1967 Poem

Aw man, late again. Better late then never? Maaaaaybe...?

So... whats up you ask? What do you mean you dont want to know? Well im going to tell you anyway, because thats the kind of guy I am.

Its time for an animation extravaganza! First up we have my loopdeloop for this month was "Play". I originally wanted to have my Nimbin character Max pick up a ball and throw it so hard it travelled around the world and smacked him in the back of the head. After some experiments it wasn't really working out, so after watching BRODYQUEST

as I do at least once a month when I need inspiration, I decided to go back to an older idea, albeit making it much simpler, that being GERKINQUEST. As BRODYQUEST parodies were quite big a couple of years ago when I had the idea. As a result of that, we now have GERKINQUEST, as we watch Gerkinman travel the world while paying attention to little else aside from his Gameboy.


Next up we have 4 HD rereleases. What a busy couple of weeks it has been.

The second episode of Nimbin is finally up. Made in 2004 this was the last episode animated by me before Mark Schnieder took over and made it look a billion times better then I ever could. I touched up the backgrounds and modified the audio quite a great deal but all the original animation, or the little animation there is rather, remains.


Then we have King Dodongo. This short was originally made for a flash collaboration in 2004 with numerous other animators from Newgrounds. This was also one of the first full shorts I had done with my tablet, which at the time was a Wacom Graphire 3. Being in my teens at the time I was obsessed with The Legend of Zelda and this was not the first nor the last time that Link or would feature in my flash animations. Due to the loss of the original sound files the audio has been redone from scratch.


Also from 2004 was this short flash, which was originally supposed to be the rebirth of the Bricks Are Fun series, but it never really took off and so I left it. Now retitled "How to sound like a chicken", this version of the animation has a slightly updated background and the sound has been completely reworked.


Lastly we have my segment from another collaboration with different animators from Newgrounds. This time from 2009. The idea of the flash was to animate something, each artists first frame of the animation would be based off the last frame of the artist that animated before them. This animation, later named "Mind" had never been released online until now. I went in and cleaned up... or dirtied up the backgrounds might be more appropriate. The animation and audio has been left untouched.


My final piece of animation goodness isn't so much a piece of animation as it is a piece of concept art for an animated film I would like to make next year. This is not the final piece, I have since modified the text layout and fixed some typos. More on this project as it comes.

As far as my personal life, im going to be handing in an application form for a new apartment tomorrow morning, before going to TAFE and putting my recently film project "Overcome" onto a tape to be handed in tomorrow. Come to think of it the final script for Wanker will be read out in scriptwriting class tomorrow, and ill be presenting the DVD slip case above in multimedia. Then Tuesday "Overcome" will be getting screened and that afternoon my redubbed Spiderman clip gets screened in sound design class... before I head off to this months loopdeloop. Oh man... hectic week...

Guardian Angel

I am really sorry that I haven't posted in such a long time. You would think that now im studying film making at TAFE I would have lots more to post about... and you would be right. Since my last blog post I have released 6 shorts... oh dear... Well I guess I better start at the beginning.

First up we have my loop for Aprils Loopdeloop. The months theme was "Rock" so naturally I decided to make something about tan asteroid colliding with the earth and wiping out the Dinosaurs. The idea started out rather differently, I originally wanted to make it more of a comedy, but after watching a few documentaries on the meteor crash I felt sad... This was easily the biggest loop I have made so far this year scale wise. In fact, I dare say due to other commitments it will be the only loop I make on a large scale this year. I really need to start planning smaller loops that take less time to make... I called this one "The Last Supper" since all the Dinosaurs are eating just before they die.



Then we have Mays Loopdeloop entry. This time the months theme was "one" to celebrate Loopdeloops first birthday. I pretty much new exactly what I wanted to do from the beginning and this was one of the few times that my idea didn't change at all through the creative process. This was also the first time in quite a while that I used this particular rendering style. I am rather happy with the end result.



The theme for this months Loopdeloop is "Play" so I hope I can bang that one out in a single sitting. Im planning on going back to the Nimbin character models, but why im going back to them is a story for another time.

OH! And speaking of Nimbin, I also released a trailer for Gerkinman Returns! Im on holidays from TAFE for all of July so I HOPE to finish the film during that time.



In non animation news, I finally got around to finishing a video using all footage from The Melbourne Aquarium. It was really little more then an experiment in editing using FCPX. Happy with how most of it came up, really made me realise how badly I need a better camera tho.



