Friday, November 30, 2007

The Ultimate Asparagus Progress Report 02

So ive been working on a largeish scene, not that its particularly long, its just the cartoon is getting to the point where there is more then one character on screen at once, which ofcourse is alot more drawing. So heres so grabs from the scene.

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Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Also ive been invited to take part in the songs without pants collab, so ive been working on my part for that. So heres a look at some grabs from it.

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Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Ive been thinking about whether i want The Ultimate Asparagus series to be... The Ultimate Asparagus series. I have so many characters i want to use and i dont think ill improve if i just stick to the same ones. So ill be sticking to the same stories as i have already written but rather making it an episodic series i think ill make them all self contained little stories set in the same universe. Ofcourse some characters will appear in more then one episode and Gerkinman will be in quite a few, the equivolent to Brackenwoods Bitey i guess you would say. Maybe with a little less emphasis on him. Anyways, yeh thats it for now, more as it comes, and i should have What makes a good flash animator? Part02 ready for next weekend. ^^

Thursday, November 22, 2007

What makes a good flash animator? Part01

This is a series of journals ive been wanting to start for quite a while now, the first several will focus on what it means to be a great flash animator (in my opinion) aswell as what it takes to be a lousy flash authur, and later will also discuss what makes a great flash character and how to create atmosphere. If you want to have a paricular animator discussed just leave a comment and i'll see what i can do in the future.

***The following journal is just an opinion***

What is it that makes a flash animator good? Is it the artists technical skill? There ability to create smooth and seamless animation with jaw dropping backgrounds and a great understanding of perspective and anatomy? Well yes, partly, but i believe it goes deeper then that. I personally think that as important as being good technically is, the most important thing is being able to evolve and experiment. By evolving and always trying new things can keep an audience captivated alot easier then by recycling the same work. A few good examples of artists like this are...

The Swain

Hes been around since 2005, Blockhead was a breath of fresh air at the time, and even now i find it to easily be one of the best series on newgrounds. When it first started tho, Blockhead, from a technical standpoint wasnt all that impressive. The Swain was and still is to my knowledge completely self taught, the quality his animation has improved over the last 2 years is completely astonishing, and id argue he has improved more over such a short time period then any other animator around. Just look at the golf between his work from 2005 to his current work at the end of 2007. This is largely due to him taking constructive critism and working on his faults.

2005

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2007

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Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

But the other thing he does is experiment, he doesnt limit himself to one particular series or style of humour, which is important if you want to keep on improving. If you focus on one area then all other areas will fall apart.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

The Swain tries new things and takes what people say onboard, This is what makes The Swain a great flash animator.

David Firth

Alot of people hate David Firths work, whether it because its wierd, or because it isnt trying to be funny. I personally appreciate what he does. He set out to make what he wanted and thats exactly what he does. And while he may not be the most impressive animator on a technical level, his simple animation style suits the storys he tells. But thats not to say he hasnt improved and evolved over the years. While alot of animators strive to make there animation as smooth as possible, David Firth tries to create as much atmosphere as possible, something that alot of flash authors neglect in there work. This shows threw all his work, from Salad Fingers to A Black and White Cartoon about Berries. Hes not afraid to experiment, as Burnt Face Man shows, and he just like the swain tends to take constructive crit on board, and is always improving, tho his improvements tend to be alot more subtle then alot of other flash animators. This makes David Firth, a great flash animator.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

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So theres part01. Part 02 should be up sometime in the coming weeks. Ill keep you posted.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Ultimate Asparagus Progress Report 01

Well, big news for me anyways. I havent had the chance to do any animation over the last week due to visitors, but i have been doing some networking, and in the process i have now struck a deal with the cult chiptune musician "Dong" from Japan to use his music in my work, INCLUDING the eventual DVD release of the series. So im rather excited about that. You can find his music here.

