Dog and Weasel in production

My next little animated series is finally in production. I did a lot of pre-production work between other projects so I'm ahead on some of it. Thsi one will have quite a few challenges, the dog is one of the few times I have done a 4 legged creature and making him walk well will be something I have to learn. There is also some laser blasts going on. I did some tests and think I can make that work and look cool, but you never know until you try to put it in a real scene.

Mike Luce did the voice of the Jon Bellette, the weasel and also did the voice for a future "guest star" in the series, so I'm set up for at least 2 of these over the next few months! I am going a little more stylized/cartoon with this one.

new drawing: Parc La Fontaine

My niece asked me for a drawing for her new place so we went back and forth over what she wanted and decided on a drawing of Parc La Fontaine where she and her boyfriend went running last winter.  So it was decided to take separate photos of them so I could draw them into the scene.

This took about a month to draw. The trees the most forward have a lot of detail and as they go back I decided to make them grayscale silhouettes, lighter and lighter to help give the piece more sense of depth. It's a lot of trees with 1000s of branches but I think drawing them all with a pen brush paid off and let me keep details that would tip off to the real location I used for reference. I didn't make it 100% exact in terms of details. I took out the street lamps, for example. I thought they took away from the setting and they are sort of ugly, even in winter covered in snow. I drew the runners separately so I could work bigger and get small resemblance to the real people easier. I added them into the finished drawing and then did additional work to make them fit in they make the more the centre of attention. I didn't draw logos on the shirts and hats, but I did put my sister's business log on his toque as a little joke. Very little, it's impossible to see!

My goal was to draw something that could be identified if someone visited the location and to give  sense of cold snowy day. I also wanted to push my digital art further than I have been. I have been restricting my work to mostly stuff I draw with real pen on paper and not always doing what I think makes the best image.

Bad Criticism and Reviews

A small rant, I haven't done one in a while. 

One thing that irks me when searching for information online is the state of reviewing and criticizing.... well almost everything. A review or a critique is simply pointing out something's strengths and weaknesses from your perspective which can be very helpful to someone else who might be interested in that thing. At least that is what  it should be doing. Often it's not anymore.

It's all a conspiracy!
These days, on platforms like YouTube, etc. negativity seems to sell, no matter how good something is, you have to find ways to say it's terrible. I really think reviewers think that's their job, to point out flaws no matter how small and blow them out of proportion. The idea is to get hits and likes and not really tell anyone about the subject. There is also, of course, the people who are just trolling for various "causes" that are there only to sow discontent and spread their often, racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. views. Examples might be some reviews of the new seasons of Doctor Who and Star Trek Discovery where the reviewer bitches and moans about how politically correct they are. It's an obvious and childish attempt to get people to make mean comments and up thier social profiles as well as spew hate. I mean bitching these shows are politically correct is like complaining the sky is blue on a nice day. The sky being blue is one of the things that makes it a nice day! Bitch about how those Klingons look all you want. I don't get it either.

It's not what I want it to be! 
This can apply to media but it also applies to software and products. I have replaced Illustrator and Photoshop with Affinity products and did a lot a looking and listening before making that decision. Far too often reviews centred on missing features... many features that would not be appropriate for the software to begin with.  I can't recall how many reviews lambasted either Affinity Photo or Designer for not having the ability to do multi-page spreads and book interiors. Why would anyone even think they would? A page layout program is what they want and neither Photoshop nor Illustrator have those features either because that is not what they are used for. There seems to a lot of confusion as to what an illustration (vector) and  photo application's (pixel) are used for as well. Some of that is because developers sometimes add the features from one into the other for convenience of the user but if you are reviewing something, please - know what is used for.

It's all terrible! 
Believe it or not, criticizing also means listing good and positive points as well. Those points are often more important than the negative ones as we tend to watch, buy and use things because of what they are and not what they are not.

Not everything is made to please you personally.
Seriously, this has to be stated. If yopu really don't like something, especially a small film or drawing someone else poured their heart into... could you do better? If not, maybe shut your mouth or  be conscious that thing wasn't made with you in mind and likely with limited recources. If you think you can do better, then DO IT. You might find it's not as easy as you thought. If you just don't get it or understand it, ask. People mostly love to have a chance to improve and talk about thier stuff. If you find some mistake or problem, point it out and suggest a solution. everyone starts somewhere, including you so dont expect some one sitting alone in thier room to be able to make something a big studio can with 1000s of people on it.

