Luis’ Illustrated Blog

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Had the day off Monday for Memorial Day, and came into work on Tuesday.  Stayed late to make up the time since I was going to stay home and take care of my kids Wednesday. Today I’m back at work. I plan to finish what I got assigned and I’m probably going to get more work.  Staying late again today.

I’m very tired.

ART

(For those of you coming in late to these posts, if you want to read what my project is about, CLICK HERE to learn about the general world the story takes place in, and CLICK HERE if you want to know the story itself.)

Because of Memorial day, and because I had to spend Wednesday taking care of my kids, I didn’t really get much done on my drawing this week either.  I DID get a little bit done though.

One of the “bigger” things I changed was the pose for the flying ape.  I like this pose much more than the one I originally had.  I then photocopied my drawing and shrunk it.  The reason for this was so that I could have a smaller copy of the ape faces.  The winged apes were “off model” their faces where too big.  I erased the faces I had put on them and then re-drew their faces off of the shrunk copy I had made.  I think they look much better.  I also changed the “texture” of the viper’s body.

I took a long hard look at the drawing so far and began nitpicking the things I didn’t like. I wrote it all down on a sticky note as a “to do list” and pasted it on the drawing.  I added the things I needed to finish to the list as well. Crossed out the ones I finished doing as I went:

The drawing was on my table at work and a co-worker came in to talk to me.  He took a look at my drawing and began to make suggestions, unasked. It kinda took me aback a bit, but I listened.  He said two things and asked me one question.  First he told me that the viper fangs I had drawn were inaccurate, and it dawned on me that he was very right.  It’s one of those things I just mindlessly overlooked.  He made a note of it on a sticky note and put it on my drawing.  He then suggested that I put the tail of the viper in the left corner of the drawing so that there wasn’t empty space there.  It was a good suggestion. He made another note of it on a sticky note and put it on the drawing.

I made the adjustments he had suggested soon after.  I’m not happy with the viper tail the way I drew it so I’m going to adjust it. Other than that I’m happier with how the drawing is turning out.

Taking critique is difficult, especially when you don’t ask for it.  It’s beneficial if you learn to block that prideful side of you that immediately get’s insulted. It’s a skill that takes practice.  In this job, your stuff is always getting critiqued. Sometimes it’s done well, and sometimes it’s done lousy.  Whichever way you get it, you need to be able to leave your ego out of it and listen to what is being said objectively.  In the case of my co-worker’s critique, I’m glad I listened.  He offered suggestions and pointed out a blunder, I didn’t know I’d made.  I think the drawing is better off for it.

As I said before, he also asked a question, namely, why I hadn’t drawn the running Winged Ape from 3/4 back view. I told him I’d intentionally did that in order to have more of his face show.

He kinda apologized for saying anything but I told him I was glad he did.  Especially in this stage of the drawing when I can still make fixes.

Getting critiqued is a huge part of my job now. As a board artist it’s rare when I show my work to a director and it’s accepted as is.  Sometime there are a few changes, sometimes half of what I do is changed and sometimes it’s completely thrown out an I have to change it all.  I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me when everything gets thrown out.  Usually, the director comes up with better ideas which make so much more sense, that I end up not minding at all.   I learn more putting my ego aside and I end up happier for it. It’s a skill I haven’t mastered yet.  I think the more I do it, the better I’ll get.  It’s part of my job now more than ever.

VIDEOS

I loved this little shorts. They’re fantastically animated, they’re simple ideas and they’re darn funny.  They make me want to animate:

MY WEEK

On Wednesday, when I stayed home to take care of the kids, I discovered to my dismay, I had to go to the supermarket.  The baby didn’t have any baby food.  I don’t like going to the store with all the kids. It’s a pain.

It didn’t help that it was cold and it seemed like it was about to rain.  It took almost an hour just to get the kids ready to go.  We made it to the store, bought what I needed to and made it back to the car, with some help of a supermarket employee. She took pity of my situation.  I was a bit overwhelmed with the kids and the groceries.

After getting all the kids in, I sat down and started the car.  On my windshield I saw a folded piece of paper with writing on it. It read:

“FOR YOU! GOD BLESS.”

The exclamation mark “dot” was shaped like a heart.  I thought it was an ad but I took it off my windshield and put it in the car anyway.  I looked around at the other cars but I noticed that no other cars had a piece of paper on their windshields.  I shrugged and drove away.

As I drove back home, I thought about the piece of paper,  “Maybe it’s a note from someone I’d helped out in that parking lot before. Maybe they recognized me and wanted to just say thank you.”

I got curious and when I came to a stoplight, I opened the paper. In it I found money. I was really surprised. I took it out and found that it was eight dollars.  Very odd amount.  It must have been something spontaneous.  Whoever it was, must just grabbed what was in their pocket and put it there on my car.  I wonder why? In any case, it was a very nice gesture.  Thank you whoever you are.  It’s appreciated. I could buy a lot of things at the dollar store for my family with this much money. Every little bit helps.

I pray God blesses her.

For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.

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THE SIMPSONS

My first week back on layout was a bit rocky.  It took me a while to get used to doing it again.  By Friday I was really grooving though. I was going through scenes at the speed I’m meant to go.  I’ve been able to continue holding up that pace so far.  I glad.

ART

I’ve been showing off a bit of my extra curricular Simpsons work for the last couple of weeks.  This will be the last of it for now.

