There are some interesting constants of life that I feel I must list:
A.) getting paid for anything always feels good
B.) nekromantik is a sick sick little film that I forgot existed until I saw a clip of it in a compilation video on some video website.
C.) pepper is good in anything and with anything and pepperjack cheese should be the only kind of cheese. ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
The kind folks over at Aniboom & the History Channel sent me the first half of my money. That was a nice surprise. They also sent more stuff for me to draw, so back to work I must go eventually.
Tomorrow I get to work a nice short shift at the video store. 5-10. Hopefully I can steal away some time to buy some peppercorn dressing. ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
I've been listening to ALOT of Chris Botti music lately. I happened to overhear him on a jazz channel on aol radio that Kenny G apparently operates. Thus, I added some Botti music to my blog music player which does not function most of the time anymore for me. I don't know if it still works for everyone else, but it sure doesn't work for me.
Those of you who still read this, feel free to chime in on this technical issue. If there IS indeed an issue maybe I need to find a better site for blog music. ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
Left 4 Dead 2 is out. I haven't gotten to play it myself because this PC would never run it ever in a million billion years. However I have learned that apparently there is a GNOME level just like in Half-Life. That gives me a good chuckle. ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
Work continues on the "learn how to use photoshop" front. Not....alot of success.
But some.
I managed to download some brushes that I like (and work in photoshop 6) and have been tooling about. A batman and a joker. With a small reference to the animated series.
A couple days later I tried to do a "legit" art in photoshop. And I think I might have succeeded. Or at least, succeeded enough to bother putting it in my portfolio.
Thats some progress, right? I hope.
Other than photoshop I decided to dick around in flash with the new pressure sensitivity. And I have decided that, should I ever get the wiley idea to make a comic or comic book again....I will use flash for the inking. I just like the way it looks. And I like the way this drawing came out. It may be the best thing I've ever drawn. Abraham Lincoln punching out Godzilla. In fact I'm so pleased with this seemingly random drawing that I stuck it on a shirt.
Billy sent me a file the other night. I wasn't sure what it was. It was some sort of Microsoft application file. It didn't open at first and I had to 'install' it before the exe would open.
But oh man.
It was the first 3d build of Wonder Knight, the game we've been working on. Floating in lovely 1080p. I could rotate the 3d object in midair. The animated grass I made was there.
It was so cool to see my stuff in 3d that didn't SUCK. _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________
The Mighty B is cancelled and I am ANGRY. It had such a crappy time-slot and had so little chance to survive. God damnit. _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________
I have a leetle friend. His name is Mr.Scriblam. He is a flash animator who rarely makes cartoons, but when he does they are always funny or entertaining or both.
And I'm going to post some here because I have nothing constructive to say.
First things first, I'm going to take a quick vendetta against a company publicly on this blog. For the first time in a LONG time since I got 'popular on the internet' someone is trying to take credit for videos I have made.
Its surprising too because the shit they are trying to take credit for aren't even my cartoons. They're trying to take credit of my webcam video where I am holding my brother's pet snake.
Yes.
That is my worth on the internet, folks. Noone wants to steal my cartoons anymore, oh no. They want blurry yellow footage of a ball python in my hand hovering in front of a 1-centimeter high webcam in Tampa, Florida.
That is worth more to these people than my films.
Now the fact of that doesn't surprise me. Its the WAY these fuckers did this. And how they are STILL doing this.
Basically I signed into my account (an account I might add that I've been trying for a couple months now to get upgraded into a YoutubePartners account so that maybe i can make some $$$$ off the free bullshit I sling up on there) and find a message that says:
"YOU HAVE VIDEOS THAT ARE OWNED BY GoDigital Media"
Who are GoDigital Media? Google them. I'm not linking to them and giving them any free hits.
They are one of those fancy Web 2.0 media companies that specializes in digital marketing and distributing music. Apparently they also like to stake claims on videos of snakes.
I already filed a "dispute" with Youtube and sent these people an angry email (that'll show 'em!!!) but they already have tried to claim copyright on AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT VIDEO which I uploaded just minutes ago, which I will be posting on this blog.
But of course youtube won't do anything because it's run by featureless bots that reside in servers with no human beings around to talk to or deal with. So now both of my videos have big ol ads in them which I assume make money for GoDigital Media.
And I can't do a thing about it. __________________________________________ __________________________________________
As for the new video I uploaded, here's the story about that.
A few blog posts ago I mentioned that I had managed to get myself a Kinder Surprise egg from a local german bar. Well today me, Mike (who gave away his new cat already), John, and Jack all went there again. And lo and behold what do I see, but GIANT KINDER EGGS. These things were huge. Like a 7 inch long chocolate egg with hazelnut inside. And within that? A capsule, like the others.
Except this one was a good 3 times larger and had an actual toy inside and not just an eraser with a preston blair face carved into it.
And inside was a wind-up Hippo. Apparently it's supposed to do backflips. Well guess what?
