An Apple a Day... #63 and 64

Robot
Parts XXVII and XXVIII
  Some notes on Parts XXVII and XXVIII:

• Since these two parts feature Apple's return, it was a logical place to begin Act III, The Consequences. Originally, they were the last two parts of Act II, but I felt that Act II was already running too long.


• Part XXVII is the first comic to not feature any color in quite some time (since AAAD... 18 I believe).


• It was incredibly fun killing the yogurt people in Part XXVIII. I'm not sure how this will play to District's content guidelines, so I hid most of the death in the explosions.


• The news anchor is a different banana from earlier. There's a bit of backstory that links the two bananas as the only news anchors in the area, who also happen to be twins. (I haven't explored that yet, however.)


• Apple's final line in Part XXVIII will most certainly have to be edited for the District release. I think that it sums up exactly what Apple is feeling at that moment, after seeing Edward making a huge mess of things.


• The fact that Apple could guess that the Green Ranger was Edward so quickly is more do to his voice, not his actions. I never understood why NO ONE knew who the Power Rangers were when they spoke to their friends when in costume. It's like, c'mon people, don't you know the sound of your friends' voices?

An Apple a Day... #61 and 62

Robot
Parts XXV and XXVI
  Thus, we've arrived at the end of Act Two, The Solution. I think it's only fitting to have an update to celebrate the supposed Mayan apocalypse since Robot started production on the previous doomsday (Rapture Day, 5/21/2011).

Act Two clearly shifted the focus of the story (and, by extension, the comic series as a whole) from Apple to Edward. It really, sort of, tries to do a lot of things at once, in terms of story progression and character development, while attempting to keep the overall feeling of the story light and humorous. Act Two's production began August 26, 2011 and went until August 31, 2011. This was the quickest turn around in terms of writing and artwork because I was pretty jazzed about the story progression. Around this point, I had begun to formulate my end goal with this story, and eventually knew how it was going to end. However, the school year began and Robot was put on hold, indefinitely. During the hiatus, I kept brainstorming how to move on from Act Two into Act Three, which left me dead stumped for a few months. Around the start of January 2012, I began to clean up Robot so that I felt like I was making some progress. I cleaned all the way to Part XIV and sent it off to District by the end of February, where it began its run in April. Around this time, I had finally figured out how to move the story forward.

Production picked back up on April 25, 2012 with Part XVIII. From there, it continued relatively uninterrupted until Act Two's completion on May 5, 2012.

Some notes on Act Two overall:

• As previously stated, Act Two shifted focus of the comic series away from the titular character in order to focus on Edward's personal development. By the end of Act Two, I was getting seriously concerned about how I would bring the story back to Apple.


• I made the decision to make Edward a Power Ranger, and effectively change the course of the story, when I was watching the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Netflix during the summer of 2011. When the idea was planted in my head, it made me giggle with excitement and I knew that I was on the right track.


• The reason why I hit a road block after Part XVII, was because I wasn't sure about how to go about showing the Green Ranger leaping into battle. In the end, I decided to just use a jump cut sort of transition that was used pretty often in the show.


• There are a few instances of symbolism floating around Act Two. However, they don't become apparent or get explained until the end of Act Three.


• On the whole, I feel like Act Two flows better than Act One.

 

An Apple a Day... #59 and 60

Robot
Parts XXIII and XXIV

Some notes on Parts XXIII and XXIV:

• These are two of my favorite parts from the entire story. 


• I really strived to make these two parts more cinematic in presentation than any of the previous parts.


• Part XXIII's panels are a meticulous recreation of the actual Dragonzord summoning sequence from the Power Rangers television show.


• The "DOOM DOOM DOOM" sound effect used in the last panel of Part XXIV is indicative of what's in store for the remainder of the story. (It's also my poor attempt at subtle foreshadowing.)

An Apple a Day... #57 and 58

Robot
Parts XXI and XXII

Some notes on Parts XXI and XXII:

• Part XXI is one final attempt, on my part, to underscore the ridiculous nature of Edward and Zordon's response to the robot's perceived "menace."


