Storyboarding | Luis' Illustrated Blog

My Hiatus is coming, should I accept commissions? Ambrose turns two. Role playing with my kids. Worked on my project.

April 19, 2012 in ART, FAMILY, ROLE PLAYING GAMES, Storyboarding, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

On Monday I was told that I would be going on hiatus at the end of the week. Not good news since we haven’t gotten our tax refund yet and I had to pay property tax earlier this month. We’re not doing well financially. Lucky for me, something came up on the episode I’m currently revising that postponed my hiatus.

The episode I’m revising is short, so the writers have added an extra sequence at the end of the show that’s a bit epic. This sequence may or may not be made BUT in order to find out if it will, I have to storyboard it. This has bought me, at least one more week of work.

In the meantime, I get to think up what I will do during my hiatus to perhaps make a little bit more money. I might open myself up for commissions. I’m not too sure if anyone would be interested though. Especially since I will not except any commissions asking me to draw them SIMPSONS drawings. I would get in trouble if I did that.

If I made myself open to accept commissions, would you be interested in getting a drawing from me?

FAMILY

Ambrose’s birthday was Sunday. He became a 2 year old We were planning on doing something small and intimate. Mostly because it would be too much work to do more and because he’s so young, ANYTHING we did for him at this point would seem very exciting for him.

We had made plans to go to our favorite park and have a picnic, just the six of us. Then we’d come back home and invite the cousins over for cake.

Things didn’t quite turn out the way we thought. So many people asked about Ambrose’s birthday and what we were going to do that it turned out a bit bigger than we thought. We had to cancel going to the park because we didn’t want anyone to come and meet us there. We weren’t prepared for a PARTY at the park. We didn’t want to bring all the food and drinks everything that would be involved to throw a party at a park. So instead we got the house ready for the people to simply come over at the last minute.

Well, Ambrose had a blast. He had so much fun with his cousins. He got a few airplane toys and a cool Batmobile toy. He was happy. Like I said, ANYTHING that was new and out of the ordinary that we did for him would be a big deal in his eyes. It was great, and in the end, Alesha and I were very happy how it all turned out.

ROLE PLAYING GAMES/FAMILY

Last week a wrote about playing a role playing game with my kids using RISUS, making it out to be more of a LARP than simply a tabletop game experience. Well, I tested out the game with them this Saturday with great successes. The kids LOVED it. I had Elizabeth and Dante go on an adventure to get back some childrens’ stolen candy from a wicked witch who lived in a scary cave. They had a blast running around and play acting out their adventure. So much fun in fact they wanted to play again immediately after it was done.

The next day we tried it out again. This time, we took it outside to the playground so we had a wider environment to play in. Unfortunately, Dante didn’t want to play once we got to the playground. He just wanted to play at the playground. Elizabeth was very disappointed. I ended up running an adventure for her alone, but without her brother to play off of, she didn’t find it as enjoyable. I’ll try again some other time in a different place and see if we can get the “magic” back from the first game.

ART

I must admit, it’s getting more and more difficult to finish working on my project. I’m so burned out on it right now. I really want to move on to my next project, which is a webcomic. But I’m committed to seeing this through, because I think the finished product will look good. I just don’t know how to finish this any faster than I’m currently doing. It’s a LOT of work coming up with shots. I mean, that’s why it’s a paying job.

This is what I’ve done in the last two weeks:

It doesn’t help that I’m writing this section as I draw it.

I gotta get this darn thing done. I’m so close to getting to the final stages.
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THE HUNGER GAMES or BATTLE ROYALE 2. Simpsons special project moves forward. Chris Oatley on pitching you story. Thumbnailing more of script page 7.

March 29, 2012 in ART, BLOGS, Storyboarding, VIDEOS, WRITING

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Well, it seems that the “special project” I worked on a few weeks back has gotten the green light, so it’s moving forward. I’m currently doing Character Layout work on it. I’m not sure how this is going to effect my revision work next week. I haven’t done Layout in a while and it’s a LOT of work in a very different way than doing boards. I hope I can get my work done by the end of the week, just in case.

In the meantime, at least it seems this thing I’m working on will get seen at some point.

VIDEO/WRITING/BLOGS

Disney artist Chris Oatley from at the Paper Wings podcast has posted a blog post called: How To Lose A Fan In Ten Seconds: The Common Flaws Of A Comic-Con Pitch. It’s a post on how to best pitch your story ideas and the pitfall you should avoid. It also contains this video:

Go to the article to download the pdf of the tips as well as a more organized written version of the info in the video. Also, leave a comment for them if you found his information useful.

MOVIES

My wife Alesha and I got to do something we don’t often get to do now a days, namely, go to the movies. Alesha REALLY wanted to go see THE HUNGER GAMES, which we both enjoyed quite a bit. I wasn’t as gung ho as she was but I went along because she was really excited about it. Neither one of us had read the books but we both thought the premise was interesting. This isn’t to say that the premise was original, especially since there was a Japanese movies, years ago, called BATTLE ROYALE, with a similar premise. But THE HUNGER GAMES was a lot less twisted.

