You can kind of see me learn a little more as the video progresses; it starts off childishly bad, and slowly upgrades to just really bad. Luckily though, every time I made a mistake that ended up causing way more work than there had to be, I learned something. This took an embarrassingly long time to make. I really need to sleep.
Saturday, 26 October 2013
Where once there was just bad art, there is now terrible animation.
Thursday, 10 October 2013
Bad things come in threes
Today you're going to learn about a guy I like to call "Genndy Tartakovsky". Son of a Soviet defector to the United States, Tartakovsky is western animation's Hayao Miyazaki. The guy is unstoppably good. Which, of course, explains why so many things he does get cancelled before their time. Most of this work isn't terribly obscure, but you might not have known he was involved. He didn't create all of these shows, but was heavily involved and god damn does it show.
Dexter's Laboratory - Right off the bat I have to admit this show isn't as good from an adult point of view as a something like Flapjack or Adventure Time, but it was still really excellent for a kid's show(Who am I trying to kid here, I was already fifteen when this show premiered). A much more sanitized version of the Ren and Stimpy style of humour, but it was good enough that it never had to go so far with it anyway. Visually it didn't make the transition to widescreen and hi-def very well, since being from the nineties means it might as well have been from the neolithic. Overall it's a thumbs up for me, doubly so because of the character Val Hallen: Viking god of ROCK.
The PowerPuff Girls - Yeah, I love this show, fuck you. I'm a big sucker for MoJo JoJo. This show came about shortly after Dexter's Lab, I guess because the American cartoon network decided it was time to start really kicking some ass. This is where you start getting your first clues that Tartakovsky really enjoys fight scenes, especially fight scenes with giant robots and monsters. If you know me, you know that I also really enjoy fights with giant robots and monsters. Somewhere, deep inside, I will always be an eleven year old.
Samurai Jack - I'm prepared to call this my all-time favourite animated show. Tartakovsky can do more with fifty seconds of silent intensity than Seth Macfarlane could do with all the fart jokes in the world. Just look at the clip. That's the end of an episode where Jack himself has literally less than two minutes of screen time. Up until that point, the episode was about all those bounty hunters carefully formulating a foolproof plan that they were absolutely sure would succeed. They accounted for every contingency, and still had their shit totally ruined in less than forty seconds. This show epitomizes "show, don't tell" in the best way. Think of the end scene of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" where the sweaty, tension filled three-way standoff comes to an abrupt end. Rather than just blather the plot out to you with poorly written dialogue George Lucas style, it lets you put everything together, and does it with beautiful backgrounds, use of music and sound, and animation. I'm just going to link to some badassery from this show, check it out.
Watch him kill the shit out of that fucking ninja!
Here he is popping Molly's and cruising rave babes
Who doesn't like Smokey and the Bandit/Gator references?
Anyway, that's just a taste of Samurai Jack (it's incredibly difficult to find youtube clips of it that aren't some asshole imposing a linkin park song over it). Of all the shows I'm mentioning in this update, this is the one you should check out the hardest.
Star Wars: Clone Wars - By far, the best thing to ever be related to Star Wars. This isn't the 3d animated one, but the precursor to that. It's pretty much Samurai Jack cosplaying Star Wars, and holy crap, it makes the prequel trilogy look like an even bigger pile of shit. In this clip, Mace Windu knows that if you're badass enough to punch a spaceship to death, you don't need to bother saying anything while you're doing it.
Sym-Bionic Titan - Samurai Jack with giant robots pounding on giant monsters? Oh my god, I'm gonna die. This show came out of nowhere and was excellent. Like, EXCELLENT. Therefore, it was cancelled after one season. Somewhere, some asshole in an expensive suit is bloviating about how he saved X amount of dollars by cancelling this show and deciding the world needed more Johnny Test. Some day I'm going to find this man, and boy fucking howdy am I going to pummel him. Just watch the clip, holy shit.
