B'out Damn Time for a Post About LIEF** (please read my life!)

**Life


So, here's the score. I cooked at T.G.I. Fridays last winter(my first winter in Denver); it was ok, but I mainly hated every second of it. The corporate atmosphere, the hours reaching into the wee hours of the 'mourn, and the fact that here in Denver, I was the only English speaking person on the line(Mexicans). It was no hard choice when I had to decide to quit during the hot months of August, after working for 11 months at a terrible corporate hellhole. I had regained my summer job from '07... cooking at Cherry Creek Country Club... which, here in Colorado, is no slouch of a Country Club.

So, all was well and good; a job I liked at the club, working with cool people, and a job at Denver Country Club lined up for the winter. Rockin! Little did I (fucking) know.

DCC hired me alright, but failed to do anything about it. I called them (A.K.A. Mark, the manager who hired me) every day from Oct.10-17, until I realized that the "You can start Oct 14th" was a lie (gave me the same terrible line 2 ore 3 times). I was jobless, moneyless, and all around hopeless for making rent. Fore 2 whole, glorious, TV and Videogame-filled weeks.

Then something happened. I got a job simply selling framed artwork- you know, Dali paintings and Ansel Adams Photographs among a vast amount of other things- and everything is immediately OK. I take cash commission home every day- whatever I sell I honesly see profits that very day. I love that. I'm meeting new people, making amazing connections, and having an all around amazing time.

For the first time, in, oh, I don't know, my LIFE, I am reaching for goals, achieving success, and reaping the benefits. My first day I sold one piece. My second day I sold 5. My third I sold 17!! Over the weekend I failed at selling an art, but they were my well-deserved days off. Today (Monday) I only sold 3...

...But my 4th day and I'm already on their "top new people" list. In fact, I'm going on a sales trip this weekend to Wyoming! I hate Wyoming, but there's no feeling quite like success; especially success that I quickly worked hard for and earned. I've worked for literally hundreds and hundred of hours on my animation, and for what... 50, a hundred, hits on YouTube? I can use my natural talents on another way and actually make real money and earn real respect and gain success in a way that I never have before.

Since gaining this new leash on life, I have been offered a chance at a contract for $10,000; completly unrelated from art, but just a peg I gained on somebody who I made a good impression on... I have also been offered another job by a client just based on my skills as a salesman. Today I wore a t-shirt and jeans to my (other) new interview and nailed it. Now I sell art AND cellphones!!

I started at $0 ...now I'm only $100 dollars from rent in only 4 days at working this. Thats $360 in 4 days!!!

It's certainly taking it's tole... I haven't been eating or sleeping right ever since I starting tasting what it feels like to succeed. There's a lot of pressure on me now, espically with the 2 jobs, to create a standard for myself; not to mention the fact that I have to make at least $100 within the next 2 days before I get a nice call from my landlord.

So that's whats going on with me. I made $160 bucks on Friday alone as a personal high and all I can do now is try and break it. I have a business trip approaching in a few days and all I can hope for is $$$$$$$.

And I have no idea how to sell cellphones. Those people are gunna be pissed that they hired me on the sole fact I that I sold them almost $600 worth of art prints.

When you think of hand costumes, think of me

I think it was back in '72 when my business partner and I sewed together our first hand costume. It was crude, of course, but it not only gave the illusion that the wearer was a giant hand... but was quite comfortable as it was made from kitten skin. It was really the only thing we found that was soft enough besides baby seal, but thats just fucked up to kill a baby seal. If I catch anyone killing a baby fucking seal, I'll rape them so fast.

Anyway, our overhead was pretty low, considering that we could just find the kittens on the street. Oftentimes, we could lure them out through internet chatrooms. We would have entire nights devoted to roaming the city streets, scanning internet chat rooms, looking for baby kitties. Sometimes we wouldn't find any; sometimes we'd find a boatload. Sometimes it was awesome, we would find the kitten already dead. That way, we wouldn't have to bludgeon it ourselves. We bludgeoned them because we didn't want any bullet holes or knife marks on our hand costumes, as that would deter prospective hand costume buyers.

The trouble came when the unthinkable happened. The trend caught on. Almost overnight everyone and everybody's dad wanted one of these things; orders were piling up faster than we could produce. We couldn't possibly find all the kittens we needed for all these coats. No, it was time to move onto something that was equally as soft, but more abundant... something that we could re-produce in our own backyard with little to no effort. Thats how we moved on to baby bunnies.

