Voice Acting and Animation Screenshot!

Voice Acting is probably one of the most difficult parts of this process. I have the utmost respect for voice actors. They truly make it look sooooo easy. I spent a few hours last week coming up with voices I wanted to use for the characters. My wonderful wife even is going to voice a character. While I'm no in love with all of the voices I know they'll develop over time. Or I can get other people to help out. The hardest part is creating multiple voices and not making them sound like they're coming from the same person.

Once I nailed down what I wanted to voices to be like I headed into the recording booth (closet) to get a rough take of the first script. a couple hours later and a horse voice I succeeded! I purchased a simple desktop condenser mic that doesn't sound too bad. Should do me just fine for my requirements.

The remainder of the pieces will now need to come as I animate the first episode. It really is a daunting task but I'm making my way through. I've got about 30 seconds animated out so far and it only took me around 2 hours. So I'm making terrific time. I only rigged up the characters I would need for the first episode also, as I have little patience.

So here's a still from my progress so far. I'm hoping that I'll finish with the first episode by the end of the weekend. After animation all I'll need to do is throw the title on and add sound effects (my favorite part).

Till next time!

Plop - "Hey Ing! Want some popcorn? I finsihed my model airplane today. Didn't fly too well. Oh I did two crossfit training videos. 2! I'm about to go watch the third. Want to join?"

Character Rigging

Time to get these characters setup to be brought to life! 

Character rigging is the next step in this process and this step will save me hours upon hours of work. So.... what the heck is rigging? Well it is simply the process of setting up a character to be easily animated. Let me explain.

Here's an image on Ing all disassembled. After I draw up the initial characters using Illustrator, I part him out and separate the parts so I can re-assemble him in After Effects.

So as you can see there's his body, legs, mouth, eyes (in different forms), hair, and eyebrows, Also one eye form that is him blinking. I also leave a little more room in the file in case I want to include anything else later. 

So how does that become this?

Well I take chopped up Ing into After Effects, assemble him and them connect him to controllers that I can use to animate him. Or if you want the technical explanation; I import the illustrator file duplicate it and mask out each piece centering each anchor point. Next, I use the puppet tool and create bones where needed. I then parent his parts to bone controllers, null objects, and expression controllers that I can use to keyframe him.... sheesh...technology

Once I bring him into After Effects and assemble him he looks like this. All ready to animate.

Each one of those controllers make the animating process 100 times easier. Alternatively I would have to move every piece individually and rotate each piece individually to animate him. 

And that's how I rig up a character. It's a bit of a tedious process and definitely not my favorite. But it has to be done. And once it is, it's on to ANIMATING! Now I just have to do this like, 6 more times.

Till next time.

Thaddeus: "After a confusing argument with the mailbox I returned to the house having forgot my Monocle."

Title Reveal!

I know for a lot of people the title is everything. I often have epic struggle when trying to name something. Whether that be a huge project, a game, a character, a blog, ect and so forth. Then I realized the only reason I remember a name (for the most part) is not because the name is so good. It's because the content is so good and I associate good things with that name.

All this to say that I knew I needed something unique but I didn't want to spend a month trying to come up with something so out there. I know I keep comparing things to Homestarrunner. But when I heard that name I really had no interest in the cartoon. It didn't / doesn't strike me as something funny. But when I gave it a watch I was hooked. So now I associate that name with pure comic brilliance.

Anyways after a few late night hours throwing ideas back and forth, me and the wife came up with a clever title that 1. Is fairly easy to remember. 2. Asks a question. and 3. May pay a bit of homage to said Homestarrunner. So here it is.

Yep, Steve. As you probably noticed he isn't a character in the show. Steve is actually a character that used to live with the gang. Throughout the cartoon the characters will mention Steve and even quote him. Maybe we'll meet him one day, who knows.

Now that I've established the title o the show, I have a long list of things I need to establish.

Youtube Channel (check)
Website (check)
Email (check)
Twitter (check)
Instagram (check)
Facebook

So there you have it. The show is becoming more and more real everyday. Next up will be probably the biggest hurdle to overcome: Voice Acting. It's fun... but hard. So here's to the next post.

Sherbert "What do I do? I get up at the buttcrack of dawn and deliver 26 newspapers to the good people of this street. That's what I do. And it's the most tasking 18 minutes of my day, thank you." 