This is some work I did for a Lisa Simpson Book.  Similar to the Krusty one I wrote about last week.  One of the running gags of the book was a Lisa comic done in the style of the Rex Morgan M.D. comic strip. It featured Lisa and Milhouse all grown up solving medical problems.  It was fun to do because it was so melodramatic.  I had worked on the show “Lisa’s Wedding” which takes place in the future and Lisa is grown up through most of the show.  I remembered what Lisa looked like in that show and I drew her in the same way, with slightly stylized wavy hair:

It’s funny to note, now that I see all strips together, that almost all the strips end with a close up of a character or a dramatic up shot. Sometimes, even the exact SAME dramatic upshot as a different strip. 

You will also note that, in the roughs I posted, I didn’t really put in any perspective grids like I usually do. Looking through the roughs I DIDN’T post, I see that they are missing in those as well. I “eye balled” the perspective on all of these strips. Granted, I didn’t really put in all that many backgrounds either. These strips allowed me to experiment with doing “short hand” backgrounds.

Above is a rough that I didn’t post the clean up for…for some reason.

Above here’s the rough of the strip below.

It was fun to have Milhouse totally start crying just for the melodrama of it all. I don’t think that was in the script.

Above is the rough of the strip below.  The note from the art director was not to have Milhouse come in running on panel 3.

I didn’t post all the strips. Just a few.

Yet again, I didn’t receive a copy of this book so I don’t know what the final version of these strips look like.  I’ll need to track this books down so I can check it out:

What do you think?

MY WEEK

I turned 35 last Saturday. The kids, Alesha took me out to eat sushi. Something I really enjoy doing. We then went back home and my parents came over to visit later in the evening.  The best part of the day, (besides spending time with my family) was getting time to work on my comic.

Sunday we were invited to my in-law’s house.  My mother in law  made enchiladas for lunch.  It was yummy.  Later we drove to my parent’s house were my mother there was a steak dinner waiting for me along with my brother, Deborah his wife, my cousin and her family.  We got there late, which was embarrassing since they were there for me.  Still, it I had a good time.

It’s odd, even on my birthday, if I’m not playing a board game, I still feel awkward about being around a lot of people. I think it’s gotten worse since I started working my projects.

MY WEB COMIC

Speaking of projects…I’m very close to finishing the inking process of my web comic.  I’m very surprised at how much fun I’m having working on this thing.   It also has me very frustrated.  Mostly because I’m not as happy about the way it’s turning out as I’d like to be.  The reason for this, is my fault.  I wanted to draw the comic without making it to be too much work.  Usually, as you’ve seen from my comic book making process post, I draw one page three times before it’s finalized.  If I was to ink the page, it would be four times.  Well, in order to speed things up, I decided that I was only going to draw each page twice. I was going to draw the final penciled page and then ink it.  No rough plot, no tighter rough, no clean up page. I was going straight to a tight rough and then to ink.  This has actually caused a lot of problems because my abilities are NOT such that I can just get everything right the first time.  I really needed to take one more step before I got to the inking.  Still, I’m learning, so I’ll know what I’ll do different next time.

I’ve also rediscovered that I have lousy lettering, so  I’m going to have digital lettering through out the comic and I think even the sound effects I’ve put into the pages will need to be reworked digitally.  It’s okay though, practice makes perfect.  The comic is still perfectly readable and I’m still planning on finishing it.  It’s going to be in color and since I’ve never colored a comic before, I don’t know how long that’s going to take me.  Hopefully, not very much time.

And while I’m on the subject of projects…

GHETTOMATION

I’m slowly making headway into the writing and creating of my next Pulp serial ghettomated project.  I think I’ve finally nailed down what it’s all going to be about, who the main characters are and what their motivation is. Now, I just have to come up with a quick story to put them in so I can really begin.  That, and the fact that I have to work out the look and style of the cartoon.

I’ll write about the process when it really starts getting into gear.

VIDEO

And now some Axe Cop ghettomation:

BLOG

This is fantastic blog if you’re into drawing at all:

The Art Center Blog

CLICK HERE to buy an Uncle Chestnut T-shirt with my art on it.

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

Comments are appreciated as well.

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And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

It’s the first week back at work for the new year. It’s been business as usual…sorta. I’ve been asked to work overtime to try to make up for the time lost because of the holidays. So much for our time of rest.  I guess it’s okay.  I really need the money anyway.

MY WEEK

During my time off, I had all the time in the world to work on my comic.  It was the perfect opportunity to  work on my project and get it done faster than in any other time.  So what did I do?  I spent all my free time reading comic books.  I got through about 60 comics or more.  On the one hand, it was a complete waste of an opportunity, but on the other hand, not only was it relaxing, but I was ready to start drawing by the time the holidays were over. It really recharged my batteries.  I got very little drawing done but it was a good trade off.

In case your wondering where I got the comics, they where the ones I picked up at the kitchen at work for FREE.  The ones that Drew Johnson leaves there because he has too many. Therefore, all the comics I was reading where DC comics.

Best thing I read was the New Krypton Superman storyline.  It had me pretty hooked.  I may or may not write more about this. I also read a few Blackest Night preludes and one Blackest Night story so far.  It looks like it will be a fun read.

Reading the comics, I was made aware of the fact that Dick Grayson has taken up the mantel of Batman. More on that below:

COMIC BOOKS

Before I begin, I’ll (very quickly) explain who Dick Grayson is and I’ll give a quick explanation on Robin the Boy Wonder.

