Morphing Thru Time

Two blog updates in less then 7 days, I must be going crazy!

No, I just thought since im leaving to visit family tomorrow morning and I wont be able to hop back onto the internet till sometime next week now would be as good a time as any to update this blog. So thats what im doing, and not even you can stop me!

So what have I been up too since I last blogged a few days ago? Well, I uploaded this little flash animation from 2005. Dont ask me now what its about or what the joke is, I dont remember, but I havent made anything like it since so I guess its sort of interesting.



Anyone who has known me since 2004 will also remember a web series I made over the span of a week called Bricks Are Fun. It was a silly little series where the joke was the idea that there was no joke. It sort of exploded on DeviantArt and had lots of spin offs and for a couple of weeks it was super popular. Looking back on it its probably the single most popular solo project I ever undertook, which is ironic since it was made incredibly lazily, with one episode made every afternoon over 8 days. Each one only took a couple of hours to throw together. After talking to a friend about old projects I noticed it was still getting traffic, from people I can only assume are looking for it out of nostalgia. For this reason I decided to get the series ready for upload to Youtube. Ive been tweaking the visuals slightly, so they are all uniform and dont hurt the eyes quite as much as they did back in 2005, with most of the gradients and photos gone in favor of flat shading. The animation itself however has been left untouched and is just as horrible as it ever was. It will however contain a new opening sequence as well as credits and copyright free music. You can see some screens below from episodes in progress. Ive chosen to keep the episode names the same, even tho some of them make no sense structurally, its all part of the fun I guess.

Episode 01: Bricks Are Fun

Episode 02: Bricks Are Flammable

Episode 03: Bricks Are Do Stuff

Episode 04: Bricks Are From Space

Episode 05: Bricks Are Fight Back

Episode 06: Bricks Are Cameo

I still have large amounts of Episode 06 that need to be finished, and then Episodes 07/08 to go and it should be all nicely wrapped up. Im hoping to get all the episodes finished while im away visiting family, and ill do the sound when I get back home and have access to the internet again.

Also on Monday I drew this chocolate teddy with its ear bitten off after a twitter discussion about eating chocolate bears even tho they are so cute.

And thats really it for this week again. Down the bottom you will find all of this weeks Tumblr pics, all from 2005 once again. So until I get home and have a lot to talk about again, as im sure I will. Adios.

Fat of the Land

Sorry for the late post, I was up last night watching Rise of Planet of the Apes...

Now, what did I get up to this week? Well, to be honest, not a whole lot. I started going through some of my old animations, ones that I thought might be worth putting on Youtube. The first one I converted to HD and re-uploaded was one of my sequences from a Newgrounds Flash Collaboration I oversaw back in 2005 called "The Doom Project". In the end I animated 3 sequences but this is the only one I still have the source file for. It was called "Hall of the Cyber Demon".



I also dug up the source file for another quick animation called "The Pickle Has You" which I will be uploading next Monday, and also all 10 episodes of "Bricks Are Fun" which im not only converting to HD, but also tweaking the art a little bit and redoing the audio so its more Youtube friendly. Hopefully I will be able to release one of these shorts a week over the next 9 weeks.

Today was also a biggish day, me and my partner both went into a small market, which was similar to an Etsy store if it occupied 3D space. They had all kinds of neat stuff at the stalls, and on the tables in the middle of the market they had marker pens so you could draw all over paper they had them covered in. I drew a robot as they are what I tend to draw when I dont know what else to do.

I also got the following movie posters.

Im not sure where I will put these yet, but im sure I will find somewhere appropriate.

I also went to the Android Land store where the animations I worked on are being displayed, was cool seeing them all up in a row.

The only other real news I have is that i've been posting old images with a small write up about them daily this week on my Tumblr. But before I do ill also mention that I will be heading to the Northern Rivers to visit my family for Christmas this coming Thursday, so I will either blog this coming Wednesday or when I get home the week after.

So I guess this is the official end of this weeks blog, if you want to check out a few old images from 2005 that I had posted on my Tumblr then have a look below. Adios.

The Rainbow Connection

Well, I didn't blog last week. I cant remember why... I remember it being rather chaotic, but not the reasons why... oh well...

This week I remember things tho!

On Tuesday night I went to a special screening of all the final films made by the students doing the Film and Television Tafe course as Swinburne University. That was quite interesting, especially since its a course I am potentially undertaking myself next year. I had my interview for the course yesterday and the teachers seemed impressed with my work which is always nice.

The other thing I saw the following night was a special preview screening of The Adventures of Tin Tin.

When I originally saw the trailer, like most people I was sceptical, and the movie did start a little slow. But  on the whole I ended up really enjoying the film. I also liked the fact that despite it was all motion captured it didn't suffer with that strange "dead eyes" problem a lot of previous mo cap movies have had. It wasn't the greatest movie of the year by any means, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable romp none the less.

As for my own personal projects, its been a busy week again with work and other things, so I havent got any animation work done. But I did find the time to make some cute vector art based around Skyrim! Cute by my works standards at least.

Other then that I booked my tickets to visit my family over the xmas break. Hopefully since I wont have internet or anything I will finally be able to finish Gerkinman Returns with no distractions, but we will have to wait and see...

Google Android

Well, I know last week I said I would be back today with some new content from Nimbin/Gerkinman, but I have had the biggest week I have had in months. I worked at 3 different places, and from home this week. Good to be busy again.

