Wake up everyday knowing in your heart that magic is real and surrounding you. There is more to this little spinny rock (and its' trillions of spinny neighbors) then any of us know. While this isn't comics or design related (so fault me there) please check out this humbling and inspiring video in hopes it will reinvigorate your view. Then go out and create something worth remembering!

Watch the Video

Remember my free website theme Tabletop (for Rapidweaver)?

Well even though I swore a blood oath to never update it, apparently I'm terrible at blood oaths. A few quick fixes and it is a much better theme. So download Tabletop, tell your friends, and enjoy the rapid love...and many kind thanks to those folks who took the time to write me with their thoughts and suggestions. Hope this works better then before!

There are two known issues which may or may not be related. First, some people get an incompatibility error. I've tested this on 3.5 betas and above and it displays fine. No clue why this error occurs. Second, it does seem to crash Rapidweaver more often then normal. I wish I knew why, but as long as you save often you should be all good. What can I say, beauty hurts. If fixes are found I will adjust the theme and release the improved edition.




-Josh

A simple dare for a lazy Saturday:

If you're a writer who would like to continue telling the same repetitive tales and never understand the underlining structure of what makes a "good" story, I dare you NOT to click on the link below.


GAIN HAPPINESS or BREAK THE DARE. YOUR CALL.

For everyone else who is interested in the art of moving stories then buy Robert McKee's "Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting" right now. Please, the world would be a better place. Do it now. I've learned more from a few hundred pages about strengthening my books then by a lifetime of writing. It is a gifted, inspiring, and exacting book that changes the life of almost all the writer's hands it touches.

I love Pixar.

They're the little phoenix that grew from the ashes of Disney and became the hottest place for animators. Add in a few plush characters, and a chase scene or two for the kids, and you have a classic Disney-style story in the making. And even though they're in 3D I don't hold it against them. But most best-est (you can quote me on this): They know good stories.

Ever wonder what tips they'd have for other storytellers? Well, you're in luck! Kevin Koch's blog for the animation guild (Local 839) has posted notes from a recent Pixar storytelling seminar. There is some exceptional information here so don't try and absorb it all at once. It is also very refreshing to hear that the head honchos there find creating engaging stories as hard as you or me. Kevin did an exceptional job summarizing and corraling the best bits. Enjoy!

PIXAR: Storytelling Seminar Notes Part 1

PIXAR: Storytelling Seminar Notes Part 2


-Josh

Over a year ago I wrote a letter one Larry Hryb (or as the cool kids may know him Mr. Major Nelson). Mr. Nelson heads up the community aspects of what has now become the world's leading online gaming platform called Xbox Live. Why did I write him? What the hell does this have to with comics and Scott McCloud? The hot geek on corporate exec loving can be seen below. My lame email to start:

Hi Major Nelson,

I just wanted to pass along what a joy your podcasts are. When I'm sitting at work listening to the latest word about the 360 it keeps me going. I hope Microsoft acknowledges how your effort taps directly into their core audience and keeps the excitement going. Great stuff - please keep it up!

You're always encouraging comments/questions, so I thought I might pass one along. I know that Sony is going for an all in one portable media center for the PSP. One of the surprise demands was for digital comics on the go. I know that the 360 looks to be doing this for the home.

Do you know of any plans to allow publishers to offer comic books and graphic novels for download over live? I think it would be a huge hit considering the type of folks currently on Xbox live.

If so I'd love to add my company's work to the mix!  We offered up free comics for the PSP and it has been a big success.

And as long as I'm fishing, any rumor on having a place to upload stored image files to create custom faceplates? I know my wife would pay for the 360 herself if I could plaster a photo our dog on the front...

Thanks!
Josh


Wow. I've been called a media whore before but yikes...anywho, here was Major's kind response:



Thanks for your email.
We’ll be sticking to game content for now, but you never know


There you go folks - undeniable proof that the Xbox 360 will be comics free...until it won't be. Good times.



This hope for comics in our living rooms came from a little book by Scott McCloud called Reinventing Comics. This bland titled novel was the first follow-up to Understanding Comics, which is largely known as the best damn book ever on the art of sequential art. But Reinventing Comics was much less about the potential of a medium (though Mr. McCloud implied the changes would be diverse). Instead it was a book about micro-transactions and comic books. Compelling, eh? Accounting is quite big with the ladies...

