Marty Deadbeat

Happy New Year, friends and TAG Brethren. I've regrettably fallen out of the TAG habit. I blame my last freelance job. I was doing storyboards for the new MassAnimation project, creating an animatic for the DC Universe Online Game Trailer.

As always, I get on this sort of project and want to post drawings for you guys, but am of course forbidden by my NDA and paranoid overlords. So I couldn't share anything until now. But like most promiscuous types, once I put the pencil down, it's over. I'm done. Then when the wraps come off and I can finally post some links, drawings, etc., I've forgotten I even worked on the thing.

So file this under the "better-late-than-never" category. This project, the DC Universe Online Trailer, might be right up some of our TAG'ster's alley (Jimmy, Ellis, are you listening?). You can animate Batman! It's basically a contest to animate shots of Batman, Joker, Superman, etc., for the trailer. There is an animatic that you will follow, but all you have to do is download the (free) Maya software and the (already complete) models (with rigs) and start animating. There are prizes and cash. I will not vouch for this business model as a replacement for actual gainful employment, however it gives the enthusiast a channel for getting to animate a famous character like, say, BATMAN, and possibly be chosen to animate for the final trailer (if your shot is selected they will pay you some money as a prize, and then pay you to finalize the animation under their employ--hey, it's something). They are even giving away a Sony VAIO computer every week for the best shot of the week.

(Personal note: For me, the biggest obstacle between me and doing more 3D animation has always been the model-making and rig-making. So I see this as a boon to people just looking to animate. But I get the critique, too. As you see, I'm not entered in the contest!)

Anyhow, I drew the first half of the trailer, which is Batman vs. Joker and Wonder Woman vs. Circe. Another Marty, Marty Klein, did the Superman vs. Lex and "gameplay" second half of trailer. I focused a lot on posing the characters for the animators, but in retrospect I think Marty's super-basic poses may help the animators in the contest loosen up a little and come up with some original posing of their own. You can click on the link in the title to see Jim Lee talk about the contest. I personally didn't sit down with Mr. Lee, but he regularly reviewed our boards (I was told he dug my W.W.).

Trailer is HERE, I think....