Who is Dick Grayson? He’s the original Robin.

There have been four Robins so far: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and now Damian Wayne.

Damian Wayne - He’s the current Robin and Bruce Wayne’s (Batman’s) son.  His mother is Talia Al Ghul.  Bruce married her in a story a long time ago called: Batman Son of the Demon.

Tim Drake -  The third Robin. He’s been the Robin you’ve seen in most modern Batman stories.  My personal favorite so far.  You can see Tim as the younger Robin in the Bruce Timm Batman adventures cartoon. He is currently running around as the Superhero Red Robin.

Jason Todd - Better known as, the Robin that died.   Jason was the second Robin and was a huge jerk.  He was such a jerk that when the readers where asked whether  Jason should live or die, the readers voted him dead.  The Joker, beat him with a crowbar then blew him up.  He’s came back to life a while ago and has made the “Bat Family’s” lives a living hell.  He seemed to have died again recently but it’s very unlikely that he’ll stay dead.  He’s still a jerk.

Dick Grayson -  The first Robin. The Robin most people think of when they think of Robin.  He’s the “Holy (insert random word) Batman!” Robin.  In the comics, he had a falling out with Bruce Wayne and went his separate way.  He later became a new superhero called Nightwing. He’s been Nightwing for about 30 years now.  I really liked Nightwing and my brother and I would get into arguments about where or not he was a necessary character.

In a way, my brother was right, Nightwing seemed like he was just a bench warmer character waiting to come into his own.  He was just sitting around waiting for Batman to die so that he could finally become Batman himself–which he now has.

It thinks it’s AWESOME. I was getting tired of Bruce Wayne and I thought he was a bit “played out”.  I wanted him to go and become the Gandalf/Obi Wan Kenobi character, that way, a new Batman could take over and maybe surpass him.  Besides, Dick Grayson is a cool character and it’s pretty much what he was created for isn’t it? To become the next Batman.  It’s about time!  I haven’t gotten to read any of his stories yet but I really want to.  I haven’t wanted to read any Batman comic for a while, until now.

ART 

So when I got back to work I thought it would be fun to draw a new Superhero Versus Superhero drawing , like the ones my friends and I did last year (click on the numbers to see what I’m taking about: 1,2,3,4,5,6). I started the drawing and I even began to ink it.  I took a break from it before it was done.  A few hours later, I looked at the drawing and wasn’t happy with it.  I was planning to finish the drawing at home but as the day went on I disliked the drawing more and more to the point where I was considering abandoning the drawing.  On the drive home I decided to give the drawing another shot. I needed to adjust the characters so that they were better designed and better drawn.  When I got home, I put some tracing paper on it and gave the characters another pass.  I was much happier with the drawing after that.  As of time of this writing, I’m still working on it.  I’ll put the drawing up next week if it turns out okay.

ART

I’ve written about the podcast Big Illustration Party Time.  It’s a podcast where the hosts talk about being freelance illustrators and give tips on how to survive  being one.  Well, both hosts have a passion for drawing comics.  They both have comic projects they’re working on.

One of the hosts, Kevin Cross, has begun a web comic of his character Monkey Mod.  I think the character has a cool look to him so I decided to try drawing him as a fun bit of fan art:

Check out the Monkey Mod web comic.  I highly recommend it.

CLICK HERE to buy an Uncle Chestnut T-shirt with my art on it.

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

Comments are appreciated as well.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

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And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

The pressure is on this week. We only have till Tuesday of next week to finish the story reel.  I’m doing overtime today all the way through Saturday.

ART

Once again, I didn’t get around to finishing the color version of my sister’s logo.  Going to church at lunch time for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, took away my work time. I DID manage to finish the black and white version though.  So here is the final black and white of the logo:

Hope I can get the color done next week.

MY WEEK

Went to a CARTOONISTA meeting last Friday.  We discussed plans for events that we were going to participate in.  As well, as magazines we were going to be drawing in.  It was a fun meeting with a lot of banter.  We were introduced to one of the newest member of the CARTOONISTAS John Narcomey who draws Ghostface.  He was a great guy.

I was also offered a art show for my stuff.  Unfortunately I don’t any “stuff” to display.  I need to get on that.

I sat around and drew most of the time.  At one point during the meeting I drew CARTOONISTA Raul Aguirre:

He saw the drawing and decided to retaliate by drawing me back:

It was a fun little meeting.

MY WEEK

Last Saturday I made my way to the  Warner Brothers Ranch lot.  The Ronald McDonald house was holding a charity even there.  Artists were asked to come and draw for the kids in the event.  There were a ton of artists that came out for it.  Among them where fellow CARTOONISTAS Javier Hernadez and Jim Lujan.  The event was from noon to three.

The event was great. Both Javi and Jim wrote about the even in their blogs. If you want to read their takes, please visits their blogs and read about it.  Unlike me, they took pictures (which I’m in) so you could see what it all looked like:

Javi’s blog

Jim’s blog

Overall I enjoyed myself.  I wasn’t drawing my best at the beginning. I wasn’t going to tell the people I was giving my drawings to that I didn’t like them though. They probably thought they were great.   I drew a picture of Goofy for this girl who was obviously going through treatment, that I really liked.  It was the best (and last) Goofy I did all day.  I wish I’d taken a picture but that’s okay. I hope she liked the drawing.

From reading Javi’s blog, they past out burgers and hot dogs to the artists but I didn’t get any. No one offered any to me.  By the time it was all over, I was starving.  Luckily, I was so into the drawing, I didn’t realize I was hungry until it was over.