Baby bunnies are a lot harder to catch that kittens. Most kittens are pretty trusting and will walk right into your arms, making the kill a little easier, albeit a little less rewarding. No, the bunnies we'd have to chase. Sometimes it was easier to just break their neck than to hit them with blunt objects, so you didn't have to loosen your grip once you caught them.

Yes, those were good times. That was until my partner grew hungry for more.

THE END

...or is it?

Eff it

I was supremely bored last night and decided to make this trailer. I figure that proof is in the pudding.


Stan, Satan, and the Old Fashioned Gun Trailer

Production Blog #16000074

A lot of progress has been made this week. After officially starting the project at the tail end of July, the ideas and artistic styles have mutated so much and are finally starting to take hold and lay foundation for the rest of the story and visuals to come. So far, everything I have done(which isn't 100% in order) clocks in at over 12 minutes; which doesn't sound like a lot until you think about the effort it goes into each shot. The longest single shot is about 1:45, without the camera moving. A shot like that takes 2-3 hours of animation (that includes lip-syncing), and about 3 hours just to encode into actual video. Of course, this isn't counting the time it takes to write and record it. And that's just one shot- within a scene comprised of many shots.


The story takes aspects that are already familiar to the Stan, Satan, and the Old Fashioned Gun universe(http://oldfashionedgun.smackjeeves.com). The cops, Frank and Marty, play an integral part... especially Marty, as we watch his life spiral out of control and take a nose-dive.


Some major characters I have yet to include, such as Rochester and The Old Man With No Eyes (although each make a brief appearance), but I'm simply waiting for the right time. At the start of the comic there were just Stan and Satan; the other characters came later. That seemed to work well for everyone and I you never feel like anyone gets left behind.


When I was originally designing the art style of the project, I wanted each frame to be hand painted with a white ink border after the inking process. The process was just way to expensive and time consuming... so instead I just went with a single black border. The intent was always to have color be a huge factor, for each character to be composed of one or two colors each. That's expanded to maybe 3 colors each, but everything is very simple and colorful. The backgrounds are drawn, inked, and scanned into photoshop where I color them with varying layers and opaque brushes to make it seem almost painted. Some come out better than others.


Each scene has it's own color scheme. A barn scene is composed mostly reds and black. In stans house, everything is greenish. The scene in the opera house is all deep reds. Color is a huge part of recognition in the human brain, so my goal is to have everything memorable and have a cetain feel to it, sometimes even nastolgic.

These two shots on top and bottom of this paragraph is in example of getting caught re-using a background for different scenes. It may not look the same, but the top is a far more contrasted and has higher levels of color than it's brother below. I never said I didn't cut corners. Hell, I've even used a lip set from Lunchbox Duck Does it Right episode 2.
Most of the animation is uncomplicated and easy. I'm going to rely on the drawings, the style, and audio content to deliver the story. The lips sync, and people will move their arms and eyes and stuff like that, but don't expect anything above, say, South Park in terms of realistic animation and movement.

This sequence above with Stan and Marty was a challenge in that it needed to have many camera angles, and each drawing had to have 2 versions- a normal one, and one with light cast on it. When moved very fast, it gives the illusion of gunfire.


Above here is another instance of cutting corners. I realized I hadn't made a background for behind Frank and Marty, so I stole one from myself from the opening scene in the second episode of Lunchbox Duck. it sort of sticks out as it has more colors than anything else in the scene.
I'm sort of running out of things to say.

I show pictures and not final product for a few reasons. One is that I don't feel like anything is final. There are still little SFX that are missing, and a few of the vocal tracks need to be edited to not include breath hitting the mocrophone. Another reason is I don't want to be ripped off. Not that I really think people are watching me waiting to take my ideas, but it would suck. The other reason is I just like being mysterious. Someday I will show you some video, but for now, you'll have to settle for that dance sequence that I put up on YouTube. (try a few posts down)

So there you have it. By Christmas I hope to have 30 minutes done. Maybe I'll compile a trailer or something then.