I'm actually really proud of how the brick bounces off Bob's head in this. It seems like it has real weight to it. Which is hard to do in flash. _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________
As I might have mentioned in the last post, me and my friends Billy and Lenko have been working on a game. Lenko recently first released the design of the main character, Radish.
In the last post I also showed a very early shot of the environment of the first level. Well since then, Billy has made it much more complex. Got the lighting properly done. Smoothed out the textures I painted. We also added stalactites and animated waving grass but you cant see them in this new shot.
But as you can see, it's alot more complex now. On a quick note, this won't be an iphone game. Billy is aiming to get it onto the Xbox Live Arcade. How cool would that be? To see a game I made on tv. I think I pooped a little just thinking about it.
Anyway here's the new screenshot.
I'm quite excited! Obviously I will post more news and screenshots as they come along. _____________________________ _____________________________ _____________________________
I got pressure sensitivity working for all my art software. Thus far it's only worked on Alias Sketchbook Pro and ArtRage.
Now it works in Flash, PaintShopPro9 and Photoshop 6. I've been struggling with trying to get it to work for a year now, all I needed was some 4 mb driver to be installed in my Toshiba laptop.
And it's been VERY interesting to use Photoshop (a program I dont like much) and PaintShopPro as a PAINTING program and not just "here are some filters to dump on your horrible art and call it a day" program.
Last "art" I made in PaintShopPro was this thing:
So obviously, I'm very spoiled on art rage. As I figured it would, painting in PaintShop and PhotoShop just feels too much like I'm piling blobs of pseudo-transparent circles on each other and trying to make an image with them. Which is why I liked Art Rage because it FEELS like a brush.
Either way, heres some speed paintings I did just to try get into the 'feel' of doing things this way.
I pretty much have to get good with using Photoshop and this tablet because pretty much anyone who is even mildly OK at Photoshop makes art that trumps mine in every conceivable way. So maybe I can improve in that aspect.
This is the first painting I've made in Photoshop since I abandoned college: (its 3 megabytes for no reason) I had to fall back on the crutch for bad photoshop artists known as "render clouds" they are quite easy to see.
Next I tried painting a sea monster. That seems to be a big theme over at the conceptart and cgsociety websites. Both sites which are overflowing with people way WAY better at this than me. And alot of them half my age too. Depressing.
Anywho, Sea Beastie
And then in PaintShopPro I tried using the selection tool (which at one point was my best friend in terms of digital art) with freehand and using the oil brush to make this painting of my spooky Joker bank robber mask.
I'll just have to keep fiddling with these and practicing.
Although I dont think I'll ever get as good with them as I am with Art Rage. God damn I love that software. ___________________________________ ___________________________________
Heres a short comic full of in-jokes from a webforum I hang out on too much. Dont worry if you dont get the jokes. In fact I'd recommend not reading it at all.
I shaved my neckbeard today back into a slim, sexy, and devilish goatee. The way it should be.
However this didnt stop someone from finding a picture of a man who looks rather alot like me unshaven.
This is not me. BUT, it looks ALOT like me. It's actually a bit frightening. This is like me if I were Caucasian. Luckily my beard is no longer this big. ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________
I have nothing else to talk about, so please, enjoy this gif of a Pyro in team fortress 2 doing what noob pyros do best:
running head first into danger and dying in embarrassing ways. In this case, to some pumpkins full of dynamite. (click to see the animation)
I also started up another blog for a bit of an art project. I'm not going to post it here. If you are clever, you can find it.
Its about something I mentioned I wanted to do on here previously. Obviously because its a rather large project, I wont update it as much as this one.
The new Mario Bros game came out a couple days ago. And like a fool I didn't preorder it at work. Which means we wont get any copies in to buy PLUS I dont get a lovely 20% off employee discount from the total price. Which considering its a wii game I'm sure is like 40-60 friggin dollars.
Oh I'm da happiest christmas tree. A ho ho ho a hee hee hee Someone came and they found me oh lucky lucky me
Its nowhere near the holidays but I already feel like it is. Maybe because its so damn cold lately. I really need to invest in a new pc already. ____________________________________ ____________________________________
Mike got a free cat. A friend of his had two stray kittens and she gave him one. Little fellow is tiny and pitch black and surprisingly tame for being a stray. He gave it a cool name based on an ancient city. Which I cant remember now. Byzantium? Salamis? Heliopolis? Urkesh? Ebla?
Actually I think its Sebennytos because he wants to call the cat "Seben" for short.
Either way the cat is quite cute, as kittens tend to be. __________________________________________ __________________________________________
This has been a very productive week:
I finished alot of things for that History Channel job.
I attempted to make a new painting using a photo reference. I personally think it came out looking like a complete piece of shit. But apparently 1 out of every 10 doctors likes it. So enjoy. Yes the metal thing is a photo. Its a long story go away. Credit goes to ry99an for taking the picture in the first place.
