Armies of the Fallen Still Alive!

It's an unbelievably busy time for me, but here, just for you loyal visitors, are some new pics from AotF. The teaser is still coming...

Drop pods descending upon the Akuss' surface

The Temple

- MK

Personal Painting

I decided to paint some images just for fun and this is the result. Both speedpaintings took about 30-60 minutes to finish.

Journey of the Colossus

Into the Lair

- MK

My Latest Projects

Busy times, busy times... I've been working on a few projects these past few weeks (months) and it was mostly painting. Great practise for me, though I'd really like to get back to film work again. No matter, here I'm sharing some of them with you. Hope you like them.

This is a Star Wars artwork for Ki-Djowac, a client from Belgium.

This is a collection of images from a certain project I'm working on with a friend of mine. Stay tuned for more.


That's it for now. Hope to get back to AotF soon...

MK

Armies of the Fallen On Hold... again

Due to unforseen personal and technical complications, I must announce that AotF project is stopped. I have no idea when and how am I going to be able to continue, though I must say if I had a choice, I'd definitely do so. This way it's just not possible for me anymore.

Let's hope the project's not dead. Stay tuned.

Artist for hire

If you need some illustrations, concept arts, matte painting, just let me know. I'm cheap and my results are solid! :-)

email: martin.klekner@gmail.com

- MK

Unused Matte Painting

Here's a little matte painting I did for a certain project. This piece never made it further than the WIP stage (though it's pretty much 90% finished), so I'm posting it here.

Yep, inspired by Dylan Cole and Chris Stoski.

- MK

Featured in 2D Artist

My Dreaming of Paper Airplanes is now published in the 2D Artist Issue 68 gallery. It's a great honor for me, there's a lot of incredibly talented artists contributing to 2DA and I still don't really feel like being good enough to be listed among them. But hey, I won't be the one complaining... :-D

To download the gallery section, just click on this link.

- MK

Teaser is coming...

I am pleased to announce that the first teaser for Armies of the Fallen is coming. It will be ready till the end of this summer and it will serve as sort of a proof that we CAN make this epicness happen. In motion too, yes. :-) Here, see for yourself how the concepts slowly come to life...

Akuss Invasion

Original Akuss Invasion Concept Art

Also we have a new teammember, a very talented voice actor Austin McComb who's going to be the voice of Fallen. Very exciting times ahead, people, stay tuned!

AotF: Reunion

This is another movie still from the upcoming Armies of the Fallen fanfilm. Two heroes meet on the battlefield... to what end? You'll have to wait to find out.


And yep, it's still completely CG. I plan on making all the CG models beforehand, then I will create a teaser (plan is to have it ready till the end of this summer) and then start hiring actors.
By the way, we already found a person that will make Fallen's mask for us. A real one. That is some good news if you ask me!

- MK

Dreaming of Paper Airplanes

I got sick, so I decided to paint something while lying in bed. It's been a long time since I've last opened Photoshop, too long. The composition is all wrong, I guess, but still... I had a lot of fun.

Created in Photoshop, base mesh in Maya.

AotF: Invasion Pods

So, I'm back, even sooner than I promised. I spent several weeks honing my CG environment creation skills and the result is this AotF test render.


The sky for Akuss still aint finished, I'll have to develop that typical dark atmosphere with thick clouds. Other than that, I think it came out pretty well. Stay tuned for more. I will soon start working on a first teaser.

- MK

AotF: Project Stopped...for a while

I regret to say that I won't have time to work on AotF till June. Meanwhile, listen to this wonderful preproduction track by Tomas Zemler.

Armies of the Fallen Demo Track

And believe us - we'll be back.

AotF: Digital Double

I didn't have time to work on AotF this week, but at least I managed to comp this first image of Fallen's digital double I'm going to use in a lot of scenes where it'd be otherwise impossible to film the actor.
I think it's about 95% of the film quality, I finally tried out all the techniques I wanted and am fairly sure about the pipeline. Now it's just about finishing and then animating it - which will be another huge milestone in the whole process.

I made some changes to Travis' design, mainly to make the mask more different from Revan's.

Fallen's digital double CG test

- MK

AotF: CG Week

This was a busy week. Among other things - like writing the script (again), making previz and preparing the production - I did a lot of CG work. Small stuff, but important nonetheless.

No story for this one :-). It's just an invasion pod, one used for raining soldiers from the orbit. This particular one is carrying the General.

Akuss is a rocky desert planet. So I've been doing some rocks.

Last but not least, I painted this sky for Akuss. I imagine it as a planet of constant dawn, filled with shadows, dark clouds and golden light. What's special about this image is that all clouds are separated into layers, so that they can be animated.

So that's it for this week.

- MK

AotF: Archon

Archon is the second largest ship of the Fallen's fleet. It is usually used to guard conquered territories, serving as a mobile baseship. It can carry several smaller battleships and is equipped with heavy blaster cannons able to tear through the shields of even the mightiest starships. Its speed, reliability and strength is the very reason why it's also called "The Scourge of the Sith". 

Archon

This is a second preview frame. I tested the newest model and also decided to make the overall look less funky, more gritty. It's still not quite where I want it, but I'm getting there...

