Progress Update on The Turned – Intro Scene Rebuild Continues…

Greetings! Work continues, albeit slowly. Between the day job, all the woodwork, and getting hit with a spark of an idea for another (!) story to write, my work on The Turned has slowed down.

My current task is to return to the Introduction and Scene 1 animation, and rebuild them. I had learned a lot in the process of making those two videos, and all the shots that went into them. By the time I got to Scene 2, I had built character models that were identifiable, and gotten much better at the particulars of animation. Once Scene 6 was complete, I decided to rebuild the first two attempts to better match the rest. Once that is done, I plan to make one long video of the whole thing, up thru Scene 6, so it’s easier to follow.

Here’s my work so far – a side-by-side comparison of each shot. If I may say so, great improvements have been made. Hope you like it. And please, stick around – the story just gets better and weirder from here.

The Turned will be free-to-watch in its completed form. If you think the project is worth a donation, you can head to ko-fi.com/curvestories. Every dime is appreciated.

Thanks again for joining me on this crazy journey!

The Turned progress update – Jan 5, 2024

Happy new year! Kind of a lot has happened since my last update. That woodwork idea for a coffee table that I had came out wonderfully, and is popular enough that I’ve got a handful of orders for more! Here’s a few photos:

But, yeah – so, The Turned. I’ve been thinking about my update schedule, and I’ve decided that I’m not getting enough added every two weeks to make it worth updating that frequently, so I’m going to down-shift yet again. Going forward, I’ll probably post updates monthly. Another thing I’ve been debating is going back over the Introduction and Scene 1, and putting in the character models I’ve been using since Scene 2. Not that those are award winning, but they’re lots better than how I started. Once I get those first two rebuilt, I’ll probably put all of them together into one video to make it easier to watch.

Once I get there, I’ll start getting more aggressive with pushing this project on social media. My strategy has always been to have a decent block of viewable content to show off before I start shouting for people’s attention. That time is fast approaching – and if you’re reading this, I hope you’ll be willing to help spread the word.

The Turned will be free-to-watch in its completed form. If you think it’s worth supporting with a donation, you can do so at ko-fi.com/curvestories. Every dime is appreciated.

Thanks again for joining me along this crazy journey!

The Turned progress update – Aug 14, 2023

This is a relatively short update – 25sec added on to the end. This is where the heroic rescue attempt begins – Thomas and Trojan break into the open to get the Turned away from Jameson, with Amelia and a few others bringing flame weapons to back them up.

Lots going on in life this past two weeks. Day job is busy, and I had a lightning-bolt idea for a woodwork project that is going to look amazing – an acanthus design, inlaid into a 24″x48″ tabletop, made of 3 different wood colors, with gold epoxy filling the lines between pieces. I’ll post a few progress photos here, but go have a look at facebook.com/villandwoodshop if you’re interested. As far as The Turned goes, I’ve been all-out on this project for 18 months, so I don’t feel too bad about backing off from it a little. I hope you understand.

The Turned will be free-to-watch in its finished form. If you’d like to support the project with a donation, please head to ko-fi.com/curvestories. Every dime is appreciated.

Thanks again for joining me along this crazy journey!

The Turned progress update – July 31, 2023

This update adds 1min30sec onto the rough animatic for Scene 6 – most of which is Jameson’s run thru the village to get the animal barns locked. I had particular fun with this set of shots, mostly because I did a lot of dramatic camera work here. The spinning shot is my favorite so far in the entire project. I think it captures the “oh crap they’re everywhere” mood. It also implements something I’ve been imagining since I started serious work on animating The Turned – the idea that all sound fades away until all you hear is a racing heartbeat. I have always enjoyed telling stories, but animating them is addictive. And the best part is… there’s so much good stuff yet to come. I’m excited for you guys to see it.

The Turned will be free-to-watch in its finished form. If you’d like to help support the project with a donation, you can do so over at ko-fi.com/curvestories. Every dime is appreciated.

Thanks again for joining me along this crazy journey!

The Turned progress update – July 17, 2023

Work continues on Scene 6 – I’m roughly half-way thru the rough animatic now. 43 shots of an estimated 90 total. Jameson volunteers to get the barn doors closed, and begins his run to get there before the Turned get at the village’s animals. They’re closer to the pig barn, so he heads there first.

Again, I’m approaching one of the really strong story beats. I’ve been imagining and dreaming this scene since the beginning of the project, and it looks great in my head. Can’t wait to get it on screens for you guys.

