"Freestylin'!"

...or "Going Commando!"

I mean, getting at your art without any rules, baby!

That's usually how I go at creating something.

For example:

I'll pick up my pad and I'll say- "I'm gonna draw Spider-Man!" So, I'll start drawing him and while I'm doing it, I'll decide to make him shoot a web. Then, I'll be like- "Oh yeah, he's on a wall too!", so I'll draw that in and so forth.

Same with a song.
I'll decide to write a song and I'll tap out something with an instrument (usually a bass or a drum) 'til I find something I like and then I'll start adding to it.

It's the rush of the moment I like- It's like you are creating something but the spirit of the creation is guiding you through it's completion.

You don't do that with an animation.

That is- You don't say "I'm gonna make a cartoon about a cat trying to catch a mouse" and then just sit down and draw it.
I mean, you COULD try to do it that way but you would probably lose interest after a while because the project is too big to be handled that way.

You have to PLAN a motherfuckin' animation.

Now, this is all common sense- I know. But you don't know how many times I've started to do an animation just like that.

All the cartoons I've ever completed were were written out and storyboarded first.

This one is the same- SORTA. I have everything plotted out- I haven't written it out shot for shot though, so sometimes I will be tempted to jump ahead and try to animate something without having storyboarded it.
This is stupidity- because I don't know what I'll need. Which means I'll be over animating- I mean, like WAAAAAAAAYYY over animating. Wasting time and resources-

I figured this out when I started trying to animate some scenes over my death star- just because I was so excited that things are working with it so well.

I then went back and storyboarded a section of the battle that is supposed to happen on the end and putting shots together was so much easier. I will post that later when I have access to those files and the internet at the same time.

So- I will storyboard more and thanks to writing this little blog entry- I kind of realize maybe I should write out the beats of the video as well.

Tattoo Challenge

A friend challenged me to write a song using the lyric

"C'mon baby, C'mon. Let me show you my tattoo."

Which, of course, is a line from the Allman Brother's "I'm No Angel"

So I've been picking at something and this is what I got so far.
My lyrics are:

Yeah, I was sixteen-
And she was twenty two
She lived in the loft upstairs

And she would call me-
For some "Honey-Do's"
When she couldn't do 'em for herself

It was an evening-
I saw her coming in
As she was headed home

And it was early-
For a date to end
and to be all alone-

I noticed something different on the back of her leg
A trail of stars and dolphins and it took my breath
That's when she caught me looking and she cocked her head-
She turned to me and said-

C'mon baby, c'mon
And let me show you my tattoo-
Then she lifted up her skirt
but stopped before I seen it all-
Now, if you wanna see the rest-
there ain't much you have ta do-
I took her by the hand
and we slipped into her room

And then for two weeks
Or maybe three
She really played it straight

When she called me
For those little things
You know I couldn't wait

Sometimes I would meet her at the top of the stairs
A look in her eye and a flick of her hair
She'd checked to see who's looking but I didn't care
And she'd say with a dare-

C'mon baby, c'mon
And let me show you my tattoo-
Then she lifted up her skirt
but stopped before I seen it all-
Now, if you wanna see the rest-
there ain't much you have ta do-
I took her by the hand
and we slipped into her room

This is an mp3 of what I got so far- THIS IS VERY ROUGH- Haven't been working with this as I have panels to build but I thought I would put it up as I'm sure my panel work is boring ya'll.

Tattoo

Hurdle Level COMPLETE

SO-
Let's just put it out there-
When I set out to have 16-20 panels done in a week (which ended, like, Tuesday) I was obviously high on toxic fumes of some sort as I have failed THAT task.

I mean, I could have done it- it just wouldn't have looked good.
And in my failure I discovered SOOOOOO much more.

I started out building the panels- Greebling them- and then saving them as meshes but this proved to be too taxing when it came to testing the animation.

Then I thought building the panels- bulking them out and then grouping them before I greebled them would be the way to go because then I could turn the greeble efx off while I was figuring out the animation- This worked but then I realized I didn't have an idea as to how the ships would look (in size) compared to the bulk of the panels.

SO- I set out to build a trench made up of some longer panels and some stand-in, simple shaped ships.
In the process I figured out how to make the neon lights that are going to line up the Mac Star trench. And put a glow on it.

Then the big thing happened.
I have always wanted to do a black and white animation in that Frank Miller style- sort of like this commercial by Psyop.

So while messing around with Max I figured out how to do it!!!
This is a major success because not only am I really close to nailing down a style
for the video- I will also be able to save render time!!!

I also figured out a way to use the panels I created for the trench on the surface as well!


Here are some samples of the Mac Star trench and one of the...1, 2, 3, 4- 8 panels I've built so far.












FLEX!!!!!