Speed sculpt 04. 3D sculpting practice session

I realized I hadn't done one of these in a while.

I'm definitely getting more comfortable in Zbrush. I might post some blender sculpts in the future though. we'll see.

Nqo

What's wrong with Zimbabwean Entertainment

So here I am, right at the onset of 2013. I'm planning ahead for the year, making projections, firing emails off to clients and service providers (Those who may be new to this blog, I run a Creative animation agency called http://nafuna.tv). What bothered me to the extent of writing this (and I don't blog much) was because of multiple observations I had been making throughout the year. In hopes of making a small contribution to the entertainment collective (I can hardly call it an industry), here are a few of my thoughts:

1. Delusion

Delusion has fast become a scourge on our young Afrikan minds. I have observed these artists mimicking MTV visuals in their actual lives... I don't think the American artists even live the lives they portray in their videos. It's all just marketing. I see artists with one joint being played in air and suddenly their egos inflate to enormous sizes. They then mismanage relationships, say the wrong things to the wrong people in the heat of a delusional moment and burn bridges with people that are integral to their very own growth.

LESSON: Don't transplant The thinking behind the marketing strategies made for a different market (America), it simply has never worked and it won't work now.

2. The Business

Observing these artists sometimes, I'd swear they are happy getting played on TV and radio. Few ever talk about financial projections, goals and strategies, Market segmentation e.t.c. Maybe I got it confused when i thought that anything a human being in this modern society does is for the objectives of profit. These delusional clowns are happy to give each other pats on the back and a few handshakes in the streets from a few people who would have heard their song on air. This always confuses me to no ends!

LESSON: Treat yourselves like a business with the aim of profit over Ego! 

3. Image and Marketing

As a business administrative student, I have always understood marketing as a tool to help the "Sale" of a product or service, yes? Not as a means to fuel one's ego that is already high from delusional fantasy?? I am always surprised when I get calls from artists asking for video quotations and prices and when I give it to them the reaction always confuses me. Half of them will say "WHAT!!?? that's too expensive!!!".... too expensive versus what though!!?? In my whole exisitense in running a small business in Zimbabwe, no entertainment product has had a bigger budget than a 30 second commercial but yet always demand more work and "Quality". I know what most of you are thinking..."we're not as big as corporates".... well...... YOU SHOULD BE!!! 

LESSON: Refer to point number 2

Well, that's me, I'm done ranting. I really feel that we need to improve our reasoning in the Entertainment circles.... FAST! The world evolves around us while some of us are too busy with their heads stuck up their asses!

Enqore, Part Animator and overall Alpha Geek

Making the "Happy" video. Part 1 - The Technical Aims

As I begin work on one of the last music videos I'll be doing for a long while, I can't help but look back at all the music videos that i've directed, shot and edited. To date they should be around 40 (about to audit the full list soon), and they have served as a great learning tool and a place to express technical and creative ideas. In a bid to improve, I had to ask myself... what can we do to make this one better? Since I won't be around in the music video scene for a bit, I wanted to make this one iconic... a standard of sorts.

So! the Nafuna team and I had multiple brainstorming sessions. Ruffy, Aura and Myself set about figuring out what would make this video special. There was a lot of back and forth on the elements that would make this special. We then created some technical milestones:

1. we wanted to introduce liquid simulation into our VFX. I'd dabbled a bit with this before but nowhere near the scale we will be implementing it here.

2. we wanted to push the boundaries on lighting and getting the best picture before editing.

3. we wanted to introduce the concept of having CGI shots that are radically different in technologies that we'd use in our animation/visual effects pipeline (these included rigid body dynamics, cloth, realistic rendering, e.t.c)

4. experimenting with cool gear like camera helicopters, Jibs, steady cams and more)

5. Collaboration (I wonder if I should have listed this under technical milestones...)

All this coupled with a great song and excellent personalities shows us the dope ingredients we have to pull off something great. I will now outline some of the crew involved:

Enqore- Director/Alpha Geek/Editor/Animator

Ruffy - Technical/creative director/Animator

Aura - Creative/accesories director

Naim - Lighting and DOP technician

Nakai - Producer/impromptu gaffer

Simba - Grasshopper/Gaffer

DJ smoov - NafunaTV "making of" host

Kudzi - NafunaTV "making of" DOP

We have officially entered post production for the video. I'll post what I can whenever there's spare time. Be ready to share/ tweet/ stream/ blog about/ chat about the video when it's out.

Masaai Elder Xbrush to Cinema 4D tutorial

One of my newer tutorials. It premiered on http://cgmotionbox.com . Hadn't updated the blog in a while because work kinda got in the way.

--
Nqobizitha Enqore Mlilo
Lead creative/ Animator/ Alpha Geek
NafunaTV
www.nafuna.tv
www.enqoremedia.com
Skype: theqore

Speed Sculpt [5 October]

A speed sculpt I did yesterday.

Enqore

the masaai seer

this image was created for the purposes of testing a new pipeline workflow at the studio.

started off with zbrush 4r4 using dynanesh and the new qremesher tools. then brought the model into cinema4D for some lighting and rendering.

I should have the tutorial done in a few days and will try to keep it shorter than my last wasp tutorial.

enqore-
alpha geek.

Funa funa coming soon!

Snippets from an upcoming project. We've been developing a whole bunch of projects at nafuna and some of them are entering production. Good times ahead!