I managed to work on the very violent cartoon again.
I uploaded a whole pile of crap onto youtube.
I painted some textures for a pc game a friend of mine is making.
_____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ Here's a screenshot of aforementioned violent cartoon:
awww look how happy he is. too bad a knife is about to be plunged into his spinal cord. _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________
Not long ago my friend Billy Monks hatched an idea for a platform game with my friend Bug. Bug currently is in a class with Bill Plympton and thus has no time to do the game's graphics. So my other friend Lenkobiscuit was brought on to do the character animation. I'll be painting textures and backgrounds. Unlike our last game Arthropod Armada (which apparently everyone except the French hated), this time we're putting a 2d character in 3d sidescrolling enviroment ala Klonoa, Mischief Makers, Paper Mario, etc. In the game you play a knight named Radish who has to save other vegetable named people. You will have the ability to change gravity which will hopefully lead to some interesting puzzles. No idea yet. This one is mostly Billy's baby. I'm just the graphics guy. Either way, here is a test of the textures on the tile-based cube enviroments you'll be fiddling with in this. ________________________________________ ________________________________________
And as I also aforementioned here are all those things I put on youtube. For the most part they are things that I either entirely forgot I made or felt were so AMAZINGLY GOOD that I had to share them with the public like the big arrogant fine artist I am.
A music video I made for a contest on aniboom which if its not entirely obvious from the video itself, that I had no real chance of winning.
old music video made for my friend mentally detached who still appears to me from time to time like a phantom. this is quite old if the scraggly lines and poor animation dont clue you in.
something silly about a onions and knives theres actually rather dark connotations about this one if you dwell on it :[ now i've made myself sad
I made quite a few "experiment cartoons" using my friend Mentally Detached's music exp04, then exp11, exp 16, and then finally experiment 18. Now that wasnt all of them. The still unreleased polypeptide is technically experiment 19. And there was actually an unfinished experiment 15 I made. Obviously I did not finish it. And I doubt I will for any reason other than a lack of drive and time to do so. So I cleaned it up and put what little in it that was "decent" up.
This next thing was a cartoon based on a silly idea about team fortress 2. Because Flash sucks it was unable to export it as a video properly so it's missing a small chunk in the middle and its missing its ending. Faced with a lack of an ending, I put a BRAND NEW ending onto it which I think is much better.
Before I left Newgrounds as the place nosedived into a socialist version of deviantart, me and a friend of mine named Fatbadger made a bunch of very silly short cartoons based around different subjects. One in particular was based around Chiyo Chan. A character from an anime called Azumanga, which is actually a very funny show. So, I made this. I have no regrets.
And finally this weird little thing called 14 which is also a music video to my friend Mentally Detached's music.
Oh and I almost forgot this one. I dont have a good explanation for this one. Lets just say it was made as a gift for someone who didnt deserve it.
I may upload more stuff on an alt account but that's still up for debate at this point. Particularly some incredible stupid (but funny) megaman cartoons I did earlier this year. ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________
In complete other news I got to finally ride in the Metal Slug (my favorite arcade game) tank vehicle in the Mario Kart map in tf2 the other night. How to describe this map. I guess imagine a giant rectangular racetrack, COVERED in every internet meme and joke you can possibly imagine, with loud music playing, whilst 3d versions of the karts from mario kart, the bikes from Excite Bike, and the catbus from "My Neighbor Totoro" make their way slowly around. Its one of those maps you dont play seriously in. Just grief and explode around.
Other than that, nothing interesting to report. If found a FANTASTIC new restaurant that has become my favorite. But a few minutes away from here, squeezed into a tiny unwholesome corner of Dale Mabry, is a place called the Pita Republic. MY GOD. This place has replaced the Pita Pit in my heart for "best various foods crammed into a greek taco"
Its SOOOO good and SOOOOO cheap. As of late I have been subjecting my mouth parts to a particularly great one called the Texas Pita or something. Basically its a pita with spicy rice, roast chicken breast, pepperjack cheese, and what I think is the best chipotle pepper sauce I have ever had ooze its way across my tongue.
YOU'RE THE KING OF THE BEAVERS YOU CANNOT DECEIVE US AND YOU CANT FOOL OWLS
No big news today. Today's blog post was brought to you by the letter "f" and is mostly an imagedump.
Some quick notes:
-- I'm still working on those illustrations for the History channel. And it's going very well, they seem to like my work.
-- The Gorillaz are on WIRED which I assume means the new album will be out soon. The two singles they released earlier this year were lovely, so I am a happy clam. Or oyster.
-- I might, MIGHT, have gotten a promotion at my regular job. More word on that later.
-- My son from the future named Elias came to me in a time machine. Sadly he arrived with no skin and fell to pieces before he could warn me about some terrible thing happening in the future. I fed his remains to my pet shark named Loafa Bread.