I sat next to Raphael Navarro the whole time and he was blowing me away with his amazing drawing skills. Raphael has worked at Warners on quite a few of the superhero shows. He’s also the creator of the comic book El Sunambulo. Man that guy can draw!  He was giving people fully colored illustrations of superheroes the whole time.  Crazy.

To my left there sat a Warners artist whose name I didn’t catch but had I had more time when the event was over, I would have gone around and introduced myself better to him and a lot of fantastic other artists.  Lot’s of my friends from work where there, including Drew Johnson the DC artist who is married to one of the re-takes directors on the show. I had to get home because the kids where asking for me, otherwise I would have stuck around and talked some more with Art Leonardi. Art Leonardi was the artist who organized the artists to show up.  He’s an old time Pink Panther animator among other things. He was recounting anecdotes to Javi about Friz Freleng and what a jerk he was.  It was fun.

Below is two drawings that I drew and gave away.  Just so you can see what we were up to:

I had a good time over all. I just wish I didn’t have to leave so early.

FAMILY

Speaking of drawing, I wasn’t the only one in the family drawing this weekend. My kids drew this weekend as well.

A few weeks ago I was trying to teach Munchkin how to draw a happy face.  This weekend Munchkin was trying it on her own.  For a three year old, I was very impressed and happy to see her figure it out.   I was examining her drawings and I could see her thought process very clearly.  I’m very proud of her. Below are her drawings. I asked her what the drawings were of and she let me know:

Maybe I’ll ask her to help me out on some scenes.

CLICK HERE to buy an Uncle Chestnut T-shirt with my art on it.

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

Comments are appreciated as well.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

If you would like to have a text ad on my site, click on the red BUY LINKS button under the Archives list.

And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

This week and last week I worked on next year’s Halloween special.  There is a board game story in it, but I won’t say anymore than that.  I stayed late working on the show since Thanksgiving was going to take away a few days of work from that show.

On Wednesday  I moved to the crew I’m going to be working for, for the next few weeks.  I enjoy working for these directors, so it seems like it’s going to be a fun show to work on.

ART

I continued working on my sister’s logo designs this week.  Here’s what I did and why:

I started by reworking the rough silhouette from last time so that the girl would be in a lotus position. My sister had given me some more ideas for items and I put them in the drawing.  I cleaned up the circle also, mainly because I wanted to see what it would look like. I got rid of the laptop frame and used it as one of the interior items.

I thought that it we time to start defining the exterior of the design.  my first approach was to do it with color. I took the colors I thought I would use and started defining the drawing better.  I got stuck though. I wasn’t really sure where I was going and what was what.  It was too confusing for me to work this way so I changed my mind and decided to use lines to define the details.

I used white lines and decided to just draw inside the silhouette, using the same shapes I had already defined with the color pass. I added a temporary background because I found that I when the white line hit the “paper” it got lost.  I had chosen to draw a really squished  rectangular head for the girl.  This gave her a very big chunk of hair on top.  The reason was mostly to create contrast between the too parts (face and hair) which creates interest. Then I drew the face. The details of the figure where taken from what I saw my sister wear in some pictures on her her site.  The girl is suppose to represent my sister without being a direct caricature of her.

I was happy with the rough white line pass but I couldn’t quite clean up the line without doing a slightly more defined rough of certain areas.  Such as, her legs and feet, as well as, her hands in prayer position.  The red line is the clean up line while the blue line is my rough, definition drawing.

Once I was done, I turned the red line black and got rid of all the roughs and silhouette.  I sent the drawing to my sister and she gave me some suggestions that I will add next.  I will also begin to color it and add detail to the items.  I hope to be done with this logo next week.

MY WEEK

I went to the CNT Animation Expo last Sunday. In order to not pay for parking, I parked at the Simpsons’ Studio (which was  two blocks away) and rode my skateboard to the Convention Center.  As I was doing so, I did the idiotic thing of trying to text my wife something as I rode my skateboard.  The following event occurred shortly after:

The board’s front wheels got caught on an upturned chunk of sidewalk and I totally bailed.  My phone went flying out of my hands, the battery flew out,  my phone slid face down on the cement away from me as I lay face down on the side walk. Comedy gold. After I got myself up and unsuccessfully tried to recover my dignity, I put my phone back together and discovered, to my great relief, that it still worked.  I continued my ride feeling stupid.  As I approached the Convention Center, I stopped at a light and suddenly discovered that I was in pain in two places.  I checked those two place.  My elbow was very scratched up and looked bad, but wasn’t bleeding.  I then checked my knee. My pants where ripped and when I lifted up my pants leg I discovered it was bleeding.  That’s when  I thanked God that all I had gotten was a scratched knee.

First thing I did, when I got to the Convention Center was find a bathroom and cleaned the wound. I now have a nice scab to show as a souvenir.   Then I bought a ticket and went in to the Vendor’s Hall. It was small but full of great vendors and artists.  It was worth looking walking through.  Lots of great books there. The were also a ton of students and pros walking around with portfolios, looking for work and asking about the state of the industry from other pros. In the center of the Hall was a stage with where two artists did demos for all to see.  The artists were very accessible and were rotated every hour.  At the time I had walked in, J. Scott Campbell was on stage drawing and talking to a handful of people about his art and influences.

