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Astartes - Web Animation

Bork Lazer

Bork Lazer

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Malaysia
THREAD UPDATE: Syama Pedersen, the creator of Astartes, is now collaborating with Games Workshop. As a result, his Astartes series has been pulled from Youtube and uploaded onto GW's website.

Here's the link for those of you who are curious.

Linky

Given that the latest entry into the series has been released today, I just wanna shine a little light on this series.

Keeping in mind that all of these videos are made by just one animator, this is extremely impressive. The sound design, the cinematography, the complete lack of dialogue and the choreography makes me wonder why this person hasn't been hired by Games Workshop to create a feature film.
 
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Me: MAN FUCK SPACE MARINE FANBOYS GIMME MY GUARDSMEN

Also me: WE ARE SPESS MEHREENS, WE ARE THE EMPRAH'S FUREH

Imagine one animator flexing on the entirety of the studio that made the Ultramarines movie.
 
So I've been rewatching this clip for the 20th time and here are some standout details:

At the 0:17 mark, the Retributors (original chapter) seems to be turning their fire rate up on their bolters. 31 rounds.
At 0:21, the plasma pistol marine waits for his brothers to pour fire.
The suppressing marines press their bolters down on the railing, more or less squeezing the trigger until it dries.
The bolt shells are literal bolt shells, with rockets propelling them and a delayed explosion.
Marines on the ground floor suppress the enemies from a different angle. It seems that the psykers are some sort geneforged/mutant type, considering they're almost as massive as the marines. Archeotech?
The psyker's masks seem to have some sort of words, but I can't make out any. Are these cultists?
Plasma marine fires twice, drops his pistol for a bolter pistol with knife. Can I just say I love how they're using knives? Chainswords would ruin the tension (and is probably super expensive to animate).

And perhaps most impressively:



The cracked lenses, including optics. The marine's eye didn't pop, it was the lenses. This is jaw dropping, it is utterly amazing. What great attention to detail.

Everything about this oozes quality. The sound, the camera work, the tactics, actual transhuman dread, how both the marines and the enemies are actually super competent. It's not a steamroll, it's both sides doing their best to fight each other off.

Shame part 5 would be the last one, but it would certainly be worth the wait.
 
Gene forging isn't actually that rare in the Imperium (Necromunda, RPG books), so I doubt that's archeotech in itself, nor would they necessarily be mutants.
Hykal94 said:
It seems that the psykers are some sort geneforged/mutant type, considering they're almost as massive as the marines. Archeotech?
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Also yeah, the attention to detail in this is spectacular. I also love how the Marine power armor is actually protective and tough, instead of being basically tinfoil that can barely stop las rounds, if that, like in many BL novels and the Tabletop.
 
Ah I love these shorts.

I'm not sure how canonical Space Marines fighting in complete silence is, but damn if it doesn't work here.

But seriously, the depiction here of space marines as fast, tough, and tactically smart is really well done.
 
I really like the fact that both sides are working at the best of their ability. Look at the intelligence of the rebel soldiers, despite how obviously fucked they are in the face of Astartes. They immediately surround the Astartes landing pod, they set up ambushes and hardpoints and sneak attacks in order to try and stop the Astartes, even if it's clear the armaments they're using just aren't enough. Then the two psykers work together not to get surrounded and try to keep the Astartes as far away from them as possible, juggling between the different groups, but are ultimately overwhelmed by the number of Astartes.

And the Astartes are just stellar, even before they land. Watch part 2; you'll see how they deploy two drones to take incoming missile fire, use their point defense systems, and have an accompanying fighter which also draws fire from the enemy ship. It's a very capably executed landing that was done under real opposition.
 
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I really like how stark these shorts are. There Imperium is often displayed in a manner that seems to be fitting it's own perceptions as glorious but doomed.

This.. feels a lot more honest.
 
The pacing and action reminds me a lot of Tartakovsky's Clone Wars cartoons. It has a very strong frantic energy but it never obfuscates what is happening with poor rapid editing or shaky cam ala Micheal Bay.
 
Oksbad said:
I'm not sure how canonical Space Marines fighting in complete silence is, but damn if it doesn't work here.
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It's noted in several novels that if they don't want to be heard, Space Marines can just speak over the vox without the sound leaving their helmet; if you're right next to them, you can hear some subvocal clicking, but that's about it. This would be what that looks like from the outside.
 