http://www.yarhalla.jpn.org/yarhalla/16d/index_e.html

I will be trying to get music from some other cult favorite musicians, such as Trash80 who did the soundtrack for the game Darwinia aswell. So more as it comes.Animation restarts on Thursday when im home alone again.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

2 Year Project is ONLINE! Vector Artists wanted!

http://www.stockvectors.com/

Yes, for the last 2 years ive been contracted to make enough vectors to populate this site for launch. And now finally, there are enough vectors for the site to go live. And this is where you people come in, if anyones interested in the potential making a little money (not much, but its always nice to have)for flash work its a simple as making an account and to start submitting vectors, theres good instructions as to the content they want on the site so be sure to check it out. So yeh, thats all i have to say, go check it out ^^

Friday, November 2, 2007

Creating The Kitchen

So lately a few of people have been asking me about how i build the backgrounds i've been showing in preview screenshots, and while I'm not going to tell everyone exactly how i did it (i learnt threw trial and error, and I'm sure you can too) i will give you a basic guide as to how the backgrounds are made.

Step 01:

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The first step is taking a photo that will provide the basis for the background, in this case my kitchen, you may remember this shot from the original release of The Ultimate Asparagus Episode 01.

Step 02:

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Simply a matter of drawing around the objects in the photo, the fridge, the cupboard's and such. Its important to keep track of where there would be gaps in real life, such as between the fridge and the wall, this is so you can put them on separate layers in case you decide to ever have anything come out from behind the front objects.

Step 03:

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The next step is colouring, this is as simple as using the colour picker on the photo and painting in beetween the lines, i do this on a layer below the original line art, this allows to be messy and get a more hand drawn look, but you can keep it clean and use the fill tool within the original line art too if you want the background to look a little less messy.

Step 04:

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Once the fills have been layered out, the next step is textures, the way to get the cleanest textures is to copy the original fills and past them on a layer above, then replacing the fills with your texture of choice. Once all the textures are in convert that entire layer into a movie clip and fiddle with the alphas and filters until your happy with the look.

Step 05:

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Adding atmosphere and lighting. In this case the air is stagnant with dust floating in the air, these are all just little lines drawn with the paint tool, several hundred are done so as to avoid a look of repetition, also a second lot is added behind it where they are much smaller to add a sense of depth. The lighting is also a combination of several gradients and filters.

And that's the generally how the backgrounds are made, some are a little more in depth with solid shadows for things like the underside of trees and plants and things like the sky to take into consideration, but i will cover these in a later post.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Gerkinman Started a Blog

Yes he did, and he plans to keep it focused. No e-drama and the like here. This blog will be focused on 3 things.

1: Nimbin Industries Cartoons and Films.
Yes, progress reports on how my cartoons are going. Step by step guides as to how my cartoons are made. Short outlines on future projects. Updates on my comic ventures. All that jazz. Will be updated frequently. As well as any random short videos i make whether it be a lightning storm or some crazy piece of experimental film.

2: Australian Multimedia Festivals
Ill be keeping you guys up to date on upcoming conventions (Such as Supanova and Armageddon) that i will be attending, what stock ill have with me and who else is going that's worth looking into. As well as any upcoming Film Festivals that will be screening my work.

3: How to bring more life into your flash and illustration.
These posts will be highly opinionated, and based on my theories as to what makes a good flash. Ill be using examples from Newgrounds and art communities like DeviantART and SheezyArt. This wont be focused on things like colour or art style, but rather personality which allot of modern cartoons lack. Ill try to get one of these done a week. Also if you want a cartoon of your own broken down and have its strengths and weaknesses explained so that these elements can be worked on and improved in the future you can leave a comment with a link to your work.

Of course, I'm not saying my way is the write or wrong way, its just one persons opinion, but that's what makes opinions fun. What impresses 12 year old Nintendo fan boys might not impress someone running a local film festival or someone looking for concept art for a game.

And yeah, that pretty much sums it up. More as it comes.