In my mind, what really set THE HUNGER GAMES apart from BATTLE ROYALE was that it wasn’t ABOUT the actual games. It almost felt as if the games themselves where secondary to the set up. This isn’t to say that the games weren’t interesting. It’s just that without taking all the time the movie did in setting up the characters and the universe before showing the games, I don’t think it would have been as good of a movie. In fact, it’s the lack of set up that makes BATTLE ROYALE much less interesting. Also, BATTLE ROYALE was much more gruesome, while HUNGER GAMES, which also dealt with a similar subject matter, didn’t relish in any gore.

I found myself thinking of stories like 1984 and BRAVE NEW WORLD while watching THE HUNGER GAMES. When watching BATTLE ROYALE, I wondered why I was watching it at all. Because of this, I concluded THE HUNGER GAMES was BATTLE ROYALE done right.

I will note one observation that came to me as I watched HUNGER GAMES. Much has been said about the commentary this story makes on society when it comes to materialism, media, and the devaluing of human life. I mean, part of the story is about how a desensitized culture gets together to watch young people kill each other for entertainment. This works very well in book form, since it’s written words on a page, without the reader partaking in the entertainment in the same way the people in the story are. The thing is, I couldn’t help but notice the irony of sitting in a movie theater and paying to see exactly the same entertainment that the these “bad people” where tuning in to watch. As movie goers, we participate in and condone the entertainment put forth by the story as wrong and bad, when we’re entertained by the games ourselves. Because of this, I think the movie adds a extra element of reflection, that the story in book format didn’t.

What do you think? Am I off on this point?

ART

Don’t know what to say here except that I’m slowly narrowing the gap and getting closer to finishing page 7 on my script. I think next week I’ll be “off script”. What I’ll have to board will be something new that I have no script or treatment to work off of. It will be completely off the cuff.

I’m actually excited about it. For now though, here are my latest thumbnails.

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

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Andrew Staton’s TED talk on story. Just cut two big fight scenes from my cartoon.

March 22, 2012 in ART, Storyboarding, THE SIMPSONS NEWS, VIDEOS, WRITING

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Week two of three revising episode 21’s Act 1 board. I’m so glad I have another week left to finish this board up. The revisions are pretty heavy. I’ve got everything roughed out, it’s just a matter of cleaning everything up for the layout crew to follow.

Meanwhile, in other news, that special project I was working on last week and the week before has gotten approval by some people high up. It’s one step closer to actually being produced. There’s one more step left to get through so it could get green lit. It would be nice if it happens.

ART/WRITING

After a two week break, I finally got back to working on my film. Here’s what I did:

It was good to get back to it again, but I’m SO tired of working on it. I just want this part of the process to be DONE. I took a look at what I still had to thumbnail, and it was a TON. I had two really big fight scenes to do. Too much, far too much. I’ve been questioning myself from the start if all the fighting is really getting me anything. I’m still not sure but I’m sure as heck cutting some it as of right now.

I took a look at what I had written in my Treatment and simply cut two of the fight scenes right out of the film. They will be replaced by one much smaller fight which will, hopefully, have the same key information in it in much less time.

The info I need to convey will be that the demons that give the Sorcerers their power manifests visually when they tax their power, and that Rob’s hammer, knocks the demon out of Sorcerers. That’s what I need to say. As long as that info is there, the rest of the fight can be intense but short.

IF after I’m done with a rough cut of the film, I discover that it needs a longer fight, I’ll see about incorporating some of the original ideas. Otherwise, I will be happy with doing far less work.

Below is the part of my treatment that is now getting cut, in case you were wondering what it would have been like:

Rob is on his knee exhausted. The Female Sorcerer, though exhausted and bruised, sees this as an opportunity. She takes out her last blade. Sprinkles blood on it and throws it. Rob looks up just as she does it. He moves his hammer in the way to block it. The Sorceress splits her hands apart away from each other and the blade splits into two blades. They go around the hammer and stab Rob sinking into his shoulders. As if they were syringes, the blades suck Rob’s blood glowing red. The Sorceress feels the blades grow powerful with the blood and receives new strength from them. The demon that gives her power, manifest around her visibly.

Rob goes to take out the blades but they pull themselves out. The blades attack again and split into four blades when they do. Rob manages to block some but some get through and stab him taking blood. Those that do, multiply as well. Rob runs toward the Sorceress while hitting blades away. He knows, once she’s knocked out, the blades will stop. As he approaches, she throws Blinding Dust from a small cylinder. The dust hits home and blinds Rob. The blades (which are many now) fly up in the air with a gesture from the sorceress and then, with another gestured, rain down on Rob.

Rob reacts as best he could and spins his hammer as fast as he can. The blades bounce of like an umbrella.

As He does this, the Sorceress uses his temporary distraction to try and stab him in the back.