But seriously, Reinventing Comics was written back in the day where the internet was a lumbering beast that was finding its' legs. It was cute to watch the thing tumble around, but guessing about where it might go was fairly useless. Today, comic artists are actually able to make a living by distributing comics only on the web. But the big difference from reality and the hopes of Mr. McCloud are that micro transactions never came to be. Ad revenue is the way almost all sites have fought their way into profitability.

Micro-transactions simply didn't work for comics before because they had always been perceived as free. Add in a library of mediocre content and even when they are readily available the interest is at a flatline.

Finally the moral of the story: People do still hate Micro-transactions in any form. Right now they are invading Xbox Live to a point where its' most ardent supporters are upset. While gamers have every choice under the sun not to buy what they don't want, this fact seems to elude them. It reminds of the old credit card bait and switch, pay a lower interest rate with no "gifts" or pay a higher interest rate and earn points you can buy shiny things with. Which would you choose? The truth is while they both work depending on the situation. The points make people feel love towards their card while the other creates indifference.

I'd like to believe the flaw is with this old idea instead of comics perceived value.

-Josh

Just had to post some near final art from a campaign I'm working on. The sad part is they may never see the light of day, but just in case I've stripped them of an identifiable features. Such is the life of a hired gun (sigh).

This piece was for an animated lithogram and those square-ish images below it were for a desk memo cube. Very fun to create an "Incredibles" rip-off that went so deep and yet was able to follow the company's brand. We ended up creating about 15 cartoons in the same style that highlighted company benefits and market advantages. I think they really turned out visually compelling but also effective, and that is always a pleasant surprise!

Do you happen to have one of these new-fangled websites? If so, and if it is made with CSS, there is a world of galleries that you can submit your creation to. These wonderful sites help inspire web designers and continue to spread the word of browser-compliant love. All of the links below are directly to the submission pages, so go and spread your site's word.

CSS All-star
CSS Beauty
CSS Bloom
CSS Collection
CSS Import
CSS Liquid
CSS Mania
CSS Princess
CSS Remix
CSS Tux
CSS Vault
Dark-i
Inspiration King
Launchfeed (For Site Launch Promo)
Light on Dark
Lovely Blogs
Stylegala
The Daily Slurp
Unmatched Style
W3C Sites


-Josh

First off, apologies for the posts this week (or more specifically the lack thereof). Work is heating up and I'm beginning to pull 12+ hour days just to make deadlines. That said, I'll have some very fun pieces to show off this weekend. I'm also trying my best to correct this with some fun new stuff for next week. Also, for all of those kind folks that contacted me about my RapidWeaver theme Tabletop, I'm not ignoring you! I do have an updated version for release later today which should correct a few of the stumbles of version 1. Sincere thanks for your kind notes...

Fortune Small Business has a recent article highlighting Character, a studio helmed by David Altschul in Portland, Oregon.
 

The studio is only six people strong, and relatively fresh since their birth in 2002, but yet I can’t imagine many people who aren’t familiar with their work. Character specializes in creating brand mascots ( or “critters” ) that help directly impact sales. Their work can be seen in the swagger of Tony the Tiger, or in the charm of the Pillsbury Doughboy. All told they’ve worked on nearly all of the memorable corporate creations worth your time. And they take in over $2 million in annual revenue.
 
What I found most compelling about Character’s interview was the great secrets they let slip out of the bag. Below you’ll find an abridged catalog of their wisdom as siphoned by Fortune. I'm really taking the ball and running with what they said, so take this as half article and half high-school philosophy:

1) “[People] connect emotionally with characters whose struggles are familiar to them, not with characters who superficially look or act like them.”
 
2) Most characters which aim to tell a story are emotion-based characters. All emotion-based characters have flaws grounded in desires. (Example: Lucky is crazy for Lucky Charms cereal to the point of obsession and self-humiliation. The Pillsbury Doughboy loves to serve even when it is hard due to his size and environment. Simba desires to become a great king of the jungle like his father before him.)
 
3) Emotion-based characters are more commonly anthromorphic. These critters tend to wear clothing, have a human “attitude”, and adopt certain human-like mannerisms (ex. stuttering). This similarity to humans ends at their motivations. An emotion-based character’s motivations and goals should be in line with those of their species/culture.

4) If you have a character that doesn't aim to tell a story but instead acts as a "mascot", you have a mystery based character. These critters are highlighted by a distinct lack of information outside of their appearance. Viewer interest is now driven by NOT knowing a character’s desires and flaws. If the character is compelling enough they will work to find or create a back story. Good examples are the creepy Pringles dismembered head or the Pepperidge Farm Goldfish.
 