• Part XXII represents the beginning in a shift in tone for the story as Act II begins to wind down.

An Apple a Day... #55 and 56

Robot
Parts XVIX and XX

  Some notes on Parts XVIX and XX:

• These two parts represent my attempt at slowing down the pacing of the story by using less panels per page. It works to a certain extent.


• Part XVIX shows my attempt at playing with panel placement by using an insert panel. I like it but think the panel sort of gets lost in the details of the larger panel. (The rough versions of these two parts were in full color and the panel insert reads much better in color.)


• There is something vaguely dirty about the way Robot is hugging Edward in Part XX. It was not intentional.


• Part XX is the last time I reenforce the fact that Robot only wants a hug and is not, outwardly dangerous.

An Apple a Day... #53 and 54

Robot
Parts XVII and XVIII

  Some notes on Parts XVII and XVIII:

• Right off the bat, the color of these two pages seems a bit weird despite them being the same hues I've been using all along. Or maybe it's just me, I don't know. The amount of time that passed since cleaning up XVI (something like 8 months) could probably be a contributing factor here.


• I had really high hopes for that Zelda joke. Unfortunately, it never really gets properly implemented in later parts of the story (as we'll see soon enough).


• Part XVIII features yet another Robot redesign.


• I was pretty happy I could bring back the VS split from Moustache. It also serves as a nod to the previous story (much like Edward's off hand mention of a bet in Moustache was a reference to The Bet.)


• Boy, those yogurt bastards sure are dramatic aren't they? (Yes, Edward and his ilk are yogurt. Recently I read something which called him a stack of talking rocks with moss. It was kind of refreshing after years of hearing Edward being referred to as poop.)

 

 

IN PROGRESS: Balloon Cat - Revised Space

So, I wasn't happy with the previous Maya renders (as if it wasn't made clear in the last post), however, I hacen't given up the ghost yet. I decided to go back and remodel and stage everything, this time using paint effects and minimal lighting to try and achieve the look I'm after. Below is the result:

Already, this is a stark improvement over what came before. Some more tweaks are needed (for example, the stars are a bit too large) but it's definitely a step in the proper direction.  I figure, in terms of textures on the planets, I can craft something in Photoshop that I can map onto the Maya polygons that would help blend them in with my visual aesthetic. Also, when exporting the scenes for compositing, If I render them in layers, that would give me more control over individual tweaks I may need to make down the line. While playing with the lights, I got to experiment a bit with leaving the objects in the dark. When I turned the light off, I was presented with a scene that had some dark, almost cloaked objects, that helped break up some of the negative space in the shot. It was a nice little discovery (even if it is a bit obvious) that will benefit me later on when staging the shots leading up to the black hole.

The next thing that I need to focus on is getting the framing of the shots solidified. I have to take into account the cat's coloring and be attentive to his fading into the background textures. Some of this could be solved by decreasing the size of the stars, overall, but it will, probably, still take some figuring out. Wide shots are going to be a key aspect to some of these space scenes, however, they won't work if the cat blends in too much. So, I'm really going to have to nail this staging before I can proceed.

Looks like it's time to set up a 3D animatic for these shots.

IN PROGRESS: Balloon Cat - More Space shots.

So, despite the recent shift in focus to Robot, Balloon Cat is still in full swing, preproduction wise. Below, are two additional space shots I created, working from my terrible storyboards. These served two purposes: 1) To help me visualize these two shots in the proper aspect ratio, and 2) To provide a clearer understanding of the general aesthetic I wish to move towards with this film. (It has been painfully clear to me that I am, generally, terrible at explaining my internal processes to anyone. Hopefully these sort of things can help in that regard.)

Moving forward, I am considering creating the entirety of the galaxy in Maya in order to have more complex camera moves and whatnot. When it comes to animating the cat, I'll just rotoscope a stand in model that is placed in the scene in Maya. Doing the space (and, subsequently, the sky) shots like this will also make sure I have the cat in proper perspective when drawing him during these camera moves.