The Raven sees this and squawks out a warning. Rob quickly turns and strikes at the Sorceress. The hammer hits her square on the chest. The manifestation of the demon inside her gets knocked out of her as if IT, not the Sorceress was hit by the blow. It leaves the Sorceress’ body as the Sorceress cries in pain and passes out. The demon seems to evaporate in a silent scream.

A cry from the Other Male Sorcerer, makes Rob turn.The Other Male Sorcerer had just managed to recover, only to see the Sorceress go down.As far as he’s concerned, Rob has gone too far. He knows what Rob has just done to the woman he loves and he will pay and suffer for it. Exhausted as he is, he takes out a vile, opens it, puts some blood in it with an incantation and throws it on the ground. He then pours power out and a mist begins to raise around Rob and himself. The demon that gives him his power physically manifest around him. His fingers grow into talons.

Rob readies himself. He can’t see where his enemy is going to attack from. Suddenly claws flash out of the mist. Rob dodges and blocks the attack. The claws hit a bush behind Rob. It instantly dries up and rots away. The attacks stop. Rob realizes that if the claws hit him, he’s going to die.Seconds later, the attack begins anew, only this time, it seems like the claws are coming from more directions. It’s all Rob can do to stop the attack. Just as suddenly as it began, the attack stops. Rob doesn’t feel so good.The Sorcerer’s voice comes from the mist and needles Rob if he’s feeling okay. Then he informs Rob the mist is rotting his senses and his mind.Looking into the mist, Rob sees the enormous silhouette of the Sorcerer. As if the mist is giving him power. It slips into the mist and he gets attacked by a barrage of claws. It’s all Rob can do not to get touched by them. He manages to just barely survive the attack when it suddenly stops. He can barely stand. He staggers back, hoping to hit a wall. He does. At least with a wall behind him, he knows there won’t be any attacks from behind.The Sorcerer laughs at him and tells him mocking that it won’t help him. He imparts to Rob that not even his Raven can help him out of this.

Rob’s vision is blurring and he’s having trouble thinking. Still, he begins to spin the hammer before him, faster and faster until the mist begins to rustle and move away.

Realizing what’s going on, the Sorcerer decides he needs to finish things off. The Claws come out in all directions at Rob. Rob won’t last without help. He hopes he managed to clear enough mist for his Raven to be able to see him. The Raven flying overhead had been scanning desperately for Rob. He sees the gap he caused and sees the Sorcerer attacking. He swoops down into the mist and attacks The Sorcerer.

Distracted by the bird, the claws stop for a moment. Rob recovers just long enough to hear his bird squawking. He runs in the direction of the sound. The sorcerer realizes he’s coming and attacks but it’s too late. Rob swing the hammer and hits the Sorcerer in the face. The manifestation of the demon that gave the Sorcerer his power reacts as if IT was hit in the face. The demon flies out of the Sorcerer. The Sorcerer screams in pain. The demon evaporates in a silent scream as the Sorcerer falls to the ground. The mist dissipates and goes away. His body suddenly seems to deflate like a balloon and becomes scrawny and weak. The hair covering his face had been knocked out of the way revealing a shriveled ugly face. The other Male Sorcerer sits up, looks at himself, looks at his hands and cries out that he has lost his powers and then begins to sob.

Do you see what I mean about this being a lot of fighting?

VIDEOS/WRITING

Speaking of story and writing, here’s a TED Talks with Pixar writer/director Andrew Staton who also directed the new movie JOHN CARTER, talking about writing by telling us the story of his career in reverse:

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Busy work week. My birthday weekend. Started thumbnailing page 7 of my script.

February 23, 2012 in ALESHA'S THOUGHTS, ANSWERING COMMENTS, ART, Storyboarding, THE SIMPSONS NEWS, VIDEO GAMES, VIDEOS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

The Simpsons party last week really messed me up for the rest of the week. I spent most of last week recovering from lack of sleep. I end up not finishing my assignment last week but I finished it this Tuesday. This put me behind on starting my next assignment. Also, Monday we got the day off. Which is great, except that my schedule doesn’t change to reflect the day off, so this basically means, I’ve lost a day of work.

Fortunately, the other board revisionist I work with got done with his assignment early and helped me finish mine. Overall, it’s been a pretty stressful week.

MY WEEK

Monday was my birthday. I’m 37. It was also President’s Day and I got the day off work. I spent three days celebrating my birthday. Saturday, my parents took the kids out because Alesha had planned to have her brother come over and play some board games with us but he canceled at the last minute. Alesha and I played a few games of Quarriors anyway. We also watched a few movies and generally relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company. It was nice. She made me a cake too, and when my parents brought the kids back, we had some.

On Sunday, my mom had us over to celebrate my birthday over at her house. My cousin’s family came over too and I spent the time relaxing and watching Spider-Man cartoons on Netflix streaming. MY kinda party. We also had stake, that my Compadre, Eduardo, barbequed. It was tasted amazing. Even though he cooked it with an arm in a sling. I was very grateful.

As a present, my mom reserved a copy of the Game of Thrones tv show on DVD for me and my cousin’s family game me a gift certificate to Best Buy. I honestly didn’t expect any presents at all, so it was a pleasant surprise.

