On youTube!

I FINALLY found a way to get my animations on youtube! you'd think that Macromedia or Adobe would have that covered... nope. not if you're a Mac person, like myself. On PC, you just export to .avi then presto! but on mac your only option is to export to .mov. the rub is that Quicktime hasn't updated their Flash support since Flash 5! I have 8, and they're currently on 9 (CS3)!

Anyway, i found a demo for a screen capture program that did the trick. not the best way, i know... but beggars can't be choosers.

Now that Welfare Queens is in the bag, i need to take a break from animating to work on a couple of pieces for upcoming shows. Unfortunately that means you won't be hearing much from me here on this blog for the next couple-3 weeks. I WILL, however, continue to post my regular tirades at www.companystate.com.

Hope to see you there!

(half) DONE!

THE NEW CARTOON IS DONE!!!

ok, it's not COMPLETELY done, but the intro got so long that i decided to make it into it's own feature. so i present to you WELFARE QUEENS!

after watching (its only 2-3 minutes) do me a favor and vote on it. look for this:



and click whichever number you feel is appropriate. You DO NOT have to be a Newgrounds member to vote. I'm not asking you to falsely pump up my ranking... i just want to let people who are not familiar with the functionality of Newgrounds to be aware that the voting option is available to ALL.

"why vote?" you ask... well to put it simply, the higher a score i get, the more exposure and views the cartoon will get, and of course i want as many people as possible to see it. i'm pretty proud of this cartoon, and frankly feel it's my best to date. so i'm confident that it'll prompt you to give a good score. of course, if i'm wrong, then by all means vote appropriately.

Oh yeah, the voting must take place TODAY (Thursday) to be effective.

thanks!
wes

Inspiration

if you couldn't tell by my cartoon portfilio, i'm still pretty much a novice when it comes to animating. but, i try hard and every project turns out better than the last! A large part of the progress can be attributed to my research on several websites dedicated to the art of animation. I figured i'd share a couple-3 with you this week, since i haven't really accomplished much since last we spoke due to scheduling issues with my voice talent.


first we have Cold Hard Flash. a site dedicate to excellence in Flash based animation (which is what i use, so you might see why i find it interesting). a good place to go to see what the the top tier animators are up to, and for inspiration.


2nd we have the legendary John K's blog. if you aren't in the know, John K. created one of my favorite cartoons, Ren and Stimpy, as well as pioneered using Flash for cartoons. He's kind of a curmudgeon, and has a very narrow view of what animation should be, but his blog is full of valuable information for would-be animators none-the-less.


next we have Mark 2000. M2000 is a talented animator/designer who shares my passion for political commentary. He also started a series of VERY helpful tutorials sharing his expertise on the subject of Flash and design. hooray PNGs!


here's one i kind of stumbled upon. I'm a fan of Hellboy and really all things Mignola, so i followed the Hellboy Animated blog pretty closely. Unexpectedly, mixed in with the progress updates and interviews and what-not are in depth tips on scripting and storyboarding. helped me A LOT.

so hopefully this weekend i'll have the voice-over all recorded, and by next week i'll have something besides filler to show you! ;)

'til then!

SPLIT!

Hi all.

Somewhere along the way the intro to the cartoon grew to about 3 minutes, which is about how long i shoot for a whole piece to be (for load time and attention span reasons). instead of editing, i think i'm going to publish the whole project in 2 parts. the "intro" as part 1 and the actual Agent portion will be part 2... at least on Newgrounds. on Company State i'll probably put it all together as one.

Anyway... part 1 of the 'toon is just about done! all's left is audio pretty much, and i can't finish that until my main voice actor, and good friend, Dustin, can come over to record his lines. so if this thing gets delayed any more, the buck has now officially been passed!

good day.
(what?! no pictures?!)

McManufacturer

Quick one this time, as I'm trying to make the move from posting bi-monthly to weekly.

Today we have a happy burger man!




doesn't he look proud of his creation? but look at that ET hand! it's almost like i didn't think anyone would ever see these things. like they say... always wear clean underwear.


OK, that's much better. AND it's in tune with the rest of the characters! somewhat modeled after Mel from that show Alice, only with a paper hat instead of that sailor's cap. I guess he looks a lot happier than Mel ever did too. OK, forget the Mel comparison. He's based on Han Solo.


so here we have the version of Han that we'll see in the actual cartoon. say, that realistic rendition of a burger is making me hungry! i wonder what kind of vegetable medley my wife has waiting for me tonight. maybe my boss will let me work some overtime. (just kidding sweety! yum yum veggies!)

50' Queenie!

It's getting increasingly difficult to come up with posts free of any serious spoilers. So, here's some more character design breakdowns from the 'intro' segment. i hesitate to call it an intro, 'cuz its roughly a 3rd of the cartoon.

Anyway, we're doing a 2-fer! First we have the Welfare Queen, the subject of this little project.


as usual my storyboard drawings fall just shy of being portfolio material, but bear with me. next we have a priest holding some bread. and no, he's not stealing it or corrupt or anything... it's for charity, you cynics!


What's with the chinaman holding the loot?! First of all, its not a chinaman, you freakin' racist, he's just REALLY happy and squinty. OK, well why is there a slash mark through each of the pictures, you ask? did you despise them that much? NO, i say! that means i've progressed beyond that point in the storyboard. Just to make it easier to find where i left off the previous night.

after establishing the the 'look' of the characters with Joe, drawing the rest were considerably easier. i was able to work these out (relatively) quickly.

From there we go digital...



yep. pretty much the same. except i changed the eyes from the soulless black pits in the sketch to something a little more lively, and he lost a couple fingers. what can i say... war is hell.


here we see the Flash drawn version of the Queen accompanied by her brood. doesn't her nouveau riche opulence make you sick? excellent.

As an added bonus, here's the super rare chaser, 1 per box , alternate version of the Welfare Queen before her newfound wealth.


So that's all for today. i think i'm going to make an effort to post more often, but with shorter posts (cuz i don't have that much material). I recently attended a Tiny Army meeting hosted by the benevolent Daniel Davis, and was told that if i post more it will appease the Google.

see you soon!

Character design!

the first 3rd of the cartoon is a very different style from that of the "Agent" portion. To be more specific I used the modern style, popular in the 50's and 60's. Something i hated as a kid, but love now. why the 2 different methods? My grandpa is fond of telling stories about when he was a boy he'd spend all Saturday afternoon at the movies. not because he was theater hopping (i don't think that was even an option back then) but because before the feature film you'd get a string of news reels, cartoons, 3 stooges shorts, cliff hangers, etc. so that's kinda what i'm referencing. that, and the variety helps to keep me from getting bored. ANYWAY, the main character of the opener is supposed to be an everyman... an average Joe, if you will.



as you can see, it took me a few tries to get Joe just right. his design was particularly important, because i used his basic elements to create all the other characters of the opener.

now we need to get Joe digital! I've always drawn my animated elements in Flash, but I've been told by pro's that it's preferable to use Illustrator then import to Flash, because Flash's brush tool stinks. so i thought i'd test the theory.




If you enlarge the image you'll see the Illustrator version IS better that the Flash version (the one in the middle)! i was a little despondent with the results, because it's a pain in the rear to keep bouncing between applications, AND i'm not entirely convinced that the quality difference was enough to warrant the time and work it would take. so i worked for quite a while to optimize the settings on my drawing tablet and those in Flash. Thankfully the work paid off. as you can see, the optimized Flash version of Joe on the far right is close enough to the Illustrator version (at least for me) to allow me to just draw everything right in Flash. YAY!

All's left now is to animate!

[click on the box below]

until next time!