I quickly got bored after walking around the hall for an hour.  It was small and I had seen everything by then. If I had gone to a panel, I wouldn’t have been bored but I hadn’t bought a ticket that allowed me to go to any panels.  They were too expensive.  The real reason I was there was to talk to friends I hadn’t seen in a while as well as meet up with new artists a didn’t know.  This didn’t really happen.

I left the Convention Center and went to lunch.  On my way back from lunch, I told myself that if I couldn’t find anyone to talk to, I would just leave.

Walking back into the Vendor’s Hall, I instantly regretted having gone to lunch. On the stage in the Hall was none other that Marcelo Vignali. He had been talking and giving a demo there the whole time I had been at lunch.  He’s one of my favorite artists and one of the top Development Artist in the business. Since I’m interested in doing Development Art, I would have loved to have been there through out this whole demo.  As it was, I caught the last fifteen minutes.  There were  a ton of people around him asking him really good questions.  I just sat there and soaked it all in. Afterward, he got down off he stage and a small group of students, followed him out of the Hall where he sat down and drew for them.  I followed and gawked at Marcelo’s skill, trying to soak up everything he did as he drew.  There is nothing like observing how a Master artist approaches drawing. I learn a ton, just watching.

One of the students was smart enough to have Marcelo, look at his a piece of work he had done, so that he could give him his take on it.  Marcelo did, and as he did so, explained his process. It was amazing.  I couldn’t believe it. He blew my mind.

Later, when all the students where gone, I reintroduced myself to him. I reminded him I had had lunch with him, my friend Paul, and a few other people some years ago when he was still working at Sony. I talked with him about his process a bit more and about sketching for fun.  He gave  me some advice on how to include my kids when I sketched, so they could do it too.  It was great.

I left the Expo right after that. I felt the expo was time well spent.

ART

Last week I wrote about Jim Lujan’s latest short film. Jim does what he dubs “Ghettomation“. It’s do it yourself (DIY) animation. He strives for clear storytelling without all the time consuming billions of drawings it takes to make a fully animated film. Many people in the animation industry might scoff at this idea because it’s not “well animated”.

I’m a trained animator. Once upon a time, I thought that if a movie was poorly animated, it wasn’t worth my while. This opinion has changed a lot since then, I’ve come to the conclusion that “well animated” films, are not necessarily good films. I think it’s far more important to have an animated “good story, well told”  even if the animation isn’t the best.

Ghettomation is no exception. There is a such thing as great Ghettomation.  Case in point, behold, what Jim Lujan calls “Pixar Ghettomation“:

For more on Ghettomation, visit Jim Lujan and Kevin Cross‘ Ghettomation podcast.

And speaking of podcasts…

PODCAST

I joined the motley crew of cartoonists on the JAVILAND podcast (episode 28) this weekend.  It’s the first time that I’ve been on a podcast and not only NOT been interviewed, but my job as an artist is actually taken for granted while we talk about art. Check it out:

Directly from Talkshoe,

or

The JAVILAND Podcast.

CLICK HERE to buy an Uncle Chestnut T-shirt with my art on it.

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

Comments are appreciated as well.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

If you would like to have a text ad on my site, click on the red BUY LINKS button under the Archives list.

And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

The work load early in the week started off pretty lite.   I was helping out on a crew before they put me on my new official crew late Tuesday. Wednesday when we started on the crew officially, we started really late.  That never helps. Hopefully it won’t effect us in the long run.

MY WEEK

Had to cancel board game night because I needed to pick up my parents at the airport.  The airport is just really annoying.  At the time I went to pick them up, they had re-directed where passengers got their luggage. I ended up waiting for my parents in the terminal they were SUPPOSE to come out of.  I new I wasn’t in the right place because there was a “note” under their flight number displayed on the screen telling me where they were. Of course since I didn’t know where in the airport that was, they might as well have just had a note reading: “NOT HERE.” Since there was no phone signal within the airport, I had to wait for my parents to come out (an hour later) before I was able to call them and discover where they were. Like I said, the airport is very annoying.

FAMILY

Alesha took me out for breakfast on Saturday for Father’s Day. She wanted to avoid the Sunday “taking dad out for breakfast” crowd.  Sunday, we spent the day fairly relaxed.  Alesha got me a DVD for Father’s Day that I already owned. After Mass, we went out to exchange it.  The DVD was discounted so it wasn’t very much money.  Lucky for me, it was exactly the amount of money I need to get what I wanted that week, which was, an Alara Reborn, Magic: The Gathering - Theme Deck - Intro Pack. I was very happy with my present.

My parents also got me speakers for my iPod/PC/Alesha’s Macbook/TV.  Very cool.

In the afternoon, I spent sometime in the playground with Muchkin, dropping Matchbox cars down the slide. Then we spent the evening at my parent’s house, talking, and eating El Salvadorean food.  It was a very nice Father’s Day overall.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I’ve had an erratic work week.  Staying late because I had to make up hours.  Trying to get my section done but not being able to because  over 50% of it needed to be revised by the board artist before I could work on it.  It was very frustrating.  I still need to finish it all.  Time is running out.

FAMILY

So Dante decided it would be fun to destroy his mom’s Macbook Pro.  He got a bottle of water Alesha had left by the sofa, poured it over on the sofa and on Alesha’s Macbook Pro which was near by and pretty much destroyed it.  It no longer works. It was terrible.  We couldn’t believe he did that.  Alesha and I were VERY upset.  Not exactly something we needed have happen.