Monday, I spent with the kids relaxing. I took them out to play at the playground in the morning and I got caught up on some reading. I also managed to get away for a few hours to go to Best Buy and see what I could get with my certificate. Oddly enough, I’ve conditioned myself to be so conservative with my spending that I didn’t want to spend too much on things that I though I could buy somewhere else cheaper. I left the store with a portable speaker for my iPod so I can listen to it in the car. I found that the devices to plug the iPod to transmit through the car radio where too expensive. I have a bad sound system anyway so it didn’t make a difference where the audio would be coming from. I also left with the DUCKTALES DVD box set. It was a really good deal for 27 episodes of one of my favorite cartoon shows.

When I got home, the kids and I spent the rest of the day watching the shows. They’re SO good and the kids LOVED them.

The best part is I still have plenty of money left over for something else.

I had a good birthday.

VIDEO

This is a fantastic “Filmumentary” of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. It’s the movie BUT it’s also the commentary, film facts, deleted scenes and behind the scenes footage, all at once. It’s fantastic for anyone who is a fan of the film. Check it out:

ART

Started on page 7 of my script. This is the part where Rob has his big dramatic “come back”. To be quite honest, I don’t think I’ve done it justice. I’m not sold on the shots that I’ve come up with. Maybe I’m getting fatigued. I don’t know…well, I can always change it later if I come up with something better.

This is yet another page that has more action than the dialogue on the page shows. Here’s what I got done:

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500th episode party. Sharing my favorite contribution to the show. The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled cut. Catholic Laboratory Podcast

February 16, 2012 in ART, PODCASTS, Storyboarding, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS Part 1

500th episode party happened this Monday. It was a pain because it was on a Monday. That said, it was fun.

The night started early. The studio became deserted before six o’clock came around. I was here at my desk working. I was waiting for my wife to get to the studio so we could drive to the party. SHE was waiting for my parents to show up to take care of the kids. They were suppose to show up around five but didn’t quite manage to get there till it was nearly six.

She told me she was on her way, and I tried to concentrate on doing work. I did some but I mostly spent the time figuring out the best route to take to the party. Looking in google maps to see how traffic was.

I was a bit anxious because the party started at seven but I knew that by eight o’clock, they would probably start playing the show at the party for all to see. Often there’s a speech before it and I like to hear what is said. On top of that, it was the show I storyboard Act 1 and some of Act 2. I didn’t want to miss my section of the show if we got there late. By the time Alesha would arrive, it would be seven or so.

Well, Alesha got lost on the way over. She knows how to get to the studio but the freeway exit that she’s used to taking to get to the studio, has been closed for months and she doesn’t know an alternative route. I made things worse when she called me for directions, and not knowing exactly where she was, I gave her bad ones. She eventually she found her own way to the studio.

Off we went, taking the route I had chosen. It was a twenty minute drive, and luckily, no traffic. Unfortunately for us, the party took place in the Roosevelt Hotel, in Hollywood Blvd. If you know anything about Hollywood, you know that, that area is a pain in the neck to drive around. We almost immediately began complaining that the party was in Hollywood. Traffic was a mess, we weren’t paying attention to the directions on the invite, and we ended up getting lost. We drove up and down and turned around twice before we finally found the place were where suppose to park.

The clock was ticking. It was almost eight and we where going around in circle in the parking structure, looking for parking. Once we found a spot, we hurried, made our way out and crossed the street by the Mann’s Chinese theater to the Roosevelt were we got our badges to get in and some casino chips. We had missed the first five minutes of the show. We got there almost on time. I was happy enough. I got to see most of my Act. My wife didn’t really see it because she was busy taking pictures of me watching the show.

As soon as my Act was over, we went off to find food. We found it and watched the rest of the episode. It turned out great. I really liked it.

Once the episode was over we walked around and said hi to people.

There were two floors to explore. The first floor had casino tables where people could use their chips to play. The point was to get as many chips as possible, to trade them in for some prizes. Kinda like Chuck E Cheese’s but for adults.

The second floor gave a good view of the first floor, had the food, and had other game rooms. There was a small hall with a bowling alley and booths where you can sit and play Jenga. There was also a place called “The Game Room” where they had a pool table (with clear plastic 500th episode Simpsons balls), a Simpsons pinball machine, a roulette table, Skee ball, pretzels and Cotton Candy. It also had a window with a fantastic view of Hollywood blvd. My wife decided she wanted Cotton Candy and we ate it as we sat at the booth by the window looking down at Hollywood. To be quite honest, sitting there with Alesha relaxing as we watched life on Hollywood Blvd go by, made the hassle of getting to the party worth it.

We talked a for a while. My wife said she was getting tired though and thought we should go. We got up and spoke to some people and I searched for a few people I wanted to talk to but it was much to crowed to really find anyone.

It was around nine thirty around the time we left. We had only really been there a little over an hour and a half. It was a Monday after all. My daughter had school, I had work, my parents needed to go home and we had along drive ahead.