5) Mystery based characters' only voice is their visual appeal. They need to emote uniqueness and ask viewer participation through how they are displayed. The benefit of this style of character is that they don't need to be close to humans visually. A disembodied floating head or a pack of gravity-defying cheese crackers will do.


6) Critters that don’t fall into either of these categories tend to be bland and uninteresting which don’t engage viewer attention. These characters imply false intentions as their motivations seem confused. These “fake” characters are commonly referred to as cartoon-ish, while emotion-based characters rarely have this dilemma because they are seen as human. Mystery-based characters don't fall into either the cartoon or real categories because their lack of context allows them to bend to a viewers needs.

-Josh
 

Today I made my very own toy, and below you'll find how you can do it too for only $25 US and some free time. Now the fun thing here is that the only limit is your imagination. Relax, have fun, and be patient. Those beautiful McFarlane toys weren't built in a day so try not to rush it. That said, I rushed the hell out of mine and it still turned out fairly well.

Why would anyone do this?

I'm the kind of geek with more toys than pencils. And I have a lot of pencils. But haven't you ever wanted to make your own ultimate action figure playset? You know, the one where Batman is finishing off Wolverine in Castle Greyskull. You can start an illegal eBay empire of ceramic thing-a-ma-jigs today.

And when creating your very own comic book or animated characters creating 3d models can be helpful as well. In my case, I molded the main character of my next book "Welcome to Pixelton". The book now stands at well over 100 pages, and with multiple drawings on every page I've gotten very familiar with the form and weight Kirby needs to bring to the page. But when sculpting him I found that I had to ask myself new questions that go largely unanswered on a 2d surface.

- How do Kirby's eyes form against his head?
- Are his tiny legs even possible to hold his massive noggin?
- How deep are the edges of items such as his helmet and shirt?

While these sound like minor questions, they're answers go a huge way in adding consistency to the character. Plus, it was fun to see him come to life!

Be a Good Little Consumer

Everything you'll need can be found at any decent Arts and Crafts store. You'll have enough supplies for a few toys, unless you build some sort of giant unholy toy monster. And if you do I really want to see this thing. Anywho:

- Sculpey clay - 1lb. box - $9.99
- Ceramic Paints - $1.29 per small bottle
- Cheap Assorted Brush Set - $9.99
- Sand Paper - $1.99

Choose Your Adventure

Now for the fun part! Open your box of Sculpey and begin molding away. Give up any doubting thoughts about your skill as a sculptor. This is a fun project meant to test your mind and creativity. Even if you made a pet rock toy it would be worth the time and effort.

What you're aiming to do is to build the separate shapes used in your toy individually. These include parts like arms, legs, as well as important details like clothing or hair. This helps for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is to form the proper area without accidently messing up the others. As you build try and think about adding little details (such as clothing folds) to make your figure seem more realistic. Once you are complete you will have a mishmash of individual pieces that need to be combined. You may also find it easier to press the pieces you make against a table before applying so they have an outwardly smooth appearance.

Combining Sculpey segments is easy. By pressing the areas together and smoothing out their joints the clay will bond. This works well will large or small appendages.

As you combine you'll begin to see why we made these elements by themselves. When forming your character it is far too easy to accidently mash an arm or leg. Try and find a place to hold the toy where fixes are not as time consuming.

Whew! We're all complete. It took me about 3 hours to get to this point but I had fun. I now have an action figure that is mine alone. Mua-ha-ha!

Baked

The baking process is easy. Toss your sculpture into an oven until nicely brown-ish. The Sculpey box says to wait 15 minutes for each 1/4 of an inch, but my figure was different widths across each limb. I simply checked on him until he looked battle hardened and everything was ready for the next step. After baking and a short time for cooling you have the chance to sand down any rough spots you may have left behind. It takes a few minutes but will change the way your piece looks drastically.

Paint Shop Pro

The only step left is to apply some ceramic paint. A little trial and error, a couple of touch-ups, and a renegade magic marker and we have a complete action figure toy. Not too bad for my first try!

-Josh

New to the Animation and Cartooning Library: Animation by Preston Blair. If there is only one book that you could read about these subjects this should be it. Enjoy!

