I did these storyboards to plan out my short film, "Custodial Catastrophe".
Friday, November 7, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
I win all day everyday!
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/985595
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/987017
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Custodial Catastrophe
It made the Daily Crumb!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Waynard, here are some sample clips:
Here is the playlist referenced in the video, however it's long and some of it is graphic, but here it is anyway if you need to see more (I would think the above clip shows you what my live action looks like and what my capability in Maya is):
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Flash Is My Favorite Program Ever...
Oh, by the way, the threadless sub got rejected again. It's just too simple a design!
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Demo Reel Breakdown
Note: I created all the content in my reel. I didn’t have help from anyone else. This breakdown is only meant to further explain the creative process.
Demo Reel Breakdown
Sequence | Title | Technique | Artistic Responsibilities |
1 | Custodial Catastrophe | Flash | I animated and designed the character, fires, explosions and environments. |
2 | Plants | Maya | I modeled, rigged, textured, lit and animated all content within the shot. |
3 | Anemones | Maya | I modeled, rigged, textured, lit and animated all content within the shot. |
4 | Antarctic Antics | Flash | I drew the backgrounds and animated the Yeti. |
5 | Bulldozer Vs. Flowers | Maya, Watercolor | I modeled and textured the bulldozer and its environment, rigged and animated it, and hand painted all the textures on paper using watercolors. |
6 | Hallucinaliens | Maya and Flash | I animated the 2D elements in Flash and created the 3D background in Maya. |
7 | Custodial Catastrophe | Flash | I created the background and animated the nuclear explosion and the alien frame by frame. |
8 | The Wild Hunt | Flash | I animated the horses and wolves and drew the background. |
9 | Hoodoos | Flash | I animated the 60 tessellating people and synched the many fighting moves they perform so the entire crowd interacts in harmony. |
10 | Antarctic Antics | Flash | I animated the penguins and the walrus. I used masking effects to create the water. |
11 | Commensalism | Cells, Markers, Paint, Watercolors | I created this sequence using traditional hand-painted cells and water-colored backgrounds. |
12 | Hallucinaliens | Flash | I animated the walking fruit and drew the background. |
13 | Hoodoos | Flash | I animated the 11 different falling people and drew the large desert background. |
14 | Tripled Manic State | Flash, Watercolors, Pencil | I animated the characters in flash and hand-painted the backgrounds in watercolor and pencil. |
15 | Antarctic Antics | Flash | I animated the yeti and the walrus, and created the background. |
16 | Hoodoos | Flash | I created the Praying Mantis walk cycle using multi layered cycles and inbetweens and created the elaborate morph into a tree. |
17 | Clothes | Maya | I modeled the city and animated the cars and walking pants. |
18 | Tripled Manic State | Flash, Maya | I created and animated the toon-shaded 3D model in Maya and animated the mad scientist in Flash. |
19 | Hallucinaliens | Flash | I drew the backgrounds and animated the characters |
20 | Custodial Catastrophe | Flash | I drew the backgrounds and animated the Aliens. The mutant consists of many interacting cycles. |
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Writing For New Media Final
I got almost 60 people to sign on as friends, and I wrote a blog entry based on the snowflake assignment, and a second blog entry for authenticity. There is also a biography of the band that is based off the style that other European techno bands have written up online. The biography is written in a delusional tone, as though Eurolips is genuine art. I named each of the fictional band members in Faux German, and used photographs of real people (me and my friends) in scary makeup. The biggest effort however, was the production of 3 original songs that were made specifically for the assignment. So far, I've received 6 comments, one in German! But perhaps most hilarious is that in a week and a half I've had 251 plays. Who is listening to this?
I hope you enjoy this piece of online fiction. (Click the image below to link to the site)
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Eurolips has a blog entry on Myspace!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Trying to be getting onto the road...
Current mood: bitchy
Because of some very stupid types of bullshit with the other people in the band, and more the German media, we are getting a little behind. As you probably know, DEUTSCHLAND 1940 was mistakenly interpreted by some idiot people as to be glorifying Hitler, however it is a scathing critique you idiots.
