I've only got a few shots left to animate, and a bunch of audio stuff to do. Other than that, this muthaclucka is pretty much ready to go. Fester Fish will return on August 22, 2012 in "Fester Makes Friends." It'll be about seven minutes long. I wanted to make it shorter because, you know, people don't watch anything over two minutes on the internet, but I just couldn't decide what to cut. So it's all in there! It's an epic tale of friendship (or lack thereof), heartbreak, home invasion and more. It's a transcendental meditation on life and death. It's a tear-jerker that will have you busting out your extra-absorbent hankies! As a wiseau man once said, "experience this quirky new black comedy... It's a riot!"
Mark your calendars! Warn your neighbours! Drink your milk! AUGUST 22!!!
I would've made a teaser video like I did with the other two shorts but I'm too busy animating. So instead I'll be posting non-spoiler stuff from it to whet your appetite, like an advent calendar but with production art and GIFs instead of chocolate. So let the Countdown to Festercy begin, with a walk cycle from the new short, available in two sizes, suitable for avatars and such!
I suck at making GIFs, so the colours got messed up. Oh well.
At the latest comic jam we played a fun game where we try to quickly draw cartoon characters from memory. Often with disastrous results:
This is the beast from Beauty and the Beast.
BABAR, KING OF THE ELEPHANTS (I just realized that name sounds like the title of a bad 50s B-movie, especially if you shout it)
Everyone's favourite gay bananas
Krillin from Dragon Ball Z as Charlie Brown, complete with his spinning energy disc thing. I should've drawn him throwing it, and then it coming back to hit him and knocking all his clothes off.
A California Raisin who looks more like a crack addict than I intended.
I went over to the comic shop yesterday, hoping to find some art that would inspire me with character designs I'm working on. I didn't bother looking at superhero books because I wanted something more cartoony, so I focused on indie comics and manga. Every time I saw an interesting character on a cover, I'd flip through the book and think "hey wait a minute, EVERY character looks like that first one."
I'm not going to name any comics in particular, but I had forgotten just how many comics havea single original character design which they then repeat over and over. The exact same heads, features and bodies, just with different hair and clothes. Often that particular design will be kind of interesting and unlike any other comics, but the problem is I want to see a whole bunch of different designs in one place. So I ended up getting one of those "Meathaus" group sketchbooks.
I also picked up "Angura - Posters of the Japanese Avant-Garde" which has a lot of neat design ideas.