PLANET NOX #02: A Little More Behind the Scenes

Well, this is the first Planet Nox post since launching the Patreon, and I gotta say it’s going pretty damn good so far. Having a decent number of you all in here has meant that I can put more into the rewards themselves. The latest VFX breakdown video did great on here, and thanks to all the new signups who came from Twitter.

The Nox Update videos have been an interesting experiment, seeing if I can get something more spontaneous out quickly. I tested out a different production pipeline on both of them and am pretty satisfied with how close they turned out to the regular Nox vibe. They may become an official tier reward at some point. We’ll see.

For those on the Badass tier still waiting for your credit, I’m back to working on the main channel videos and should have something new out this month. Thanks for waiting patiently, I think I got something cool cookin’.

Above: Actual footage of me viewing my Patreon stats

Can you describe a bit more on how you get that sweet sweet juicy Nox look?

The movement is achieved via filming myself at a slower speed, and then speeding it up again in post to match the audio. There’s some speed ramping involved to finesse certain gestures, and extend the holds.

For the glowing glasses, I stretch a matte white mesh over the lenses, and Illuminate them via blue light. In post production I correct the illuminated blue areas to make them white.

The technical components only get me about 50% of the job. For the rest, I need to move in a way that’s going to sell the idea that I’m a pseudo limited-animation character. So that means holds, overlapping action, arcs, squash and stretch etc. Early on, I was focussed on getting the movement to be as appealing and ‘animation-ey’ as possible, whereas these days I’m more concerned with playing the character in a convincing way. Once I felt confident in selling the movement, I started to be more mindful of little gestures and actions that ‘break’ the character.. Especially in the earlier stuff, there’s a lot of little actions where I now think “Oh, he’s not Nox there, there’s too much James in that”.

Art direction glues it all together. What you emphasise, and what you don’t. What you make clear, and what you remove. Nox’s motif is ‘high contrast’. Black and white. All or nothing. His voice is crushed, the colours are crushed, the movement pattern is linear and crushed. It’s not a strict rule though, more a guide for my creative choices.

Will you ever make a fully animated film again?

Yes I think so. If I feel like taking a break from Nox for a little while I think I’ll make something that’s pure animation. Or maybe a comic. For a while I’ve been wanting to make something less internet-focussed, and more self-contained.

Who is Nox? What is he?

Certain lore and messaging aspects I like to keep close to my chest ;)

But I’ll say that I created Nox as a means to make shorts and content under a consistent umbrella. There were certain qualities I felt I had to hit to make it in the online space at the time, and Nox was my best attempt. ie: a potent brand or persona that draws attention. But he’s like a format as well. A new canvas, with some grit and hazy details preloaded. There’s enough of a skeleton structure there, that I’m not starting from complete scratch every time.

How did you learn to animate?

I started using a pirated copy of Macromedia Flash 4 when I was about 13 or so. I’d always liked drawing, and it blew my mind that animation was something that I could do on my computer. I loved watching animation on Newgrounds and it took me a good while to make something that didn’t get blammed off the portal.  The experience gave me a leg up in uni, where I learned animation formally. This was during the peak of puppet/Flash animation. To this day, I’m much stronger at rigged animation than traditional.

Have you considered doing an animation series?

For sure something larger has always been the goal. Nox from the beginning has always been a development project for some kind of unknown bigger thing. Whether that be in an online form or a more traditional series format.

Gotta question you’d like to ask? Hit me up, maybe I can answer.

Here's a few old pics off my hard drive. A few of these were visualizing what NOX might look like in a game.

Doing:

• Blocked social media on my phone. Feels good. Thinking of doing the whole dumb phone thing.
• Bought a Sony Discman to listen to CD’s while drawing. Loving the vibe

Listening to:

• Rage Against the Machine [Renegades]
• Mellow Days 80’s Japanese City Pop
• 80’s Miami Cocaine

Reading:

• Cal Newport: Digital Minimalism
• Michael Gerber: The E-Myth Revisited

Playing:

• Overwatch 2
• Toejam and Earl

Watching

• Nothin’ this month

Realised that:

• There’s no point working extra hours if it takes from the next day
• I gotta get back into meditating

That's all for now. Thanks for supporting my Patreon and I'll see ya next time.

#01: The Patreon Launch