Fortunately, ON THE RISE has become a runaway hit with over 30 plays on this page. Thanks to all 30 of you, we know each and every one of you is a big fan.
Anyhow, once we have all been to getting all types of these bullshits behind us, we can try and be ready to hit the road! We might actually be coming to 2 clubs, however, our many U.S. and A fans can't see us yet! Just get excited, we'll see you sometimes soon!
It's right on their myspace page and can be read there as well. Of course I need to fill out more info later.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Eurolips Snowflake
"The band has a debut album with a few terrible songs that go unnoticed, but when they attempt to make a searing critique of World War 2 Germany, they inadvertently butcher it so that it sounds like glorification of it. Criticism, controversy, and personal problems within the band ensue."
Friday, April 18, 2008
Online Fiction :Eurolips
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Online fiction links
Here are two online fictions I know about:
ONE
^^^^^^Just heard about this in a forum once, popped into my head when this assignment came up.
TWO (swears)
^^^^^^ A fictional "Chav" a subculture in England made up of uneducated young adults who huff paint, talk in a strange accent, live off of public assistance, and wear plaid hats.
Oh, and one more, this one I thought you should watch, if you want a laugh:It's by the same guys that do Devvo.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Here is my article. It's short and late, but I was out of town!
Click Here to go take a look
Below is a photobucket capture so that if it gets deleted it's not a huge deal:
I was out of town for the past 9 days
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Major Edit
Girl Skateboards
I added the paragraph after "Their main product is Skateboard Decks" or whatever.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Wikimandments
2. Thou shalt not make unto the Wikipedia any copyrighted images
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Wikipedia thy God in vain
4. Remember Wikipedia, to keep it holy
5. Honour Jimmy Wales and thy days shall be long upon the land
6. Thou shalt not kill (delete) articles
7. Thou shalt not mingle information with thy neighbors wife's article
8. Thou shalt not steal information without giving proper citation
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness of events or information
10. Thou shalt not covet others great articles
OR
mine I did all by myself without help from Moses, God, or William Tyndale
1. Don't make stuff up
2. Don't speak from opinion
3. Cite Sources
4. Give links and tags
5. Only make articles that cover notable subjects
6. Do not post pictures that you don't have rights to
7. Use good formatting
8. Do not vandalize the Wikipedia
9. Do not write poorly written and formatted articles
10. Cleanup typos and errors whenever you have time
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Wikipedia
Anyway, looking at this page, I know quite about this band...
The things not mentioned in the article are as follows:
On June 20, they performed in Millvale, Pennsylvania. The show was their longest show to date, playing almost thirty songs over nearly 3 hours. During the show, and later confirmed on their website, Deron said that the show was being recorded and taped for a live album which will be their next project after their 4th studio album.
^^^^ This was actually released as an obscure 2 disc set and referred to as a bootleg for copyright reasons but actually distributed by the band directly during meet and greets after their concerts. (I have a signed copy)
On June 20, they performed in Millvale, Pennsylvania. The show was their longest show to date, playing almost thirty songs over nearly 3 hours. During the show, and later confirmed on their website, Deron said that the show was being recorded and taped for a live album which will be their next project after their 4th studio album.
Just 4 days later on June 24, CKY played a show in Burlington, Vermont. This show was cut short when Deron Miller had a meltdown onstage and walked off. On June 28, he posted a statement on the CKY Alliance website citing drug and alcohol problems.[1] CKY have toured North America extensively, as well as most of Europe and Australia.
^^^^Furthermore, the band had a major confrontation as of October, 2007 and has been on hiatus since that time. The members are currently not on speaking terms with one another.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
I Know It's A Cliche, and I Know We All Know It, But This Is Why You Should Back Up Your Work!!!
We all know exactly why this is important.
But I'm sure a lot of us, especially me, don't do it anywhere near as often as we should.
Because I didn't back up my stuff, I learned a lesson in such a hard way that I figured I could make the best of it by using it for a blog, since it took me 16 hours to recover what was lost.
Here's the background on the whole thing...
