Is it bad to abandon your plans? Hah!

So after researching this whole thing along with Patrick Boivin's toy collecting hobbies and animations, I realized a couple of things.

1. The Toy Industry is a monster and doesn't feel bad about taking hundreds of dollars from loving mothers.

2. Mr. Boivin's Bruce Lee and Iron Man dolls are more expensive than my whole camera setup.

3. I want these toys.

I'll be honest I'm sort of cheating my way out of not having to work with Moe. I'm just disheartened with the turnout and not being able to make anymore with a broken mold. But I gotta say this is exciting stuff. I've purchased the cheapest toy I could find that had a costume and maintained the articulation of the Bruce Lee doll.

Princess Leia in her Boushh hunter disguise.


Under the helm is a resemblance of Carrie Fisher. I'm not a big fan of Star Wars, but I do like Carrie :) The costume is pretty well made and I'm happy with the low low price I ended up paying for it. (25 smackers)

Next up however is a wallet-eater. The Voluptuous Chun Li.

This [Toy] originally went for 200 when it was released. Two Hundred! I tell you this industry is insane haha. The lowest I found was half of that, but the shipping costs are monstrous. I may get it as a birthday gift, but we'll see. I feel so guilty even considering this. But the animation would be so much cooler with this doll in it. Growing up I played the video games so I'm familiar with how she moves and her notable quirks.

Yesterday and today I worked on Chun Li's signature fireball: Kikouken. I frequent Videocopilot.net and Andrew Kramer (guy who posts up free tutorials) made a 3D Light Casting tutorial on their site which really resembled what I was looking for. With a few tweaks and a lot of rewinding... I finally made this:



I used the footage that was given on the website. Came out alright! There are a lot of effects to do with these two dolls and I feel capable of doing all but one. I've never done such fast animation as what I plan to do before and I'll have to study a lot of video to get it right. Not only do I need to learn how to animate it, but I need to learn how to add the effects on top of it.