Now, an issue arises from this: I am not very good at using Maya. I'm proficient in the basic sense. But when it comes to having actual lighting, texturing, and mood, I'm a bit out of my element. However, with the winter break coming up, I can use the next six weeks or so to really brush up on those skills. (I'm not looking to do anything super complex with these Maya scenes, so a basic grasp of these techniques will probably suffice. Balloon Cat is, and will always be, a 2D animated film.)

Below is a test render from Maya that I did quickly. The first image is the scene directly from maya. The second is my attempt at enhancing it in Photoshop. Let's marvel, together, at how terrible these actually are:

(JUST BLUR EVERYTHING. THAT"LL MAKE IT BETTER.)

As it stands right now, I really prefer the top two images. Despite their flaws, I believe they're better overall. Perhaps, I'll create the space in After Effects and only use Maya for the vortex and black hole (but, I'm getting ahead of myself, here. Black hole, what?).

 

An Apple a Day... #51 and 52

Robot
Parts XV and XVI

  Some notes on Parts XV and XVI:

• I had originally intended for the robot to talk. In fact, Part XV was completed with Robot's dialogue intact. It made him sound like a needy creeper, and I felt like it wasn't in keeping with his characterization up to this point. (He went from being a scary, brooding, shadow-cloaked menace to a needy, creepy, hug-demanding pervert. Trust me, it wasn't good.) I felt that keeping the robot a pantomime character would benefit his overall portrayal in the comic (after all, it's very easy to misread someone's action's when they cannot explain themselves (i.e. babies, animals, etc)).


• Part XVI features two of my favorite renderings of Zordon. The first is when he has that smug smile on his face as the lightning bolt drops. The second is in the sixth panel.


• Part XVI also has the distinction of being a page that I feel looked better as a rough drawing. Some of the energy of the panels gets lost in translation from rough to cleanup but, for what ever reason, it's much more noticeable in this Part.


• I still don't know what the hell is going on with Edward's hair.

 

 

An Apple a Day... #49 and 50

Robot
Parts XIII and XIV

  Some notes on parts XIII and XIV:

• By the time part XIII was finished, I had realized that Zordon had become pretty repetitive in his description of "the power." It was something I noticed about the way Zordon would explain concepts to the Power Rangers in the tv show. He would constantly over-explain simple concepts (typical in a kid's show but, I mean, come on, man, get to the point!) So, I decided to have Edward call him out on it in part XIV.


• The last panel of part XIII is, in my opinion, the best drawing of the command center I had done. It's success won't be replicated and, speaking with the blessing of foreknowledge, represents the point where many of my background drawings start to look like poo. (Not ALL of them, mind you. There are still some cracker jacks coming, just you wait.)


• The purple text box bit in panel four of part XIV is a direct and shameless reference to the Legend of Zelda.


• I'm not sure what's going on with Edward's hair in some of these panels. It's really all over the place. Also, the green coloring isn't very consistant from page to page (I think I eventually standardized it, but, who knows.)

 

 

An Apple a Day... #47 and 48

Robot
Parts XI and XII

  Some notes on Parts XI and XII:

• Part XI marks the beginning of Robot's second, The Solution.


• The backgrounds in this act were some of my favorites to draw (despite there really only being, like, 6, different ones total).


• The colorization of Edward's hair and eyes is symbolic for two reasons. The first is the obvious call out to his ranger color (much like how the Power Rangers would wear clothes that denote their ranger color when they were at school). The second reason will be revealed after the conclusion of Act Three.


• Zordon is really fun to draw. He's basically a blob with a face.


• I chose green to be Edward's ranger color because the Green Ranger was my favorite ranger as a kid.

 

 

IN PROGRESS: Balloon Cat - Space Roughs

These are two mood tests of Balloon Cat's space scenery. The top render seems to imply that Cat is in more danger than he realizes, whereas the bottom render evokes more of the loneliness and isolation Cat experiences on his journey. (Honestly, if these images were in a higher resolution, they'd be great as promotional posters for the film.) 

An Apple a Day... #45 and 46

Robot
Parts IX and X

  As stated before in the story/concept writeup, Robot is a tale of woe, told in three acts: The Problem, The Solution, and The Consequences.