In 2006, I was in the car with a friend listening to a song, and he said I should make an animated music video to go along with it. I had just been thinking the same thing, and I needed some practice, and doing a video of one of my favorite band's songs seemed like the perfect motivator. So, I e-mailed the band, and this is what they said:
Question:
I am an animator who has worked on some projects at the professional level. I think Tripled Manic State is the best song you've made. I was wondering, if I made a bad ass animated music video of that song, and sent it to you guys, would you maybe use it as the official music video?
asked by See Haus on 10/02/2006
Answer:
Sure, why not? Make the video and let us check it out.
answered by Deron on 10/02/2006
Now I was going to make this video anyway, but what a bonus to have a go ahead from the band!
Anyway, at the time I asked the band the question, I was very busy with school, but I started developing an idea and storyboarding: It took me all of 2007 to use my occasional free time to paint the water colored backgrounds: After finally drawing everything, scanning it, and getting a shot sequence edited and set up in Flash, I began animating the movie just after Christmas 2007.
At first, things went fairly quickly and smoothly, with me completing about 2 or three shots a day in my spare time. However, as the story progresses, more characters are added and more action starts happening, so I had slowed down to about 1 shot every 3 days and got lazy and started mixing some regular animation with a technique called Rotoscoping in order to make things go faster.
I have been something of a hermit for the past 2 months, skipping out on doing fun things and sitting on the computer animating. I just really want to get this project done and move on.
With a project this big, backups are ESSENTIAL. There are 250+ megabytes of animation files that I have created for this project, and after one got too big and slow to keep working on, I broke the project into thirds, backed up the 1st part, and kept working on the second. I never was smart enough to back up the second part, and the only archive that was made is what is called an SWF file. Unlike the FLA files one animates inside of, SWF files are essentially set in stone and can't be edited.
After 1 whole week of having not made a SWF archive (which is as simple as hitting command+return, don't ask me WHY I'm so absent minded I forgot to do this) I clicked save. Then, while waiting for this large file to save, I surfed around the internet. Suddenly, the screen went black and I heard a "Clickk...BZZZzzzzzz...." sound. Uh oh! I had that knot in my stomach and just panicked because I knew there was a good chance that I'd done some SEVERE damage. I rushed to get the cord that was hooked into a cheap power strip in the wall plugged back in, turned the computer on, and tried to open the file. The worst thing that could happen had.... "Flash can not open document".
It was possible that an entire month was lost and certain that a week was. Fortunately, after digging around on the computer, I found a week old SWF file, so a month of stuff was somewhat recoverable. I jumped into some forums and asked for some help recovering the data. The conscensus was that I'd just have to reanimate the whole thing. I was sickened. At first I felt like giving up on the whole project, but then realized it'd be best to just boldly hack it out as fast as I could. I spent the day moaning and groaning to friends and family about my nerdy technological woes.
So, I thought why not make the best of this and film a time lapse of me working as well as write a blog for class on it?
Below is the finished result, as well as a timlapse of me recreating what was lost:
As you can see from the above video (Sorry about the spelling in it, I made it at 4 am) it was an enormous amount of work to recreate those two simple clips.
Usually, when something hard and arduous happens like a big test, job interview or really long day of manual labor, once it's over it's done and gone. That feeling of relief you get when you finish a big job, "Ahhhh, I get to go home!" wasn't there for me once I redid this. I still can't get over the fact that all that work had to be done and I'm no further than I was 2 days ago!
When I was a little kid and some piece of art I had made got thrown away, my parents would tell me to just make it again. I never did, because I hate doing the same thing twice, and the second attempt is never as good. So from all this, I've learned a lesson I thought I already knew: Keep your feet away from the power cord to your computer, and always back your stuff up!!
Oh, and one more thing, when I posted that video, I put it up at 4am. The sound didn't work, so I re-uploaded it and went to bed. When I woke up, the sound still didn't work but the video had 1 honor, 1,424 views, 2 comments, 1 rating, and 5 links. I don't know what made it so popular. It has no sound, is boring... and yeah... I have no clue. Hopefully people will find and watch the new one with sound, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Weird that my most boring video is by far my most popular.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Research Card
Traditional Source Information about Shamanism, Norse paganism, ancient Northern Europe.