On the TAFE from I have a couple of projects I have released. The first was an editing exercise using FCP7. It was kind of strange going back to 7 after using Premier and FCPX for so long, it did feel a little backwards and things didn't necessarily work the way I thought they would. For the exercise we had to cut a trailer to one of three public domain movies, I chose Plan 9 From Outer Space. Its an interestingly terrible film.



And finally, I have 3 short films which were shot in sequence by me, and some mates from TAFE. Namely Jax Sunny Pappas and Jayde Taylor. Jayde shot the first sequence which was called "Peel Me", it also had me acting in it... badly I might ad. Jax shot the second one which was called "The Adventures of the Travelling Old Shoe". I also starred me along with Jayde. The final part was shot by me and I titled it "Glider". It also has Jayde and a brief appearance by Jax's feet. The point of the exercise was to get us to use a tape based camera and make a 1 minute short film about an object being transferred from one place to another with all in camera editing. Editing in camera requires a lot of rewinding and frustration. Of course this version was done after the assignment was finished and was edited in Premier.



Damn this is a big post. Im going to try to stop this size post from happening again...

Hopefully I will remember to blog again next week with the release of my next loop.

Behind Closed Eyelids

A couple of days late but its still within the week, just barely, so dont hate on me.

Its been a pretty busy week between TAFE and work. Spent most of this week giving presentations and doing pitches at TAFE while working from home later in the night.

I pitched a short film on Monday that I need to have the first draft of the script ready for by the Monday after next. I have never really written a script before with most of my previous animated cartoons being done after jumping strait into the storyboarding process. The film itself will be done with stills and is about working in the advertising industry. It will be dialogue heavy which is certainly something new for me and I have the visual style sorted out in my head, whether or not I can achieve that is another thing entirely. I will be talking more about that film tho once it starts moving forward.

I also pitched a second short film for another class which has to be edited in camera using tape. Its not going to be easy but im sort of looking forward to the challenge of that project as well.

In animation news I managed to get a loop done for this months loopdeloop. They have received an absolute crap load of entries this month, I dont think I have ever seen so many. I think its because they are doing it in conjunction with Liquid Television of MTV fame, the theme of course, was liquid. You can see my loop below which I have affectionately called "The Ultimate Bromance". It was made in around 5 hours on Friday, although I had done the animatic at work the day before in around 40 minutes. Im pretty happy with how it came out, especially considering the quick turn around.


Ive only really had the chance to sit down and do one drawing this week. There he is below, the Pokemon "Cubone"

I also recently went on a trip with my partner to the Great Ocean Road, which is a winding road along the southern end of Victoria. There was some great scenery down there, so naturally many photos were taken.

I also took a lot of video so I will be putting some sort of video together at a later date as well, probably once I finally get my Melbourne Aquarium finished.

And thats about it for this week. Catch you next time.

I wanna be a nudist.

Oh dear I havent updated in over a month. Im a bad man. So heres the score, because time is of the essence.

I released a new loop, the theme was idiots.



I also released a HD version of the first Nimbin short.



On top of these 2 released I have also put out a bunch of commentaries of old cartoons. With more on the way.











I have also started TAFE now, which has been interesting. The first week was mainly an introduction to the classes and giving out of assignments, which are due next week. The last 2 weeks have been mainly OHS focused.

Hopefully once I get my marks back I will be able to share some of my more interesting assignments on here.

Also, since I last posted I have done a tonne of quick little doodles. Here, let me show you them.

Hopefully I can get this blogging business back on track again next week and not have a 5 week gap. Shame on me.

Horse with no name

Well, I didn't make a post last week, shame on me. BUT! I have been very productive. Not only have I just finished working on my very first proper TV commercial, but I also got a few quick illustrations done and managed to finish of my entry for this months Loopdeloop. But lets not get ahead of ourselves.

First of all the commercial, I wish I could post it here, but I cant, so you know what, im going to stay quite  until its up on the companies Vimeo account. What I can say is this, I animated it in Flash, which I shouldn't have, and it still somehow came out pretty great, or at least it was until the client told us to "tone it down" and make it less fun. Ah well.

Second of all is my loop! This loop marked the first time I had done a number of new things. It contains painted backgrounds done in Art Rage with oil paints and the spade thing that people use to mix them, I dont know what its called. Anyway, the end result ends up looking something like this.

And then there was the way I rendered the animation, which was the same process im using to animate Gerkinman returns, so the animation came out looking like this.

So once you mix these two things, and throw in some sound and some special effects courtesy of Final Cut Pro which im now learning to use for work, you end up with a final product similar to this.

And I couldn't be happier with it, or at least, not much happier. You can vote for it on Loopdeloop HERE if you feel the urge.

