Animated about 40k

I seem to be doing more and more posts about fluff at the moment, I'm still working on the Scouts as promised in my last post.

This post is very much one about tangents. In my post-before-last, ironically on "distractions" I posted a doodle that got out of hand to become an image of my Space Marine Chapter's homeworld, complete with starfield and lens flare.

This week I thought I'll recycle that line drawing to make an animated gif of the planet spinning, in a wireframe style. In the end I had to redraw it having done some work for Colonel Scipio and accidentally overwriting my original. And the animation project evolved. A bit.



Hitchhiker's Guide to Mawdryn
Whilst working on the animation my mind was drawn, as it often is, to the fantastic animations of the 1980 TV series Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - hand drawn and designed to look like computer animation, I thought it would be good to try and emulate this, computer animation trying to look like traditional aniamtion that was trying to look like computer animation. Simple. As such, I ended up doing much of it frame by frame - I am a sadist. Taking this train of thought further I thought a little animation would be a great way of covering game fluff and background - now I don't have to worry whether my fellow gamers have read the hefty tomes I mercilessly email out (to be fair, you should see Scipio's, I nearly had to defrag my PC after downloading it, but it was worth it as it is pure awesome). Without further ado, here is my work in progress animation "Hitchhiker's Guide to Mawdryn" - it's very brief and contains temporary filler text (warning: attempt at humour!). It is very brief, but given I did a lot by hand it took several hours :'(


The original file can be viewed in better quality here

Adeptus Mechanicus Cogitator Interface
As if that wasn't enough, I thought it needed a front end, a login screen of sorts for a 40k computer (or cogitators and data looms as they call them...). This led to a further tangent. In the darkest recesses of my files are some vague sketches of a short 40k animation about the Adeptus Mechanicus. What's not to love about a Clergy of Technology. I decided that I would pick up this project again and take my time on it (so as not to interfere with actual modelling and painting, and recycle the below interface). Again this is work in progress with no soundtrack - when I do more expect lots of Spectrum zx81 sounds and music inspired by Delia Derbyshire - I always imagined the Adeptus Mechanicus would like 1960s electronic/organic, reel-to-reel music. Here is the work in progess "cogitator interface" with a more oscilloscope inspired look than the former.


It's better to watch on YouTube at 480, expanded screen. Or view the original file here

I promise my next post will avoid these tangents and will actually be about a proper hobby topic...

Disclaimer: This is a fan-made project for personal use, all relevant names and trademarks are property of Games Workshop and no claim nor infringement upon their Intellectual Property is intended.

Comments

  1. These are awesome! I know not the vagaries of your techno-sorcery, but stuff like this would make great resources for campaigns and such. I would be willing to trade you some hobby work for something like this for some of my army fluff or campaign background.

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    1. Thanks very much Chris. I'd be more than happy to put something together for you, just let me know the details and I'll sketch something out

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  2. Very cool stuff! Love how the Cogitator interface is coming along!

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  3. No, hefty tomes are good! Keep 'em coming...

    Really nice stuff, although hope it's not so time consuming that there won't be more... and I think sound is really one of those 'forgotten senses' (along with pretty much all the senses except vision) that we don't think enough about in the hobby. 40K single just around the corner?

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  4. This is really really cool. Please don't avoid these tangents, I love them!

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  5. Echoing everyone else, that is way cool. Both of them look great. Let the tangents continue.

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  6. Thanks everyone for the comments, I genuinely appreciate them. As much as sometimes I wish I could avoid tangents, it's never going to happen.... expect plenty more!

    Sound is something I think is really important - especially with the AdMech lot and their lingua-technis, I'm going to try and emulate that while trying not to take all this *too* seriously though lol

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