-- My internet got upgraded for free from my provider. I am now running at about 10mb per second as opposed to the previous 4/5 mb/s that it was before. And it may get even faster over the course of the next few days.
-- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia may be the best show on tv right now.
-- The Ed Edd n Eddy Movie and the Season Premier of Deathclock were both fucking incredible and made amazing ratings. I hope someone at CN gets the message.
-- I am all the ham.
-- I made a painting in complete drowsiness of what I think is a scene from a movie. Here it is.
And here is the dump of images. These come courtesy of my friend Mike who has the fastest computer I've ever used. He plays Team Fortress 2 and is probably the best spy I've seen. I've seen him kill 10 people in a single life and not get caught. Scary man. Anyway, these are all the amusing screenshots he's taken of the game. I post them not just because they are funny and/or cool but also because, for those who dont play the game, you can see just how pretty it is. I've said it before and I'll say it again, why cant more games be stylized in a fun way?
Anyway here's the pictures.
The two-headed Heavy.
This sums up how you will spend most of your time as an Engineer these days. Dead. It's a hard knock life.
Crit sandwich. Dopey smile.
Faceplant. And a scout nimbly sidestepping the pipebomb.
what a horrifying image this is.
this is just a cool shot of two people in motion.
an engineer tired of being killed by everything has his revenge on the most overpowered class in the game.
this perfectly sums up tf2. two soldiers. two teams. two hats.
Doing a split? In the middle of battle? For shame.
Scout battle. A common site in 2fort, a map commonly referred to as "blech"
Badass mother SHUT YO MOUTH
Wow he really hates this wall. I wouldn't want to be that wall. No sir. W+M1
What a great spray. (a spray is like a decal you can put on walls and floors).
bonk.
More sprays. Mike's nickname when he plays is Jigglypuff. Can you guess which spray is his?
An engineer crammed into a dark corner of the Goldrush map. Lookin spooky.
Neither me nor Mike have any idea whats happening here or what this is.
A soldier falling down a hole in Hydro. Hydro is a great map that sadly often ends in Stalemates due to it being...dare I say....TOO balanced.
I actually uploaded some animation that almost noone has seen before. My friend Hans van Harken of Havaha was making a game a while ago. Like a year ago. And his coder abandoned him.
So, Hans gave me the OK to upload the animated intro to the game to the internet for all to enjoy. Hans is a big fan of the animation of Saul Bass. So alot of his cartoons and short films all have a bit of a Saul Bass look to them. He's an amazing writer though who is currently writing what sounds like will be an amazing dark comedy about 3 ex-cops trying to clean up their city.
Anyway, I had to animate in Hans style for this, and I'm actually pleased with how it came out as, it really doesn't look like anything else I ever make. Plus Hans got perhaps the best voice actor online, a man named Tomamoto, to voice the really angry red guy in this.
But enough jibber jabber. Here it is.
Maybe if I bug Hans enough he'll want to do something else with these little military characters.
Either way I need to get back to work drawing Grand Central Station. Don't kiss the cat if it has fleas.
Everyone wants to be viral now. Its the only way to be popular unfortunately. Talent usually doesn't seem to apply. If you can make something, even just one thing, that for some unexplained reason catches on, you are now an internet celebrity. And if you manage to keep milking whatever it was that got viral, and keep people interested, you can make quite a bit of money.
Everyone loved Chocolate Rain, didnt they? A drum machine and a young guy with a deep voice singing a bizarre but catchy chant. He tried to keep it going. But when was the last time anyone cared about him? Not for a while. Because they only ever wanted Chocolate Rain. But even if you aren't a fan, the man had some talent. He had a nice voice and was, for all intents and purposes, somewhat of a musician.
On the complete other side of the spectrum we have Fred. Fred is a diminutive lad who looks like he's 14 but I wouldn't be surprised to hear he's older and has some sort of 'problem' He has a shrill high pitched voice like as if Mickey Mouse were a chain smoker, and then proceeded to dive inside the throat of Alvin the chipmunk. His videos have no merit. And this is ME, saying this. The guy who makes spam cartoons. He basically sits in front of a webcam (like alot of youtube starz tend to) and proceeds to buzz about things which are pretty much incomprehensible due to his voice and the fact he appears to be on alot of medication.
Now you may wonder why I'm discussing the trash that comes out of youtube for a reason. And its because I wish to illustrate my point. That everyone wants to be viral. Everyone wants to make something that is so weird/stupid/weird&stupid that the mindless wiggers and soccer moms of the internet will instantaneously fall in love with it, shell out money for it, etc. Its the new American Dream. And I'm not bashing it, oh no. I share the dream as well, partly. God knows I wouldnt have put anything of mine up other than my demo reel if it weren't for the faint glimmer of hope that maybe people will suddenly care about cartoons they saw in 2005/06 from me again.