The three acts, while being a chapter structure to the story, also represent the blocks of time I spent working on Robot. For example, from May 21, 2011 (the supposed "Rapture Day") until August 24, 2011, I worked on Robot for (what seemed like) a good stretch of time. I was taking a contemporary art class at the time and my notes got mixed in with the actual planning and rough drafts of the pages for Robot (all the rough and pre-visual work for Robot was done in a sketchbook, versus the digital methods I used for Moustache). This was kind of cool because it was almost like Robot took on an alternate form: A story between the actual story where Apple, Edward, and other characters would comment on my notes and continually complain about the lack of actual progress I was making on Robot at the time. (I called these little interludes "commercial breaks" but, by the time I got to Part X, I was over their charm and, promptly, put an end to them.) The actual lapse between the completion of Act One and start of Act Two was only about  two days.
Some notes about Act One, overall:

• The design of Robot changed between part one and part eight. This is because when I began roughing out Robot, I hadn't settled on a final design for the robot character. Therefore, when it came time to show his silhouette in the final panel of part one, I made it of a generic tin can robot. I continued to use this generic sort of robot design all the way through (Rough) Part XV. When it came time to actually reveal the robot in the cleaned up version of part 8, I used the initial tin can robot shape, but made it lankier. (Embarrassingly, Robot's design continues to fluctuate throughout the remainder of the comic. However, this can attributed to a slight stylistic change in Act Three.)


• The District runs Robot's installments as "Pages", while I run them as "Parts." Essentially, it's two different names for the same thing. However, I would argue that calling them pages implies that the story is meant to flow seamlessly throughout its run. This is not the case with Robot. In fact, if you were to read Robot straight through, page to page like you would a normal comic book, you would find it to be a hastily written story with enormous plot holes and missing character development. This is because Robot was conceived as a weekly comic, wherein I took into account the amount of time that progresses in the real world when writing each part. This little fact is especially important to keep in mind of Act One when it's read through, again, all at once. The inclusion of the weekly delay in Robot's posting is essentialto the pacing of Act One overall, as well as its jokes.
  
  
  
  • One example is between Part IV and V. At the end of Part IV, Edward is about to be accosted again and, at the start of Part V, he bursts in on Apple using the toilet. This scenario is humorous, sure, but becomes funnier if you imagine Edward being held captive by the Robot for an entire week versus, what, like an hour? At the start of Act Two we begin observing the events in, basically, real time.
  
  
  
  


• The comic is called Robot, yet the titular character doesn't show up until Part VIII. This was done intentionally, as I wanted the story to develop slower than in the previous two stories.


• I use the term "accosted" to pretty much serve as a euphemism for molestation. It becomes fairly obvious in Part VII when the farmer claims the robot "touched" him. (C'mon, what did you think that meant, really?) I did this to skirt around District's fairly strict language and content guidelines.


• While molestation, itself, isn't very funny, the townies' use of the term really only denotes an unsolicited hug. This is important when setting up the robot as a character that is perceived as worse than he actually is.

 

 

An Apple a Day... #43 and 44

Robot
Parts VII and VIII

  Some notes on Parts VII and VIII:

• I had, at one point, seriously considered doing a short little side comic about Klaus' experiences with the robot. It would have been reminiscent of that scene in Frankenstein where the monster meets the little girl. It would've ended with Klaus and Robot holding hands and walking into the sunset.


• I don't like Will and Grace, which is, apparently, something I've passed on to Apple and Edward. I'm still not entirely sure why I singled that show out in Part VII.


• Generally, I'm not pleased with the layout of Part VIII. I don't think it's very intuitive when it comes to actually reading it. However, I also don't feel like reworking it for the time being.

 

 

An Apple a Day... #41 and 42

Robot
Parts V and VI

  Some notes on Parts V and VI:

• I find that there is something, inherently, humorous about an apple using the toilet.


• It is implied that Apple continues to poop for a while after Edward bursts in on him.


• The news broadcast was a convenient way for me to quickly validate Edward's experiences for Apple.

 

 

Home Improvement.

