I've been at this for about 11 months now. I can say with confidence that it's gotten better, and I can also say with confidence that it's still pretty silly. That's ok though, it's not as if anyone expected I'd be some mad artistic genius. I'm still plugging away at making another cartoon, but it's more than a little hamstrung by my near inability to draw non-human things from any sort of perspective. I've had to scrap and restart nearly every asset for the cartoon half a dozen times, but at least it gets slightly better each time. Have you ever tried to draw an easy chair? It shouldn't be as hard as it is, it's right there in the name. Perspective is a motherfucker, as you might remember from an earlier update where I first experimented with it. Looking back, fuck, that was some terrible work. Remember when I said that part of the reason I was putting it all out there was so that I would have a metric with which to judge my progress? It's a good thing I'm nearly incapable of being embarrassed, because those drawings are on a "getting pantsed in front of your entire junior high class" level.
So! As I screw around with drawing nude people, watch cartoons made by amazingly talented people and lament the fact that I can only dream of being that funny, I can't help but constantly criticize myself. The first thing I thought after my last update was that the audio in the animatic was generally terrible. By that I mean the actual recording itself, which was all muffly and hissy. Some of the voices and acting was ok, but I went back and re-recorded a lot of it. You know how you can tell when someone is trying way too hard? I can, but only after I've tried way, way too hard. I do enjoy the process though, because it's when you're honest with yourself about how the first idea vomit you lay down is mostly garbage that you can really start finding what works. Well whatever, that's enough fishing for compliments, here's some of the stuff I've been cranking out.
It seems like I have to have at least one major problem at all times. In this, the hands and feet are actually sort of not horrible, but the face makes up for it by being goofy as heck. I don't know why this guy is wearing swim trunks in a bar, I figure maybe this is The Palace. Sweet action pose, though! He's the T-1000 of chasing down dudes who deny the high five.
Not safe for work, I guess. I'M DELIBERATELY AVOIDING DRAWING GENITALS. This is the internet and I'm sure there are people finding creative ways to jerk off to this kind of thing, but I'm in the business of making it as difficult as possible. One of my methods is giving the women mannish faces. Look at that; she looks like a male character from a 1980's anime. On that subject, I'm sure I've said this before, but it really isn't my intention or desire to draw anime style characters. It's just a thing that keeps happening. It probably stems from my being a long time horrible nerd and the constant exposure I had to it during my childhood. Fucking hell though, look at those feet and hands! They're so good I might be getting a little randy myself.
I will never get tired of Owl Man. He's not creative, original, interesting or anything like that, but he's a good excuse for me to draw nude people. Speaking of which, I didn't draw a single butt this time. I don't know if I'm just getting old or what, but it doesn't bode well as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, that's pretty much it for now. Closing in on a year since I started doing this, so maybe I'll have to have a tearful retrospective of how far I've come. Or maybe some kind of party. Or just drink a bottle of wine and throw things. Whatever, it's my anniversary.