But that isnt the point. The thing thats great about all this is that as many viral things as there are (I'm On a Boat, Puppet Rapist, Funny or Die, Hamster Dance) there are just as many if not MORE wannabe viral things that failed miserably. Usually these are from movie studios and the head honchos at Hollywood, whom in their often lacking wisdom, thought that trying to advertise a film using 'alternate reality games' and such would do a better job than blaring loud obnoxious commercials on tv and in movie theaters and on the radio and on billboards and on popup ads and on dvd and in posters etc.
Some of these are so bad they are funny:
Shrek Babies. Because babies dancing is funny? It wasn't even funny when Ally McBeal did it a friggin decade ago. And why does the animation look like it was done in a half hour?
Chihuahua song. Why was this movie made? And why did Disney flood youtube with this song? VIRAL MARKETING.
Sony tried to do a similar thing with the PSP by having people on youtube pretend to like it (despite the PSP being pretty poor for anything other than emulators). So when it blew up in their face everyone had a laugh. Sony tend to embarrass themselves alot.
But why go through that much trouble?
Because they wanted it to be viral.
Now, the reason I bring this up is because EVERY NOW AND THEN, someone will do something viral or TRY to make something viral, and even if it's not successful, its still alot better than the horrors I linked up there.
For example, the clever Bungie made a viral website to promote the new Halo that actually got pretty popular.
Blah blah blah the POINT IS that there is a NEW viral thing swimming across the murky depths of shit that is the online world, desperately trying to gasp for air and fill its lungs with YOUR MONIES.
In this case it's a film. A film I actually want to see. Its called THE BOX. Its by Richard Kelly, the man who made Donny Darko (a good trippy metaphysical scifi film that is a cult classic. he didnt make the shitty sequel.) and the movie Southland Tales which was a futuristic scifi movie that apparently only I liked.
The film is about a button and when the couple it is given to push it, someone dies, and they get a million dollars. Not a breathtaking concept, but simple enough to obviously enrage people who are now shrieking "i could have thought of that" all over internet message boards.
The first thing that popped into my head when I saw the trailer was "The Monkey's Paw" a short story made in the early 1900's which you should read if you havent. As a tot it was one of the first stories I read that actually scared me and fueled my imagination which would lead me down a path of bad cartoons.
Now this movie has actually been getting some good press and quite a few commercials on tv. So one would think it wouldn't need viral marketing to increase its popularity, but this is Hollywood after all.
Luckily, someone, somewhere, is a genius. Because the 'viral' sites for this film are actually very well done sites that are disorientating, confusing, beautiful, and at the same time a bit scary. This is the official website for the film, and as you can see its like some sort of hallucinogenic nightmare of memories from someone we dont know. Clicking around causes it to fly into other sections of the site which dont tell you anything but do show you some rather creepy film clips. None of which really shed much light on the film but DO make you interested in seeing more. Eventually if one clicks around on the website enough, one winds up here. Its a fascinating site of 3 clips that seem to be a combination of old footage and new footage meant to look old. Something about unknown being tampering with government equipment at Nasa. I assume this means aliens have something to do with the film, I dont know.
The whole point of this essay was basically to show you those two sites because I think are quite nifty in both design and function and even if this movie flops (which I hope it wont, because Frank Langella is an amazing actor), that at least the marketers behind the film made something cool to try and advertise online with it.
And looking around the net these days, its obvious we need alot more of that. ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________
Anyway. Now that I've given the impression that this blogs whole point is to subtly plug movies like the so-called bloggers on ign, yahoo, CNN, and Fox who are basically all lobbyist crustaceans trying to seem like human beings and all that shit.
HERES SOMETHING THAT PERTAINS TO ME. YEAH ITS SELFISH TIME NOW, BRUDDAZ.
I have gotten myself a job. An animation job. A freelance animation job! The History Channel is doing some sort of animated information film about famous trains and interesting facts about them. And they needed illustrators. And guess what lucky chap got the job! I'll give you a hint: its me. Figured it out yet? It's me! Yes indeed! I am doing illustrations for something for the History Channel. :) I am most overjoyed at this turn of events! Plus I get to draw a place I've actually been to, in Georgia. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________
My employer Weebl of Weebls-Stuff showed me a neat gadget he got himself. This thing. Its a tiny device which records glorious sound which he's been taking everywhere.
It jostled my memory that I need to get myself a new microphone. My mic is a bit of a piece of crap that makes my recordings all fuzzy. I also need to buy myself a digital camcorder. Me and Mike and John and Jack are always coming up with good ideas for short films but can never make them because none of us have a nice camera.
In other news I put another old cartoon of mine up on Youtube. Part of me almost wanted to go back and add more to it. But then I remembered that I am lazy. Enjoy a cartoon where the credits are twice as long as the cartoon:
Maybe one day I'll fix it so it's longer. Prooooooobably wont happen though. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________
In other news I ordered Left 4 Dead 2 the other night for my friend Mike. I forgot to send it as a gift, so Valve thought I bought it for myself (it would NEVER run here on this terrible computer) so I asked Valve to fix it. They did. But apparently Mike is the one who gets the Bill hat. Which is good. Because its a lovely hat. Probably the best hat in the game. Makes all the characters except the sniper and soldier look like badass mercenaries.
