Robot Comic Introduction
October 26, 2007 - posted in work in progress
To start my new robot comic, I made a three-part introduction.
READ THE INTRODUCTION HERE:
Where the Paths Cross
October 20, 2007 - posted in work in progress
So there’s the animated Work In Progress, and the comic strip that stems from it. Both take place in the same fictional world of robots. The short is more broad and doesn’t revolve around any specific character. The strip has several regular characters.
But there is at least one moment when the strip and the short cross paths. This still from the comic strip depicts some robots coming across a skeleton under a berry bush. What they have stumbled on is the aftermath of one of the scenes from the short.
That seems to be the only moment where the two stories overlap so far. That’s all I know.
Ed Emberley’s Fingerprint Drawings
October 19, 2007 - posted in work in progress
My mom recently retired from many years of teaching elementary school. She collected hundreds of childrens’ books over the years, which she has now passed on to her grandchildren. Among the books we got was Ed Emberley’s “Great Thumbprint Drawing Book.” I came across it the other day and looked through it for the first time since maybe 3rd grade.
It seems to have been, for better or worse, a terribly strong subconscious influence on me.
Non-Animated WIP – Sneak Peek!
October 10, 2007 - posted in work in progress
Here are a couple sneak peeks at some of the non-animated portion of the Mystery Work in Progress. Obviously, it’s a comic strip sort of thing. I don’t know where it’s going, but I’m going to keep making it for a while and see what happens.
Soon this thing will launch full-steam on its own Web site. Stay tuned!
Test 1: “At the End of the Day”
Test 2: “Superbot!”
A Mystery Work in Progress and Its Hideous Spawn
April 21, 2007 - posted in work in progress
The 8 or 10 of you who read this production log have no doubt been wondering, “Where has Chris been lately? Has he fallen ill? Joined the Army? Gone to prison? Has he killed again?! Oh, dear. We should have kept a closer eye on him!”
It’s a funny thing, life. The last post I made here was about how I burned out on comic strips at the age of 23, and have never looked back.
Well, in putting that post together, I was forced to look back. And with ten years’ distance, I actually kind of liked what I saw.
Long story short, I’ve been experimenting with something new.
I might be announcing this new thing in about a month. It takes a different approach to the same material I’ve already been dealing with in the Mystery Work In Progress. Work on the short will continue too. But the story and its characters have become too big for one short, and have splintered into two projects– one animated, and one NOT ANIMATED! What?! Yes.
I feel very weird and unsure about all this. These past couple of months have been a hell of a bizarre trip, with flashbacks and strange feelings of being young again, even though I can’t stay up past 9:30 anymore. But I’m following my gut, and that’s never failed me before! (oh, wait…)
Stay tuned!
Green Screen Movie Magic
April 18, 2007 - posted in work in progress
Last night I put Post-It Note tabs on my fingers and waved my hand in front of a video camera for a few seconds. Why did I do this? Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. It’s all part of my patented Cargo Cult animation process.
This has nothing to do with the cartoon, but I noticed in the background of my weird little green screen experiment, you can see a hilarious NYT Style Magazine spread on my desk. On the left is an article called Starved to Perfection: Why Are We Not Entitled to Take Up Space? which documents the horrible images many women have of their bodies and the obsession with looking thinner at all costs. Fair enough.
On the page facing the article is an ad for Tummy Tuck Jeans shrieking:
INSTANT GRATIFICATION!
LOOK ONE SIZE SMALLER!
This is obviously a subject NYT Style takes very seriously. And as you can imagine, it really got me thinking about how fat and disgusting my hand looks in this video! God! It’s so fat and ugly! My finger is, like, bulging out around my ring! God!
I’m putting my hand on a lettuce and cigarette diet until it’s pretty again.
Redesigns
April 10, 2007 - posted in work in progress
Scene 2 of the Mystery Work in Progress is coming along nicely. (I’m only on scene 2! Dear God, when will it end?!)
Scene 1 was pretty much done when it became apparent a major character redesign was needed. At every step of the process, the characters have asserted their “robotness,” even though I wanted to make them very organic and bendy like the original sketches. They just seem to want to move and act like machines. I think it serves the story well, so I’m letting it happen. And by “letting,” I mean struggling through hours and hours of painful trial and error. But in the past week I’ve stumbled on bodies that are beginning to work, and am nearly done reworking scene 1 and some of scene 2.
In the early stages of animation on a short, it takes a while to get the rhythm of the characters. Especially when you don’t know what you’re doing. So there tends to be a lot of “over-acting” which mellows out as I move along. (get lazy)
To the right is a still from scene 2. I didn’t want to spoil anything, so I shrunk it down a little.
Toy Camera
January 3, 2007 - posted in work in progress
More background research!
Last summer I bought a cheap toy camera at a toy store in Florida. It’s a plastic Holga-like thing that takes 4 pictures in rapid sequence on a single frame of 35mm film. The view finder is a little plastic rectangle that hinges on the top of the camera, and the lense is cheap plastic. So 90% of the photos come out complete crap. But the other ten percent are nice research for the Mystery Work in Progress.
I was thinking maybe there would be a kind of dream-like haze in this cartoon. These photos are not exactly the right look, but they do have a certain feeling I want in the backgrounds. (see the previous post about background research)
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