-Josh

I don't think Mickey Mouse ever died. Like many a world leader he simply faded away with time. His influence stands, but he is too busy trying to exist to really care.

But Mickey and Bugs Bunny, and anyone of the many "classic" animated greats are in place where death would be a relief. Board rooms and execs control the fate of these characters now. And we all know how efficient machines businesses are, most can barely restock supplies let alone take a chance on a creative or entertaining story. So it is with a heavy heart that I see Mickey and fellow Disney pals being re-branded to be "hipper". The re-branding is under the name of VAULT 28, an excuse for Disney to unleash designer clothes under the pretense of nostalgia.

I need to start off by saying that I'm not against change in the slightest. I want these characters to live again, and they would need some clear format and content adjustments to work better. Change is essential here.

What I object to are changes of a character's values. When you change a character's dreams, desires, and motivations, you don't have an "improved" character - you have a new character.

For example, let's say I'm trying a modern retelling of Huck Finn. In place of the mighty Mississippi I pull from Jack Kerouac. Huck loves the open road. Instead of meeting two swindlers trying to steal from a grieving family, he meets a police officer who thinks his word is law. The point here is that plot can change very drastically and not alter the direction. Huck is an adventurous free-spirit, those around him are mostly authoritarian types trying to settle the kid down.

These same changes could be made for format, pacing, length, or a million other factors that can adjust a property for an audience. But changing Huck to a hard-nosed 2nd grade teacher and watch the entire story collapse.

This character's motivation was freedom, but how can it be now? Huck is the giver of authority. He is law. New motivations need to be given, and when you have different motivations something unique is born. Not good or bad but foreign from the original. Haven't you ever looked back at your life and wondered "who is that person"? Strange what motivations can do to you, huh? With time, and a few new motivations, we all experience the world from many varied viewpoints.

Need proof? Loonatics Unleashed sounds like an exec's dream on paper. Add previously popular Looney Tunes characters, with an edgy Anime look, throw in a superhero theme that is all the rage, and a final dash of Gen-x attitude. (Gen-x attitude previously known as 80's Partyboy, previously known as 70's hippie, previously known as teenager.) The result is a bland action hero show that is creepy similar to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Good times for all, but new characters completely. It would've been better to drop them completely and run with a hero show that was willing to take a chance!

I don't know enough about the Looney Tunes changes yet, or the Disney re-brands, to judge. If history is any indication, it doesn't look good for the tired classic characters. Let's hope they give the characters a good part to live up to and not simply reanimate their husks to live trendier cartoon lives.


-Josh

Vault 28 info via Cartoon Brew. Thanks!

I'm releasing the free version of my custom RapidWeaver theme "Tabletop" today. This theme is almost exactly like my current site except it includes a single default header graphic. The no-cost download button can be seen below, but will also be located over in a shiny new place in the navigation bar called "goodies" in the coming days. (Quite a bit more heading here once I get a chance to fully update the place.)

Included in the Zip file is the PhotoShop header image, which will allow you to easily create a graphic that suits your needs. Two quick notes on the theme:

1) It isn't perfect. Play around and enjoy but I will probably not have time to update it down the line.

2) It is an image heavy theme and therefore takes a second longer to load. That is it!

Tabletop was made for everyone out there in the RapidWeaver land who works hard for the community. If you are an old CSS pro or just getting their first site, I think RapidWeaver is a solid app to have alongside as a Mac user. Frustrations aside, I haven't had this much fun maintaining a website in years. I hope you enjoy!




-Josh

When I was growing up we had no money.

I don't mean in the common sense that "times they were tough" I mean we didn't have enough to live on. I spent most of my life watching my mom two or three jobs a day to pay for the crappy one-bedroom apartment we were trapped in. She'd come in for a few hours of sleep and lie down on the floor. We couldn't even afford food. We had $30 a week to survive. If I was hungry I needed to deal with it.

Today, this haunts every part of my daily life. I turn lights off of rooms obsessively and I find every dime I can for saving. And I can't eat more than two meals a day without feeling stuffed. In many ways, I can imagine how it would feel like growing up in the depression. The only thing I had back then was free time and the prayer of talent at anything - I needed a way out.

My mom must've found Animation by Preston Blair by accident. The garish color cover and oversize format were clues to me that it was something special. I studied the drawings all the time and tried my best to match Blair's style. I learned so much about cartooning from that book that I decided it was what I wanted to do when I grew up. Blair convinced me in 40 pages that "character" animation was worth a 5-year old's time. Later on I heard that it was the inspiration for many, many other cartoonists and animators as well.