Academic Journal Searchable Book about Norse Mythology
Online Source Video from Youtube about Icelandic Asatru.
Zulu ShamanismCoast To Coast Am article.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Conversation Revised
BrightestBlackSheep
Yeah yeah yeah!!!! Break it! Break it!!! Dammit shut up Beavis. yeah yeah yeah fire!!!! Fire!!!!!
Then, in my inbox, I got some messages from him. We had a conversation, and he made a video of himself talking about how he liked my stuff:
BrightestBlackSheep
Yeah man I saved it to my favorites. Woo doo doo!!!!
VTC (My handle)
Hey, I'm glad you liked our video so much, be sure we had a blast making it, it was one of the greatest times of our high school lives!
BrightestBlackSheep
I made a plug for you!
Then I thanked him:
VTC
Man, youre awesome, thanks for the plug, I watched it, and couldn't be more greatful.
BrightestBlackSheep
That's no problem man I like spreading the word on talent. Keep it up Bro! Woo doo doo....
VTC
Awesome, have you had a chance to watch the rest of it yet? Watch the making of, it is actually really funny, especially the making of part 5, check it out.
And then I put the plug on my channel...
It was cool.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Youtube Conversation
BrightestBlackSheep
Yeah yeah yeah!!!! Break it! Break it!!! Dammit shut up Beavis. yeah yeah yeah fire!!!! Fire!!!!!
Then, in my inbox, I got some messages from him. We had a conversation, and he made a video of himself talking about how he liked my stuff:
BrightestBlackSheep
Yeah man I saved it to my favorites. Woo doo doo!!!!
VTC
Hey, I'm glad you liked our video so much, be sure we had a blast making it, it was one of the greatest times of our high school lives!
BrightestBlackSheep
I made a plug for you!
Then I thanked him:
VTC
Man, youre awesome, thanks for the plug, I watched it, and couldn't be more greatful.
BrightestBlackSheep
That's no problem man I like spreading the word on talent. Keep it up Bro! Woo doo doo....
VTC
Awesome, have you had a chance to watch the rest of it yet? Watch the making of, it is actually really funny, especially the making of part 5, check it out.
And then I put the plug on my channel...
It was cool.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Observations of a kid who celebrated the superbowl.
Superbowl, my friend Jon was persuaded by his mom to ignite some bottle rockets to celebrate. She provided the bottle rockets. He walked outside in the cold snowy weather and stuck about 10 bottle rockets into a mound of snow and started trying to ignite them all at once. Suddenly, in the dark of the night, some kids came scurrying out of a yard with a dog close at their heels while cursing. "When the @#@$@ did those people get a dog?" Then, they started walking down the street. Finally, Jon got two of the rockets to fly off. A voice in the night shouted, "Go Giants!" Then, Jon got the rest of the bottle rockets to fly away. Then he came inside and saw me starting to type an observational report about him and complained that enough minutes had passed since he went and did what I was going to write about that it was now writing from recall and I was no longer correctly doing the assignment. I said, "Whatever." Jon left the room, and so all that was left to write about was the cat, who walked towards the kitchen with a somewhat shifty walk, as though he was a bit sick. Then he disappeared into the house. After he left, it was just an empty room with me, Jon's parents, and a show about England on TV. Then, a different cat the family owns has walked into the room. It is worth noting that it is a hermaphrodite cat. Originally, it was thought to be a boy and given the name Mr. Darci. Later, it had a surgery that made it a girl so the family just dropped the Mr. Jon came back into the room, and he shined a laser pointer around. The hermaphrodite cat appeared to think the laser pointer was prey, and chased the dot it made around the room.
The End.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Snapshot Essay: The Moose In The Mountains Revised
In late summer of 2005, 2 friends and I decided we'd go camp high in the mountains and swim in a lake that's up there. It's called Lake Mary, and it's illegal to swim in it but at the time we honestly didn't know that it wasn't okay to be up there.
