I'm sorry ...

... that there is no sound on this small movie.  hopefully I will be able to create music again in a few weeks.  I may compose a score for this movie, and then repost it.




the subject of this film is part of the reason I have gone so long without posting here.




BTW - this is the second version I made of this film.  I made the first version using a different program, and after completing it discovered that the program saves the completed film in an odd format that is not commonly used.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh_wkqdvrfY&feature=youtu.be


ps - I could not upload the video directly to this page for some odd reason, and was forced to post it on youtube.  sorry for the inconvenience.

so ...

... health problems and other things kept me away from the drawing board for a bit.  once things cleared up i started working on the graphics program i previously mentioned and had a minor breakthrough, but before i could go any farther two of my friends asked me to create a one page cartoon for them.

the cartoon i made for them uses their characters, but in a way very different from how they use them.  last time i made a one page cartoon for these friends i felt i crammed too much into the page, so i cut down on the number of panels.  the reduced number of panels helped make things less crammed, but with less panels i felt the story became overly streamlined.  i can never find a happy balance.

here's a panel from the comic ...

in other news, there's another project that i started and about which i would like to write, but it's not far enough along yet.  hopefully soon.

Here are Some ...

... model sheets from "Ken the Wolf Boy" (Okami Ken).  This was the first series that Toei Doga animated for television.  It premiered in 1963.

I'm posting these model sheets in hope that someone might help identify the artist(s) who created them.

My apologies for the poor image quality.

(Okami Ken is property of Toei Doga)

HOT DANG ...

... xmas came late, but i'm not complaining!

no time to turn this into a proper post, but I gotta share this great news:

VOLUME 3 OF KUKLA FRAN AND OLLIE IS NOW AVAILABLE!!!

I dare say this:  Kukla Fran and Ollie is the very finest television entertainment that I have ever seen.  I really want to gush ... to go on and on about how much I love the show and about how much it means to me, but I won't ...

JUST ORDER YOURS TODAY!

http://kukla.tv/dvd.html

happy new year

the image in this "movie" is horribly off model.  there is no coloring.   the music ends abruptly.

worse yet is that it took me countless hours to create it.

so why would I post such an abomination?  well, despite its shortcomings it represents two major accomplishments for me:

first- this image is a PAPERLESS creation.  it is a fully digital creation.  further, it is the first fully digital piece that I created that I feel comes close to approximating my traditional ink on paper works.  I have a long way to go before I master this digital art, but i'll bet you wouldn't have guessed this wasn't made using my typical methods without my telling you.

second- this was the first image/movie I was able to create using a software program that is totally new to me.  it is quite complicated, and I have a lot to learn.  being able to create anything with it was a major step forward to me.

 

I still have a very long way to go, but at least I've taken the first step (more like first crawl).

about the image and music - as I'm reworking some story ideas, this image comes early in a new conception I'm kicking around.  the image is supposed to lead into a montage featuring the song that you hear ... but the song was actually written for another story.  I don't know if it would actually work in this story/scene.

overkill?

I've been gearing up to take my art in a direction.  this has involved the purchase of all kinds of new hardware and software.  learning the rudiments of these things will take months, and i'm guessing that mastering them will take the rest of my life.

meanwhile, I've been trying to learn the fundamentals of music.  to aid me in this I purchased a *VERY* inexpensive printer/scanner.  I need it to print out music that I compose.

anyway, as part of setting it up I had to do some test printing and test scanning.  I was shocked/surprised at how quickly this low end product scanned and printed, and how good the quality of its printed image is.

this makes me wonder if  I've gone in the wrong direction ... I might have been able to do what I wanted in a simpler and easier way.  alas, there's no going back.

I think it's time to make some coffee and mull things over!

one for ...

... the road.

i wanted to get this picture finished and posted before year's end, lest ye forget that i not only make crummy music, but that i also make crummy cartoons.

this is not a finished piece of art, but rather a piece of inspirational/concept art.  here's how it came to be:

i had hit a proverbial roadblock on a project i've been working on in my personal life, and i also was experiencing some technical difficulties that were preventing me from moving forward in new directions that i am going in with my art.  while waiting for these problems to be resolved i decided it would best to do *something*, so i decided to back peddle and produce a piece of art using my traditional methods.

the art was created to help me with a bit of writer's block that i've been experiencing, and it features two characters that were not originally planned to be together.  the image was loosely based on an abandoned idea.

once i completed the pencils on this piece it tore down the creative block, and i started coming up with all kinds of story lines (which all come with new sets of problems that need to be resolved).

at first i was unhappy that i didn't have time to properly render this picture in full color, but as i worked with it i realized that such would have been overkill.  this image works best if you don't over-think it ... there's a lot that doesn't make sense, but that's okay; it wasn't meant to be a finished work of art.  it's purpose was to help inspire and motivate me.

blah blah blah.