I had it for a few hours the other night due to the mix-up. And now, now it's gone. Ah well! Goodbye, cool hat. You made me look far cooler than my meager skills as a Medic and Engineer ever could.
I feel I should say something interesting to end this very long post with.
I hope your haunting hour of pagan hallowed horror was rife with alcohol and candy and possibly both simultaneously!
So how did I enjoy this year's Dia de los Muertos? Sacrificing small animals in the name of Iblis? Slashing my face with a bone knife and covering it in soot whilst howling at the moon? Digging up an unmarked grave and dancing on the remains while chanting the lyrics to 'One More Time' by Daftpunk?
Well unlike last year, I didnt have to work!(yay for me!)
So heres what I actually did:
I wore a hoodie that looks like the mask the joker wore during the intro bank heist in the dark knight and I handed tiny Twix and Baby Ruth candies to all the kids who came to the door.
Then once the hub-bub died down I showed Borat to my father and have since been watching The Shining (the original Kubrick one) while playing Team Fortress. Thats not to say I haven't gotten any work done.
Because it is Halloween I decided to do an art request on the backalleys irc channel. My friend and longtime compadre Ukinojoe wanted me to draw him The Lorax (with the Onceler as well) so I decided to give Seuss a shot.
I'm actually pleased with how it came out: Unlike alot of my 'fanart' you can actually tell what it is. Wowie Wowie Wow!
Speaking of Lorax, I think Sony animation studios are doing a remake of it or something. I hope that:
A.) they manage to recreate the look of Seuss as perfectly in 3 dimensions as Blue Sky did
and
B.) you never see the Onceler's face
Speaking of fanart, I made this little team fortress 2 comic the other day. Fanart is a strange thing, isn't it? As artists we make it, knowing full well that none of the people who made the thing we love so much will ever see it (seuss has been dead for two decades now), or even really care (cause they dont need to). And yet, we do it anyway. Why is that? What defines that compulsion? Whatever it is its been hitting me hard lately. I'm thinking of making a blog where I draw every single pokemon. Yeah. HOW DUMB IS THAT. BUT I'LL DO IT. I'm off topic. Heres that comic.
Speakin of TF2, Valve did a lovely thing. They added in a new hat. A hat that you can actually earn. And they also made Harvest (which I personally think is a fantastically well balanced map), into a crazy halloween extravaganza. Full of tomb stones, exploding pumpkins, and best of all, a non-playable new character. The Ghost of Zephanniah Mann who floats around screwing up your aim. I am quite enjoying my hat: these guys...eh....arent enjoying the update as much _________________________ _________________________ _________________________
However thats not the coolest thing that's happened lately, no sir. No the coolest thing lately is that I got to try Kinder Surprise! Whats Kinder Surprise? A european candy with an incredibly disturbing advert.
They dont sell it here in America. However my brit friend Lenko has been telling me about how good they are.
I noticed the other day that Mr.Dunderbach's (which is full of German imported goods) carried Kinder surprise. SO, I bought one!
And I am glad I did. Imagine, if you would, a giant cabury cream egg. EXCEPT instead of having weird gloopy goop inside its hollowed out, with a sort of odd minty white chocolate lining the inner walls (or at least thats what it tasted like) and then inside of it was THIS:
mein gott! un jaune capsule!
AND IT OPENS? WHAT TREASURES AWAIT MY FACE?
holy shit a red crazy faced pencil topper eraser totem pole!
Yessir. With this pencil topper the shorties will be bouncin with me and my crew in no time. Hot diggity dog!
I feel there was something else important I needed to type here.
Hmm.
HMMMMMMMM.
nope.
oh wait.
I added a new link list the far right bar of this blog. Its full of my art and animation buddies who have their own sites. My other link lists have been getting so long, I felt I needed to start splitting them up and organizing them even though I'm the only one who clicks em. :)
I rarely talk about things I make in terms of what their plot is. Usually I just post a few screenshots. But I usually dont go much into what future projects are about. Maybe because I feel it should be a surprise or mainly because I dont like talking about them.
Either way.
A friend of mine by the name of Jacob Seed wanted an explanation for this. What is that? Well, its a long story. The short story is that this was a cartoon I never completed which I sent into a spam collab years ago.
The long LONG story about it is that sometime in 2004 or 2005 I had an idea for a cartoon series I wanted to do. I fiddled with the idea for quite a while, coming up with exactly what I wanted, finding the soundtrack I wanted (some old celtic music I drummed up), and then trying to put it together. I soon came to the realization that I did not have the necessary skills to make this series on my own. I had no voice actors, and I couldn't draw very well. Still can't but I have a nice tablet now. And I realized I'd rather not bother doing this thing if it was going to come out looking amateurish.
