It's Been Raining for Two Days

I somehow remembered that I have this thing here. Thank god it's connected to my Google account otherwise.... whoo boy. Things would have gotten a little confusing.

Heres the interesting part

NEW Production blog #1600074B/88

I haven't written a production blog in awhile, mainly because I haven't been producing anything. My last project wrapped in August, and since then I've been too distracted with class and life and shit to develop anything else. But now it's 2010, and it's time to start something new.

The first thing I do when starting a new project is decide how I want it to look. In the animation field, it seems as though most mainstream studios feel like they have to stick to the standard "heres a thousand drawings, ink and color them" practice that's been around, and thats just fucking boring. I like meshing colors, playing with different thickness and types of lines, and combining everything to create a unique visual experience. This is a lot more complicated than it sounds.

It's going to be a busy semester, but I'm really excited about many things on the table.

Production Blog: for people who enjoy production blogs.

I would just like to start this post off on that note there about anal destruction. Alright now, good. Moving the fuck on.

Work is almost complete on the FOX project. A couple more recording sessions, a little bit of audio re-tooling, and just one more character animation (theres the biggest time-consumer) and we've got another one in the hat. I'll post the link to it as soon as I can, and then you guys have to go vote on it, because 1 of the 5 finalists are chosen by the people.

Alright yeah, I suppose that's about it.

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.