cartooning thing and then I will return to LA and throw my nose to the grindstone. JJ and I will be going all out. Hopefully a lot will get done.

Anyway, next week we'll have a fun media update (aren't they all fun?) that doesn't have much to do with HoF, but will have to do with the Hammerfist characters. Until then, here's Dave doing what he does....action poses!

Update, kinda

Eh, not much to say. I met quota, Matt's right on track. Things are sexy! We have four sequences in the film.

Sequence one is the intro, about a minute. Sequence two is more like Act 1, and about 2 and a half minutes. Sequence three is definitely Act 2, and also about two minutes. Sequence four is Act 3 and the resolution, which covers another two and a half minutes.

Total, we've got about eight minutes.

I'm about thirty seconds from the end of Sequence four, and then I'm going back to animate Sequence three.

Out of the total, we have four and a half minutes roughed, which includes all but one of the hardest scenes!

I hope this update interests SOMEONE. Until the next post...

-JJ

Oh man!

Hey everyone.
I'm really tired, so I'll make it quick. So far, I'm about 4 shots away from being on track for this week. That's about... eh, 12 seconds of animation left in order to meet my 45 second quota. Meeting this week's quota means that I've hit quota every week, or made up the slack if I didn't make it. Thought you'd might be interested!!!

-JJ

P.S. I just did a really great scene of David. He's very sad in the scene.

The Tuesday/Saturday post

Yeah, so we didn't update on Tuesday....so sue us. Anyway, part of the reason we didn't update was because there isn't much new to tell you guys about. Not that there isn't any progress, it's just more of the same. JJ is animating and I am doing cleanup. Currently my folder is full of about 31 scenes that need cleanup. Almost all of those are cleaned up and will most definitely be clean by the end of Sunday. Unfortunately there are about 150 scenes....so....we have a while. But it'll all get done. Most of these have been done in the past 3 weeks so I think I'll be ok....

Although there is always the chance that I am just lying to myself. While I was doing my cleanup tonight I got to a pretty fun picture of the Steve character. I thought that I'd just share that with you guys.


With Steve we are having lots of fun animating him. He's a bit squirrelly, but man is he funny.

We'll be back on Tuesday with a nice little progress update.

Spring Cleaning

Hey guys! Matthew here with the Saturday media update (on Sunday)! Tonight I'll show you an example of cleanup from me. So here's JJ rough that I got (I've adjusted the levels a bit in Photoshop to make it more readable to you.



and then here is my final cleanup without our final background (we'll get to that later).




So yeah...some of JJ's roughs are a bit cleaner than others but since we are under going to be constantly under the gun until due date it really is up to me to be speedy enough to make these final frames look fabulous.

See you guys on Tuesday!

Not a whole lot to say...

Hey everyone, thought I'd give a little update. Animation has slowed lately. I've been working on some sequences that really, REALLY suck. A lot of running/fighting in perspective. If interaction between characters wasnt hard enough, doing it in proper perspective is 10x worse!

That said, these scenes are looking really good once I get em done. I also think I'm finishing up the second to last of the really hard ones. Seq04_scn10 is going to take a few days though. It's got David running to camera in a sideways banana pan, the running up a slope in more perspective. Pain in the hiney! But it's going to look sooo cool!

I was chatting with Matt, and we're thinking that you'll see a trailer up by the end of February, so keep your eyes peeled on that last Saturday of the month!

Enough procrastination. I've got some running to draw!

-JJ

The Final Countdown

No, I'm not talking about where we are in the production schedule, I'm talking about our special surprise today.

Ladies and gentlemen, after many many delays I present to you

David Hammerfist: The Final Countdown!


Just a bit of back story, this is the first appearance of our hero David Hammerfist and it originated as my 220 film here at Loyola Marymount University. It's not very good to be honest with you, but there are some great ideas and some pretty well executed dialog if I do say so myself. The film was created entirely by me. I animated. I inked it. I colored it. I cast and recorded the voices. The only things that are not by me are the couple of stills during the closing credits. This film was first created in the Fall of 2005, but this version is brand spanking new. I fixed some weird camera moves and re-edited/re-made the ending using new footage from a flash game version of the story that I made in Fall 2006. The game experimented with some 3D effects that I think looked much better. You decide on the results, but I assure it is superior to what was there. So while this film still may not be Disney-hell, not even Hanna-Barbera quality, it does have some life to it. As well as an early Steve: The Indecisive Tile Customer. Whom I just can't get enough of.

So I really hope for two things by posting this. 1) It will hype everyone up for HoF and 2) All of you will share it with your friends and spread it around the net.

I think the content already posted on this site already shows how much better Hammerfist of Fury will be than The Final Countdown so I hope you will all stay tuned.

Oh, and make sure you watch all the way through the credits for a classic David rant about America.

-Matthew

2 minutes

We officially have over two minutes of rough animation done. Rough. I'm the cleanup guy, so that means I have a lot of work to do. For those of you unsure of what "cleanup" does, its really where I come in and give definite lines to JJ's primary animation and then I add in some secondary animation. What is the difference between Primary and secondary animation you say?

