(SOUND ON - WATCH IN FULL FOR BEST CAMP EXPERIENCE)
This crypto comic marks the first in a series of animated comic shorts featuring different outdoor-centric characters from all over the wild fantasy world of Nester i am building.
This piece was conceived as a result of a several factors that came to a head for me in my personal life in 2020. After over a year spent in lock-down in our cramped 1st floor Brooklyn apartment near noisy neighbors, and little exposure to the outside world (we have to be super careful due to folks in our household being immuno-compromised)—suffice it to say i needed SOME way to escape aside from video games and our short little walks around the neighborhood.
I have grown up camping my whole life. Normally I take a solo back-packing trip at least once a year to get back into nature where I'm happiest. 2020 was the first year that i can remember not being able to go somewhere outdoors for an extended period; which turned out to be much harder than i thought it would be.
While this lock-down pandemic stuff is going on in 2020, i was also trying to push my projects further to keep sane and busy, but struggling to find the right way to take my years worth of world-building notes and messy sketches for Nester and form them into a cohesive whole.
Out of this strange pressure-cooker hyperbolic time chamber of a year i learned that im FINALLY ready to see the world of Nester come to life and share it with you! Last year i took a big break from social media and fully dove into developing my ideas. I dusted off all my old notes and began forming all my concepts into a unified world, creating maps, writing deep lore for where all my creatures and characters can live. I know now after all this time, that it is my sincere wish to take the world of Nester and develop it into an animated series in some shape or form for a major network and take it beyond that one day into possibly even an Indie rpg open-world title.
For me personally, Nester has kept me sane this past year, it has given all my life's work more direction and purpose and made me realize how important that simple luxury of being able to go for a hike in nature really is for me; and how i previously took that for granted in a big way. The content i create for this Camp Logs series in the days ahead is the best way i know how with all my skills to start sharing my world with you NOW while i continue to build on my dreams towards one day being a director. It is an open love letter to camping and comics and gives me comfort until i can safely get back out there and do my own camp adventures again. If you are also stuck inside a lot right now, this work is for you.
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TECH SPECS : This work was a big undertaking for me, culminating in a series of 4 hand-drawn illustrations using pencil and microns, colored digitally in Photoshop, with final edits and audio added in After Effects. All writing and design elements done in Illustrator were done by myself. My good friend James Thomas, a big fan of guitar legends like Chet Atkins, was able to come on the project and do the beautiful custom guitar work you hear throughout the composition (a portion of the profits from this will go to him for his time/effort). This log took over me over 100 hours of production work OUTSIDE normal working hours of my 9-5 day job to achieve this. Photo of leaves on ground was taken from my first solo back-packing trip on the Appalachian Trail, the book cover is a photo of my real life travel sketch journal.
The owner of this NFT will receive the original full uncompressed video file, as well as each of the 6 video files for each frame split up separately for your viewing enjoyment if you want them. Thank you for supporting my wild dreams and going on this camp journey with me. ❤️❤️❤️