We headed for the door, saying hi to people along the way and we caught a glimpse of Kareem Abdul Jabbar playing poker in one of the tables. My wife took a picture.

We got our door prize on our way out, which was a 500th episode sweatshirt, and headed for the crosswalk to get to our parking lot. As we waited, my wife began to laugh. When I asked her why, she told me she heard someone from the street address the party goers behind us,

“You look like important people, do you have 50 cents?”

Heh…Hollywood.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS Part 2

In other news, many of The Simpsons crew where interviewed for a newpaper article conscerning our favorite contribution to the show. I was among those interviewed.

It starts off like this:

“Behold! The Simpsons‘ 500th episode is upon us! The show, titled “At Long Last Leave,” entails the Simpson family being evicted from Springfield. When Marge and Homer try to sneak back into town, they’re shunned by former neighbors and friends. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stars as himself, and Alison Krauss sings a special theme song for the landmark moment.

With 23 seasons in the making, the show is bound to bring out the super-fan in countless bloggers who will list, dissect, and debate their choices for best episode, greatest musical guest, and most hilarious Homer quotations. Here, artists, writers, and crew (past and present) talked about their favorite personal contributions to our beloved Simpsons (the show, the Movie, even the comics).

The Simpsons airs its 500th episode on Sun., Feb. 19, 8 p.m. on Fox…”

To continue reading CLICK HERE

Give the article a read, it’s great.

PODCASTS

I was listening to an episode of The Break with Fr. Roderick and he mentioned a podcast called THE CATHOLIC LABORATORY. It’s a podcast that episode by episode, breaks down over a 1000 years of Catholic contributions to science. This podcast directly counters the very idea that faith and science don’t mix. Especially since many priest are the “fathers” of many of the sciences we use today. It’s amazing. I’ve been looking for something like this for a while and hadn’t even realized it. I highly recommend it.

Check it out: CLICK HERE

or simply listen by clicking below:

VIDEO/PODCAST

My friend Raul, the Man vs. Art, recently put out a Man vs. Art episode talking about Richard Williams and his movie, THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER. It’s a tragic story worth listening to. I highly recommend you listen to it (CLICK HERE).

One of the things the show made me aware of is this new version of the movie. So I’ve posted it here as well. THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER: RECOBBLED CUT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y7vNxGpa7E&feature

ART

Thanks to cutting a major chunk of redundant action, I managed to finish thumbnailing page 6 this week. This leaves me 3 1/2 pages of script to thumbnail. Which is a good feeling.

The big dillemna this week, was trying to figure out how to shoot the enormous monologue Rob has at the end of the page. Not being completely certain, I decided to simply come up with a bunch of random shots. I’ll cut them together in the rough storyboarding stage and see how they play then. There was also the problem of finding the right place to put in the shot where Rob’s Raven wakes up and finds itself next to his hammer. Again, I simply came up with the shots and I’ll edit them in where they fit best:

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

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

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Making story choices as I thumbnail my boards. Death of Superman spoof.

February 9, 2012 in ART, Storyboarding, THE SIMPSONS NEWS, VIDEOS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I missed a day of work Monday because I had to take my car into the shop. The Check Engine light came on Sunday and there was no way of getting the car checked on that day so I had to wait till Monday. The car was in the shop all day so I missed work. I spent the rest of the week, making up the hours.

I hope to get done with Act 1 by the end of the day. Especially since I’ve also been assigned the Couch Gag.

ART

Sometimes I come into problem as I thumbnail my film which I can’t wait to write about.

Okay so as I was sketching out the thumbnail sketches for page 6 I ran into a choice. I could either continue thumbnailing the fight I had written on my treatment OR I could cut the fight in half and end it quicker. This meant that a whole section of the fight I had written was out. I put a lot of effort into figuring out how the fight would play out. It had a lot of exciting things in it. Also, by reducing the fight, would it be anticlimactic? Would I lose information that I needed to set up for later? I’m not sure.

I thought about it. I reread what I wrote. I decided to cut the fight in half.

Here’s what I thumbnailed:

Below is what I had written in my treatment. This is what I thumbnailed on my script above:

Rob grabs his hot dog, opens his mouth and is about to take a bite. Before he can get to it, he ducks under a Winged Ape’s claw as it tries to snatch his hot dog. He quickly climbs over a bench and hides behind a tree putting it in between him and the Ape. He goes for a bite but finds another Ape behind him who tries to smash him with both it’s fists. Rob moves out of the way and almost drops his hot dog. He then tries dodging a tree that was hurled at his hot dog from an Ape but the plate gets hit off of Robs hand and goes flying through the air. Rob runs after it.

The Viper Creature lunges toward it. Just as it’s about to eat it, Rob snatches it from out of the air and to safety. He lands in front of an ape who hits him hard in the stomach, sending him flying. He lands hard on the ground, almost right back where he started, in between the creatures and the Sorcerers. The plate gets knocked out of his hand when he lands, flies through the air, bounces and lands safely a few yards away, hot dog miraculously still on the plate. Rob sits up.