You Can't Spell "Progress" without "Coffee"

Busy lately; actually, not busy whatsoever, just stressful. The move from one job to another is taxing, especially when one job is about to end and the other job that hired you hasn't called you yet. And you worked 2 days this week because of the terrible turn the weather has taken. Also, somebody needs to realize that it is now cold outside and turn on the damn heat in my building.

Or maybe I should make sure my windows are closed before going to sleep.

Anyway, work on the project is good; I've hit my first (major) of many roadblocks in terms of story and character introduction balances- but it's back on track and the only thing hindering development is my own laziness.

I've been working on one hard scene, too. It doesn't have a number yet because I'm not sure how long it will take to get to this part of the story, but I'm simply referring to it as "Opera Scene". It's got a lot of tough camera angles and complex tones to it. It's one of the more story-driven scenes in the film, in contrast to the normal tomfoolery that you'll see.

So, enjoy these production screens, straight from the video editing process! (which means the colors are slightly lighter)
But I'm still having story troubles. Thats a good thing though, as the last thing I want to do is rush this; the animation and quality are limited already, I don't want the structure to fall in the same category- because thats the category that I hope will make this stand out in the long-run.

Stan, Satan, and the Old Fashioned Gun: Why You're Stoked and You Don't Even Know It.

In this day and age, everybody with a computer thinks they're special. I mean, just look at YouTube for example: I spend 7 months on a cartoon that over the course of 5 months gets just over 100 hits, where somebody can take a dump on an animal and get 2,000,000 in just under 5 min.

With the new modern technology that lets anybody in the world make their own media content and potentially reach millions of people comes the inevitable over saturation of fields that I've been interested my whole life; certainly before there was ever any internet. It almost makes it that much HARDER to get your stuff noticed, because there's an incredibly huge amount of shit to sift through and it's not hard to get lost or stuck in it's murkiness. These days, you have to do something either incredibly ambitious or totally stupid to get noticed. So I'm doing both.

I keep referring, in this space, to the "Stan, Satan, and the Old Fashioned Gun Project." I kept from labeling it anything other than "project" because I wasn't sure if my initial ambitions would still be clearly manifesting themselves 4 months after production started. Guess what: They are.

Thats why I've decided to attempt the impossible: Create the worlds first feature-length (animated) film done in full (except maybe some voice acting and music) by 1 person.

I'm doing this for a few reasons. One of the reasons is I can't tell the story I want to tell in less than an hour (which will probably end up being "feature length" enough for me). There's just too much to go over, and I don't want to make it feel rushed like I did with Lunchbox Duck Does it Right Episode II.

Another reason is the way I'm going about writing it. The entire film, while initially having a basic outline, is being written and created scene-by-scene. This is basically a measure I'm taking to make sure I don't get bored. If I were to do each step at a different time I would get bored and unmotivated. I have 2 or 3 scenes in production at any given time, it's just how I'm choosing to do it. The other reason I'm doing this is for freshness. I find that my best ideas are my initial thoughts and not ones that have had time to marinate over time... epically with a comedy in the vein as this. I want to keep it fresh for no only the audience, but myself.

So, this is a project. With everything I have so far, I's say I'm about 1/6 to 1/7 of the way completed. Not close, but not entirely ridiculous.

I will leave you with a previously un-released clip (unless you check my youtube site) thats been waiting to go to into final production for almost a month now. But here it is, about 95% done.

ooh, by the way... if you want to check out my other shit click HERE

We're going on a Dance ah-choo

Many of those sketches from last post are more than just random images shat out onto paper from my knuckles to your eyes; most of them serve a purpose. I like telling people that I have a fully functional animation studio in my apartment because not only was it expensive, but I use it quite often... that means that a majority of my ideas evolve from sketches and notes. Well, here are some of the work that has specifically been derived from those sketches.

^Some head. Experiment with photoshop techniques

^Another Photoshop test



^ Here's my mockup intro to a (now on hold) pilot show called Beasts of Lore





^Another Beasts of Lore test featuring one of the main characters, Gillard, a half man, half cow... man. Please notice the dirty-ass paper I was using and how terrible it makes everything look. This is a perfect example why I always test, test, TEST!

NEXT POST: Stan, Satan, and the Old Fashioned Gun and why you should be stoked and shitting in your jeans.

-Kev

Run.

^ Just a lazy-ass scan, wow.

^Few sketches and plot balloons. I don't know if "plot balloons" is a real term or not; perhaps I invented something glorious. Anyway, they're super helpful.

