Compose Yourself

The last time tried to compose any kind of music was when i was in Much Ado About Nothing in college, playing the role of Balthazar, a servant and minstrel of less-than-dubious skill. in the play, there is a scene where he is called upon to sing a song, and he does so, much to the chagrin of those listening. Naturally, the original text has the lyrics, but does not delineate what the tune would be, so mr. Smith, the professor directing the play, asked me to just come with a tune on my own, so i found an empty practice room with a piano and plunked out a simple tune, and wrote it out, then, since i didn't play guitar had another cast member teach me the 4 basic chords i would need to know in order to accompany my I caterwauling. He even taught me some basic finger-picking technique, and with a couple week's practice, i soon knew the song backwards and forward, could play the chords with the guitar over my shoulder or even upside down with the wrong hands. Some 3 years later, i still remember those 4 chords, even though i forget which ones they were- i think it was D, A, G, and one other one. Dag. Since then, i have not set pen to a piece of sheet music once, except occasionally to turn the page in a piece i was playing that had been written by someone else.

TODAY, however...

I came up with a pleasant tune to play over the title cards for the Squirrel scene. I haven't written it down yet, or recorded it at all yet, but it's been stuck in my head all day- i've been whistling, humming, yodeling, squeaking, and squawking it incessantly, and even came up with some optional lyrics that would fit well with it, serving as an effective undercutting of the simplitically sweet tune with slightly tasteless words.

I don't know that i will actually use any of this or not, but here for your criticism or amusement are the original, unedited lyrics:

Dennis Squirrel,
He's a loopy guy!
When he talks he
Might spit in your eye!
Dennis Squirrel,
He's an acorn fan
When he wants grub
He's always got a plan.
Dennis Squirrel,
He's a silly git,
'Cuz all his plans are
Worthless as spit!

as soon as i write down the tune, and come up with some harmonizing notes, i may post it on here. or maybe not- it depends if i want to embarrass myself with my lack of skills in musical notation and composition.

Mc Art

a couple years ago, when I used to work at McD's, word somehow got around that i could draw (probably because of all the evil caricatures i did of managers, customers, and fellow employees), so one of the managers asked if i could draw some pictures to put on safety posters. these were the results.

Titular Nomenclature, AKA Insert Titles Here

I though I might facetiously make titles for the 13-second animation that I am working on, which would end up nearly doubling the total running time of the "Short Short." :-D
If I did this, they would be hand-lettered and painted, old-school style. Here are the sketches I did of the proposed titles.

Off the Cough

I finally got a few spare moments this week to spend on my animation, so now I am about 50% done. I did about 50 frames this week, inbetweens and all, then after I was sure it was moving smoothly, I went back and did some corrections on some rough spots, and cleaned-up the first 153 frames of what will end up being about 313 total drawings. (that's about 13 seconds, in case you were trying to do the math in your head) Here are a couple of frames to peak your curiosity.

a Plague on both your Houses!

On Sunday I drew several pages of quick sketches, exploring several of the characters i have been developing. This is a frog character whose design I am trying to make to fit a voice similar to this sound clip I recorded.
I drew them quickly, with little or no regard to construction or the other principles of design, instead trying numerous variations trying to get a feel that i liked. thus far i have still not been successful, instead feeling more like Pharoah as my palace is filled with hundreds of ugly frogs.

Time Off For Good Behavior

I haven't drawn much this weekend, but i did practice coloring with some of my older drawings...
I inked the drawing of Nick and the Chicken, and colored it , then placed in against the background to see how it reads.
Then i did the same thing with this squirrel and rabbit, adding shadows underthem that i think tie them down nicely.
I really need to finish this painting, and get back on that squirrel animation... maybe this next week.

Puma Cougar Mountain Lion Panther

Well, that wasn't as hard as i thought it would be...
I already have come up with a reasonably workable character design for the puma mobster/godfather wannabe.

Here are some sheets of really bad scribblings I made as I played with proportions and such trying to come up with the final design, sometimes getting distracted and doodling other characters instead.

In this first one, the puma's nose morphed into something very much resembling the Coyote that appears in some later Pluto cartoons.


Getter closer...

...and on this page I finally got in the ballpark of what I wanted, by nailing down specific anatomy and defining details.

As a bonus for suffering through these bad drawings, here is a glimpse at my progress on the background painting.

Nick of Time

Well, after about 30 frustratingly hideous scrawlings, i think i've pinned down a design that i can be happy with for the character of Nick, the cook/barman/waiter/owner of the Salad Bar.
Here's one of him if he was talking to a really hot girl.

and here he confronts a chicken who is late for work.
Now I have to work on the design for the Mobster Puma. I don't like this design much at all.
With these I'm getting closer, but still I have a long way to go on the design of the character. Well, gotta go to work now, so that's it for now.

Welcome to The Dungeon

this is where i do all my drawing/painting/animating. It is an ex-sewing machine table that I modified for my own uses. On it is the painting I'm working on now. On the wall you can see the color test I did on my comp, which I used as a reference to get me started.I applied paint on thickly with an old brush and dabbed at it with a sponge to get texture for the background, then painted the solid shapes, like tables and chairs, over the background. I used my chalk pencils to shade the tables and chairs and give them their own texture, and may do something similar with the lights. The painting is on 4 separate panels so I can scan them into my computer and blend the seams in photoshop.

I'm still trying to decide on the colors for the characters, as well as refining their designs...
...AND I still have 2/3 of the painting to complete, so I oughtta get ta crackin'. Well, here I go- I'm off...

this is not the post i promised.

I got side-tracked today, and decided to start painting my background for the Raging Bull in a Salad Bar scene. Here is an unfinished portion of the painting, with a couple characters pasted in to give an idea how the color scheme will look.