Here’s what was cut:

Everyone stops to look at the plate. They all turn to look at each other for a beat.

Then chaos.

Rob lunges toward the hod dog. The Female sorcerer throws blades at it only to have them disintegrated by colliding with her companion’s Entropy Orbs. He was also attempting to hit the hot dog. Enough of the blades survived to hit the plate, sending it sliding across the floor. She turns angrily at him. He shrugs apologetically.

The silver ape chases after it. The plate comes to a stop under the legs of the black zombie Ape. It reaches for it. Unable to stop it’s momentum the Silver Ape tackles into the other Ape. The hot dog and plate get knocked into a tree. The Other Male Sorcerer continues throwing orbs.

The Viper creature goes for the hot dog.

Rob runs to the tree and climbs it. the Viper lunges at him. Rob grabs the plated.

The Other Male Sorcerer throws an orb and hits the tree. It begins to disintegrated.

Rob rides the tree down and jumps off as the viper strikes. The viper gets a mouth full of tree.

Rob lands on it’s head and begins sliding down. An Aped comes out of no where and tackles him. from behind. The plate gets knocked out of Robs’s Hand. The Ape reaches for it. Rob pokes it’s eyes and kicks it away from himself. The Ape growls in pain as it lands hard on the ground. Rob goes down hard as well. He stumbles and slides to a halt. The hot dog still on it’s plated only a few feet away.

Why did I cut this second part? Well, because by the time it all ends, he’s in the same place he started. On the floor, hurt, a few feet away from the hot dog. It’s a bit redundant. What I like about the second part is that it shows off some of the Sorcerers’ powers and it make the importance of the hot dog a bit greater. But will that matter in the long run?

I figure, I have four more large fight scenes that need to happen before the end of my film. Reducing one, would speed things up. I really won’t know if my choice was right until I do a rough story reel. I suppose, if it’s needed, I can add it back in.

What do you think? Should I have cut it. Do I gain anything from putting it back?

VIDEOS

Superman is my favorite superhero and there’s a good reason why, but I’m not going into that right now.

That said, I’m not above making fun of him either. Especially since so many people have dropped the ball with him over the years. This little movie makes fun of the Death of Superman storyline that happened in the 90s. It was a pretty lame story so it’s easy to make fun of. At the time, it was difficult to find a well written comic. This parody though, really does a good job a showing HOW bad the story was. The video below, made me laugh SO much. The film stars Elden Henson, Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, Morgan Krantz and many more. Check it out (WARNING: THE VIDEO CONTAINS BAD LANGUAGE):

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Storyreel work. Prince of Pomona. Storyboarding action is hard.

January 26, 2012 in ART, GHETTOMATION, Storyboarding, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Monday morning of this week I managed to finish my work on the Halloween show. Turns out, I had all of this week to work on it if I didn’t get it all finished. I wish I would have known that to begin with. It would have helped me relax me while I finished my work.

Turns out that there isn’t any revision work to do. Perhaps the holidays got in the way or the show we were going to revise didn’t have as much to do. In any case, I helping out on a show right now, doing story reel work. My section isn’t too difficult and the storyboard artist that boarded the Act drew very clean so there isn’t too much I have to do with my scenes.

I’m glad for the light work load. It will help me recover for my next show.

GHETTOMATION

It’s been a while since I’ve put a Jim Lujan cartoon on here. Well, Jim has come out with a new cartoon though. It’s called PRINCE OF POMONA, check it out:

ART

Wow, is action complicated. I worked this week on trying to finish up the action in page 5 of my script this week but I’m still not done:

I can tell you what the scribbles above represent. The female Sorceress putting blood on an ape heart and throwing it at Rob as he tries to head for an exit. The heart land in front of Rob and turns into a Silver Winged Apes with razor claws that slashes him and then back hands him away. Just as he jumps over to Rob to finish him off, the Raven shows up and attacks the Ape.

Much easier to write than to draw. I really need to keep track of where everyone is, what the environment looks like and where the best place to put the camera is so that everything is clear. I still have to draw another ape attack and the appearance of the human faced Viper.

I can’t wait to get through with this part. Mostly because, once I start roughing out the shot in the actual Storyboard program, it will feel far more like the film is getting finished than this stage.

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Simpsons Halloween show Cold Open. Short script descriptions that turn out to be a lot of work. Macross Frontier episode 2.

January 19, 2012 in ART, Storyboarding, THE SIMPSONS NEWS, VIDEOS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

A Cold Open is when a TV show starts right away without having an opening credit. The Simpsons Halloween shows tend to start this way. I’d been working on revising the storyboards for this year’s Halloween show’s Cold Open for the last week and a half. I managed to finish working on it Wednesday but, MAN, it took me a long time. The Cold open wasn’t even that long. It’s shorter than all the Acts in the show. What really slowed me down was the notorious, one sentence line in the script that takes tons of scenes to fully realize. You know, short script descriptions like, “Mayhem ensues”, “The town riots,” or “The Indians take the fort.”