Since then, I've revisited the idea a few times on occasion. Refining it. Not much has changed though, since then. I still thought it was a pretty good idea, by my standards anyway.
Here is the original cast as I first drew them all together in 2004 or 05. Of all these characters the first one was the Chickenfish. I created this character at some point in high school. The Chickenfish is great at retaining information, hence why its a valuable asset at the LaLa Land Corporation that most of the rest of those characters work in. The Chickenfish talks entirely in rhyming limericks.
Thorg is one of the main characters. He owns a company called LaLa land. What the company does exactly is a mystery. But its extremely profitable and everyone in the city wants to work there. Loud, opinionated, but very generous and kind (and short) Thorg is simultaneously the best and worst boss you could want. He scrambles around all day causing as much joyful chaos in the company as he can to help keep his employees from realizing a very strange and paranormal fact about their work schedules. Which I will get into later.
Thorg is one of the most important characters in this whole thing. Because in all technical terms, he's the villain of the story. But he's not evil. He wants to be your buddy and hang out with you. His only sin is wanting everyone to know who he is. Really badly.
He's gone through quite a few design changes. From that original drawing up there. To this next drawing.
Fucking LOL at the watermark I draped all over this. As if anyone would want to steal this horrible thing. God I was dumb.
And here is a somewhat more recent design I did of him. Honestly the final design will probably combine the square-torso of the original with the black limbs of that other one. In college, I even used Thorg in my first hand-drawn walk cycle and turnaround. Take note, these next two videos will hurt your eyes because the animation is so awful. I had no real formal training yet before I did these.
And here is a somewhat better but still awful walk cycle.
The other main character, and the one whom the story starts off with was Melvin. Melvin was also the first character I ever tried animating in flash. But back then he was alot shorter and his body was a triangle.
The story began with Melvin moving to a new nameless city to work at a new job in Lala Land. Escaping from a rather troubling past life to a new one made him feel a bit better about his current circumstances. But he was still rather miserable. He moves into his new apartment and goes to bed. He wakes up the next day and turns on his laptop, and there is a video sent to him from Thorg himself welcoming him to the company. Personalized. He looks outside to see the sun rise over the giant fantastical city he's moved into and feels optimistic for once.
(and here is a blobby thing from the original storyboard of this scene)
Melvin does not know that this will be the last time he sees his apartment.
And so he merrily strolls through the streets of the city like Brad Garrett in that new soda commercial. He meets Thorg's wife outside the door. Originally this characters name was Fina but thats probably going to change as I just dont think it suits her. I'll just use Fina for now. Thorg's wife, and the 2nd head of the company. She's a bit of a magician and has a bit of an interesting spell cast on the building. She's a master at solving problems and tends to stray off into other subjects when she talks. Much like her husband, she is very loud and friendly. Almost too friendly. Unlike Thorg she is very tall, being some giraffelant creature. While she's not entirely sure of how ethical what she and her husband have done to the company is, she cant argue with results.
So what exactly have they done? Well you see the whole reason this company does so well (and the reason I named it Lala Land in a fit of pretentious pseudo-symbolism) is because noone in the company ever takes a break. And no-one ever goes home. No punching in or punching out. Once you're in, you're in. The spell that Thorg and Fina have weaved over this place has caused noone to notice. People have been working nonstop at Lala Land for years without ever noticing. And for good reason. The leaders of the board have taken great care into making sure that work here is as relaxing and distracting as possible. No clocks. No calendars. And the windows are hexed so that it always seems like its daytime inside.
But, everyone is happy.
Magic, however, isn't perfect. And as the weeks pass Melvin starts to realize that he seems to be stuck in some sort of infinite loop. He knows something is wrong, but he cant tell what. He slowly begins to grow very tired and depressed as time unknowingly passes by. But he does get to know his fellow workers and Thorg pretty well over the course of all this.
As luck would have it, the security outside of Lala Land didnt take his laptop when he first entered.
He switches it on and realizes that time has indeed passed in a great amount while he's been inside.
In a great panic he dodges downstairs and out the door of the company. He makes it about 50 feet away before some ghostly magical arms spring out of the company doors and drag him back inside where he finds himself face to face with a few of his co-workers and Fina who warmly shakes his hand and congratulates him on being one of the few employees who was smart enough to figure out the ruse.
He soon finds himself in a very large silver and golden boardroom with a few of his coworkers sitting at a long table, with Thorg at the head.
and this is where Thorg's intentions come in. Thorg is tired of being such an insignificant individual.
Feeling much like the man from Stephen Crane's book War Is King and Other Lines he feels that he has so much to contribute to the world that the whole universe would see him as a significant figure. A bit self-righteous, sure. But Thorg just wants to help everyone he can and to inspire people, in his own twisted way.
So he decided not long ago that any employees clever enough to realize they hadnt gotten out of their work days were going to help him become the most significant person in the world.