Last fall (I know, I'm a year off here), I created an animation centered around the four seasons. In it, Apple goes through a full year of home repairs as outside forces continue to destroy his house. Does Apple deserve this sort of punishment? Yes. He was a pretty big jerk in the early comics and this is just karma. Recently, I've gotten used to the notion that this animation is a precursor to Robot in that it explains why Apple now lives in a tree stump and it gives a little insight into Apple's initial frustration with Edward at the beginning of of the story. This animation also really helps to bridge the gap between Moustache and Robot in a way that harkens back to An Apple a Day's initial concept - story snippets that don't serve as complete narratives by themselves and thus, sometimes, required some imaginative interpretation from the audience. So, in that sense, each season would serve as a different comic strip where Apple's house would end up damaged in some way.

Anyway, I think I'm done blabbing about the concept behind this animation. Let's watch Apple's house get destroyed.

Titled, Home Improvement.


________________________________________________________________________________________
For fun, I switched the music track to something more porno sounding. Hence, we now have the sexy version of Home Improvement.



 

IN PROGRESS: Balloon Cat - Model Sheets

I've been working on a new film recently titled, Balloon Cat, as a part of my Graduate thesis. In brief, it's a film about a cat who, tired of his daily kibble, decides to go outside and catch himself a nice, tasty bird for lunch. When things inevitably go wrong, Cat has no choice but to follow through with the consequences of his decisions as they lead him on a through a journey into space and, ultimately, his own subconsciousness.

Below, I've showcased a few sketches and model sheets for Cat and Bird.

An Apple a Day... #39 and 40

Robot
Parts III and IV

  A little bit of commentary for these two parts:

• Apparently, Apple wears his polka dot thong on the weekends. He also seems incapable of tying his robe closed when he has company over.


• Yes, I did only color Edward's hair for that gag. No, I'm not ashamed to admit that.

 

 

An Apple a Day... #37 and 38

So, I've decided to go ahead and repost Robot here anyway. However, I think it'll be done in double posts. This serves two purposes: First, it allows me to quickly catch up with the District run of Robot and, Second, this layout will be more reminiscent of what Robot would look like if it were physically published. Below the comics, I've added a short write up about the story of Robot and and the general concept behind it that I wrote when I began retrofitting these comics to storyboards for an animatic. (Hey, if I'm going to redo past blog postings, I may as well add a little extra content.)

Robot: The Animation is dead in the water at this point, but the story and concept write up still apply to the comic. Well, enough of my blabbering. Onward, to the comic:

Robot
Parts I and II

  
Story 
The sudden arrival of a robot in the woods shakes a community to its roots. Told in three acts, the story follows the exploits of a Edward, a well-meaning, albeit annoying, yogurt tuft, as he tries to convince his friend, Apple, an apple, that he has been accosted by a robot. When the two hapless heroes go investigate Edward’s claims, the robot is nowhere to be seen, lending justification to Apple’s belief that Edward was simply messing around. The truth is revealed in a news broadcast vindicating Edward’s claims, forcing Apple to eat his words. Whilst Edward gloats, the Robot continues his reign of terror, with seemingly no end in sight. By the end of the first part, it is clear that something must be done about this menace and the universe has chosen Edward to be its savior.

Okay, I’m finished kidding around.  Honestly, the above synopsis is way more serious than this story demands. In short, this is a stupid story about two friends, a robot, and the misunderstandings that come with being different in a town full of 1950’s McCarthy-era views on society and how different and exotic beings are probably evil and therefore, threaten the established norm.

Concept

This story arc is a direct continuation of a comic series I started roughly two years ago called, An Apple a Day…  As its name suggests, it follows the exploits of an Apple and his friends as they live their lives to the best of their ability. Originally conceived to be a daily comic strip, my laziness got the best of me and the comics have become more weekly based. Recently, I’ve crafted multi comic story arcs, beginning with a story called, The Bet. I won’t go into detail but, suffice it to say, I then crafted a sequel to the story called, Moustache, that, if one could believe it, was even dumber than the previous tale. Robot, is the third story in this arc (despite the fact that I have been working on a robot-themed story since the genesis of the comic two years ago).  

