Platform Site Update

 

Aaaand the updated Platform website is done!!! Complete with a new layout, updated content, and a URL that actually makes sense! Let's celebrate with this creepy creepy infographic I made about Sehens.

This all stems from the fact that old Google sites is, sadly, going away, and I really hate the look of the new service. So, I've gone through all my old Google sites and deleted the ones that I no longer use (with many a tear...) But the Platform is something that I still use, so I needed to find a new place for it. So I tried out Wordpress, and I think I was able to make something even better than the old version! It looks much cleaner. It'll still be sad to get rid of the old site, though -- so much of the Platform world-building was written for that site, since I was fifteen and writing whatever came to the top of my head just to fill space (and only later came to flesh it out). Ahh, youth.

I also went and updated a whole lot of pages while doing this, since so many of them (looking at you, cities page...) were painfully outdated or very bare-bones. So, the cities, religions, and culture pages have been completely overhauled, and the species and Sehen pages have received some major updates, too! All this updating really made the site transfer an undertaking, though -- it took me almost two weeks to get everything ready. But now it is! Yay.

My wrists hurt. A lot of these updated pages are long...

Mama's Gun MAP Part

 

These are just... Very fun to make. 

I think it's because they're so short, honestly -- I can make a 30 second, independent project and experiment all I like while not feeling roped into any long-term commitment. Just a nice little way to test stuff out! Very fun. And it was also fun to get to draw some of my favorite aesthetic elements in this one: ominous Victorian architecture, harsh lighting, unnerving animal symbolism, and Sehens. 

...Only three of those are things that I actually like to draw, though. Oh my gosh, the backgrounds in this thing. You see how every shot has a fish-eyed background with no straight lines? That serves two purposes. Firstly, I can write it off as adding to the weird unnatural feeling that I'm going for. But secondly, if my lines are a little out of place because I just flew by the seat of my pants when drawing them, no one notices. But if perfect two-point perspective is off, then everyone notices. 

Either way, I'd say this is my favorite MAP part I've made! Of two, but still. I'd like to do more in the future! As always, I've written more about the project in the video's Youtube description, but for the sake of being redundant, I'm gonna cut it short here. Enjoy!

Bruno is Orange MAP Part

Oooh boy, a lot of firsts with this one! My first MAP part ever, my first time using OpenToonz, my first time uploading a video and then taking it down like two hours later because I noticed a mistake and having to reupload it... Ahhh. Either way, though, this was so extremely fun! I had a blast getting to make this, endless thanks to the MAP host for letting me be a part of it. : )

For those not familiar with MAPs, a MAP (Multi-Animator Project) is an animated video, normally to a song of some kind, made by lots of different people.The host puts out a MAP call, asking people to sign up and volunteer to animate small parts of the song. Then, when everyone's done, they put all the parts all together into one big video and upload it! A super fun thing to get to do, and a great way to get to make very short projects as practice and to experiment with things.

I also got to animate baby-faced Blik and Vera, which is always a fun time. The story is explained more in the video description!

Since this was my first time using OpenToonz (and, oh my gosh, is it better than Movie Maker), and I have a terrible memory, I also wrote up a quick tutorial for how I do some things in OpenToonz! It's very simple and not hugely in-depth, but if you just want to make something simple like this and don't know where to start, I think it can help.