Wednesday, March 18, 2009

John K: Sith Lord of Expressiveness

John Kricfalusi is one of the legendary forefathers of "Nicktoons". He's the creator of shows like "Ren & Stimpy" and made the first ever web cartoons. I'm often conflicted with this guy. I think he can be opinionated and at times, a nostalgic "finger-wagger" (sorry John, but I love me a Don Bluth toon lol). That said, there's a GOOD REASON I visit his blog religiously. The man knows his stuff, and I'd be a time-wasting fool not to hear him out. These nuggets of cartooning wisdom are more than worth getting some of my favorite animations dragged through the mud.

As it turns out, he published a few extensive posts on convincing facial expressions and how to construct them. Facial construction may be my only strength in character design (don't look at my profile icon), which makes me wonder why I'm giving up my only advantage...CLICK, before I change my mind!!! lol


Image copyright John K. and Spumco studios

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Childrens Stories

So I just finished the rough manuscript for hero princess and am playing with a second kids novel, Villianbots. So far the story got rave reviews from my seven year old niece, but after I clean up some typing errors I should be able to get some feed back from selected five to eight year olds. Ill post an excerpt here for general review (god knows only Brian will be reading this) but I'm satisfied with this draft (not satisfied with it as a story.) The basic synopsis deal with a little girl braving her fear, with the help of magic armor, to save her fathers kingdom from an evil wizard. Heres [art of what I gave to my niece
The sun came up. It was a bright day, but quickly it was cast out by a huge shape. People ran as monster fell from the sky. The evil monsters tore down walls of houses.
The Princess was ready; tapping the jewel on her tiara, tight covered her and her magic armor formed around her. She raised her sword, and selected he sun toward them. Light exploded, and the castles shadow vanished. The monster screamed, the light too bright for them. They ran away, fast.
Next the Princess looked up, toward the castle. How will I get up the? People came out of their hiding, whispering and pointing at her. She smiled, waved, and looked back up. Magic boots, she thought. She jumped, and took off. It looked as if she was flying.
She landed, and right away, a giant troll came out the castle gates. It swung it’s great tree club, but the Princess caught it and threw it over it’s trolls head and into the moat. The troll ran away, terrified of her strength.
The Princess walked past the gate the troll had come out of, in the court yard. A statue stood in the center, with the name “Dab Drizard” under it, spoke and moved.
“I will not let you find me. My castle in a maze, impossible to find your way through. Your Prince is me captive, and I will rule everyone. I am more powerful than you, even with your magic armor.” The statue froze still.

As you can see its kind of direct with basic details. Perfect for a younger person, although Id like to slightly flesh out the detail a bit. Some of the names are a little silly, but hey, its a kids story, right? its supposed to be fun.

One of the things im working on is some advice my girlfriend had heard about writing children's novels, which is to write the end. How exactly I'm going to do that is a question I'm struggling with, mostly because my story is already written. But maybe in the rewrite I can work the story with a bigger goal in mind.

Anyways, Im off to bed. Tomorrow I'm going to wake up and go about researching children book writing methods and possible ways to buy cheap vodka without sacrificing great flavor. God knows the second I feel better Im going to be downing shots and writing long into the night again.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Goats and Pigs






I spent the day scaning and cleaning up  character design sheets of my thesis characters Farro the Satyr and Nia the Pigtaur. I could use some feedback on their appearance.The Complete looking character sheets with the turn arounds  are actually the older designs. I'm going for the more streamline look as their official look (cuz its easier to animate). I'll be putting up storyboards soon. 

 :D and random doodle i do because i can. Excuse so many pictures. 

EDIT: This is the most retarded image uploader ever.




Monday, March 9, 2009

Rough start

Hm. Sorry for random post. but I thought maybe if i posted regularly it would motivate me to keep to my work schedule better. in 2 weeks from now I have a progress-report to present to the animation class on my thesis. I havent done any solid animation for it yet. so. Here is my test animation for my main character Farro crudely animated in Photoshop. and a little incomplete something i did on the side in my frustration with myself (inspired by my roommates new game). Hope the rest of you are not as blah as I am. ~CC


EDIT: okay so apparently animated GIFs are not working. anyone wanna tell me how to fix this?