Special pilot bonus! - Korgoth of Barbaria! A spoof of Conan-style adventure, made by Tartakovsky and talent from Spongebob. It's hilarious and well made, so of course it didn't get picked up. I'm not the smartest man around, but I'm starting to notice a pattern here. This is the full pilot, so you should watch it and be amazed at the fact that some asshole turned this down.
Ok, so on to my awful drawing career. I'm still not using more than about 0.1% of what photoshop is capable of. Still, I'm trying to do it more so as to get more better, more fasterer. I took a step back from drawing disgusting men and thought I should balance the scales by drawing some disgusting women. The problem is, I don't know how to draw women disgusting enough that it's funny, so I just settled on trying to draw women. For the most part, they turned out looking like slim dudes with boobs. Judge for yourself.
So I guess the body and pose aren't too bad. Still not so great on the hands and face. Also, the right forearm turned out to be a pretty silly length. Still, I made up some of the lost ground from the short hiatus I took. I'm still not using the vector drawing capability of photoshop, and I think once I get fully comfortable with it things will start looking a lot better. Until then, it's scribbletown.
This poor woman has no bra. It's hard enough to fight crime in high heels, but to have floppage all over the place? I couldn't imagine trying to chase down evil doers if my nads were flopping all over the place.
This is pretty much just a personal experience. The fact that black licorice is considered candy should be classified as a war crime. I do like this drawing though. Still a little weak on the hands but the face is looking a lot better.
Hopefully within the next few months I'll be good enough to start moving into coloured stuff, and maybe even terrible flash animations. Whatever may come, rest assured I will subject you to it. Toodles!
Dexter's Laboratory - Right off the bat I have to admit this show isn't as good from an adult point of view as a something like Flapjack or Adventure Time, but it was still really excellent for a kid's show(Who am I trying to kid here, I was already fifteen when this show premiered). A much more sanitized version of the Ren and Stimpy style of humour, but it was good enough that it never had to go so far with it anyway. Visually it didn't make the transition to widescreen and hi-def very well, since being from the nineties means it might as well have been from the neolithic. Overall it's a thumbs up for me, doubly so because of the character Val Hallen: Viking god of ROCK.
The PowerPuff Girls - Yeah, I love this show, fuck you. I'm a big sucker for MoJo JoJo. This show came about shortly after Dexter's Lab, I guess because the American cartoon network decided it was time to start really kicking some ass. This is where you start getting your first clues that Tartakovsky really enjoys fight scenes, especially fight scenes with giant robots and monsters. If you know me, you know that I also really enjoy fights with giant robots and monsters. Somewhere, deep inside, I will always be an eleven year old.
Samurai Jack - I'm prepared to call this my all-time favourite animated show. Tartakovsky can do more with fifty seconds of silent intensity than Seth Macfarlane could do with all the fart jokes in the world. Just look at the clip. That's the end of an episode where Jack himself has literally less than two minutes of screen time. Up until that point, the episode was about all those bounty hunters carefully formulating a foolproof plan that they were absolutely sure would succeed. They accounted for every contingency, and still had their shit totally ruined in less than forty seconds. This show epitomizes "show, don't tell" in the best way. Think of the end scene of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" where the sweaty, tension filled three-way standoff comes to an abrupt end. Rather than just blather the plot out to you with poorly written dialogue George Lucas style, it lets you put everything together, and does it with beautiful backgrounds, use of music and sound, and animation. I'm just going to link to some badassery from this show, check it out.
Watch him kill the shit out of that fucking ninja!
Here he is popping Molly's and cruising rave babes
Who doesn't like Smokey and the Bandit/Gator references?
Anyway, that's just a taste of Samurai Jack (it's incredibly difficult to find youtube clips of it that aren't some asshole imposing a linkin park song over it). Of all the shows I'm mentioning in this update, this is the one you should check out the hardest.
Star Wars: Clone Wars - By far, the best thing to ever be related to Star Wars. This isn't the 3d animated one, but the precursor to that. It's pretty much Samurai Jack cosplaying Star Wars, and holy crap, it makes the prequel trilogy look like an even bigger pile of shit. In this clip, Mace Windu knows that if you're badass enough to punch a spaceship to death, you don't need to bother saying anything while you're doing it.
