This just happens to be one of those weird dates I remember regarding my own work. At some point, I remember looking up the source files of the original Ducktalez cartoon to see when I’d made it and that date turned out to be February 14th, 2001. So I’m guessing on Valentine’s Day ten years ago, I randomly screamed into a microphone and spent an hour drawing Ducktales characters in MS Paint and testing out the animation on my Klik ‘n Play game engine – which is a weird thing to do on one of the few Valentine’s Days where I even had a girlfriend. But I think this is interesting because this also means that I’ve been an animator for ten years straight now.
Back to Ducktalez, it’s no major feat that in ten years, I’ve only been able to create five badly-animated episodes, so it’s nothing to write home about. But since this is my most popular series and people still send me e-mail about it, I figured I could post an image preview of Ducktalez 6 and provide some answers to frequently asked questions. I’ve taken a short break from “Incinerations” to get D6 out the door and here’s what I’m working on right now.
So yeah – as many have surmised from the teaser, Darkwing Duck is in this one. DZ6 is actually the third part in a four-episode story arc I’m planning right now. As I work on it, I’m finding it’s not my best work. It’s not the epic follow-up that people have been waiting for since DZ3, and it’s not going to challenge people to think sixth-dimensionally like DZ5 did. But at the same time, I think it’s still a necessary stepping stone in the series for the pay-off yet to come.
Anyway, here’s a few things to expect from it.
-The length of this cartoon will actually be closer to 20 minutes. That wasn’t intentional – I wanted 15 minutes tops just so I could fit it under YouTube’s length requirements. At the moment, I’m presently 6 minutes finished. I already cut out a lot of scenes and did some major editing to the script, but there’s no way to get it shorter. And the reason for this is:
-Lots of dialogue. Darkwing is a wordy guy. He has to be – he’s your classic in-the-shadow crime-fighter archetype. But when I have to build comedy around his over-the-top exposition, the minutes start packing on. I already cut out most of his Rorschach-style soliloquies, but otherwise, wordiness in this cartoon is just something I’ll have to bite the bullet on.
-Also don’t expect any super-fancy well-animated 3D characters this time around. There’s nobody new like Vegeta, Doctor Who, Buzzkill, or the T-Rex. I wanted to keep it on the ducks this time and build their world and characters just a little more. Besides, bad animation takes long enough to make as it is.
-We now have shadows and lighting. I figured you can’t do a Batman parody without shadows, so I made the city of St. Canard the only place in the Ducktalez neighborhood where things actually have shadows. It’s kind of tricky to do with these characters, but it’s been a fun challenge.
-There’s a musical number this time. I destroyed my throat recording it, along with any chance of me performing in that Ducktalez Broadway musical in the near future.
Also, sorry, but Scrooge still isn’t back yet. I know this is the major complaint I keep getting about my cartoons, but just hold out for a while – I’m going somewhere with this. It’ll be awesome. If it wasn’t awesome, I wouldn’t be so pumped to get started on “Ducktalez 7.”
For the last two weeks, I’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month,) where I’ve been challenging myself to complete a 50,000 word novel in one month. Just today (17 days into the contest,) I called it quits, ending my story at 61,148 words. The story itself didn’t turn out too bad, but I accredit that to the whole month of brainstorming I did for it prior to the start date. While I’m far from retiring to the life of a writer, it was a good experience and I’d probably do it again – preferably when I don’t have so many other side-projects tying me down. And no, there was no prize for finishing – other than actually possessing my own first finished novel.
The actual story I wrote was originally intended to be a stab at “Twilight” and other vampire romances, but eventually took on it’s own shape, and I soon found myself discarding most of the vampire aspect from the plot. I also discarded the opening scene where I shove Edward and Jacob’s heads into each other’s butts and roll them down a hill like a hula hoop. I may put the novel up on the site later, but for now, I’m just going to let a few others read it so I can get some feedback first.
I probably didn’t mention this before, but I got a job last week at the airport doing shipping and handling. This has been cutting into a lot of my time which is why I’m not posting as often. It’s a very hectic and confusing job, and incredibly painful given how most of my day is spent lifting boxes filled with machine parts. Fortunately, I get to learn to drive a forklift next week.
I get very little spare time, but I make the most of what I can working on the games. I’m already working on the final battle in SQInc, which is arguably the most stupidly complicated thing I’ve ever animated. Will it be worth it? God, I hope so. Although I should really consider investing in motion-capture technology if I’m going to keep pushing my animation like this. Otherwise, from here on out, all my final battles will be two guys having staring contests.
I was going to say something else, but I’m drawing a blank. So here’s something Mr. Burns related. And also one of my favoritest things ever.
The word is in and I’ve just been accepted into the Vancouver Film School’s 3D Animation and Visual Effects program. Classes start next June though, so I’ll have to kill some time until I move to the rainy city. I’ve always wanted to go back to school at some point and with the job market as it is, this is probably the best time for it. Plus I’ll get to live in Vancouver for a year.
My current career goals right now are exceptionally higher than they were when I first graduated Dev a few years back. Rationally, they should be lower because as I’ve learned, all the jobs are in web design and graphics art (newspapers, billboards, magazines, etc.) Yet I’ve convinced myself that if going home and animating epic battle sequences on the computer is a good way to de-stress after a hard day of making T-shirt logos in Illustrator, there’s no reason I shouldn’t consider Pixar and ILM as viable career options (even up against all the intimidating competition.)