And they meet every day in this gold and silver room to sit down and chat about the best ideas to do this. The best ideas put forward thus far had been:
a.) carve Thorg's likeness into the sun.
b.) attempt to take over another continent in the friendliest way possible and name it Thorgopia and make it a perfect world of no pain, hunger, or sorrow.
c.) create a product inside Lala land that would benefit every single person in the universe. like a time machine, or something that wards off death.
However not all employees came up with good ideas. Fit (the small gremlin creature in the original sketch near the top who follows Thorg in a creepy fanatical manner) had the bright idea of assassinating the current leader of the principality, and then getting Thorg elected to take his place, once all the chaos had calmed down. Thorg laughs very hard at this idea. But not in really a derisive way. Giving Fit the idea that perhaps the bossman approves and so, despite his co-workers disapproving looks, Fit decides he's going to set in motion, the cogs to make this idea come true. Fit then hires Wiwi, a hitman from a watery moon. This sets up a whole chain of events I just dont feel like typing about.
Melvin secretly decides that he's going to try and find a way of bringing this company down, as he very much believes its practices of being unethical. So he puts forth the idea of getting Thorg his own channel on the international visual entertainment waves so Thorg can reach as many people as possible.
Melvin eventually falls in love with one of the camera operators on this station and the two of them manage to capture Fit hiring Wiwi to kill the president on camera. Fit finds out and proceeds to do his very best to get this film (and get rid of Melvin in the process). Melvin attempts unsuccessfully to sneak hidden messages into Thorg's broadcasts. Thorg eventually realizes that being popular doesn't mean people will have faith in you, and eventually sacrifices his airtime into trying to alert everyone that one of his workers is trying to get people killed in his name.
The Chickenfish meanwhile rewrites the Bible substituting Thorg for many of the key biblical characters. So the stories end up about Thorg parting the red sea, being the savior, turning random assholes into pillars of salt, etc etc. Fina later tries to have it made into a musical.
And then this happens:
And thats basically it. Yes it was a horrible idea, which I still plan to maybe one day do. Maybe as a comic instead of a cartoon. Who knows. The original plan and storyboards was to set this up into various episodes of varying lengths.
However a project this large would require alot more work. I'd need to get music composed, voice actors, good sound effects. Not the stuff I decide to do just for the hell of it like this:
ONTO ANOTHER SUBJECT THAT IS ALOT MORE INTERESTING
My lovely little music player that hovers in the top right corner of this blog that makes sweet tender love to your ears.....can only hold 200 songs.
I just learned this the other night. And I was so sad. I looked it in the eye and said QUIT PLAYIN GAMES WITH MY HEART. WITH MY HEART. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN FROM THE START. WITH MY HEART.
So I've been having to delete songs to add new ones. Feels bad, man.
Those of you who havent given up on the videogame industry entirely due to Bald Brown Colored Space Shooter Game #4483845 + Nintendo Family Party Game Waggle Fest should probably know by now that a new 2d Mario Brothers game is coming out.
When it was announced at E3 a few months ago I was the happiest fucker in the world. I loved the new DS Mario Brothers game (despite it being short). It was a return to form for Mario. Using physics and really hard jumping puzzles to create a stirring experience.
The coolest thing about the new one coming out for the Wii is that someone at Nintendo remembered that Bowser actually used to have kids. Yeah. A whole bunch of them. Whom, after Super Mario World, never appeared again except for brief cameos in the Mario rpg games.
So, seeing Bowser Jr (bowser's new son/clone) AND the old Bowser Kids from the late 80's and early 90's altogether again makes me a HAPPY HORSE. A HAPPY HORSE GOD DAMN.
And they even retained their old character designs.
awwww! Look how cute they are! And their wands still shoot squares triangles and circles like every other magic-toting thing in the mario world.
I also really like the grainy texture that they have on their surfaces. I wish they'd do that to Mario and the other main characters. The shading on the mains is so smooth it gives the gang a very sterilized look. Personally I think the best mario and luigi is the one from the Mario and Luigi rpg games.
These are great designs. They have big colorless cartoony eyes. Rosy noses. Striped socks. And a green tint. The letters on their hats are black. Their bottom lip isnt poking out from under their mustaches. Their chins dont jut out like on the 3d ones. These two should look like this all the time. Seriously.
And as usual, work continues on the violent new cartoon for Skoo and Weebl.
Here is a screenshot.
You may wonder why the main character is eying this fat man's rotund butt. Well its because he's about to blast it off with his pistol, thats why.
And I think thats it.
This blog post is filled with more horrors than most, and for that I apologize. I hope this glimpse into a failed cartoon project has been an eye-opening experience for all you Amish folk who took time out of your busy days of churning cows and milking butter to read my blog on the internet.
Surgeon General's Warning: Continued exposure to this blog may be hazardous to your health. Consult a physician before reading. If tumors form, call a doctor immediately.
Posts