Ser_Serendipity said:
It's noted in several novels that if they don't want to be heard, Space Marines can just speak over the vox without the sound leaving their helmet; if you're right next to them, you can hear some subvocal clicking, but that's about it. This would be what that looks like from the outside.
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Someone should make an abridged version where the space marines talk like dudebros playing a CoD match then.
 
One other thing I like is how even more easily ignored weaknesses and abilities have large impacts on the fights.

For example, in Part 3, the Astartes stands there in full view of the Multilas, firing a couple of shots until it's clear that his pistol doesn't have enough penetrative capacity. He backs off, smokes the corridor, and then without even hesitating reaquires the turret through opaque smoke, because all Astartes have perfect, photographic memory. He knew exactly where to fire because he'd already fired twice down there.

And in Part 4, that plasma pistol didn't run out of ammo, it overheated. The blast was clearly causing the guy to stagger from the impact, and if he'd gotten one more shot off with that thing, he may well have been able to kill one of the Psykers. But instead he hit the limitation of preferring power over reliability, had to drop the pistol, and was slowly getting turned into transhuman soup as a result.

It's amazing. I love it so much.
 
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I like how the videos imply and subtly show the Astartes are not just physically but also mentally augmented. Their reactions when ambushed were decisive and immediate, not panicked or uncontrolled. They didn't stop when surprised, reacted instantaneously and changed their approach just as fast if the first one didn't work. I don't know if anyone else got the same feeling but it looked like their reactions were not reflexive, simply thought out in detail incredibly fast and put in motion.

The animator did a great job conveying this with just body language and action.

EDIT: edited for grammar and clarity.
 
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VaultDweller said:
I like how the videos imply and subtly show the Astartes are not just physically but also mentally augmented. Their reactions when ambushed were decisive and immediate but not panicked or uncontrolled. They didn't stop when surprised, reacted instantaneously and changed their approach if the first one didn't work just as fast. I don't know if anyone else got the same feeling but it looked like their reactions were not reflexive, simply thought out in detail incredibly fast and put in motion.

The animator did a great job conveying this with just body language and action.
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I'm not sure if that was the mental enhancement, or the decades of experience that are minimum for the average Astartes.
Or a mix of both.
 
Execute/Dumbo said:
For example, in Part 3, the Astartes stands there in full view of the Lascannon, firing a couple of shots until it's clear that it doesn't have the penetrative capacity. He backs off, smokes the corridor, and then without even hesitating reaquires the turret through opaque smoke, because all Astartes have perfect, photographic memory. He knew exactly where to fire because he'd already fired twice down there.
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Point of order: That was a multilaser. Lascannons are anti-tank weapons that actually would've been able to penetrate.

But yeah. Impressive. And scary. Absolutely feeling the transhuman killing machine thing here.
 
This was one of the most genuinely excellent things I've watched this year. Probably the only depiction in visual media I've seen that understands what Space Marines should be.

The animation, sound design and the cinematography were all just impeccable. I think that @Claudette Savagely said to me that the way it's shot and the rather sparse audio palette, which really picks out each sound, made it feel a lot like Genndy Tartakovsky's work. It feels that way to me too.

Hykal94 said:
It seems that the psykers are some sort geneforged/mutant type, considering they're almost as massive as the marines. Archeotech?
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greendoor said:
Gene forging isn't actually that rare in the Imperium (Necromunda, RPG books), so I doubt that's archeotech in itself, nor would they necessarily be mutants.
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Obviously it depends, but in stuff I've seen it seems not actually all that uncommon for rando Imperial Nobles, Rogue Traders, or anyone with access to decent augmentics and some bio-sculpting (which is a lot of people in the Imperium), to try making their own Store Brand Space Marines. Power armour and bolters also aren't terribly difficult to get hold of if you have some decent resources behind you. Since most people in the Imperium have never seen a space marine, eight feet high guys in power armour with bolters will look pretty imposing. This tends to work out quite well, until they're put next to the real thing.

These guys are also megalomaniac unsanctioned psyker cultists, which is to say, they're unsanctioned psyker cultists, so there's probably an added bit of Tin God Syndrome.
 
God, that was amazing. Most of what I want to gush about has already been mentioned, but I really liked how they set up that the Psyker's bubble shields weren't able to deflect relatively slow moving objects. We see the bolt pistol make it through, so we know that the knives can.
 
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