Thing Zao

In the series there is an Asian character named Ting Zao. So for this outer space adventure episode we turned him into a tentacled alien called Thing Zao. He is animated extremely well, with the tentacles and all. I would have liked to have his tentacles colored the same light blue as his head though. The animation in this episode is outstanding. The problem is with the background colors, it looks very dated, like a show from the mid 90's when photoshop was starting to be used instead of traditionally painted backgrounds. The BG's in this series look way too airbrushed, with gradients on everything, and the colors are far too dark. The background designs themselves are excellent. The BG design team did a great job. Alain Coudry, Rodolphe Thuaud, and Robert Rivard's backgrounds were brilliant. Check out Robert's POST IT blog!

Emperor Bubbles

Some screen shots of Emperor Bubbles. I am not sure if it just because he has a human body in this episode, but these shots are far more interesting and have more personality in them than other episodes I have seen. It's difficult to to emote when you have no body, and no posture to pose, and no arms and hands to gesture with. Overall I am happy with how he turned out, even though I wish he had a skull cap.

skull cap

One of the things I wanted to do was give Emperor Bubbles a thing on his head, like Ming The Merciless would have on Flash Gordon. Again, it would have made him more retro sci-fi looking and less Darth Vaderish looking. It would only have required a couple of lines across his head and a different color on top of his head. But I was told that it would require more work and more coloring, and so the cap on his head was rejected. It was an unfortunate decision, he would have been so much better with it on. But that was one issue I did not feel like arguing over, so I let it go. The over all retro 1950's sci fi theme was not pushed in the design of the show. When we wrote the script we were expecting to also be on the character design team, so we thought we would be in house, in the studio, to make sure that the designs were what we envisioned for the episode. Unfortunately, we were not working in the studio for season 2, and many of the character designs strayed from the retro theme. For instance; there was a Robo Cop character designed. We didn't use him at all, and pretty much threw out that page of the model pack.

Is this a joke?!

When we wrote the script, we specifically described this contraption as a "War Of The Worlds" type machine. It should have had long spidery legs or tentacles and roundish head, very retro looking. Instead; as we were storyboarding, I saw this in the model pack. I was sure it had to be a joke. I added the testicles in blue pencil and Errol added the main character bent over ready to be humbled by the phallic creation. Then I realized that it was not a joke. This is actually the model we were expected to use. There was no way we were going to use this horrible thing, not only was it extremely phallic, it was not what we described in the script, it was not retro and did not resemble "War Of The Worlds", it was completely wrong. So we just did our own design and said to hell with design in the model pack. I was sure this would get changed back to the phallic drill by someone in the studio doing storyboard corrections, but to my surprise, as you can see by the screen shots above...it stayed in!

lizard jump pencil test

end credits

The end credits of My Gold Fish Is Evil is the best part of the whole show. It looks different than the show, it is full of quick zooms in and out and is pretty exciting.

on the air

Sorry about the poor picture quality, but these screen shots are taken from a VHS tape that I recorded with my VCR. Now I know how my parents felt when I was a kid and they were still using an 8 track player when I was using cassette tapes and a Sony Walkman. Anyway, this is from an episode of My Gold Fish Is Evil. It was written and storyboarded by Errol Burke and myself. As far as Gold Fish episodes go, I think it is the best one I have seen, but that is not saying much. After I watched this episode, I watched an episode of My Gym Partner's A Monkey. What a difference!! My Gym Partner's A Monkey is fantastic, hilarious, excellently paced, great voice acting, timing, great gags, great designs. The Episode I saw was the one with the koala girl, Deidre. It was brilliant. It's everything Goldfish should have been, but is not. There is a long laundry list of things I hate about My Goldfish Is Evil. I won't rant about that right now. Instead I will enjoy my moment in the pic above.

I'm on the cover!

Okay, well it's not actually ME....but it is my art. This is the cover of this month's TOON BOOM NEWS, a magazine circulated in the animation industry to promote Toon Boom software and the studios using Toon Boom programs. The cover is a design I did for Oasis Animation. There are several posts from this production in my blog archives, pretty much all of September and October 2007 archives are just from this project. Am I mentioned in the article on the inside? Nope. But there is a fascinating interview with the guy that signs my check.
My Girlfriend is also in the magazine, well it's not actually my girlfriend...but it is a caricature of her. I've highlighted her in the top picture. She is one of the incidental characters in the club scene. When I showed her the picture in the magazine she screamed and giggled like a 10 year old girl, so I think she was happy about it.

SUBWAY JABBA

I saw this guy on the metro yesterday. It's a memory sketch, but I really wish I had sketched him on the spot, he was awesome looking. So many wonderful folds and crevasses. And his forehead was full of striations and wrinkles.

TOILET PUCK......

......has arrived!! He even has an official unofficial production blog. I also did some test animation to establish the style of the show.

ARTHUR CARLSON

GORDON JUMP was perfect as ARTHUR CARLSON. This is my first sketch of the "BIG GUY". Usually I am not happy with my first sketches, but this one has potential. I can see where I can exaggerate him more, it's a good start though.

VENUS FLYTRAP

TIM REID as VENUS FLY TRAP. This was not my first attempt at Venus. I filled 3 pages with a bunch of sketches that were completely unsuccessful. This is the first one that is worth saving. Tim Reid was great as Venus. He was one of the straightest characters of the whole cast. His clothes were outrageous, but his personality was pretty normal compared to the caricatured personalities that surrounded him, same with Andy Travis.

HERB TARLEK again

This is my second sketch of Herb. I like it much better than the first. I'll try another one.

HERB TARLEK

This is my first stab at FRANK BONNER as HERB TARLEK from WKRP IN CINCINNATI. The entire cast was memorable, but Herb was a real stand out. He was a jerk character that was likable at times. He was simultaneously loathed and sympathetic. He had some moments of fantastic comedy. His interactions with Jeniffer Marlowe/Loni Anderson were hilariously unforgettable. There are elements of this first sketch that I like and others I need to keep working on.

ANDY TRAVIS colored

Just a very quick vector and color job.