I'm fairly happy with the detail on the back of the ship, but the front definitely needs more work. However since Archon will be mostly seen from the back, the goal is probably completed with this one. And it takes only 1 minute to render one frame at 1920*1080. Definitely less than I'd expected.

- MK

Got a Deal, Partner?

What was originally meant to be just a quick ZBrush test to practice my skills, somehow ended up...this way. The original idea was to create a lizard head, but when I saw his expression, I just had to make him a gangster :-D Created in Zbrush and Photoshop.

- MK

AotF: First CG Visual Test

This is a first full CG test, introducing a new type of ship - the Heron, light frigate class. The model is in a very early WIP stage, the whole concept was created mainly to figure out the overall CG look. I decided to use the same style as I did in SotP - a very rich color palette with flares and glow. Some people might say it's just laziness, trying to cover poor CG with shiny spots and glow everywhere, but I simply like it. And the CG won't be poor :-)

Heron CG test

- MK

AotF: Main Characters Part 2

The General
Fallen knew he wouldn't stand a chance alone. His revolution needed allies, slaves like him, freed from the oppression of the Master. One by one he sought them out, warriors blind to their slavery - and he opened their eyes.  And when he did, in their rage and lust for revenge they swore an oath. To follow him to freedom...wherever the path may lead.

The General was the first one to join. He used to be just a low ranking Master's Executioner, hunting down and punishing anyone who'd dare to oppose His will.  A perfect tool - careless and brute, always ready to carry out any order. He is now the high commander of the Fallen's army. The one to lead his men when the final assault comes.

The General

The Advisor
While he prefers to call himself simply 'the Advisor', throughout the years he was given a different name - 'the Gray Eminence'. It is unknown where he came from, but according to general belief he's never served the Master's empire.
He quickly gained Fallen's trust and became his first and only counsellor. Every time there's a major decision to be made, the Advisor is there to whisper silent words of wisdom into Fallen's ear, on every grand ceremony Advisor holds a compelling speech. Some even say he's the one who truly rules the Fallen - but no one would dare to speak those words aloud.
For he is the Fallen's favorite. And if there's a single person he would share his secret plans with, it would be him...

The Advisor

These two awesome concept arts were created by Travis J. Wright. Visit his blog on http://neechart.blogspot.com/

- MK

AotF Main Characters: The Fallen

The enigmatic main hero of the Armies of the Fallen. Little is known about his past, who he was, where he came from...only dark stories go round, whispers of unthinkable horrors. Yet one thing is certain; he was the first one to break the chains and escape the slavery. The first one to rise up and challenge the Master.
And as the story of his deeds started to spread, others like him began to see through the Master's lies. They fought and died in great numbers to free themselves and join his cause - and together they formed a new force in the galaxy. A force banished from Light and betrayed by Darkness...they are the Fallen.
Yet behind the mask of their leader more secrets hide. And nothing is ever the way it seems to be.

The Fallen

This awesome concept art was created by Travis J. Wright. Follow his blog on http://neechart.blogspot.com/
Stay tuned for more info about the characters of Armies of the Fallen.

- MK

AotF: Pulse of the Battle

Watch an exclusive look under the hood of Tomas Zemler's composing magic in this awesome preproduction track. Feel the tremble of the battle march!



There's more coming, so don't forget to subsribe to Tomas' profile.



- MK

AotF: New team member + info

We have a new team member! I'd like to officially welcome Travis Wright, an amazing concept artist who will help us bring the main characters to live. To find out more about Travis, just visit his blog.

Also, I managed to finalize the script and quickly put together another concept, showing the Temple in all its glory.

Burning Skies Concept

We are still looking for talented artists to help us with our project! Currently we need:
- starship concept artist & designer
- environment designer
A lot of 3d is coming and so we need some pretty solid technical sketches for all the props, ships and machinery. If you'd like to help out, please contact me on martin.klekner@gmail.com


- MK

AotF: Assembling the Team

The process of assembling artists for AoF has started and I'm very happy to announce that the old team is back. Once again Tomáš Zemler is  going to be responsible for the soundtrack and he will surely unleash some pretty epic hell with his digital orchestra. Daniel Maher, the guy responsible for lightsabers in Power of the Dark Side, and Cornell Herg, talented postproduction artist from Shadows of the Past, are joining the visual effects team.

Ed Khoo is back to VO the Master character! [Loud cheers of joy]

There are several new guys coming, but the best addition to our production team is definitely the DOP Drahoslav Lysak, the guy with camera, green screen and everything else.

We are still looking for talented people to collaborate on our project! Right now the most needed post is a concept artist - so if you're one and you're willing to help us for free (yeah yeah, strictly fan-based project), please contact me on martin.klekner@centrum.cz

One more thing - the script is almost finished and first CG models are being produced. Also more concepts are coming.

Very first AoF CG model...a tileable floor! :-D

Hehe, ok...back to awesome things.

- MK

AotF: Akuss Invasion

Yes. Battles in space. That's one more thing I plan for AotF. Meet Akuss, Master's homeworld.

Akuss Invasion Concept

- MK

AotF: Throne Room

Second concept art for Armies of Fallen. This is Master - the mysterious voice that's been guiding us through Power of the Dark Side and Shadows of the Past as I imagine him in person. The initial idea will probably change a lot though.

Master in the Throne Room Concept

- MK