The Cold Open I was working on had a few of these. Worst part about it is that I still had Act 2 to revise. I’m currently working on it now. I hope I can finish it by tomorrow.

ART

Speaking of simple descriptions that blow up into tons of shots…guess whose guilty of that as well. Yup, me.

I thought I was doing well with my thumbnailing. I though I would be able to crank out all the thumbnails for a page every lunch hour. As long as I worked on it for a full hour. Since I only have six pages left to thumbnail, I thought it would take me six days to thumbnail the whole film. Turns out, the pages are deceptive. I forgot that my script is only dialogue with no description of the action. For the description of the action, I needed to go to my treatment, where I broke it all down for myself.

Well, I was working on page 5 below and got halfway down the script when I realized, I was running out of margin to scribble my thumbnails on. It was taking a long time for me to just thumbnail half the page. I read what I had written after the line “This proves nothing!” and it seemed like, I was almost done:

Then I realized that from the line, “He’s heading toward that exit! Stop him!” to the “(HISS)” of the Viper, entailed two entire fight sequences. There’s FOUR paragraphs of description in my treatment of what happens within those eight lines of dialogue. Looks like I’m going to be stuck on page 5 for a while. It’s time to take out the Post-Its again.

I will say this, I’m really glad that I made the time to brake down all the action that occurs during the fight before I started drawing. It means that I don’t need to think about WHAT is occurring so I can focus more on HOW to best show it all.

VIDEOS

For those of you who liked the first episode:

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

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Happy New Year. Figure drawing sites. New Year’s celebration. Thumbnailing page 2 of my script.

January 5, 2012 in ART, Storyboarding, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Happy New Year!

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Back to work this week. Went to sleep early Sunday in order to get up early on Monday. Got up at 4am and made my way to work. There was no traffic, which was nice. I was in early. A little after 6am, I think. It was odd that there where no cars but mine. Usually there are other cars, but then, it HAD been a Holiday. Some people had not yet come back from where ever they went. I went to my office and got to work…well…mostly just reading email and looking at some websites. THEN after that I started work. I took a bathroom break and noticed that even though it was 7:30am, the place was still very quite and no one had shown up. Coming out of the bathroom, I met a coworker who asked me where everyone was. I told him I was wondering the same thing.

“Does work begin today?”

We checked our Holiday memo.

Tuesday was our first day back. We were there a day early. Feeling like a dope, I called my wife, telling her I was on my way home, packed up and was out of the office by 8am.

Oh well.

TUESDAY, I worked on the Couch Gag I was assigned before the Holidays. I was dreading coming in to work. The Couch Gag is a fancy one and it had some problems I needed to solve. Problems that I was much too tired to solve on Friday. I just wanted to come into work and mindlessly draw. I suppose if I wanted that job, I should have picked a different position.

Knowing it would do me good to try to solve the problem BEFORE I actually went back to work, I set my mind to work on the problem on Sunday. In about 20 minutes, I had come up with a solution. Suddenly the stress was gone and I didn’t feel so bad about coming back to work. I guess the time off did me some good.

I executed my solution and found that there where problems with my solution, but since I had gotten the ball rolling, I didn’t mind the work of solving the issues. In the end, I was happy with what I came up with. The director took a look at it, made changes, I redid the roughs as he wanted and am in the process of cleaning it all up. It felt good to be doing my job.

FAMILY

Spent New Year’s with my family at my parent’s house. We had a great New Year’s meal of El Salvadorean food (Pupusas, Tamales, Plantains, refried beans…etc.). It was awesome!

We popped some popper with the kids, instead of fireworks. They played and had a great time.

Even us “grown ups” got a board game in. We played a game of Liar’s Dice. My brother won by one die. We had a great time. It’s been a while since I got a game in.

ART

A few posts back I wrote about Steve Silver’s Pose Book app. Well for those of you who don’t have an iPhone, iPad, on Android, but would like something similar to use to draw, here are some links to some sites that might help. Though these sites aren’t exactly like Steve Silver‘s app, they are still handy to use.

PIXELOVELY.COM is a site that allows you to quick sketch right off the site. It allows you to put in how long you want the poses to be and then a photo comes up which you have to draw within that time limit. The site allows to you pick between nude or clothed models, Male or Female as well as animals (but I think all the animals are nude). It’s great for practicing if you can’t get to a figure drawing class, workshop or zoo.

ARTSYPOSES.COM does the same thing as pixelovely and even shares many of the same photos only it’s searchable. This comes in handy when you’re looking for reference for a costume or pose. The animal section doesn’t really have any animals in it yet but I’m sure it will happen eventually. Just as Pixelovely, Artyposes, has a bar on the side where you put in how long you want the poses to be and then a photo comes up which you have to draw within that time limit.

Hope these links come in handy.

ART

Even though I fully intended to work on my thumbnails over the Holidays, I didn’t . I just wanted to relax. I did other creative things but not on this project. Turns out that it was a good thing. On Tuesday, during lunch, when I sat down to thumbnail, I was totally in the zone. I didn’t want to work on my project but, man, once I started, I didn’t want to stop. I was really having fun. Turns out that break did me good.