We made an appointment for the next day at the local Mac store so they could check it out and see if there was anyway to salvage it.  That became it’s own fiasco.  I came home from work that  day and at the last minute, I thought it might be a good idea to make it a family trip.  It took us ten minutes to get to the place once we were ready and we were twenty minutes early for the appointment.  Unfortunately, as we were all getting out of the car, Alesha realized she had forgotten the Macbook.  Freaking out, she got back in the car and went back home.  Meanwhile I was with the kids at the mall not knowing what to do and feeling like it was all my fault because it was my idea to take the kids, which is one of the reasons Alesha forgot the computer.  When it was near time for the her appointment I showed up to the store and was going to explain the situation to the Mac people when they called Alesha in.  As I was waiting, I called Alesha a few times to keep tabs as to were she was and how close she was to  getting back.    It was very tense.  The kids and I stood at the Mac store for a good twenty minutes waiting. I was hoping that they would call Alesha up late.  Munchkin seemed like the only thing she was concerned about was making as much noise as possible as she ran around in a circles.  Dante wanted desperately to get out of the stroller he was in so he could mess around with all the fun stuff he saw. It was all I could do to keep him quite. Meanwhile there was a screen  that kept showing who was up next and the person that was ahead of my wife was called up.  Alesha was not there yet and I was getting a bit panicked.  The last thing we needed was yet another thing to make Alesha miserable.  She was feeling bad enough about having lost her computer and worse, some things in the computer she hadn’t had time to back up.

I called Alesha one last time, only to find out that she had parked and was on her way over.  I was relieved. She showed up before they had called her up and I left her there to continue to wait while I took the kids to the food court and bought them Pizza.

Alesha discovered that to fix her almost three year old Macbook Pro,  it would cost $1300.00 so instead, she bought a $900.00 Macbook and called it good.  It’s a down grade from the Pro but she’s actually fine with that.  Too bad we had to spend that money, we really wish we didn’t have to.

Dante is no longer allowed to even LOOK in the direction of a computer anymore.  I won’t allow it.

FAMILY

My Mommy had a birthday last Friday.  Like a good son I gave her a call on her birthday…at 7:30 PM. Yeah, I didn’t remember until I got home and was already winding down for the day.  It’s embarrassing. I was so disappointed in myself.

Well, anyway, on Saturday Alesha, Munchkin, Dante, Juan (my brother), Deborah (his wife), Paolo (my nephew) and I went over to pass the time with her.  We had a good time just being there.  Munchkin and Dante played the whole time.  My mom was happy.  We had an amazing dinner and generally had a fun time.

Happy Birthday Mom!

MY WEEK

The lady that takes care of our kids couldn’t take care of our kids this week.  She was in the hospital trying to find out what some swelling on her feet was all about.  He checked in on Friday and by Monday night, had not even seen a doctor about it yet.  It sounded terrible.

In any case,  we need to find different way to take care of the kids.  Tuesday I stayed with the kids but had to make up the hours later in the week.  Wednesday, Munchkin’s Godmother, Carolina, did us the favor of taking the kids for the day.  Today, Alesha took the kids with her to work and is having a half day.  Friday will be be the same.

Please pray for Linda who takes care of our kids. Here’s hoping everything turns out okay.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I’ve got a ton of work to do and it all has to be done by May the 13th.  It feels as if I’m getting no where fast but that’s only because it’s still early and I’m only now getting into the meat of the work load. It also doesn’t help that we’re inventing the “pipeline” as we go. Nor does it help that many of the scenes I finished need more work done to them so I have to fix them while still getting new scenes done.  One great thing about how we are doing things now is that I feel like I’m getting to propose my own ideas into the show.  It feels like I’m more involved in the process. This actually make the giant work load much more tolerable since it fuels my creativity and makes me WANT to come in to work everyday.  I hope other directors I work with are as open as this one.

So our superhero drawing thing is still going on.   Tommy has eased out of it because he’s doing some freelance work for Ben Ten, so he has no free time. Still he managed to draw a few pieces before he started on that. Thankfully, he drew one that I could post on my blog, so here’s his drawing:

Quicksilver (Marvel Comics) Versus The Flash (DC comics).  They fight because they are, what the DC comics universe calls a “Speedster”. In other words, they have super speed.

Then, just because he could, using the magic of Photoshop, he changed the colors of  Flash’s costume and turned him into the Reverse Flash (a.k.a. Zoom). 

Meanwhile, Paul is getting himself married over in his home state of Hawaii. Besides, as I mentioned last week, he doesn’t want me to post anymore of his drawings since he’s publishing them in his Sketchbook. He’s probably over there drawing pictures of waterfalls or something and having a great relaxing time with his new wife…Jerk.

So instead, we have a picture from someone else who decided to join in on this craziness. Raul (remember him from a few post’s ago?) decided to draw this:

It’s the Green Hornet (Harvey, Now, Acme, AC comics) Versus The Spirit (by Will Eisner).  They fight because they look very much a like only one is green and the other blue.  One of the reasons Raul drew this was because he didn’t think we had thought to put these guys on our list.  He was right.

