Wednesday, February 27, 2008

A beginning is a very delicate time...

(name that quote!)

well... the idea for my toons generally start with a little sketch or blurb on a post-it note or scrap of paper, but since i didn't scan any of that stuff, here's a picture of my neighbor's dog instead:


if i decide later that the idea is worth fleshing out i'll start researching. for example, on this particular cartoon i must have read about a dozen articles on welfare, its origins, myths associated with it, arguments for and against, and its corporate incarnations. for what i'm doing here i really over-killed it, but i wanted to make sure my bases were covered.

after much reading and highlighting i make an outline with the basic structure of the cartoon with lots of notes. here's 1 page of the outline:



there's more but my wife says no one can read it, so i didn't bother to scan 'em (she underestimates the legibility of my awesome handwriting). After the outline, i type out the script. nothing real exciting there. normally i'd have the help of my buddy Dustin with this part (cuz he's a writer and can be pretty funny), but he wasn't available so this one was solamente wes.

Then comes the embarrassingly bad storyboards! here's a couple pages:


seriously, i almost didn't put them on here. but i figured it'd be neat to see that from the crapfest storyboards:


comes the lesser crapfest background paintings:


and that's really as far as i've gotten. i'm a little more than half way done with the BG paintings. i'll post some later and try to have something interesting to say about 'em as well.

until next time!
wes

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

NEW!

Making a cartoon is a lengthy and involved process. ESPECIALLY if you're doing the lion's share of the work by yourself. When i get going i don't have the time or even desire to work on other projects, so I tend to fall off the face of the planet for the duration of production.

In order to let people know I haven't totally given up on the CO.ST (and that I'm not slacking!) I decided to start this blog to give progress updates on the current cartoon so that hopefully folks will stay interested (and to keep me from slacking).

So stay tuned for storyboards, background paintings, audio clips, screenshots, and other various signs of progress!