The first 6 Minutes in stunning video diary!

The first 6 minutes (and then some) of Stan, Satan, and the Old Fashioned Gun, is 100% animated and edited. There is still a small segment I want to put in between 2 scenes that would better clarify things, but for now, it's just an idea.

So, I'm really stoked on how this all turned out, and so I've taken the liberty of going through the first 6 minutes and taking a few snapshots of how the final product looks.



^it starts off with a rockin, fast-paced opening credits sequence. There are many cuts and effects put in place here. Theres also an underlying story that doesn't have anything to do with anything, but it's basically a copped-up, re-edited version of the original scrapped intro. I like this one better.


^My name happens to be in every single credit.





^ A few more happenings during the opening credits



^Hooray! The title!



^scene change- We meet Officers Frank and Marty, as well as the chief of police, Paul Stuck. The introduction is brief however, as there are better things to focous on.






^Scene change- we see Stan arm wrestling a pig. Before this, I plan to add that short sequence I mentioned earlier. As satan enters, we discover that Stan is involved in Illegal, Underground, Left handed pig arm wrestling. After a moment of arm wrestling, a shotgun goes off. A cat jumps up and yells "FARMER!" as he is mauled by a herd of animals hastily making their way to the exit.






^Satan has made it out of the barn through the commotion. But... "Wheres Stan?". cut to Stan laying down on his back. We see a creepy old man slowly make his way to him... they have an awkward conversation for a moment, before we change scenes.

(oops forgot to include the old man. sorry)


^lengthy scene change includes many pans and zooms throughout the city, to the saxaphone.


^After the scene switch, we come across Frank and Marty again. This scene is (almost) verbatim to their first comic introduction. Much nostalgia.

Well this it folks. There are other scenes that are indeed finished that aren't here, but they take place later on and I'm just not there yet.

So, tell me what you think (I'm pretty sure this is getting posted on my Facebook, as well?) about what you saw. The art direction, the characters, anything. lemme know! comments!

Stan, Satan, and the Old Fashioned Comeback

In 2003 I attempted to create a cast of characters that I could use in a sort of "Film Noir" type story about a man named Stan, his companion, Satan, and their quest for a priceless antique Gun. Like so many others, the idea faded away into oblivion.

Two years later, we're at September, 2005. I ressurrect the characters, but drop the whole storyline. The title, Stan, Satan, and the Old Fashioned Gun didn't apply, but I chose to stick with it simply for the fact that it delightfully didn't any longer make sense. I chose to spiral the story into craziness with more stupid characters and insane situations, and it worked. The characters clicked, the story, while palable and limited, successfully infused each character with an important role and interesting situations (Like jail and record deals).

I continued on with this comic, and to this day is the longest running project I have. With 170 6-pannel comics just under the belt, theres a lot of content to work with, some good, some bad. I've slowed down considerably (from a new comic every day to a new comic every 6 months or so)due to other projects, but I always had it by my side while I took on the task of my new Animation projects like Lunchbox Duck Does it Right and Beasts of Lore (Both on YouTube).

Flashforeward to Now... almost August 2008.

The inevitable happens: Production begins on Stan, Satan, and the Old fashioned Gun Animated Cartoon. But it's a whole different animal...

Whereas the comic is black and white, the cartoon is simple, solid colors. Each character is represented by 3 colors ... black, white, and one other color thats specific to the character (Stan is blue, Satan is red, etc. etc.)

Now, production is about 3 weeks in, with about 4 to 5 minutes completed already. Each frame is also very expensive, costing me almost a dollar every time something appears on screen. The style and editing is alos very unique... when the project is over, I want it to be like nothing else in entertainment... and so far I'm on the right track.

Pretty large ambitions, I know, but I don't know how to have any other kind. With production moving along like it is, I have a slated release date of mid 2009.

Oh. did I mention...

I'm attempting the first ever (as far as I know) feature film made by a single person. We'll see how that goes.

More, More, Beasts of Lore

First off, I'd like to sincerely apologize for the shittyness of the title of this post. Ok, with that off my chest, we can get down to business.

Secondly first off, I want to kind of think about an episode of Rockos Modern Life for a minute. Remember that 2-parter where Rocko and the game make a cartoon? If you recall, Ralph Bighead (famous cartoonist) wanted to get away from cartoons and do someting a little more arty. Well, he finally does and nobody gives a shit. He is followed around by his past as a cartoonist and its impossible to move on.