Well, imagine someone turning around quickly to swipe with a sword. The general turning around movement, and the movement of the sword would be considered primary animation. But if that was all that moved, it would look a bit stale right? That's where secondary animation comes in. The movement of the character's hair, and small details in the clothes, those would be considered secondary animation (as far as I know).

It can get pretty time consuming too! Originally I thought things were taking long to clean up because I was doing some of the tougher, more full bodied sequences. But I'm realizing that we have a lot of complex shots that need some very specific details to make them read well. So....uh....yeah, we have a long way to go. The project runs about 7 minutes so you do the math.

God help me.

Oh and for those of you interested, the SURPRISE will be going up this weekend. It WILL BE GOING UP. It is all done and ready, I just need to throw it on the page. Wonderful. Tell your friends.

Stay Frosty

Media Update

Yeah. It's Sunday again and I forgot to post a media update. Sorry guys! I got something pretty cool this week though. I just figured out compositing in ToonBoom, so now I can export full res still shots.

This is sequence02, scene37. Does that mean anything to anyone? Probably not. But that's what it is! This also has a temp background in it, in addition to the rough drawings that I've done. Maybe I can talk Matt into inking/coloring for next week so you can see what it will look like in the film.



Anyway, I hope this holds you over until my next post of sexiness!

-JJ

Bad news for you guys

So you know that thing I keep promising you guys? Well, it's locked away in my hard drive. I can't find the DAMN power cord for my Maxtor hard drive and thus I am unable to deliver it. Rest assured we have all Hammerfists looking into the situation in order to try and get our "SPECIAL PRESENT" for you guys. It's a damn shame, really.

Anyway, production is in full swing and I've begun to do clean-up on JJ's primary animations. Maybe in a future post we'll put up some comparison shots of what JJ give me, and what I put out. And I put out a lot. Of animation. Hopefully.

On the music front we have some very nice options so far, but we are still trying to see if we can get some orchestrated pieces. It's a big task to tackle (not to mention expensive), but we think that it would be worth it and fitting to the Hammerverse. So...if any of you know some discount orchestras that we can commission, feel free to drop us a line!

All that being said, this project is still tons of fun! JJ is really working his ass off and I need to catch up. Unfortunately I have other school obligations that keep me away from the lab more than I would like-not to mention it's nice to sleep in my own bed every once in a while and have a nice hot shower in the morning. Hope you guys are enjoying the updates and once again I apologize that our "SPECIAL SURPRISE" has been delayed so long.

-Matt

Good news, everybody!

Hey guys!
I know I missed the Saturday media post, but I was really wrapped up animating... and watching Star Trek... Oops! Anyway, I threw something cool together for you, to give everyone an idea of where we are in terms of animation!



Enjoy tomorrow's holiday everyone!

-JJ

The way things work...

Hey all,
Just a little update for you guys about updates!

Matt and I spoke and since it looks like we're actually getting hits we came to a sort of... structure for the blog. Of course, things are probably going to be changed/fudged, but here's the general layout:

During the week, Matt and I will each post at least once, usually just some kind of funny story about production, saying we hit a landmark, etc. Word-stuff.

Saturday nights will be the nights to look for, because that is when we will be posting the cool stuff. If we've got a trailer, it'll show up on a Saturday night. If no video, then definately some kind of media. Sound clips, pictures, music sample. All that stuff.

So! Now you know when to be looking out for stuff! I think this Saturday would be a good day to start checkin for big stuff! (I've got nothing now... but I'll think of something!)

On a little note, Matt and I are speaking to people about music now. I hope to know where the music will be coming from by next Thursday.

Until next time,

-JJ

Back together again!

Hey guys! I just got back from a meeting with JJ tonight. Yes, that means that we are both officially back from our winter breaks. That means much more content more often for you guys. I know it's been 10 days since the last update, but things are speeding up. I know I always say that, but I really mean it this time. In fact, I think you can all look forward to updates at least once a week, most likely two from now on.


Tomorrow or the day after we will have a special video for all of you to check out. So come back then and bask in the youtube goodness. And yes, it IS Hammerfist related. I think you will all like it.

Well, I know this is a short update but just stay with us.

Here's a small preview to hold you over...

Yeah, it's a bit crude...but you will all find out why in about two days!

Wait....there are that many of you?

Well, it has come to my attention (at 5 in the morning) that there are actually people checking this site. I know that kind of sounds odd for a creator to say about his own website, but I honestly did not think there were too many people checking this page out (aside from a couple friends). But recently it has been brought to my attention by a few people that David Hammerfist actually does INTEREST them.

Whoda thought?

Anyway, I decided that given this new knowledge I should go ahead and tell all you incoming people that there is much much more to come. Now that the storyboarding phase is over, we will have a lot more material to show. I am also working on some EXCLUSIVE material for this blog as well. So basically this a post to tell you guys to STAY WITH US and be patient. Tell your friends! Link to us! And if you do link to us, send JJ or me your site and we'll post it here!

As for that cool little thing I promised for after New Years? It's still coming, I just do not have direct access to it right now at this moment. So its coming.....promise.

Oh, and Happy (belated) New Year!


P.S. Tell us what you guys think so far.