So wish me luck (in about a year’s time.) I’ve got my sights set high and I don’t want to trip over anything.
It’s all finalized today. House is sold, papers are all signed, cheques have been deposited, and I’m now living in a house with little to no internet access and a broken e-mail address that is taking Shaw forever to fix.
I’m getting a lot done in terms of home renovations and working on the game, but don’t be surprised if there’s fewer updates here. There’s only two computers in this house connected to the internet; one is password-protected, and the other is virus-ridden, forcing me to copy-paste every 20 seconds. I’m working on fixing this problem, but until then here’s the new trailer for the official Monkey Island 2 remake (I have to admit, their 3D remake looks way better than my MS Paint remake.)
So on Friday, I got the call that my place has finally been sold. No luck on the job front, so I’m just packing up and heading home. I figured I best cut my losses and start from scratch, maybe even go back to school until job boards start lighting up again. Not exactly where I saw my life going at this point, especially since I spent the last entire year networking and have already put out over 300 resumes into the field (I got five call-backs, all of whom are looking for someone “more local.”) But at least I don’t have my place anchoring me down anymore.
On a lighter side, I went to a great wedding yesterday. My friend Amie finally tied the knot. There was thai food and much dancing involved and I came home feeling much relaxed. At least until the cat jumped on my head until 4 in the morning and now I’m sitting around with a headache that won’t go away.
It’ll be nice to be free of obligations and bills for a while. With July coming up, I have yet another wedding to attend, a high school reunion, and a family reunion. Not to mention I sorely need to get back in shape, so I’ll probably be taking up swimming once I’m settled in back home. For all I know, I might be able to start having fun again on my time (without fun turning into a financial liability.)
Well, it finally happened. I finally got involved in a deadly high-speed car chase – providing you replace “car” with golf cart, and “chase” with “battle.”
So there’s a bunch of us guys all hanging out at the golf course for my friend Mike’s bachelor party, and naturally, everybody’s already started drinking. One guy with a flask has been drinking since breakfast and he and his friend end up golfing with me and T. Also, we got two golf karts between the four of us.
Somewhere around the 4th hole, we get rear-ended and spend the next minute cruising over the fairway, ramming back and forth into each other. Then at one point, we were sword-fighting with our clubs out of moving vehicles. It was very much like this scene from Family Guy, only we were breaking a lot more course rules. It all ended in us getting pit maneuvered.
It was around the point where they rammed our parked cart and tried to push it into the lake while we teeing that we decided we might be better off staying a whole hole ahead of them.
Eventually, somebody did show up to scold us, but only because we parked our cart too close to the green.
Somebody on Newgrounds kindly pointed that “Ducktalez: The Motion Picture” has been dubbed by the on-site engine as top search result for “THE GREATEST MOVIE.” I like to think this places me in at least the Top 100 bracket of best things to get linked from on a search engine (Maddox’s “Safety Tips for Safe Kids” still earns Google’s top spot for “Best Page in the Universe.”)
While this doesn’t count Ducktalez as “the greatest movie ever,” I’ve just made a similar update on the NG page which might change that. Next stop, the WORLD!
Chalk this one up to all the free time I have being unemployed. The finish line is still way off, but my next update on the game should include a full trailer and not just four screenshots.
Still no update on the job situation, sadly. I’ve often compared finding a job in this economic climate to winning the lottery. Even with the economy getting better, I’m still competing against at least 3000 other laid-off Canadian animators, with over 300 resumes spread out across Canada and the States. I’m pretty sure it’s not my skills or experience, since some of my preferred companies have given me positive feedback on my portfolio. But if things keep up like this, I’m heavily considering selling the place and going to school in Vancouver for a Bachelor’s Degree if that’s what it takes.
In the meantime, please enjoy and try to make sense of the following screencaps from “Incinerations.”
So yesterday I attended a GameCamp convention – it’s this thing where about 20-40 people from the gaming industry around Edmonton all get together in a pub, show off demos, and talk about the industry. I figured it would be a great place to make some connections and even find some employment opportunities. Ironically, everyone there turned out to be unemployed.
However, there was a demo that really caught my eye – something that’ll probably be the future of gaming in the next five years: super casual gaming. Gaming that’s so casual, you don’t even need to be playing a video game to play it. By using your iPhone to scan barcodes around the world, or even individual people, the system can take what you do in real life and carry it over to your game character. Doing things like going to the gym, shopping, attending local events and even climbing Mt. Everest could grant you in-game experience points, money, trophies, and so on that will carry over to any MMORPGs or Facebook games you’re playing. It’s basically gaming that’s designed to get you out of the house.
I keep thinking that super casual gaming is somehow going to lead to the end of the hardcore gamer. In the gaming world, nerds rule because they sacrifice a social life to hone their skills. But it can all be in vain if, while playing Warcraft, they happen upon a player who visits the gym several times a day and is already at level 5000000 because of it. Now they’re competing against people who can beat them up in video games and in real life. It’s like “Revenge of the Jocks.”
Anyway, on the topic of video games, here’s a follow-up to that other Mortal Kombat video I posted a while back. Enjoy!
The word is in and I’ve just been accepted into the Vancouver Film School’s 3D Animation and Visual Effects program. Classes start next June though, so I’ll have to kill some time until I move to the rainy city. I’ve always wanted to go back to school at some point and with the job market as it is, this is probably the best time for it. Plus I’ll get to live in Vancouver for a year.
