Fantasmagorie!

FANTASMAGORIE



Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the first ever animated film. Enjoy it!

In typical Americana fashion, they're making a CGI version of that, but me, being the snob I am, refuse to even acknowledge it beyound mentioning it in this sentence, hence no link to that.

Hmph!

Anyway, enjoy!

More Inking Practice

Well, I'll be purchasing a tablet this Friday and getting my hands on a copy of Illustrator, but for now..... courage.



This is the pen I used, and it's that most basic of office supply pens, the Paper Mate black felt tip. I know a lot of artists who use this sucker instead of the three or four dollar sable brushes and ink pens you buy at the art supply store, but I'm not really sure why.

I guess you get what you pay for.

John K. is pitching the idea of wraparounds starring the old WB characters for a new show presenting the classic 40's cartoons, and asked some of us ( not me ) to ink the drawings he'd made. I need all the inking practice I can get, so I tried the drawing I liked best.

Here it is:



The first thing you're likely to notice that's wrong is the fact that the lines on Bugs' chest and feet are not drawn. This came from me noticing as a kid that these lines were never black but grey, and the fact that it was drawn in the coloring books I had really bothered me. I WANTED TO COLOR THE LINE MYSELF!!! Bastards.



Another thing that's wrong is that I don't have a very steady hand yet. At several points the line thickness varies in unnatural ways, like on the top of Bugs' ears or the wheels on Daffy's chair for instance.

I tried to straighten the lines on the desk and monitor with a ruler, but now I think it looks TOO straight and as a result, too unnatural.

Bugs' hand holding the carrot is wrong too, because I couldn't see what John was going for and tried to fix it, but now I think it's far too evenly spaced, making it look wonky.

I'm also not happy with the way Daffy's lower beak came out, but as near as I can tell, that's what John had in mind. As near as I can tell.

Please leave comments with critiques because I see a lot wrong, and I'd like to see what you see.

Thanks, gang!

- trevor.

Ralph Bakshi says, "Just do it!

Thanks to Stephen Worth at the Animation Archive for allowing us to post this and to second Ralph's frank encouragement.



Make sure to visit Ralph's website and tell him how much you want to see his new film The Last Days of Coney Island.

Thank you very much, Ralph!

Funny Batman!

Finished Manx layouts

These are finished layout poses from the cartoon "A Little Fairy Tail", and to make them extra special, I colored them in for you.

These are from the scene where Manx lays eyes on Twinklebelly for the first time.





BTW, you may have noticed the rectangular nature of these pictures. That's because the cartoon's gonna be shot in the 16:9 aspect ratio. Cinematic, baby!

UPDATE:

This next layout drawing is the one I'm most proud of. Mainly because it is a collaborative effort between me and Booo Tooon Marooon Matthew Nunnery. This is a gag from a scene where Itchy decides to ask Twink out, but he's nervous so gets the farts.

Manx, being the encouraging big brother that he is, decides to help Itchy by pulling his colon out and playing it like a bagpipe to get the farts out.

This is a gag Matthew and I dreamed up while on the phone. He was doodling the whole time, and then emailed me what he drew. This is it:



He didn't like the head he drew of Manx, and asked me to draw a better one where his mouth was open. I took it and drew what I thought it should look like, including a number of other changes.

Shortly after the drawing was done, we realized we hadn't decided definitively what the characters' colors were gonna be, so Matthew and I sat down and picked the schemes on the mice. Then Matthew painted my interpretation, and here's the result:



Matthew is a great artist who doesn't post enough. You can see his art, tattoo designs, and animations in motion and for sale, at his website. He's also an amazingly talented musician. You can hear his music at the site too.

MGNUNNERY.COM

Check it out, be amazed, then come back here and tell him you want to see more of his awesome art here on the Blooog.

- trevor.

I done a bad drawing!

Actual size....

Behind the scenes...

Storyboard

Okay, the following is the begining of a storyboard I created for George. I would put up the rest, but my scanner's acting funky.
I also stole old Spumco storyboard sheets to do it.







Also, here's a few tries at getting George right. Some drawings I made up, others I copied. For example, Rex Hackleberg's awesome storyboard sketches at the bottom.








- trevor.

Get A Job!

So, being that the economy's in the shitter and business owners are now less concerned with honoring loyal, hard working people than they are with inflating the next quarterly dividend, all three of the Booo Tooon Marooons ( Trevor, Matthew and Janine ) are now officially out of work.

Chances are you probably are too, and if not, may soon be.

So in an effort to boost morale and inspire the masses, here is Brad Caslor's 1985 industrial film "Get A Job!"

It is a how-to film lovingly reminiscent of Clampett and Scribner's cartoony 40's execution.

Enjoy!