Anyway, we started hiking up the trail towards the lake at about 7:30 P.M., so by the time we got to the lake, the sun was setting. As soon as we got there, I realized that I had dropped my swim trunks somewhere on the trail. I figured they couldn't be that far back, so I'd just walk a little way back and grab them. My friends didn't have the desire to start back down the trail, so they got a fire going and set up the tent while I headed off with a flashlight in hopes of finding the shorts. I walked down the trail and lost track of time and distance.
Eventually, I ended up at the end of the trail and back by my friend Kurt's van with no shorts in hand. I searched the car, they weren't there, so I decided to start back up the trail so my friends wouldn't worry about me and the next day I'd just skip out on swimming. About 500 feet up the trail, I saw something blue in the dirt. It was the shorts! So, with the flashlight dimming and the forest completely black, I headed towards the lake.
However, I hadn't walked more than about 100 feet when I heard strange breathing just ahead and got very scared. I sort of froze and listened. "There's nothing there. It's just my imagination." I told myself. The sound sort of faded out so I took a few steps forward. But as I strained to see anything in the darkness I noticed a few stars blacked out ahead. At first I thought it was a tree. Then I heard a loud grunt and got more scared then I've ever been. I raised the extremely dim flashlight and could see two little reflections glinting off the eyes of a giant moose who was standing right in the trail. He was probably 7 feet tall, very ominous, and had large antlers. He grunted and snorted several times while I stood there in complete fear. I didn't know what to do. For a second, I felt a little bold and thought about just running past him. Then I had an image of my dead body being found gored in the forest and decided to make a run for it the other way.
I took off back to the bottom of the trail. There was a ski lodge there with a pay phone on it so I called my friends at the top of the trail to try and tell them what was going on. On both phones, there was no answer, just message machines. I left them both a message that said I was stuck at the bottom of the trail, scared of a moose, I was going to sleep in the car and they could meet me at dawn.
After making a few more calls to them, I jumped in my friends van and decided rather than sleep in it, I'd go home, get a gun, and do some research on moose aggressiveness, then come back and pass him with confidence. So I drove all the way down the 40 minute canyon, then about 20 minutes across the valley to my house, went inside, got the gun, got online, pulled up a website about moose and their behavior around humans. Then the phone rang. It was the police. They asked me if I had stolen my friend's car, and I said, "I don't know that I'd call it stolen, but uh yeah, I took it." Then they told me they were standing there with him at the base of the trail and that he wanted his car back, so I went out of the house, jumped in Kurt's car, sped back up the canyon, and there he was with some cops at the base of the trail. I was concerned that I'd be in huge trouble, both because of the "stolen" van and the gun sitting on the passenger seat. Fortunately, the cops were really laid back and not particularly concerned, they didn't do any searches or anything so that wasn't much of a problem. They just left and said, "Be good." or something.
Kurt was disgusted with me and lectured me all the way up the trail as we headed back to the lake. He kept asking me what was wrong with me- being scared of a little old moose.
Then, halfway up the trail, who should we run into but the moose. We just casually walked past him and he didn't do anything. Kurt sneered, "See, it's not even dangerous."
When we arrived at the lake we found our other friend, Nate, cowering in a tent. Kurt tried to get sympathy from him and get Nate to tease me too about how moose aren't scary, but it turned out he was shivering with fear and said, "I don't blame you. A moose was up here wandering around the tent and I was paralyzed with fear!" So Kurt teased us both, we went to bed, and swam the next day.
I later found out that the reason I couldn't get a hold of Kurt and Nate on the phone earlier was not because they had no service but they were too lazy to answer a phone call from an unrecognizable number. I couldn't believe it! If they'd answered their phones, I never would have taken the car home, the cops never would have been involved, and I probably would actually get to hike to that lake with Kurt without him teasing me the whole way up!
Ever since that day, I've been teased about "the moose". Any time I want to go on a hike, I'm certain to have somebody bring up the moose incident. Kurt and his family can't get enough of the story. In fact, both times I've tried to return to that lake Kurt has found away to ditch me and go with everyone else but me. He thinks I'm a big baby for being scared of the moose.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Snapshot Essay: The Moose In The Mountains
Anyway, we started hiking up the trail towards the lake at about 7:30 P.M., so by the time we got to the lake, the sun was setting. As soon as we got there, I realized that I had dropped my swim trunks somewhere on the trail. I figured they couldn't be that far back, so I'd just walk a little way back and grab them. My friends didn't have the desire to start back down the trail, so they got a fire going and set up the tent while I headed off with a flashlight in hopes of finding the shorts. I walked down the trail and lost track of time and distance.