In other news I did a few quick doodles.

Here is Mr Kermit The Frog. For some reason I have been drawing frogs a lot lately.

Here is an Uglysaurus to celebrate Friday because... well... why not?

And lastly here is an angry man bursting through a door. A friend asked me about how she could make a shot in an animation my dramatic, the shot being a guy bursting through a door. I suggested a low angle shot and then for some reason felt the urge to color the original sketch.

And thats it for this week... or the last two weeks. Whats going to happen next time? Who knows! Tune in to find out.

Orange Crush

A couple of days late again, tho I do have an excuse, Friday was a big day for me. Yup, thats what it was. Also I went to the Melbourne Aquarium yesterday, so it didn't seem to make sense to make a post until I could talk about that.

First things first, ALL the episodes of Bricks Are Fun are now up on Youtube, you can find the four remaining episodes below.









So im glad I have that out of the way. Im not going to be putting anymore older cartoons up until at least Gerkinman Returns is finished, altho all I really have left that I want to put up is a short called "King Dodongo" and the 5 episode series I worked on called "The Martian Saga" which im planning to cut down a bit and put into one film.

I also managed to find the time to do 3 quick illustrations, only spending around 10 minutes on each.

It felt good doing a little bit of drawing again, even if they were only quick doodles. Hopefully I will find the time to do more of this sort of stuff.

It was a busy week last week, working at two different advertising agencies, and next week is looking much the same, if not busier.

As mentioned above, me and my partner went to the Melbourne Aquarium yesterday, and it was quite a bit of fun. While it had many of the same displays as other aquariums, they had a few animals I hadn't seen before, at least not in captivity.

Naturally the first things we saw were the Penguins. They were smaller then I expected, and also pooped more, I mean I expected them to poop plenty, but you never see any stains on the ice in documentaries...

They also had a neat fresh water display with things like fresh water sting rays and fresh water sharks in it, part of the display also had a fake plane crashed into a tree over the water which was a nice touch. One of the most interesting things we found in the fresh water spot was a fish called "The Glass Catfish" which has completely transparent flesh.

Much like Underwater World they also had a Japanese Spider Crab, but I never get tired of seeing those things, despite the fact that this one was quite small compared to others I have seen.

Something that this place had in spades that other aquariums i've been too haven't were Jelly Fish, they mainly had moon jellies, but they also had these cute little ones. I was too mesmerised by there movement to even look at what they were called.

Lastly, they had not one, but two living Nautilus, which was very exciting. I had seen them in videos and my mum was lucky enough to stumble upon a shell once, but I had never seen a living one close up before.

Of course thats just a small amount of what we saw on our visit, I took my camera along so hopefully when I get some free time I will be able to do something fun with all the video. 

And thats really it for this week. With next week looking the way it is I dont know if I will get much if any animation work done, I guess we will just have to see what happens. So until next time...

Skyrim Atmospheres

Wow, im sorry, 2 weeks without an update, I was going to update last Friday but ended up having a massive day freelancing from home and then seeing Happy Feet 2...

ANYWAY, It has been a big couple of weeks, let me tell you about them.

Since this is a creative blog, ill only be talking about the creative stuff, that said, I spent a week up on the Northern Rivers, back on my home turf some might say. While I was there I took quite a lot of time lapse and surf footage. I shot quite a lot of time lapse footage at my parents home over the span of two days and spent another full day at Lennox Head filming, I was even lucky enough to catch a storm going by in the distance. The surf footage I took was also from Lennox Head, and while I wasn't doing anything too dangerous most of the time aside from wearing a silly hat...

But when I wasn't standing safely up on nice green grass I was in stupid places like this hoping that a big wave wouldn't come along and bowl me over...

To give you an idea how big that wave was in this photo, im standing on top of a storm water drain that came up at least a meter and a half out of the water. The end result tho, I like to think was worth it, I put together a lot of the footage I took to the song Il Fiore by Trash80.


But thats not all I have done, while I was away I also managed to finish tweaking all 8 of the original 2005 series of Bricks are Fun. So far I have been uploading one a day, and as of today I have 4 more to go.  Im happier with some more then others, but obviously since some are funnier then others thats to be expected.




Now that these are finished and out of the way I can get back to focusing on Gerkinman Returns and this months loop.

And thats pretty much it for this week, I leave you now with the track Skyrim Atmospheres which is what im currently listening too, and is 42 minutes of peaceful ambience. For those who have been wondering as well, the title of my blog is always whatever song is playing on my playlist at the time. True story.


And dont forget to follow me on Tumblr. I need the love...