The main big project Id like to talk about was a series of short animations for Google Android. I was called in on Wednesday morning, sat down and was given some storyboards and off I went. This is the first time I have ever been called in to do character based animation as opposed to just web banners and other similar things like that, and I quite enjoyed it. I was working alongside an animation lecturer and the offices After Effects guru. The character himself was animated entirely in flash and then being exported as a sequence of .pngs to be recompiled in After Effects with funkier text and other effects.

All in all it was an enjoyable experience and the other animators were great to work with and id gladly go back again.

In other news here is that Nimbin/Gerkinman pic I promised :P

Im not sure how busy I am going to be next week, so I dont know how much animation work I will get done on the film. Ive also got Loopdeloop Tuesday night. I didn't get to attend last months so im looking forward to going back again.

So until next week!

The Wizard Turns On...

Boy oh boy what a busy week. Freelanced on Monday. Played a bunch of Skyrim. Got my new loop finished. Oh hey yeah! The loop, thats a good way to start this post.

So the theme for this months Loopdeloop was "Condoms". I had originally gone through a number of ideas before I settled on my final concept. Its not exactly what I set out to make but people seem to be enjoying it. I haven't made anything video game related in a number of years now so it was rather refreshing.



If you want to vote you can make your way over here. The name Super Cock Joke Bros. came a from a follow up project to my short film Cock Joke Solid which I released a number of years ago.



I had planned for a while to make a whole series of cock based video game parodies. Im glad I bailed on that idea tho.

In other news I've been working on the new episode of Nimbin/Gerkinman. Im still not sure which name I will be releasing the series under. Funny how deciding on a name is proving far harder then any of the animation. Hopefully I will have some screens worth sharing next week.

Something else I have been working on and can share is the remastered version of my cartoon "Down at McDonalds".



Originally released in 2008 and animated in a single afternoon, "Down at McDonalds" was based on a story from a work mate, about one day when he was on ecstasy and went to a toilet in McDonalds and swore Ronald McDonald slid under the door and started to lick his leg. Being drawn to that sort of bizarre tale as I am, I had no choice but to make it into a film. So I did. Its something that, for the time I made it in, Im still quite happy with, but that doesn't mean I dont feel like it could be better with some expanding on. So i've started to go back to it in my free time and jazz it up a little. You can see some of the comparison shots between the original and the remastered version below.

The first obvious change, is the new art style, going for a more hand drawn look as opposed to the simple clean vector look of the original. It also now takes place at night, because everything is creepier at night, everyone knows that.

This shot remains largely unchanged, the person behind the counter has been redesigned, as has the menu behind him. I also decided to drop the third man in the line since he didn't really add anything to the shot, but the composition itself remains largely unchanged.

Once again this shot remains largely unchanged. What I have done is made it look much more like the dirty stained toilet one would expect to find in a McDonalds. The original looks more like something from a hospital.

This shot has gone through a number of changes. While not obvious here, in the original shot everything was static. Now not only does the camera pan but also the man in the background moves around as he gets ready to eat his burger.

This scene went through a large number of changes. The main on being in the original short, its a loop of the man eating his burger. Now this shot was recycled 3 times and increased in speed. To avoid that repetition he now goes through 3 stages of eating, the burger, the fries, and a drink. He also just takes a single bite now as opposed to eating non stop.

So far this shot has been the most heavily modified from the original. The original is far to close to the camera and just looks awkward. This was something that I really wanted to rectify. Once again the dirtiness of the toilet is made more obvious as well. Having the camera peeking over the wall of the stall  also helps make him look more alone.

So thats about it for next week. Next week will probably be filled with images from the new Nimbin/Gerkinman episode. Got to keep jumping back and forth to keep things fresh.

Until next time...

Nimbin

Boy oh boy, what a week. As I mentioned last week I was heading up to the Northern Rivers to visit family on the weekend. And I did, but before I divulge into that, heres a video my partner Maya put together for a uni assignment, starring yours truly. Its about dressing for weather in Melbourne.



So, without going to much into the trip I had, We went through Nimbin, and since thats the series im wanting to bring back next year I thought I should do a bit of a post about it.

These here are the Nimbin Rocks, and really, they are the only things from Nimbin that have ever actually made there way into any of the flash episodes or illustrations. 

When you finally make it out of the hills and closer to the town this is the sign that greats you. You will find these signs all over the Northern Rivers.

These shots give you a bit of an idea of what the main st of Nimbin is like. Its something I always wanted to include in the original series but never got to, but you will be seeing it frequently in the new season. As you can see from the photos it is a colourful place, which ties nicely into my art style.

Of course the other thing Nimbin is famous for is its ties to Marijuana. There is no shortage of memorabilia and other things over town, from Mardigrass posters to paintings and photos of local super hero "The Plantem". I wonder if "The Plantem" and Gerkinman would get along...

This is a sign that was originally used in the 1973 Aquarius festival. Its been restored obviously. I still find it to be an interesting piece of history.

There is also an interesting museum that covers the history of the town from way back when Dinosaurs ruled the crops to now. The amount of work thats gone into this alternate museum is quite astounding.

The town is also home to some of the regions most colourful vehicles. The original Nimbin idea (Back when it was called Teenage Mutant Ninja Ferals - ferals being the sort of people that inhabit Nimbin, the ones that aren't hippies anyway.) had the crew driving around in a colourful bus, maybe its time to bring that back.

Its also a great place to go for novelty hats. If you are into that sort of thing anyway.

Lastly I leave you with the Nimbin Bush Theatre. A building that was once an old flour mill repurposed as a cinema. I went with my dad to this place  a number of times to see foreign films, it really is a great venue, as far as atmosphere is concerned anyway. If I get the feature film made after these 10 episodes, this is where im going to want to premier it.

Next week hopefully I will have some animation and illustrations up, but until then...