Script #1 and My Process

Writing the first script was a bit daunting at first. I've written some stuff before and while I think I have a decent sense of humor I read it back and couldn't believe what I had just written. It's funny I'd always critique comedies for using cheesy stupid jokes (Not the good kind of cheesy). Then I started trying to write funny things annnnnd low and behold I was writing the same awful cheesy stuff. I've worked on that sense but sometimes it sneaks out.

So In summary the first episode will be called "The Commerical" (I'm going for a Seinfeld titling style). It will feature Carl's first commercial gig and wanting to show everyone. That's all I'm giving away for now. It will only include 4 characters and 3 sets. So it should be a great first episode to see how everything works and looks.

This first script went surprisingly well. I'm trying to keep the scripts short so I don't have to spend an extra 40 hours outside of work doing the same thing I do inside of work. Each episode should be around 2 - 3 minutes. But I'll have everything already premade so it's not like I'll have to start over each time I animate.

40 hours just to make a 2-3 minute video!?

I know.... it's insane how much time goes into animation.

Which brings me to my next point. My process. I'm just going to give a quick rundown of what it takes to make an animation.

So, on average, it can take anywhere from 20 to 40 hours to complete 1 minute of animation. So in general we estimate around 30 hours per minute of finished animation (at work). This 90 hours for 3 minutes of animation includes each of the following steps: Creative approach, script, storyboard, animatic, voice over recording, asset creation (drawing), animation, sound effects/music, and final editing and export.

Each part of this process takes time. I can easily spend a whole day just working on a script if there's a lot of points they want to cover and a lot of information to sift through. The animatic is basically just an animated storyboard. Simple, but takes quite a bit of time. Asset creation and animation definitely take 70% or more of the time. Sound effects and final export usually can take an entire day. It's one of my favorite parts, however. Silly sound effects and a good voice over are the final touches that bring to animation to life.

Now, with this cartoon I will only have to do a few of these steps once. I should only have to create new assets (mostly props) as I need them. Scripts will come fairly easily the more I get to know the characters. Since I know how the animation will play out in my head I won't really need a storyboard/animatic. Animation will go fairly quickly (compared to a new animation) as I will have all the characters rigged and prepared for animation. And finally sound effects and music should all be established beforehand so it should be as simple as putting them where needed.

And that's the basics of my process. With all of these steps complete I will have more time to give attention to the actual content of the cartoon as well as developing more content for it's other partners.

No media today. Oh wait... I know. How about a gif animation of Ing? This was a rigging/lip synching test. Turned out great! If you listen really closely you can hear him. (Yes, I'm kidding)

Ed - "My company ith called Loud Crunch Thtudioth. We thpecialize in theriouth gameth for theriouth playerth"

^^ That was not easy to write. ^^

Set Design Part 1

This was/is a fairly intimidating part of the process. Fortunately I like it a lot so I'm pressing on. This is where these characters are going to live so it has to flow with the cartoon's style and be a place where many nearly every episode can take place. Also, it's pretty labor intensive. Not as much as animating but still takes some time.

I have an ever growing list of sets but I'm taking them a few at a time. I probably will never write in every room in the house (as of now most characters are sharing rooms), but there are rooms/locations that are absolutely necessary. Also, keeping the number of sets down forces me to be more creative with my writing as I won't always have a new set to play off of. 

For the first batch of episodes (not sure how many a "batch" is) I have a list of necessary sets that I will be working on. A few I have completed! (Keep reading!)

House: 

- Living room / Kitchen

- Thad's room (This is where Thad will usually vlog/blog and will be crucial to his characters development.

- Back Yard

Plushy and Brown's Mattress Store: (See below)

- The Parking lot

- The Showroom

- The Break Room

You probably giggled at the mattress store. I forgot to mention that there is one other character I haven't got around to developing. He is going to be a friend of the gang named Plushy who owns Plushy and Brown's Mattress store. He'll be the older Dad-like guy. He won't live with the gang but they'll make the break room their hangout. Also, Plushy get's a regular supply of Moon Pies, which the gang thoroughly enjoys. I don't think I want the Brown character to be in the cartoon. I may tell his back story one episode. Brown just went well with Plushy.

This list is just a start there are other I will need to create as the show continues. I'm thinking I will need 1, maybe 2, more rooms in the house. Anyways, get to the media already!

First up the Kitchen / Living Room: This is where the typical shenanigans will take place. 

Next the back yard. More shenanigans will commence here. Living room has a view of it as well.

 Lastly (as of now) the Mattress Store parking lot. Yes, more shenanigans.

3 down, 3 to go. Part 2 will come soon!