Oh, and I noticed that the ASIFA - the Hollywood Animation Archive Project had released most of the book free online. Enjoy!

I'm going to be tossing up a PDF version of this into the library sometime this week. I photographed and retouched my old copy but these are so much cleaner!

-Josh

So talk is cheap. I could state the fact in my last big post that "straight lines are simply a figment of a weak human imagination" and then simply walk away...but where is the fun in that? The following artists inspire with minimal (if any at all) use of a straight line. When viewing please keep this in mind, and you'll notice that is very easy to forget.

Carter Goodrich:
At first it may seem that Goodrich is using straight line - but look closer! Everything is subtlety curved giving these static figures hidden life.





Al Hirschfeld:
Beautiful flowing characters that signify personality in confident strokes.




These artist's work feels right. It feels alive and breathing with intensity. A part of this is their understanding that straight lines work best when brought to the highest form of abstraction. The work of Nate Wragg (a character designer at Pixar, with a great interview HERE, and a beautiful blog HERE) shows it best in the samples below.

Check out how the lines are made more interesting and effective by the contrast versus living curves. Overall though these seem to be purposely static pieces of art though.






Chris Ware:
Finally, the work of the Chris Ware. He uses straight lines almost exclusively as representations of man-made objects, but everything is else is elegant expressive curves. This contrast is even more important as it follows along with the common message in many of his stories - humanity exists in a hulking mass of homogenizing culture that cannot completely accept a unique individual. (Strictly my interpretation here...)




-Josh

I just had to say sincere thanks to all of the new folks stopping by lately. I hope you enjoy the mish-mash of comics, animation, and design! If you like what you see, I have a big favor to ask - please help spread the word. I'll buy you a Cherry Coke.

This little blog is currently being featured in Design Melt Down's "Beautiful Blogs" series, the Realmac Software's RapidWeaver gallery, and the wonderful CSSTux site. Sincere thanks for the kind mentions everyone! I'm a pretty iffy web designer so it means so very much to me.

-Josh

I hate this thought, but when you see movies like Dr. Tran by Lone Sausage it is abundantly clear. Sure, one-of-a-kind character design would be delighting but when the writing is sharp it could be a talking piece of paper and I'd be enthralled. I'm looking forward to further antics of Dr. Tran and his minimal animated hillarity.



-Josh

I'm a big believer that it is all of the little stuff that impacts how we view and react to the many ambiguous corporate entities around us.

Google is the king of the "feel good" per square pixel. I tried to test out their Pages, website creation software and got the following error. It is the first time an error has made me smile uncontrollably.



-Josh

So how's your Monday? Good, good.

It is a rather crazy night here in the shadow of the Sears Tower. It is dropping heavy buckets of lead water against the windows in a funny rhythm beat that I wouldn't believe in any other context. In a movie I would laugh at the noise as being unrealistic, in a book it would be laying it on too thick. Yet, it happened. Oh yes, back to the point - Isn't funny how people can believe things so firmly to be true, even when our little monkey minds are wrong? (Like a certain conveniently placed rain. )

This post is about a lie that we are told each and everyday. As a matter of fact it is a lie humans invented and have tried to spread, but it just ain't catching on in nature. Here we go: There is no such thing as a straight line within nature.

Give it some thought. We live in a man-made world of perfect lines... it is only natural that we unknowingly try to apply this to art.

Now, I'm not suggesting that many people actually draw like this. But I am trying to prove a point. Trees, grass, even rocks, they all are wonderfully imperfect filled with subtle curves and imperfections. They breathe and roll creating unique living rhythms. But people hate random imperfections because they're hard to predict, so humanity adopted the straight line. It is simple enough to remember. But it is simply terrible at representing things filled with Life.

Why does this matter? Many artist's art are based on nothing but straight lines. Straight line art gives me the feeling of overpowering death, because it ignores everything else in the universe for a human concept of perfection. Beginning artist's don't even try to hide their bias, the classic stick figure is a living breathing human viewpoint. But even skilled artists try and apply "perfect" lines to natural objects. Whether applied to bones or horizons, straight lines (and any other ideas of perfection) are man made and don't belong in your art.

Ground-breaking, probably not. But I never hear these fakers called out for what they are. Down with man-made perfection! Up with your living breathing imperfect art.

- Josh