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

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!