The three stories play together as a loose trilogy of events. The Bet is a tale of Love, Moustache is a tale of Envy, and Robot is a tale of Woe. The Woe part applies to the robot, who, despite his “menacing” appearance and societal perception, only wants to be accepted and loved. Unfortunately, society is not ready for him.

 

 

Kristofferson.

This is a short scratch on film animation I created in my Experimental Animation course. It's set to the song, "Kristofferson's Theme" by Alexandre Desplat from the film, Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Titled, Kristofferson.

 

Housekeeping.

It's been quite a while since I've put any work into this old blog. Actually, it's been a long time since I even thought about it. It would appear, at first glance that I haven't done any new work since August of 2010 but, that is not the case. The thing is, I had set up my own website, which had a blog, and I simply migrated these posts over to it. Things were good for a year or so. Then stuff happened and that website went down. The best part about the website dying is that I never backed up the blog - or any part of the site, for that matter - thus losing all those newer postings, seemingly forever. So, Ive come back here, put a new coat of paint on the old "Captain's Log" and will be starting fresh.

A few notes:

• I've gone through and taken down any old Moustache posts from just before the website transfer occurred in December 2010.


• The post directly below this one has a recent date on it, however it's simply a reformat/repost of the six "Bet" rough posts. The new post contains all six parts in a new embedding and retains the little blurbs I wrote about the comics in the first and sixth posting. This helped me clear up some of the crummy html work I did and helped to streamline the blog refresh a bit.


• At the top of the blog, I've added a few pages: Demo Reel, Resume, Story#1: The Bet, Story#2: Moustache, and Story#3: Robot. The first two page headers are fairly self-explanatory (i.e under Demo Reel, you'll find my current animation reel, and, under Resume, you'll find my current resume).


• Under Story #1, you'll find the cleaned up versions of all six pages of The Bet that was promised, oh so long ago.


• Under Story #2, you'll find all twelve pages of Moustache, the pseudo-sequel to The Bet. Moustache has the distinction of being the first series of my comics to run on SCAD District.


• Under Story #3, you'll find the current batch of An Apple a Day... comics. It's a forty page story arc about a robot whose actions are largely misunderstood and the actions taken by Edward and Apple to stop him. They are currently running on District and due to a contractual obligation there, I can only post them after they run on District's site for a week (This explains why, even though the story has been written and the pages are completed, there are only twelve parts currently available for viewing. Sometimes, I fudge the rule though).


• Individual Posts concerning An Apple a Day... comics #19 - 36 will not return, instead they'e been moved to their own respective pages for convenient reading/viewing. I remain undecided on whether I will post comics #37-76 individually.

One more final, overall, note: the remainder of this blog (after this first page) retains the original formatting from when this blog was being primarily used. I only updated the posts on this first page so that the blog doesn't look too wonky upon first visit.

Okay, I think that about does it for my updates. I hate doing a full text post, but this one was fairly necessary to do, given the amount of time passed since this blog was last updated.

An Apple a Day... #19 - 24 (Reformat)

An Apple a Day... #19 - 24 (Roughs)

Original Text From Posting of An Apple a Day...19, August 5, 2010:"If I keep making comics loosely based around Twilight, people may begin to think I'm a fan.
I'm not.

But I feel that this new obsession amongst young people today has to be commented on in some way just like Harry Potter, Star Wars and a myriad of other things before it. (That's not say it hasn't been commented on, at great length, already. I'm just fashionably late to the party.)

This is my commentary. Stupid comics that entertain me as I draw them."

Original Text From Posting of An Apple a Day...#24, August 5, 2010:
"Before this silly series of event concludes, I feel I must apologize about my poor excuse for legible handwriting. It's terrible, I know. It got pretty bad in some areas and I tried my best to clean up the truly illegible spots. Also, the drawings, overall, took a noticeable decline. However, I feel that lends this particular series of strips a certain character. All of the pages are scanned from a sketchbook and the drawings and crappy handwriting reflect this. For whatever reason, I think it works out alright in this instance.

Also, it's important to note that these six comic parts are still rough sketches. They will be cleaned up and made sensible soon.

Okay. Now, onward to the end."