Syama Pedersen has just released two new videos on his upcoming personal projects, making new Warhammer 40k animation videos. Here they are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjdLXNRs-B8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tST30DNvxAo
For those that don't know, several years ago Syama released a 5 part fan made animation series called "Astartes", which is probably the best animation videos I've ever seen. They contain more detail, nuance, atmosphere, action, and story telling in just a few frames than most TV shows and movies tell in hours, and all without any dialogue. They're the kinds of videos where you can rewatch them several times, and catch new details you missed on previous views. Syama made these videos by himself, doing all of the animation, textures, story, and sound design himself. They even give weight to the world and the people in it, which Games Workshop, and other animators, have struggled to do for years. Here's the best quality Astartes 1-5 video I've been able to find (the others are lower quality uploads or AI upscales, which lose a lot of the details Syama included in his original videos):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAz8B98sVHY
Astartes was such a huge success that Syama was planning on making more Warhammer 40k fan videos. Unfortunately, it was around the same time that Games Workshop (the owner's of the Warhammer IP) started cracking down hard on fan made projects, essentially shooting themselves in the foot, considering that many of those fan projects have brought millions of new fans to the Warhammer IP. However, during that time, they hired Syama Pedersen to work for them, and his signature style of animation quality bled through on official videos like The Horus Heresy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0Se57MuiL8). Again, unfortunately, Games Workshop forced Syama to remove his own fan made Astartes videos off his own channel, but were reuploaded to Games Workshop's own website, with changed quality, sound design, and music, making them objectively worse. The only remaining original cuts of Astartes are uploads by random people on Youtube.
Since then, though, there's been almost nothing heard from Syama, personally or through his work at Games Workshop. From the two new teaser trailers released by Syama, it looks like he no longer works for Games Workshop, as the projects he's working on would require a full time investment. The time between the Astartes episode releases was several months, and this was when he was able to work on them full time. And, according to his personal Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/syamapedersen/about):
This Patreon page now represents my personal & original projects and has no connection to 'Astartes' or anything Warhammer related.
Currently this page is supporting the Yatra project! A CGI short-film project following a man's journey across lifetimes. Set within an original retro/classic inspired future-fantasy world, the current goal is to complete a 3min intro cinematic that is already planned out and ready for the asset build stage. Support is currently going towards 3d modelers while I provide direction with the time I have to spare.
It looks like, for legality purposes, Syama is making 40k fan videos again, in all but name, just to skirt around Games Workshops stupidly antagonistic approach to their own fans. He even changed his channel name to "Digital Bones", I'm assuming because Games Workshop bought out his original channel property.
[Warning] This is a shill post for good entertainment.
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