ALEXANDER PERFILYEV

Fish Speaker Body Armor Design

FORGOT: The chest plates are Ottoman kinda thing, there is a famous museum armor piece that Alp showed me.

There is a story! My subscriber and friend Alp is a young Historian and a fellow Dune-er. From him I learned that plated armor was scarce among medieval Arabs because of iron shortage and also saved some cool reference illustrations. The man also brought my attention to how the medieval element of the books is often lost in adaptation (I do love them ww1 jackets and Herbman does us...

Heraldics

Wanted my own Atreides Red Hawk for the Fish Speaker uniforms I will show off in the next post!

Considering making the final (red) version into a merch belt buckle/pocket decoration kinda thing...

2nd slide are earlier designs.

P20 1/2

Royal Peregrination!

Inbetweener

Drawing a single in-between frame of 130 frames Leto II shot from the teaser.

WizardsOnly suggested I save this level of smoothness for the intimate emotional close-ups for efficiency.

The track (part of it that you hear) is from when I composed some music for a friend's game. Here is the secret full version: 2024-04-26 12:08:42 +0000 UTC View Post

Satellite method

WizardsOnly taught me to use Google Earth for landscape references and this became such a fun tool for storyboarding the final section of the animation! I do however plan to paint my version of this satellite photography later for the actual scene...

Voice recording session: Will and Owen

Here is Will Gravesaka and Owen Flaherty acting out the Worm interrogating Malky scene for my God Emperor animation! How cool is that?

Really lucky knowing guys like Owen and Will. This would be the first time for my animation that actors did their lines in a back and forth.

Slide through to see that scene in storyboards and Leto's face reveal!

Calligraphy evolution

This went from 'Wow, I got it right away!' to 'Nothing of this is good enough' to the one you see in the teaser.

Bottom right are crystal texture attempts back when the og idea was the microscopic engravings on ridualian crystal paper. In the end I opted for a holo within a ridulian crystal.

TEASER (GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE)

Already back to storyboarding more Moneo. Now the real work load begins...

I decided to include you all in this one even though before I didn't do patrons in teasers but with how these little productions keep on taking time I think it is only fair to attach your names to it. Thank you very much again!

Update: Atlas asked if I will wait for 8K to process before publishing it and I think I will but you are the elite so you can already catch 4K one.

My skin is not my own!

The hand evolution.

Basically, I am more and more willing to redo stuff to get closer to the pictures in my head or pictures that are actually satisfying to me. A lot of gradient shadings...

Title calligraphy

That went through several iterations! Obvious general inspiration of course but the last touch was a sort of 3D effect I took from this Palestinian calligraphist: https://palarchive.org/index.php/Detail/objects/213151/lang/en_US

Thank you! Working on the teaser scene and then I go back to touching up storyboards and continuing dooning. I am very excited for you to see new attempts a...

"She wore a dark golden gown and her hair was tied back in braids which made her face appear fresh and innocent."

Let's all get used to me being forever late!

I just finished animating Hwi in this teaser scene but I want you to see the movement in the teaser, in a more dramatical presentation. 

There was an experiment that expectedly took way more time than I expected. The result is very much what I expected (a little more than usual this time) but now I fear applying this approaching to the rest. Well, Leto's camera is getting the same treatment for sure anyway, and it is longer than th...

PLASTIC

I came to books because of the first Denis Dune and although I like many designs in Lynch Dune as well it was hard at first not to think interiors in those brutalist Jordanian monolithic blocks. Arabic motives are obviously always welcome BUT.

Frank Herbert  books is full of plastic. There is of course plasteel but just plastic is in abundance. Sometimes it is even in the architecture. 

I was talking with WizardsOnly about possible references for the Worm's crypt and he ...

Hands

There is a lot of hand animations in this one. 

I was thinking there is no special reason for me imagining Leto emanating heavily with his still protruding silver hands but when I was reminded of this:

- How little you know, You have–never stood where I have stood and seen it in his eyes, in the movements of his hands.

I was struggling a little with interior ideas but I think I finally have something of my own in mind which I am gonna be trying next.

Watch 2022 ...

Indian head shake!

Always wanted to animate one! 

I plan to have a one scene (two-shots) teaser thing out soon because I still want to have something up when the new movie comes out but I want to finish the whole thing at my own pace (which I still aim to not make too long because the second project awaits!).

'My gentle, Hwi'

And the Tank (a harsh transition!).

The reference painting of (I believe) an Iranian woman is (I believe) by Mahshid Zali http://www.khatun.ir/

Good Idea Fairy

Remember when Keaton layed out a whole game of bones plan for THLMR ep6? 

Our fellow patron Archeota is helping me out by applying his in service field knowledge to some Fishspeaker troopers action in my GEOD animation.

I mostly think in picturesque shots and I had a very vague idea on how to show the Ixian Embassy attack. However I do like toying with practical rea-khm-listic on-screen action. And actually having a plan as to what everybody is supposed to be doing allows me ...

More storyboarding!

Time comes to stop storyboarding already! 