I kind of feel like Ralph Bigehad a little bit.

Not so much in the "leaving animation" area, but in the way that i want to do something more than comedy, I'm just afraid people won't give two fucks of shit. Beasts of Lore is still a comedy, at it's heart, but it also revolves around some dark themes, a deep story, and some heavy issues. It touches on terrorism, racism, oppression, and mass murder to name a few things, and I'm not even done writing it yet.

This isn't the first time I've delved into that area, though. One of my Original movie scripts, "In the Rain" which I finished back in '05 or '06 was about a guy who's suppressed child within begins to emerge and fuck his shit up. There were some really terrible things expressed in that screenplay, like heavy drug use, promiscuous sex, and murderous betrayal. It too, also had quite a deep and complicated story; filled with flashbacks and clues, even a few missing parts that were left out on purpose for reasons I won't give here. The ending was also a surprise ending that I was mad proud of.

I guess what I'm trying to say is...

I just want people to embrace it. Look at it, be attracted by it's visual style, listen to it, and be captivated by the soundtrack (which is %100 not done by me, so you know it's good) and superior voice acting (you bet). I'm trying to create a certain feeling with this; one of excitement, angst, and depression- set to the theme of a comedy.

I'm treating this one with kid gloves. One wrong move and I could have a huge fucking waste of time and an even bigger de-motivation for future projects.
-k

Beasts of Lore

I have a serious problem with staying focused on projects, epically in the shadow of bigger, better, bolder, bigger, better projects. Lunchbox Duck Episode 1 took me, what, a month or two to complete? Episode 2 took me... almost 7 months? Now, part of that was it being winter, that special time of year when my already low motivation levels can't slip past the harsh boundaries of sitting and watching a movie. But it's been summer-y for awhile now, and I'm back in full swing with new ideas and a fresh new pilot in the works.

I'm going to be the first one to admit that I wasn't happy with the way episode 2 turned out. It's 100% my own fault, and every problem that I identify I can attribute to not only the time it took me to make the damn thing (I forgot how characters were placed in a scene and then I would do the connecting few lines months later and the characters would flip to a different position) but the computer transition as well. I also didn't storyboard the episode at all, which was another huge problem in the continuity. The editing was also sub-par, and I don't really have an excuse for that because I finally actually have a real editing machine.

Ok, enough re-hashing. Lunchbox Duck episode 3 has begun production(with a complete storyboard and new animation models for the stars), but is totally not thrilling to me right now. It will come back into the light sooner or later, but right now, I've got something much cooler to tinker with.

Now, the new pilot I'm working on- I've had this idea FOREVER, and it's gone through many many different phases and genres and characters, but I think I might have a formula that actually works. It's urban, it's gritty, it's surreal, and could possibly be an artistically viable piece of work when finished. The tentative title is "Beasts of Lore". It takes place in modern times, only I've exaggerated it severely. I use photography collages as the backgrounds, and straight pencil on paper sketches -no color- on the characters. It creates kind of an odd look that is 100% different than my previous projects, but thats what I wanted, and thats why I haven't started this project till now.



So far I have some of a script written, but I will re-write it and then storyboard it and then start animating. I have the backgrounds done because I wanted to get the feel of it down, and the character designs are fully animated and scanned and imported and ready to go... I just need to strengthen the story and it's a go!

Oh, this is a comedy by the way. Not in the same sense as LBDDIT, but it has jokes and strange characters.

New Shit is Way Cooler Than Shit Thats Been Sitting Around for a Couple of Days

So with my new computer up and running, I set out into the future! The Futuuuure!

coming soon: Beasts of Lore

sick (and tired)

This is like, my 4th or 5th time being sick this winter. Either I'm just not used to these Western strain of viruses, or I have AIDS.

Anyway, I have some sick doodles to post but I'm too sick (lazy) to scan them so instead, heres a post about how I'm sick and have doodles to post.

Yaayy.

New Art Supplies and Happiness

I went to the store the other day and picked up some much needed art supples. I still need more, but I hate buying art supplies, they're so damn expensive.

Trying out new notebook and markers














I've been doing a lot of weird color experimentation latley, markers are fucking fun.