So here’s my drawing for the week:

I’m cheating today. This is an original idea and not a “comic book versus” idea. It’s the image of a High Fantasy Western.  The week I drew this, I wanted  to try my hand at something different.  I was driving home from work and I was trying to come up with story ideas just for the heck of it.  One of the story ideas (or in this case just a random concept) came to me with a fun little image, so I thought I’d try to draw it.  This is the first time I’ve attempted a drawing like this. I want to learn to do animated feature “development drawing”. This is my first stab at one.  It’s heavily flawed.  Especially since I rushed through the drawing of the background, plus I really didn’t make much of an attempt to smooth out the pencil strokes (among other things). I’m only partially happy with it.   The idea was to put the generic fantasy archetypes in a western setting.  The Native American looking guy being the Warrior. The elf woman in the center would be a Ranger/tracker with a magical, rune encrusted, prosthetic, machine arm. Behind her is the wizard who is also a bit of a Rogue since he’s a Gambler.  They’re in the forest trying to track down a dragon that’s sneaking up on them from behind.  This was all drawn with some hard and soft pencils on regular old animation paper.  I really need to practice this a lot more. I also need to have more patience.  I really got tired of the drawing after a while and began rushing it at the end.  It looks very sloppy.

My inspiration for this drawing were artist’s like:

• Marcelo Vignali - a good friend of Paul’s who I got to meet one day when I went to The Sony Feature Animation Studios (when they still existed) where Paul was working one year during hiatus.  He’s as a great guy and showed me all the drawings he was doing on the movie they were working on.  I was a fan of his work before I met him so I was geeking out.  I think that helped get me on his good side. He’s amazing. He’s worked almost everywhere in the industry.
• Richie Chavez - another friend of Paul’s and an good acquaintance of mine, ever since we took a Kung Fu class together.  He was the art director on Prince of Egypt and he also worked over at Sony when Paul was there.  This is another guy that’s worked almost everywhere in the industry.  He doesn’t have a website though. One of his drawings is posted in this website: CLICK HERE.
• Paul Felix- he was one of my drawing teachers.  He worked over at Disney Feature and TV developing movies and shows. He’s awesome too. He doesn’t have a website but you can look at some of his drawing on this post HERE.

Those three guys are just amazing artists.  Talk about being able to draw anything and draw it awesome.

MY WEEK

Saturday I was out in the cold without a jacket. The next day I woke up with a crazy cold.  It knocked me out.  I managed to make it to Church with Dante but once I got back, my body went into shut down mode.  I was in bed the rest of the day. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was reading some of the comics I had gotten a few weeks ago, so it wasn’t all bad.  Still, I wish I could have stayed home Monday to recover but I really needed to get my work done. Whatever it takes to keep my job.

Thankfully, by Tuesday, I was feeling much better, so it turned out that my cold didn’t last for very long.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

We managed to finish the new Simpsons’ intro on time this last week.  On Monday, when I got in to work, I was able to pull the finished rough cut of the intro from the server and watch it.  It looks really good.  I got very excited about it after I saw it.

FAMILY

Thank you mom, for asking if we could play a game that night.  It almost never happens when someone bothers to ask.  It was fun. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Samurai designed by Reiner Knizia.

BOARD GAMES

Intro

So I thought I’d write about some games I like (and maybe even some I don’t) and why I like them (or don’t like them).

I’ve come to the conclusion that my taste in board games is heavily influenced by my love of two games or game types:

1. Chess
2. Roleplaying games

Please keep this in mind as you read about some of my favorite board games.
Right now, not counting the games I mentioned above, there are two games that I consider “my favorites” .  I love to play them and I can’t get enough of them.  But I wanted to only choose one of them to write about this week, so I had to make the very difficult decision of choosing one to write about.  The other game, I will write about next week. From then on, I will write about many other games.

I’m going to write about Dreamblade this week (mostly because I’ve been playing a lot of it lately). This is by no means meant to explain everything about how to play the game.  I’m hoping I can just paint a picture of what the game is like.

What’s it about?

Dreamblade is a collectible miniatures game that plays a little like Chess, a little bit like Backgammon and a little bit like Magic: The Gathering CCG.

What is a collectible miniatures game?

A collectible miniatures game is a game that, when you buy a “starter pack”, you get an assortment of random miniatures with rules with which to play a game with, but by no means do you get all the miniatures in the game.

If you want to collect all the miniatures, you would have to buy booster packs (like trading card packs only with miniatures) which come with more random figures.  You can then trade said  miniatures with friends if you wish (again like trading cards).

What similarities does Dreamblade share with Chess?

Well, on the one hand, it’s similar to  Chess because it’s a two player strategic and tactical game about moving your pieces with variable powers on a grid board.  It also shares Chess’ emphasis on controlling the center and thinking a few moves ahead.

How is Dreamblade  NOT like Chess?

Dreamblade is not like Chess in that the pieces all move the same way, which is to say, one space at a time; similar to a King in Chess only they can’t move diagonal (the variable power of each piece is not reflected in how they move).  Also, the pieces don’t start on the board, they must be “Spawned” onto the board by the roll of two six sided dice.  Each figure has a spawn cost that must be payed in order to be able to come into play.  The larger the cost, the more powerful the figure.

The two dice are rolled, one by each player, in order to determine who goes first every new turn (highest roll goes first). The sum of the two dice is then added up and this determines how many “spawn points” each player has in order to bring out figures onto the board.

The game is also not like Chess because the game is won by the player who wins six turns first. Each square of the grid  board is called a Cell. Some Cells have points on them called Conquest points.

If you have your figures on a Cell with Conquest points on them and your opponent doesn’t, at the end of the turn, you win the number of Conquest points on that Cell. You also get Conquest points for each of your opponents miniatures that you destroy. If the number of Conquest points you have, exceeds the number of Conquest point your opponent has at the end of that turn, you win that turn and move your marker up the scoring track. Do this six times and you win.

