Blog #2 – Something About Fruit Finished & Released

Hello Friends,

So the Lifeguard x Stitch video is finally finished and it only took 18 months! It should now be uploaded to Pornhub and then embedded or re-uploaded to a range of other locations to help get eyes on it. Full size, un-watermarked version is live for $10 and above Patreons and the behind the scenes and director’s commentary will be available very soon.

All things considered I’m actually quite happy with it. It’s by no means perfect though, so let’s take a moment to reflect on some of the more serious problems:

There are a couple of shots during the first act where my inexperience really shows, in some cases so much so I went back and re-animated some of it. I imposed a very strict limit on my self in this regard though, because otherwise I’d keep going back and making improvements forever. Also I feel that the gradual improvement to the animation that occurs as the piece goes on adds a very organic and unique pacing to the thing that would be near impossible to recapture on purpose. This is why I opted to minimize the re-shoots on the beginning to try and preserve that sense of growing complexity. And to try and preserve what’s left of my own sanity.

I tried as hard as I could to have the annoying background music as unobtrusive as possible, since having no music at all sounded much worse. Unfortunately I know absolutely nothing about editing music, other than what I picked up making this piece which is why there are some rather dirty cuts in the music where I’m looping sections over to make what was originally a 4 minute ukulele tune last for half an hour. I tried to cheat and have the ambient waves break at the same time as some of the more noticeable ones and then to hide the music behind all the other sound, but there are still some crappy bits. Unfortunately the current finished article is the best I am capable of for now.

And while we’re talking about the sound, all of the Lifeguard’s utterances come from the Lara Croft Tomb Raider 2013 sound files rip. I attempted to break them up into similar groups and switch the group for different scenes so that it’s not just the same 20 clips being repeated over and over. Maybe it’s just that I’m so accustomed to them now that I can tell when Medium Cum 07 has happened twice within 9 seconds and nobody else will. Either way, I did as much as I could with just sound effects of Lara getting smacked in the head. Hopefully it’s not too repetitive.

The lights. Oh the lights. As I have said a number of times, I really really underestimated what a massive undertaking 3D lighting is. I lit the first 7 minutes (up to stitch entering the jungle) as I was animating it, but then waited until I was completely finished to light the last 23 minutes. I knew I hadn’t done a very good job and I wanted to get a bit more experience doing lighting setups for my comic Eldar Narn before going back to the animation. This turned out to be an excellent idea because you can see the quality of the lighting drastically improve the instant we cut to Stitch in the jungle. I did go back to fix a few of the biggest problems with the lighting in the first 7 minutes, since I had come to understand where I had gone wrong but I just didn’t have a complete from scratch re-lighting in me. I’m sorry about that, but I really hate doing the lights. I did what I could to tweak what I had already done into a slightly more presentable shape though, since shitty lighting at the beginning lends nothing to the pacing.

But for all my faults and mistakes at the beginning, I really feel that once we get into the final act and the other two stitches show up I’ve managed to get my shit together some what. By this point I’d done away with using simple looped animations and was trying to break up each cycle slightly to make things look more natural. I’d learnt some tricks to distort the models in ways the camera can’t see to get better framing. I’d learnt what bloom does and knew more about scene composition and once we hit the little montage at the end and the cum-shots, I’m not ashamed to say that I’m really proud of the animation in those scenes. If you are going to judge me on this film (and please do, I’ve littered the site with comment boxes for a reason) then I would ask that you judge me on the last 5-10 minutes, because I think that’s where everything I’ve learnt these last two years really comes together. And if you like it, well a Patreon subscription would be great! But I would gladly settle for a tweet instead, tell a friend and spread the word. I’m putting this movie (and the ones yet to come) out for free because I want people to see them and enjoy them so any support offered in simply getting it out there is greatly appreciated.

So what now? Well Phase One continues and next on the docket is the Overwatch film, Mei in Overcast. This was intended to be the first production and then dropped to position two when the Lifeguard & Stitch models came out so a great deal of preliminary work was already completed 18 months ago, the script is already written and I have an extensive custom soundboard already compiled so I’m ready to start production immediately. I’m probably going to take it easy for a couple weeks though, try to finished some of the short 1-2 minute animations and loops I’ve started but not finished and give Eldar Narn some attention since it’s taken a back seat these last few months while I get the film finished. Once I get stuck into the new production I’ll do another blog post outlining the project and letting those of you who are interested what to expect sometime in 2020… hopefully… no promises.

Those of you who are interested in the specifics that went into the making of Something About Fruit there will be a behind the scenes video for $5 Patreons and the Director’s Commentary for $10 Patreons available soon. I also intend to make some general tutorial videos about learning NSFW animation from a position of knowing absolutely nothing to begin with, essentially explaining what I did to learn and explaining some of the concepts I’ve learnt along the way to help you make your own content. I don’t know much but I’ll gladly pass along what I have learnt to anyone who is interested. These general tutorials will not be behind the Patreon wall and will be made readily available in as many places as I can get them. Probably not YouTube though because I’m not sure how to make NSFW animation tutorials SFW. The first of these will be entitled “NSFW Animation: Getting Started” and the second “NSFW Animation: Applying The Basic Principles.” Hopefully I’ll be able to get round to the first of these before the end of the year, but I want to get the supplemental stuff for SAF finished first. Moving forwards with the tutorial stuff, $5 and above Patreons have a channel on the MasterDan Discord where they can request a specific explanation of something I have done so far, and I’ll knock up a tutorial in a blog post or video explaining how I pulled it off.

I hope that what I’m doing inspires some of you to try your own experiments in what ever type of animation you feel like trying. I do this because I love weird animated porn. I love making it and I love watching it too so if I can help you to put some more cool shit out there of your own, then that’s right on.

That’s all for now friends and fellow perverts. Expect the content to continue both big and small, Eldar Narn will always be updated and I’ll try to make that more of a weekly occurrence. Also I shall strive to make the blog more frequent than once every six months.

Thank you for your time,