Eventually, I ended up at the end of the trail and back by my friend Kurt's van with no shorts in hand. I searched the car, they weren't there, so I decided to start back up the trail so my friends wouldn't worry about me and the next day I'd just skip out on swimming. About 500 feet up the trail, I saw something blue in the dirt. It was the shorts! So, with the flashlight dimming and the forest completely black, I headed towards the lake.
However, I hadn't walked more than about 100 feet when I heard strange breathing just ahead and got very scared. I sort of froze and listened. "There's nothing there. It's just my imagination." I told myself. The sound sort of faded out so I took a few steps forward. But as I strained to see anything in the darkness I noticed a few stars blacked out ahead. At first I thought it was a tree. Then I heard a loud grunt and got more scared then I've ever been. I raised the extremely dim flashlight and could see two little reflections glinting off the eyes of a giant moose who was standing right in the trail. I didn't know what to do. For a second, I felt a little bold and thought about just running past him. Then I had an image of my dead body being found gored in the forest and decided to make a run for it the other way.
I took off back to the bottom of the trail. There was a ski lodge there with a pay phone on it so I called my friends at the top of the trail to try and tell them what was going on. On both phones, there was no answer, just message machines. I left them both a message that said I was stuck at the bottom of the trail, scared of a moose, I was going to sleep in the car and they could meet me at dawn.
After making a few more calls to them, I jumped in my friends van and decided rather than sleep in it, I'd go home, get a gun, and do some research on moose aggressiveness, then come back and pass him with confidence. So I drove all the way down the 40 minute canyon, then about 20 minutes across the valley to my house, went inside, got the gun, got online, pulled up a website about moose and their behavior around humans. Then the phone rang. It was the police. They asked me if I had stolen my friend's car, and I said, "I don't know that I'd call it stolen, but uh yeah, I took it." Then they told me they were standing there with him at the base of the trail and that he wanted his car back, so I went out of the house, jumped in Kurt's car, sped back up the canyon, and there he was with some cops at the base of the trail. The cops were really laid back and not particularly concerned, so that wasn't much of a problem. They just left and said, "Be good." or something.
Kurt was disgusted with me and lectured me all the way up the trail as we headed back to the lake. He kept asking me what was wrong with me- being scared of a little old moose.
Then, halfway up the trail, who should we run into but the moose. We just casually walked past him and he didn't do anything. Kurt sneered, "See, it's not even dangerous."
When we arrived at the lake we found our other friend, Nate, cowering in a tent. Kurt tried to get sympathy from him and get Nate to tease me too about how moose aren't scary, but it turned out he was shivering with fear and said, "I don't blame you. A moose was up here wandering around the tent and I was paralyzed with fear!" So Kurt teased us both, we went to bed, and swam the next day.
I found out that the reason I couldn't get a hold of them on the phone earlier was not because they had no service but they were too lazy to answer a phone call from an unrecognizable number. I couldn't believe it! If they'd answered their phones, I never would have taken the car home, the cops never would have been involved, and I probably would actually get to hike to that lake with Kurt without him teasing me the whole way up!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Wooden Blog
Wooden Blog
This is the blog of one of my favorite artists, Adam Phillips. He usually just discusses what he is working on and what software he's using and gives tips and tricks on how to use flash. He has moved on to ToonBoom, and I've been thinking of buying that for a while.
He makes all kinds of cool animations and inspires me to do stuff like this (I made this in flash and the style is influenced by his work, all though mine's a little more creepy and a lot more violent):
If you wanna see more of my stuff, scroll around in the above playlist^^^ (it's all by me)... or, I guess it's not really a blog, but I have a Youtube account full of some good stuff and mostly embarrassing old stuff.
Enjoy!