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

Status Report

So now there IS a spanking new private site where we can swish our work around in virtual "dailies" meetings. And as soon as I can figure out how to BREAK INTO MY OWN PRIVATE SITE, I'll be happy to upload the first story reel lol. Talk to Raf.

All current boards have been scanned in and sequence 1 is viewable as a story reel...MAN it's hard to put those things together...I fell asleep like seven times. As soon as Sequence 6 is made into a reel (or before), I'll hopefully start doing some REAL boarding. I gotta get myself into a 14-a-day workflow. Apparently, 26-30+ a day is the industry standard.

That's the way it be, right now. Anyone reading this?.......hello?......................*tears off pants and dances a jig to the Popeye theme*

Winter Break

As for this project, I've already started scanning in all the boards I've done so far. I have hopes of using the "MonkeyJam" pencil-test software (check my blog for the link) to make some kitchen-sink story reels.

Also I might add that I think those 2 may be the last sequences I'll be doing in ink and marker. The resulting work LOOKS cool enough, but I can only get about 7 of those done a night. In our situations, that is obviously not good. Working storyboard artists kill around 26-30 a day. They're also a real pain to fix if shot flows aren't working. I might use markers l8er, when we're setting the tonal values of the different sequences. Don Bluth I am not lol.

I propose we make an (additional) new PRIVATE blog between us all so we may post our collective work for viewing and critique. Maybe this move will get more of an active dialogue going between us. I've already gotten some feedback, but I'm mainly concerned with shooting it past you guys.

Comment back?

The words of Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi was responsible for the animated/rotoscope Lord of the Rings movies. He also created the X-Rated Fritz the Cat movie. My current favorite of his is "Wizards", but I've yet to recieve "Fire and Ice" from my Netflix.

This was shot at his "Spotlight" panel at San Diego Comic Con 08'. Even if you love big studio animation, there's a lot to take from this speech. I found it on Lesean Thomas' blog. In all his notorious bluntness, Bakshi actually managed to be inspiring.

Model Sheets: Altered, Rescanned and Resized

Brian, here! Today I finished RESCANNING the model sheets and resizing them to a manageable (hopefully E-mailable) zip-file. Of course doing so without adding a few subtle alterations would be a crime. I heeded as many critiques as I could remember and they helped.....A LOT. Sorry, but I was a much younger when I first tackled those drawings (according to AAU improvement time). We can only hope the designs (among other things) will evolve into something that truly reflects our skill levels.

Also, I recently gained access to a 20 film collection of Alfred Hitchcock movies. Raf and I saw "The Lady Vanishes" a few days ago, and it was awe-some! I propose that every meeting (where we have time) might end with a screening of one of these 1+/- hour films. I actually wanted to have a "story meeting" where we could brainstorm on the coolest things that can happen on each shot we're working on. It definitely would help me with the storyboards if I had a whole pile of ideas to choose from, in case my own ideas fail. I don't know if the Hitchcock movies will help, but no jury of Pixar employees would convict me for trying it lol. Furthermore it'll be reeeeally hard to storyboard accurately without some solid layout drawings. We'll work on those soon enough.

L8er!