So we are proceeding with this new "cinematic journey" (let's call it that!) and I confess I'm having such fun!
Now I understand why YouTubers are so happy: creating video content is satisfying!
Well, also all that money flow I think that helps to be happy.
However, as anticipated in the previous posts, we are currently working on a first "video sample", a kind of prototype to train ourselves and, above all, gather some feedback from you to find the best format to follow with this journey: I have many ideas in mind but I think that at least for now, it's better to make things simple and clean.
As you may know, we are working on a step-by-step tutorial about one of our Dwarves: the Hunter of Erdraz. We already filmed the skin, Erdraz cloak and blonde beard parts and I'm quite happy about the result.
We made a simple trailer, so you may better understand the direction of our work:
The first video that we will share with you will be the Erdraz cloak, because I think it's cool and gives me a lot of material to work on (stippling, glazing etc etc).
We are still getting familiar with this kind of format because it's not easy at all to make a proper video tutorial: it should be educational, but also entertaining, catchy. I love miniatures, I love this hobby, but honestly, I still can't imagine a way to teach you how to spend 2 hours making tons of dots with your brush AND make it look as cool as, for example, extreme sports or pretty-girls-doing-random-stuff. My idea of an "I teach miniatures painting to Fumika Baba" format failed miserably, because she apparently didn't notice my emails, so you may imagine the struggle to find an exciting way to narrate this hobby with videos.
For this reason, while I imagine a way to make you really entertained by a miniature painting video, I focus on simple things.
Being my videomaker (which is also my girlfriend, another reason why the Fumika Baba project failed) a creative person and a talented VFX compositor, I'm able to take advantage of her skills and improve, for free, the quality of the editing: I know, I'm a bad person, but after all I'm doing it for you so you are as bad as me, technically.
For example. we had a lot of fun, trying to film catchy angles of boring stuff like mixing colors or washing brushes. We won't win the Academy Award, but at least, I think it's fun!
As I wrote before, making a proper video tutorial is not easy at all: to show you exactly all the brush strokes needed to paint this cloak, for example, I should have made 4-5 hours videos. I think that you have better to do in your life than seeing me making dots and glazes for 5 hours.
However, a too short and edited tutorial probably won't make you really learn how to do something, and I want to avoid to give you that "how to draw an owl" feeling.
It's really hard to decide what to keep and what to cut from the video and even I started with the idea of making short, easy to watch, videos (10-15 minutes at most), already with this first sample I noticed that I simply couldn't find a way to maintain a reasonable credibility of contents AND keep the video short (it will be a 25-30minutes video!).
Of course, this could be fixed by choosing more easy subjects: for example, focusing more on explaining quick techniques and topic.
Here, for example, is how I tried to explain in brief how I make a glaze. Of course, this topic would deserve a full video for itself (and I will do it!), but I had a lot of "educational challenges" to make this sequence. I hope that the result is fine for you!
Moreover, as you may see, I often used split screens to show you different parts of the miniature painted with the same technique: I know that it's important to make you see as much as possible, and I thought that split-screen would help to nail this goal without exceeding too much with the length of the video.
Of course, these little previews are not finished yet: I have to add some proper music and, above all, I have to register the vocal parts.
About that, I'm quite scared, dare to say terrified, to speak in English (my English!!) in front of a camera.
I hope I won't be too cringy, even if I know it will be really hard.
So, here are the latest progress of this exciting journey: I think that in a couple of weeks I will be able to share the first video tutorial, probably on our YouTube account (and talking about cringe stuff, that channel is filled with it XD), so stay tuned and let me know your opinions, wishes and suggestions!!