Thank you for all the support! 

Geod should be a shorter opera which will probably make it very confusing for anyone unfamiliar with the book, but I tried to structure it in a story telling manner still.

This time I plan to have a full animated sketch version down first to have more pacing control before everything is colored. 

The book itself is the opposite of the grand space adventure by...

Guild Lighter

A guild lighter ship design based on the rocket from this Children of Dune Japanese book cover. For the Long-Legged servitors scene solely (as usual).

Nevermind the meaningless lonely wing for now...

Content

When I was listening to the audio book I envisioned the chad of a character that is Malky as the Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini whom I only knew as Rene Mathis in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace (but his younger self was big in noir movies I might check some out).  

I use myself as a reference quite a bit when perspective is unusual. 

More GEOD storyboards!

It is really much more inspiring to have this kind of well defined storyboards. I pretty much end up sketching what will become first key frames of the animation in these scenes which might save some time in the future (which will inadvertently be sacrificed to again upping the actual animation) . AND designing characters right in the panels! 

Moneo, Siona and although he can not rise to the occasion - Malky.

It begins!

Started storyboarding God Emperor of Dune short. 

I like the rain-worm shading and Duncan Idaho concept art from the last year but I might redesign Fishspeakers because I've been looking at that pic of Indian paramilitary trooper women and I really like their head gear...

Hope you are doing! I am having a bit of 'getting back into the loop' struggle because I went from drawing frames every single day to doing nothing on holidays so I am eager to get back into it.

I also...

Forgot this alternative scene!

This (darkness eating the grass and closing in on the girls (and Puck)) was the initial idea but I ended up choosing black background because it was cleaner and more readable with it.

Also you can see how from above shot of Rosine on the grass happened in 2022 when I didn't have complete photographic memory of every panel in this chapter (explains Rosine's glowing antenna bulb also which I kept as a nod to 2022 naive me) so I had to somehow connect the giant tree roots for the lift off ...

Deleted scenes

Ghostoftheoldworld wanted to see some of the unused stuff but there really is not much of it. And most of these shots just didn't look the part. Because I lost half of the source files in October and had to redo a lot (which ended up being for the better) some of these have missing assets. 

I think the first one with more of the Beast Guts is kinda cool.

My holiday is coming to an end so I will upload the Fairytale 2 soundtrack first and (other than a few obligations) will re...

Pop this cassette in real quick

Atlas Bloodfyre (https://www.youtube.com/live/28VuRaq8Oks?si=mOnXLsdbzp2BbqqV) or my go-to upscaling master was playing around with this reencoding-based VHS plugin so here is Fairytale 2 but you USSR collapsed only a few years ago and you borrowed this tag-less cassette from a friend and decided to peep it before bed on one of them bulging screen tiny TV sets...

Actually made me smile ...

Laughing all the way!

I am so nervous! But also can you believe the nightmare and a beautiful dream is finally over? Cue Frodo after cave before Eagles.

Thank you, thank you very much! Honestly. Next year I want to start with God Emperor of Dune (which is relatively short I think) and then it's THLMR hours. But maybe, just maybe I can combine producing something as sizable as THLMR finale with making something tiny on the side too?

Anyhow, Belated Merry Christmas, any sorta holiday you are having. It w...

Moon runes

"Yeah! It looks like a 90s computer game that would have pre-rendered 3D cutscenes." Owen

NORA did the calligraphy on the moon rune part that says 'FAIRTYTALE'. The order top-down is weird because each part is on a guitar chord and it will make sense when you see it in action.

It was all red before but my mutual friend with Nora (Nabe, who is somehow still playing Skyrim on a TV in 2023!) suggested I add silver as a nod to the femboy character of Berserk. 

I will releas...

A day or two ago 🎵

I decided to not post any more animation wips before the New Year and just focus on working to complete the cartoon. Blue (what is the proper name of this kind of blue) in the table is finished stuff. More or less staying on schedule and taking breathers. 

Some rebuild shots came out so much better and I took time remaking a few shots I haven't lost completely to improve consistency between scenes. Right now I can't imagine having the previous version up. 

Also I recomme...

workingworkingworking

Still alive and filling out the excel tablet! I want to keep you updated but also there is less and less that I want to show off because it will eventually be finished by New Year (please!). 

A bit tired. This year might've been too much and now I need to do do this last push of endless drawing. Anyhow thank you for sticking with me through out! 

After this it's Doon and THLMR hours! Eepy

h.e. turn1

Up, up, up.

Ever since I've watched the first episode of JoJo's Golden Wind I was moved by the 'face lick' scene and especially the dramatic frame-by-frame zoom and turn of the two character faces. 

So there was a small slow frame-by-frame turn me vs me competition going on for the past few years...

遠い redo

One of the 'I am gonna die if I don't change that' shots. Not so important how it looked before. Another step in the pursuit of more life-like animations. With something as big as this project I still rely on loops and camera panning being the only movement here and there just because of how many shots there are. However I try to have as much quality animation animation as possible.