Here’s what I did, can’t wait to continue:

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Famous Authors on the Simpsons. The future of board games? My wife’s apocalyptic blog tour. Thumbnailing my boards on my script.

December 22, 2011 in ART, BLOGS, BOARD GAMES, Storyboarding, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Oh boy, tough week this week. I was running behind on my board since I started it late last week. On top of that there were some writing changes that the director questioned. The problem was that a line was changed in the dialogue but the scene took place in a different location with slightly different action. The director was wondering if it was necessary to change the location at all since the scene worked fine in the original location. It would speed up the process and make less work for everyone. That was a big question that the director needed to ask the head director and I wasn’t sure if I needed to work on that new section or not. There were also a few things that the assistant director fixed in layout that I wasn’t suppose to fix in the boards. The problem with that is, it throws me off a bit. I’m not sure when I’m done revising the board or not and it’s very confusing. So I just turned in what I did and hoped it was what was needed from me. Later on that day, the director came over an we hashed out what was needed to finish the act. That helped a lot.

I started Act 2 after that, which, lucky for me, had less rewrites. That went a little smoother. Still, it really stressed me out in the previous weekend since I knew that there were a lot of “spinning plates” left to spin when I started work this week. At least, next week, I have a day off.

In other news…

BLOGS/THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I was informed last week about a blog article which mentions: 10 FAMOUS AUTHOR FEATURED ON THE SIMPSONS. It’s a fun list and it’s very interesting.

CLICK HERE to check it out.

BLOGS

December 26-31, my wife, Alesha, will be going on a blog tour with an end of the world theme. Keep an out of for it. I’ll be making a small contribution for it.

CLICK HERE to check out her blog.

BOARD GAMES

Little by little, technology is creeping into board games. As it is, there are already tons of board games that can be played on: iPhone, iPads, and Androids. It was only a matter of time before board game pieces would start being introduced for these devices. Behold, the signs of things to come.

This video shows playing pieces that can be used to play board games on the iPad, using the iPad as the board. It’s called, the iPawn:

This video shows an interesting hybrid board game designed and developed on the Microsoft Surface by a student for a master thesis supervised by MiWi’s colleague. The game uses the Surface, Android phones, and other components. It’s a very odd board game about evolution or something. The video is in German, I believe but just watching what they do with the devices is fascinating.

ART

I was having so much trouble working on my thumbnails for my storyboard. I wasn’t sure why. It’s not like it was the first time I’d ever storyboarded something. It’s very similar to doing comics. So why was I having so much trouble? Turns out, I wasn’t asking myself what I usually do. Once I asked myself that, I realized, I usually sit down, with the hard copy of the script in hand and start doodling all over it as I read the script. I do this and, often, I put in a movie or TV show I’ve already seen, just to have something in the background that may or may not give me ideas for shots. It’s also nice to have something to look at when I want to rest my brain.

Once I realized that’s usually what I did, I printed out a copy of my script and, instead of using Post-Its like I did last week, I just drew on my script.

I worked beautifully. I put on MACROSS: FRONTIER and began drawing on my script. I managed to finish quite a bit of work that way. Okay, so, even though I wasn’t planning on posting my script here on my blog, it seems I going to do it anyway in order to show you the work I got done this week. So here’s the first page of my script. I doubt you’ll understand what my thumbnails are about, but the point is show you my process, so here it is:

Drawing on the margins forces me to draw tiny, which saves time since there’s less pencil mileage. I actually get more done.

Originally, I was planning to do all the audio recording before I started boarding. Since I couldn’t find a good way to record though, I decided to go straight into the boards. Turns out that was a good thing. I’ve found I change a lot of the script around depending on what I need the visuals to be.

MOVIES

Oh, and one more thing, this trailer premiered Tuesday night:

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

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.

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Luis' Illustrated Blog

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My Hiatus is coming, should I accept commissions? Ambrose turns two. Role playing with my kids. Worked on my project.

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THE HUNGER GAMES or BATTLE ROYALE 2. Simpsons special project moves forward. Chris Oatley on pitching you story. Thumbnailing more of script page 7.

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Andrew Staton’s TED talk on story. Just cut two big fight scenes from my cartoon.

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Busy work week. My birthday weekend. Started thumbnailing page 7 of my script.

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500th episode party. Sharing my favorite contribution to the show. The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled cut. Catholic Laboratory Podcast

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Making story choices as I thumbnail my boards. Death of Superman spoof.

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Storyreel work. Prince of Pomona. Storyboarding action is hard.

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Simpsons Halloween show Cold Open. Short script descriptions that turn out to be a lot of work. Macross Frontier episode 2.

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Happy New Year. Figure drawing sites. New Year’s celebration. Thumbnailing page 2 of my script.

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Famous Authors on the Simpsons. The future of board games? My wife’s apocalyptic blog tour. Thumbnailing my boards on my script.

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Hi, Welcome!

Both my books are now on Amazon. Pick up your own print copy today!

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