Sym-Bionic Titan - Samurai Jack with giant robots pounding on giant monsters? Oh my god, I'm gonna die. This show came out of nowhere and was excellent. Like, EXCELLENT. Therefore, it was cancelled after one season. Somewhere, some asshole in an expensive suit is bloviating about how he saved X amount of dollars by cancelling this show and deciding the world needed more Johnny Test. Some day I'm going to find this man, and boy fucking howdy am I going to pummel him. Just watch the clip, holy shit.
Special pilot bonus! - Korgoth of Barbaria! A spoof of Conan-style adventure, made by Tartakovsky and talent from Spongebob. It's hilarious and well made, so of course it didn't get picked up. I'm not the smartest man around, but I'm starting to notice a pattern here. This is the full pilot, so you should watch it and be amazed at the fact that some asshole turned this down.
Ok, so on to my awful drawing career. I'm still not using more than about 0.1% of what photoshop is capable of. Still, I'm trying to do it more so as to get more better, more fasterer. I took a step back from drawing disgusting men and thought I should balance the scales by drawing some disgusting women. The problem is, I don't know how to draw women disgusting enough that it's funny, so I just settled on trying to draw women. For the most part, they turned out looking like slim dudes with boobs. Judge for yourself.
So I guess the body and pose aren't too bad. Still not so great on the hands and face. Also, the right forearm turned out to be a pretty silly length. Still, I made up some of the lost ground from the short hiatus I took. I'm still not using the vector drawing capability of photoshop, and I think once I get fully comfortable with it things will start looking a lot better. Until then, it's scribbletown.
Hopefully within the next few months I'll be good enough to start moving into coloured stuff, and maybe even terrible flash animations. Whatever may come, rest assured I will subject you to it. Toodles!
Friday, 4 October 2013
I'm so not even done talking about cartoons
Yeah, I know, this is the third update in a row to feature me telling you about cartoons. I'm not even sorry, really, you're better off knowing this. I get very little traction with it in real life, so I might as well scream it into the winds of the internet.
Getting back to Ren and Stimpy. It must be frustrating to want to make a cartoon. It's easy to tell when someone wanted to make something for a grown-up audience, only to have to re-tool it for kids. The best of these can turn out to still be really entertaining for both kids and adults. Ren and Stimpy (at least for a while) did this well. Since then there have been lots more, and I've got time to kill.
SpongeBob Squarepants - Jesus, what can I even tell you about this show that you don't already know? It's been around forever and has long since gone the way of The Simpson(I ain't even gonna link it). Well, there was a time when this show was complete tits. I mean that it was good, it's a kid's show, right? So this show had two major things going for it: a - It has Dobber from Coach. Also known as Broadway from Gargoyles (which, holy shit, good job Disney). b - Tom Kenney from Mr. Show. Mr. Show is waaaaaay too good, and Kenney takes a lot of this humour to the cartoons he's in. Keep him in mind because he comes up again.
The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack - This show is by J.G. Quintel, and it's one of those shows that got cancelled because it's too good. It's so good I named my goddam cat Flapjack. Quintel so badly wants to do humour for adults but his major series are technically aimed at children. If you only click on one link in this whole post, make it this one; it's a short he did, I believe as his graduate work.
Regular Show - This is the good stuff, right here. Another show by Quintel, I've never seen a show where the stoner/slackerness of the two main characters was so thinly disguised. Luckily this one is getting way more of a shot than Flapjack did, and it's now several seasons running.
Adventure Time - You have probably at least heard of this one too. Pen Ward created this pretty excellent show and it features the previously mentioned Tom Kenney. This is one of the biggest breakout hits of the last ten years. With good reason, too. Pretty much everything about it is excellent, from the art and colours to the writing and acting. It flops between light and cheery and heavily depressing, with a story that's increasingly crazy. A paragraph blurb isn't nearly enough for me to explain why this show rules, you'll just have to trust me and watch it.
