The Legion of the Hand!

The Legion of the Hand! 

The Legion of the Hand! : Behind the scenes

by James Ray the Phantom Texter

Aug 2025

I was down to about 30,000 credits on my Open Art AI site and I ended up buying more credits on Runway’s site to the tune of $10 to get 1,000 more credits for use over there. All of this just to be able to go out with one last YouTube video Hurrah! At least till the 15th Lol. I had bought a light stand for the house so that I could do some standing practice with the Act 2 motion capture feature from Runway. It doesn’t need a green screen but it does need good lighting. I only had a vague idea of what to try. I was actually trying to practice giving my animations superhero like effects. Although not the hardest thing in the world it’s still fun to do. When I thought about adding some real life acting through the motion capture Act 2 feature to the practice session. One thing led to another and here we are. Mission complete. Video done! Flat out of credits! No recharge until the 15th. Sad days ahead my friend, sad days….

This practice session took days to accomplish. It started off with me generating the pictures. Because I had already had an ideal of the scenes. As I usually do. Once I generate some shots, I start to get a feel for what’s going on, what’s being said. The story, no matter how loose, starts to form. And as always, my AI consistent characters, Abby, Rosie, Realnay, Dee, and my own AI clone of me make quite an awesome looking team! The X-Men wish they looked so good! Of course, as I worked, I didn’t quite understand why my imagination put them in some kind of Moroccan desert motif. Oh well, I would imagine you have to have superheroes everywhere. LOL

Once I got the static pictures down, I then thought on what kind of superhero affects that I want to give them. So, thinking of storm from the X-Men I gave Abby electric powers that look like lightning. Because Rosie generally looks like some kind of warrior I gave her strength. I thought to give Realnay ice and fire abilities. And once I saw how the pictures of Dee came out, it immediately said to me the power of flight and wind. As for my clone. What else could I give the Phantom but the power of the void!

So, the practice went well. The effects came out pretty good. Then it occurred to me that I never got to do any standing acting work with Runway’s Act 2 motion capture feature. So, I had to do a little bit of real acting for my AI charters. Looking at my credit balance was when I figured I had enough to do a few of the sequences. Although I did end up buying just a few more over at Runway’s site to finish. Amazingly enough their feature is powerful but it is isn’t overly expensive to use. And it makes few mistakes.

So, as with all my little self-imposed work projects and training. What started off at about a two-minute-long YouTube video, mushroomed into almost six. Taking several days to compile. A whole day to shoot the acting parts that I had to do. Then assemble the video. It’s now late into the night. I’ve blown the whole day. So, I might as well sit down and write this behind the scenes to explain myself. My dreams will want a proper accounting for why I’m late coming to them. LOL