Wednesday, June 24, 2009

I heart PUFFY


Since about 99 Ive been a sucker for main stream pop (or what I consider 'good' pop). Anyway thanks to someone dumping off a bunch of manga books at the front of my flats and the wonders of the internet Ive discovered the pop music of Japan. So I discovered PUFFY who are one of the greatest pop bands of all time! They yell,they harmonize they use every musical genre available and turn out great pop. Their films clips are incredibly entertaining. I recommend any of their 3 'best of' cds. Of course youtube them beforehand go for boom boom beat,nice buddy, mole like, wild girls on curcuit as a start. You'll be so glad you did.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Character design

Character design



I think I go for iconic kind of cartoony shapes.But my work looks flat to me:no volume! Blame Preston Blair & Jack Hamm and their "how to books".I feel like I'm influenced by a lot of stuff from rendered 1800s cartoonists to Hanna Barberra animation. I needed my be to look like a middle aged man and took time to figure out if he needed arms and legs(he does!). With the female flower ( she got to be pretty non- descript) I guess with her Ive looked at the Disney Alice in Wonderland flower scene a lot.
The concept came about from watching a lot of old cartoons. I was watching an old Pink Panther short,when I kind of realized that these cartoons have a lot of references about the frustrations of being a middle aged man.Which who these cartoons where made by!The cartoon was about this character being drunk. I thought you don't see this stuff these days being drunk,smoking,wives with curlers in their hair holding rolling pins.....

Monday, June 22, 2009

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Monday, June 15, 2009

THUMBNAILS R US!!


Lucky I have made easy-peeasy thumbnail sheets (such an expert at illustrator & photoshop). Which do make life easier.As I've said this is an animation reject so most of the idea was worked out all ready. But if I'm thumbnailing for cartooning I'm usually considering that I'm using an A3 page.But with this thumbnail I was just looking a beats & story writing.Considering that Ive laid this out as an equal nine panel per page, Ive really just had to edit the story so it didn't become too long.The one thing I find frustrating is that Ill do a really good looking thumbnail but can never transfer that on to the finished page (cry for me,pity me).

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Monday, June 8, 2009

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Making notes

Making notes


There's nothing better than being asked " Where do your ideas come from?"
Well other than doing this stuff for a extremely long time, so I know what works or not...
I write ideas in a sketchbook,I draw in a sketchbook. So it's my SKETCHBOOK!!!
These days I probably look at a drawing for ideas rather than write a lot of stuff. It also helps to have a reason to draw a strip.So in this case its for a pantomime strip for a competition in Italy.



The actual idea comes from an animation I'm slowly doing. This was a 'reject' idea from that project. I'd already had done a bunch of pre-production, so I had a lot of this idea worked out and I thought it would make a good idea for a no word comic.
The only worry is that I was unwittingly ripping off Chris Ware. I'd realized he'd done that bee comic in Acme Library. I know of 'it', but haven't read it.

Anyway, after thinking up something 'COOL', I sit with a piece of foolscap and either write a short treatment or (what I usually do) write the panels in a bullet point form.This is to figure out how to tell the story and pace the panels and pages. At this point I don't really need to know the page layout or how the characters will look.Its really to work out the narrative,and get it to work properly.
I heart Mudhoney's 1st album

Monday, June 1, 2009