The Turned will be free-to-watch in its completed form. If you’d like to help support the project, you can go to ko-fi.com/curvestories, and drop a donation there. Every dime is appreciated.

Thanks again for joining me along this crazy journey!

The Turned Progress Update – July 5, 2023

This update has some weight to it – I wanted lots of wide, complex shots to set up what’s coming. Lots of those are done now, and hopefully you guys will have a solid sense of the situation. Time-wise, we’re about halfway thru Scene 6 now, closing in on that big story beat I’ve been teasing. It looks amazing in my head, so hopefully it’ll be just as strong on-screen. Watch this space.

The Turned will be free-to-watch in its finished form. If you’d like to help support the on-going work, you can donate at http://www.ko-fi.com/curvestories. Every dime is appreciated.

Thanks again for joining me along this crazy journey!

Progress Update on The Turned – Scene 6 begins! – June 5, 2023

Whew! It’s been a while since I started a new scene. I almost forgot how. All the dialog is charted (how many frames in does Jameson say the “aah” part of “barn doors”?) and I got the shots planned out for the first half or so.

This scene is one that I have a lot of mental imagery for. One of the big story beats happens here, and I’m excited to get my vision out into the world. I think you guys will like it.

The finished version of The Turned will be free-to-watch. If you think it’s worth supporting with a donation, you can do so over at ko-fi.com/curvestories. Every dime is appreciated.

Thanks again for joining me along this crazy journey!

The Turned Progress Update – Scene 5 Rough Animatic Complete! May 22, 2023

Whew. Took me long enough to hammer this one out, but here it is. Animation, voices, noise, and music, all roughed out for the scene. 5 months on this one – which means you can see a handful of things that were sketchy near the beginning, but improved greatly by the end. Watch Grunnel run as he approaches the gate (“Where do you want me?”), as compared to Thomas and some of the other defenders near the end. Big difference. But that’s one of the reasons I jumped in the way I did – building the animatics is giving me a mountain of practice.

So, yeah. The Believers attacked our hero’s home village, and while they didn’t burn it to the ground or anything, they really didn’t have to. They succeeded in cutting a bunch of holes in the fences, and took a bunch of the armored defenders out of action. The Turned will absolutely get into the village thru the night. This is why there were so many backup plans – a few buildings with upper levels, featuring stairs that can be pulled up to keep The Turned from reaching the living. They won’t hammer their fists against things, they won’t break all that much – they’ll just reach up for the humans until the sun comes up and chases them all back to the forest.

Big thanks to all my voice actors – they did magnificent, with very little reference to look at, and their best work is yet to come. Also big thanks to my guitarist friends who provided the voices of the undead.

The Turned will be free-to-watch in its finished form. If you think it’s worth supporting with a donation, you can do so at ko-fi.com/curvestories. Every dime is appreciated.

Thanks again for joining me along this crazy journey!

The Turned Progress Update – Rough Animatic Scene 5 – May 8, 2023

Soooo close to having this scene complete. Animation is done, and this week sound effects (!) are in place. I think I started work on this scene last December, so about 5 months of work. As I keep saying, fight scenes are hard.

But wow, after watching it in silence all that time, having sound effects in place (even as rough as they currently are) makes such a difference. Audio cues for impacts alone just make it come to life. Next step will be to build a preliminary music track for it, and get all the sound balanced.

After that… well, we can get on to the next scene. On that note, the end of Scene 6 has a powerful story moment in it, so once I get thru that, I will probably start a more serious social-media push on all this. That just means you’ll be seeing a lot more posts and noise about it, and I’ll be asking your help to spread the word.

The Turned will be free-to-watch in its completed form, so if you feel like it’s worth supporting with a donation, you can do so over at ko-fi.com/curvestories. Every dime is appreciated.

Thanks again for joining me along this crazy journey!

The Turned Progress Update – Rough Animatic Scene 5 – April 23, 2023

This update adds about 45 seconds onto the end of Scene 5, and it’s all the complicated fight scene stuff. This puts me at shop 107 of 117 (or so). Just need to tie up some loose ends, so next update will probably have all the animation in place. After that, there’s just background sounds and music.

I think I’ve been on this scene since January. Fight scenes are hard.

The Turned will be free-to-watch in its final form. If you think it’s worth supporting the project, you can donate over at ko-fi.com/curvestories. Every dime is appreciated.

Thanks again for joining me along this crazy journey!