Thaddeus: "Yes, my monocle provides a distinct visionary advantage. Besides having several practical uses, it revigorates the digital link between my culinary artery and my temporal bicuspid."

Character Developement

Now that I have the characters drawn out for the most part I had to give them so basic personalities. A lot of will develop through the voice over and through script writing. Keeping it as ridiculous as possible while on some level of sanity here is the basic rundown of the concept of the show.

These crazy 7 characters all live in a house together.

That's it.

Seriously.

Basically they just interact and have their own quirks and hobbies. I'm "trying" to not develop the story too much as I want to leave it open for anything. I guess I realize that most cartoons don't have a real over-arching story, but the quirkiness of Homestar is what I'm going for. Easier said than done.

Now each character is going to have their own thing. Well at least most characters are. That's where each episode will really stand out. Occasionally I'll focus on one character then other times it will be an interaction of everyone or some of them.

Ing - The level-headed one. He is the voice of reason and the all around leader of the pack. He's the only one in the house that has a consistent job and therefore is the only one paying rent. He's got a big heart.... for now.

Ploplop - A spastic two headed dude/s who is fueled by pure adrenaline. He's still in development but he's basically the talkative attention seeker of the gang.

Sherbert - Also goes by Bert. He's Ing's best friend. While a little slow Bert is a good friend to Ing. He tries to help pay the rent with his paper route. But his route of 26 people doesn't pay a whole lot.

Ed - Ed is Ing's little bro. He's an avid gamer and actively develops his own games in his spare time. The only problem is that Ed, while loving gaming, is just about as terrible as they come. He often develops simple games that he can't beat. But he'll talk himself up about any game.

Carl - Carl is the know it all of the gang. Well he thinks he is at least. As an avid Youtuber he prefers to go by his screenname "Awesomesauce86" (may change). He's got a "ginormously popular" (his words) Youtube channel where he gives detailed how-to instructions on typical daily tasks.

Thaddeus - Thad (hate's being called that) is the self-proclaimed genius of the gang. He overthinks everything and ends up is philosophical arguments with everyone. He is not short of drive though. He has a new "profession" he's mastering every week. He also has a fairly popular blog and vlog titled "A Particle's Westward Journey"

Gurgle - Gurgle is the big angry (looking) character of the bunch. But he's not typically an angry person. He finds everything funny. He also doesn't talk a whole lot. Oh yeah and he has a tie so he's always ready for a spontaneous interview.

Coconut & Nocobot - Coconut is Ing's pet shrimp. He pulls him around on a skateboard. Coconut eats a healthy diet of dog poop that Ing gets from the neighbor dog. Nocobot is Sherbert's pet robot. While being a highly advanced piece of technology Nocobot isn't the nicest pet around and usually ends up bossing Sherbert around.

And there you have it. As of now I'm going to use all these characters but they all wont be in every episode. I'm sure I'll need to introduce more characters in the future but I can spend several episodes just introducing these guys.

Set desing coming up next! Here's the gang's Macrowave

And for another quote.

Carl: "You may ask yourself: "Carl, how are so good at everything?" And I would intelligently respond: Why do you have a face?"

Character Design - Oh and the first post

So I'm gonna make a cartoon series. Yes, seriously. It sounds like a heap of a task. But I do it everyday at work so I figure I can handle the heap.

I'm just gonna get it out right now and say I'm drawing probably 75% of my inspiration from the genius that is Homestarrunner. If I can make something 47% as good as that I'll be ecstatic. A wonderfully funny interactive web series with brilliant voice acting, characters, voice acting, and animation. I've got quite a big task in front of me. But I'm gonna do it, gersh dern it!

I don't want to give everything away in this blog so I'm going to keep spoilers to a minimum. In case, you know, someone actually reads this.

Usually concept is first for my animations but I really felt like I had to get at least a few characters nailed down and could draw a concept from that. Probably 10 years ago (before I ever had an idea I would want to/be an animator my friend Alex and I came up with ridiculous characters for poops and giggles. They must have been somewhat good considering I still remember them 10 years later.

So I sat down and tried to remember what the characters looked like. Mostly I could just remember their ridiculous names. Then I proceeded to create a few more characters to round out the cast.

I may embellish a few of them a bit more but I just wanted to get the characters down so I can get to the next part. 

Next post will be the concept and I'll go into detail on each character. 

The character's have already been developled for the most part. So for a sign off I'll leave you with a quote from a character.

Ing: "You just push the button. It's not rocket science. In fact it's not even science. It's just non-supidity"