The Fun World of Compositing.

Click the image to see the screenshot in it's full glory.


One problem I'm coming across is web compression tho. The cel emulation technique (duped character layers, gaussian blurred and at a low opacity) and grain addition get just about lost in the mix when I shrink the video and it gets compressed (see the commercial down a couple posts). To my lament, I think I'm going to have to make two versions of each film. One high quality HD, and another one where the grain size and cel effects are pumped up for the smaller version for the web.

Any editors or other filmmakers have some thoughts? Is there a way I could cheat this? Mainly my stuff is going to be shown on the web, but I would like to make super high quality DVD's that would even look nice on the silver screen.

Anyway, back to work. Just gotta knock sound out on this bad boy, then I'm going to start doing voice work for the longest cartoon I've tackled to date! More to come!

Oh and it's my pal Hayden's birthday:

Textured BG.

A special shout out to SHERM COHEN from Cartoon Snap for introducing me to a program called Art Rage. Sherm made a great educational series about how he uses the program that you can learn from for FREE! Check it all out right HERE. This is my first time using the program, so hopefully I'll be able to keep improving my traditional paint emulation with time.



Here's a BG painting for another Lou the Frog film. Getting ready to go through the act of coloring and compositing animation again (ugh). Stay tooned for more previews as always.

Back on track.

Okay, that threw me for a huge loop. Anyway, here's a little animation teaser.



Also, for more comic teasers, check out RYAN KRAMER's blog and
MIKE NASSAR's blog.

Sorry for the delays.

I'm having some compositing issues. For some reason, After Effects is cropping my .swf's when I import them. I know the information is in the .swf because when I view it in a web browser, I can see the stuff outside of the stage (box where you draw). However, when imported into AE, stuff outside the stage gets cropped. I have a pan and some subtle camera movement stuff so that stuff is integral. Anybody know what setting I have wrong, or how to fix this problem? I'll be your best cartoon pal.

Anyway, here's my hack title card:



I'm a sucker for a blue kicker, what can I say? I have Don Lagerberg to thank for that.

Okay, back to cartoons/comics.

NEW ANIMATION... soon.

I wanted to animate a teaser for our website. It's like 97% done. I just need to polish, composite and do some sound. Here's some images.







Dunno when I can promise it, but be on the look out. I'm gonna need to convert the .MOV to an .FLV. Anybody got experience with that? Anybody know of a FLV encoder that I can customize?

cintiq eyes.

married to cintiqs since friday. my eyes hurt and i'm tired as balls so i wanted to take a 15 minute break from drawing to draw something not on a luminous screen. okay, back to work.

Stumble Cycle.