In summation:
You can be constructive without being needlessly mean and you should have a grip on the subject before you write about it.

Posters for festival entries

I have to make trailers and posters for 2 films I am currently tryiing to get into the HP Lovecraft film festivals. I woud love to get into at least one of the showings after all the work I've done these past years animating his tales of horror!  Will it work? Who knows? I can't help but think I am going about this thing all wrong. I discovered that Poe's works are also welcome and I just finished the Raven, so in it goes as well!

The Raven - a new short animation

Based on the poem by Edgar Allen Poe, this was my longest single animation to date at 9 minutes. Michael Z. Keamy did the narration and it was a solid 5 months of full time work to get it done.

This time out with the addition of simple sub-titling tools added to Final Cut X, I was able to add French and English captioning so more people can watch and understand it. I tried for a sombre but realistic tone to present to poem. I have seen a few animations that go wild with abstract shots and ideas but I wanted this to keep grounded. It was a challenge to make something that is basically some depressed dude yelling at a bird in one room for nine minutes until he passes out! I started with longer, lingering shots and then made them shorter and shorter as it progressed to give it a faster pace while keeping the ideas of grief and depression to the forefront.

Demo reel 2019

A new year, a new demo reel!

Chicken : 1st drawing of 2019

Just ink this time with no shading and no textured backdrop. Back to the basics in a way. Drawn on the iPad in Sketchbook Pro. Not sure how much drawing I'll get in this coming year, a lot will depend on how many, if any, contracts I get this year.

Year end review 2018

Another year has come and gone and while it was not financially profitable, I did get a lot accomplished. Normally I make two animated shorts per year, this year I made ten. Ten! Two were gothic horror, The Tell Tale Heart and Dagon. I also remade and updated In the Future with Nostrodumbass and made 5 Dramatic Readings with Charles Websters Billingsworth the 3rd shorts. If that wasn't enough, I made two very short Filthy Sheep animations. Tell Tale Heart premiered at the Another Hole in the Head festival in San Francisco. I drew a bunch, took some photos, and did some graphic design for new and old clients - but not enough to pay all the bills again this year. Finding decent, paying clients has become pretty impossible recently - which is discouraging. I have been thinking of doing a Patreon funding page... but I have no idea how to do or promote that in a way that will make it likely to pay off.

I have started 2 new projects already for next year. The Raven will be my longest animated short at 9 minutes. Narrated by Michael Z. Keamy and I hope it will bring all the stuff I have learned in such a productive year into a really top notch production. Dog & Weasel is the other project. It is a cartoon about a weasel (Jon Bellette) and a dog (Watson) who fight an alien robot invasion. The idea is sort of a Warner Brothers feel and I have plans for a couple more adventure where they meet other cryptids like Nessie and Bigfoot. Mike Luce is set to do the voice of the weasel and I think it will be pretty damn funny.

 

Misc things included reworking my web page and logos. I also updated my CV of course and my updated demo reel will go up in the next few weeks. I have some potential jobs lining up for next year but one thing I have learned the hard way is to not count my chickens before they've hatched.

On top of all this, I decided to, maybe, publish a book of short stories. In the 90s I wrote up some tales mostly based on real life things that happened to me mostly to entertain a friend who was terminally ill. Over the years I refined them and showed them to a very few other people, a couple of them thought I should collect and publish the stories. I guess I'm finally getting around to doing that. Maybe.  I did set up the book and design it in the beta of Affinity Publishers as test project so it would be a shame not to anything with it, I guess.

The Raven - Lenore painting

Almost all the visual elements are ready for my adaption of Edgar Allen Poe's, The Raven.  Most of the rest will have to wait until I get the narration recorded at the end of the month. While Lenore is most just seen as a portrait on the wall, I have a rigged version of her that will appear as a ghostly presence.

éléphant - dessin/drawing

I seem to be hooked on darker backgrounds these days and trying out different techniques and brushes with my drawings. This one is outlined in crayon and tonally painted with brushes, painting and mixing different grey tones.

I am pretty happy with this one, it has some depth to it thanks to the painting. I added white crayon highlights. also something seem obsessed with and I think that gave it the "3D" look I was after.

The model for this was at the Berlin Zoo and I sort of sat on it for a few years not sure how I wanted to approach it. I did a rhinoceros from that visit already and wasn't as happy with he results as I would have liked.