Ok, so, to my drawing. There was a bit of a gap where I wasn't practising much. I had planned on getting some adobe programs and learning to use them, so I could have more flexibility in what I did. To get these, though, I had to pretty much get a new computer. Then, once I got the computer, I had to actually learn to use the adobe programs. Which is taking a long time. I have the basics down for photoshop, illustrator and flash, and want to start screwing around with after effects and audition also. So, I did some doodling in photoshop, and it seems like a bit of a step backwards for now. This is because I'm still adjusting to all the new features, and I think that once I get the hang of it I'll be able to make way better stuff.
This one pretty clearly started as someone facing forward, and then halfway through I realized it looked way more like someone facing away. So I figured I would just roll with it instead of scrapping the whole thing. Also it's not a gross fat guy, it's just a nude guy. Trying to stretch out a little bit, you know? Anyway, I'm pretty sure I can sell this guy to Marvel and have a blockbuster on my hands by next summer.
And here is a gross drawing of an awful joke. I have to go to work! Catch you later.
Getting back to Ren and Stimpy. It must be frustrating to want to make a cartoon. It's easy to tell when someone wanted to make something for a grown-up audience, only to have to re-tool it for kids. The best of these can turn out to still be really entertaining for both kids and adults. Ren and Stimpy (at least for a while) did this well. Since then there have been lots more, and I've got time to kill.
SpongeBob Squarepants - Jesus, what can I even tell you about this show that you don't already know? It's been around forever and has long since gone the way of The Simpson(I ain't even gonna link it). Well, there was a time when this show was complete tits. I mean that it was good, it's a kid's show, right? So this show had two major things going for it: a - It has Dobber from Coach. Also known as Broadway from Gargoyles (which, holy shit, good job Disney). b - Tom Kenney from Mr. Show. Mr. Show is waaaaaay too good, and Kenney takes a lot of this humour to the cartoons he's in. Keep him in mind because he comes up again.
The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack - This show is by J.G. Quintel, and it's one of those shows that got cancelled because it's too good. It's so good I named my goddam cat Flapjack. Quintel so badly wants to do humour for adults but his major series are technically aimed at children. If you only click on one link in this whole post, make it this one; it's a short he did, I believe as his graduate work.
Regular Show - This is the good stuff, right here. Another show by Quintel, I've never seen a show where the stoner/slackerness of the two main characters was so thinly disguised. Luckily this one is getting way more of a shot than Flapjack did, and it's now several seasons running.
Adventure Time - You have probably at least heard of this one too. Pen Ward created this pretty excellent show and it features the previously mentioned Tom Kenney. This is one of the biggest breakout hits of the last ten years. With good reason, too. Pretty much everything about it is excellent, from the art and colours to the writing and acting. It flops between light and cheery and heavily depressing, with a story that's increasingly crazy. A paragraph blurb isn't nearly enough for me to explain why this show rules, you'll just have to trust me and watch it.
Ok, so, to my drawing. There was a bit of a gap where I wasn't practising much. I had planned on getting some adobe programs and learning to use them, so I could have more flexibility in what I did. To get these, though, I had to pretty much get a new computer. Then, once I got the computer, I had to actually learn to use the adobe programs. Which is taking a long time. I have the basics down for photoshop, illustrator and flash, and want to start screwing around with after effects and audition also. So, I did some doodling in photoshop, and it seems like a bit of a step backwards for now. This is because I'm still adjusting to all the new features, and I think that once I get the hang of it I'll be able to make way better stuff.
This one pretty clearly started as someone facing forward, and then halfway through I realized it looked way more like someone facing away. So I figured I would just roll with it instead of scrapping the whole thing. Also it's not a gross fat guy, it's just a nude guy. Trying to stretch out a little bit, you know? Anyway, I'm pretty sure I can sell this guy to Marvel and have a blockbuster on my hands by next summer.
You've seen me use this pose before, I'm not all that creative when it comes to that kind of thing yet. Also the head is still kind of a trainwreck. Faces and hands were where I had the biggest backslide in skills. Hopefully once I get this photoshop thing under control I can correct that. By the way, this is my actual, real-life fighting style. It's undefeatable.
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