First four shots from scene 1B. Still need a little work, but close to final. I didn't know til recently that if you import a .psd file into After Effects, it preserves layer masks. Which is handy. So I can do a quick temp job on the masking for the dudes. And somebody else can go back in later and improve them.

Wish I could upload in higher res.

1B is happening pretty quick. Not much longer now.

Scene 1B wide shot comp test. Gonna need some photoshopping. I bought the horses. They're little plastic ones. They ain't gonna move, so why not. Might try to put dudes on them. Via photoshop.

1B soldiers comp test. Dudes pictured may be final, assuming Dave doesn't hate my lighting too much.

This is a fun-ass scene. Gonna toss in a couple up-close wide-angle shots. Kind of a Eisenstein 'Alexander Nevsky' kinda thing. This thing should scare kids pretty good. In a good way.

Sho' is hard doing this stuff while making a living and having a career.

Tests for scene 1B. Gonna be real fun. Gonna shoot an assload of soldiers, matte em' out, and stick em in. Then gonna parallax the shit outta them.

Been busy learning After Effects stuff. So I can get more work and not starve. Would rather be playing with dolls though.

I dunno if this is gonna work (shopping in a background. Doesn't look bad small, but I don't think it's workable when you sees it full size. May have to make at least one layer of trees, etc.

Gibbet. Gross. Not quite done. Gotta rusty up the cage and build pole it all hangs from. Gross.

Backgrounds. Without building them. HDR pics of the woods. May combine Woods HDR with built foregrounds. These BGs is no good. Too much direct sunlight. I.E. too many hotspots, which makes for a busy composition.

The rusty guys are the 'hell soldiers'. I really wanted to avoid the fantasy-Warhammer look for em. More like a crude mockery of the real. Or something. Sho' is a lot of stuff in this film. Gee whizz. That's it for the soldiers though.

I think I made seven jackets, seven helmets, assorted belts, bandolier, one pouch, one pike, a halberd, a matchlock, a musket stand, two flags, 6 breastplates, etc. Beaucoup crap considering how little sceen time they get. But it was fun.

Maybe two more tiny flags. Something that isn't orange.

Almost done the soldier business. Which is good, as i'm getting a bit sick of it.

A couple more wee things, then that's it for the soldiers. Should probably make some pants. Gonna make a couple cheap heads, but that process involves alot of waiting. Gonna do that concurrently.

A few flags are the next step.

Helmets

They ain't quite period (1640-1670). Or rather they are, but they of a rare type and not worn by pikemen. But who cares. Their benefit is clear - they hide the face. And if i'm assembling an army out of interchangable parts, sho' is easier if I don't need to build an army of heads. They gots some HDR going on. Most of the soldiers will be non-animated stills, so i'll be able to HDR em' if I want.

This head is a little too big for this armature and the helmets. Gonna make a couple cheap-looking heads that are a bit smaller.

Soldiers

There's a couple scenes where soldiers stand around as extras. And there's an ear;y scene where there's an assload of them. An army - though we won't see but a part of the army. And they'll be almost all just stills (no animation) To get around the impossibility of making an army, i'm making a bunch of accessories, all built for the same armature. So I can mix and match interchangable bits to make 'new' costumes.

Boy, sure is alot of stuff in this movie, I was pretty cavalier when planning this thing. Beaucoup props. This was a fun one though. Only one day. Feels like i'm spoiling myself, getting to see something from start to finish in one day. Might do something tedious tommorrow, or spoil myself more with more quick stuff.

Need some extras; 16th century armour and weapons. Fun.

Now I gotta polish off the interior. Don't want to spend too long on it; i'm already over my time budget for the carriage.

I took one of these pictures and some frames of other characters from other scenes, and put them together in a shot it AE. Very useful to do. I noticed that, of all the surface area in the interior, there's actually only a couple little spots that get alot of screen time. I.E. I should spend my time on these spots. Rather than making a really nice floor, for example.

Some slightly-out of date pictures (a couple days old). The pictures seem to turn out better when they start as full-size jpegs. See the little footstep thing below the door? That's what I was making when I hacked my finger. It just had to have that little compound curve on it.

Gave my finger a bit of a slice on Sunday. Had to get stitches. It happened in some strange sequence of events - blade got stuck in a block of wood, snapped, block of wood slipped. Or something like that. But I can still work. Though my right hand isn't as mobile as before.

Inches away from being done the carriage. Should be able to make the cushions for the inside today. Might add some paint to the inside - a nice naval buff maybe.

Fooling around with what the lighting might be like for the climactic scene.

Getting close to done. Still some details left to do. Haven't attached the cab to the undercarriage yet. Gonna be careful about the wheel placement. Back wheels need to be a bit more forward, and the cab about 1/4" higher. Might add paint to the undercarriage. The brownness is a little suffocating.

Just so everybody knows, I have to moderate all comments on my blog. 19 out of 20 are porn-site spammers trying to increase their Google rating.

Allright. Now I finally have some time/inclination to write a little. Not much of a blogger. Would rather work.

Carriage is getting pretty close to done. The glossiness is creating alot of work. I'm not even sure if it's a good idea. The 'boot' (sticky-outy part at the front of the carriage) was glossy, but I was finding it to hard to get it smooth. Balsa don't varnish very well. So I gave it a final sand and gave it a coat of matte polyurethane. I'm digging the bright orange. It's the official orange of the film. Gonna make multiple appearances - the carriage, Lord William's flag, his footmen, and the dress he gives Anna Maria.

The wheels weren't easy. Took lot of head scratching before I figured out a way to do it. Couldn't cut them out of a large single piece of balsa, as balsa snaps easily along the grain. So I laminated two pieces together, with the grain perpendicular. Then I hacked them out with a blade. The result was crude, but I found that gluing a thin piece of basswood along the inside and outside fixed up the wonkiness.

Getting there. The undercarriage is pretty silly. I like it. Very swoopy.

I'm gonna change the colour scheme a little. Gonna replace the reddish-brown panel (see top photos) with a bright red orange. Also gonna keep wet sanding and painting the orange and black until they're nice and smooth.

Gonna have to build the damn wheels soon.

The assembly (bottom half of top photo) is the fore part of the undercarriage. It's not realistic and doesn't function, but it doesn't matter. Just has to give the impression of a bunch of metal junk down there.

I slapped some stain on the carriage in its 'wood planking' state. It was all wrong. Looked very rustic and earthy. The owner of this carriage is supposed to be aristocracy. I began laboriously filling and sanding, and priming, and filling more, and sanding, and priming. Trying to get an automotive-like finish. Not perfect, but enough to sell it.