Dreamblade is also not like Chess, by the very fact that it has dice in it.

What similarities does Dreamblade share with Backgammon?

Like Backgammon, Dreamblade is a game of skill, luck management and calculated risk taking. Dreamblade, like Backgammon, has quite a bit of dice rolling so it has an element of chance. It’s all about trying to position your pieces on the board in such a way that bad dice rolls won’t effect you too badly, while good dice rolls will get you closer to winning the game while setting your opponent back. It’s about making the moves that will give you the best probabilities.

Also, if you so wish, you can ad a Backgammon doubling cube, to the game and add a gambling element to it, just like in Backgammon (haven’t tried doing this yet but I’m thinking about it).

I’m also sure that you can apply Backgammon’s  multiplayer Chouettes rule to Dreamblade and it would work fine.

What similarities does Dreamblade share with Magic: The Gathering CCG?

Besides the fact that it’s collectible like Magic: The Gathering, Dreamblade has a system of rules that can be broken based on the abilities of the 16 figures (Warband) you decide to play with (in the case of Magic, the 60 cards you put in your deck). The abilities the figures have, can be used during the spawn phase of a turn, during a moving phase or during a combat phase of a turn. Each individual miniature tells you what power it has and when it can be used.

This is very similar to Magic cards.

Also, each miniature has an Aspect: Valor, Passion, Madness, or Fear.  This is similar to the five elements in Magic cards.  It’s best to  create Warbands that have the same Aspects or create Warbands that have  two different Aspects.  This helps them work together better and it especially helps when spawning your figures. This is similar to the way Magic suggests you limit your deck to two elements.

How is this Dreamblade NOT like Magic: The Gathering CCG?

Besides not being a card game, when figures battle for control over a contested Cell, you roll dice equal to the sum of the power your attacking miniatures have (this varies from miniature to miniature). The dice you use for battling are special 6 sided dice. They have a side with a 1, a 2, a 3, two diamonds (which count as misses), and a “blade” (which activates the powers of certain miniatures which have “Blade abilities”).

Okay, that’s my convoluted way of explaining the game.  Sorry if I’ve confused everyone.  It’s a lot to explain but the game itself is pretty simple.

To play an online flash demo of the game click here.

Why do I like it?

Besides the fact that it’s fun? I’m a sucker for games that have pieces with variable powers. Chess, being the granddaddy of all the games like that. I like it because it’s all about trying to come up with a great group of pieces that will compliment each other.  A group that will help each other out in unexpected ways.  It’s really creative that way.  Part of the fun of this game happens when you’re NOT playing it.  When you’re just trying to come up with a good combo of minis. It’s also not as rigid as Chess.  It’s as if I was playing Chess but I decided to use different pieces instead of the traditional ones and there where hundreds of them to chose from.  There is just that much variety.   I like the element of chance that gives the game a gambling element, even thought lately I can’t roll ANYTHING good on those darn dice. I like it because it’s a game that is a bit abstract and because it’s not a game about just destroying the other player’s army.  It’s all about maneuvering your pieces so they can best get you the points that will win you the game.  Also, no matter who is winning at the time, it’s never a guaranty that they will win the game in the end.  The game tends to go back and forth a lot.  It’s very well balanced. The game is not shallow in anyway and there is so much potential for each game. It makes me feel very creative when I play it. That part is hard to explain.

The creativity I feel playing this game is only rivaled by my other favorite game, Chase which I will write about next week.

Lately, I’ve been looking around for a game that might play similar to Dreamblade, just because I want to play more games like it.  So far I’ve found two that might fit the bill.  One is World of WarCraft Miniatures Game.

This game, seems close put I won’t be sure until I give it a try.

The other game I found seems a lot more like Dreamblade than World of WarCraft Minis. If fact, it seems like Dreamblade lite to me. This game is, surprisingly enough, Pokémon Trading Figure Game.  Yup, you read right POKEMON.  No one can escape those darn Pocket Monsters.

The game sounds simple and fun though.  I actually want to try it out. Plus I’ve always had a soft spot for the design of those annoying monsters and the sculpts for the game look amazing.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Remember the show I asked you all to help out on a few months back?  Well, the final colored version of it finally came back from Korea.  It still needs to go through retakes but it’s basically done.  I got a chance to see it late last week.  It turned out great.  Unfortunately the version of the show I saw didn’t have the clips you guys all contributed to.  They still had to be put in, so I won’t get to see what clips were up in until it airs just like you guys.

When will it air? February 16th.

MY WEEK

This is the way I’ve been feeling this week.  In fact, this is the way I’ve been feeling for the last four months.  I don’t know why but we haven’t been able to save any money for the last four months. If anything, every month we LOSE money.  The thing is, we haven’t been buying ANYTHING.  It’s all going to bills and food.  We don’t eat out, we don’t buy ourselves things, we just pay the bills and we don’t have any money.  Why?  I don’t get it.  Earlier in the year we used to spend money, pay the bills and we STILL had money left over to put away in our savings.  What’s different besides the fact that we aren’t spending money?  You would think that we would have money left over to put away by the end of the month.

I talked to a friend of mine at work that told me he’s having a similar problem.  It’s just really weird.

BOARD GAMES

Last week a wrote about the new Cosmic Encounter, well, if your curious, here is a twenty minute long video from Board games with Scott, showing you what the game is all about:

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