Preview Screening

As you may know, a while back I founded the Salty 'Ham Cartooneestas -- a group of cartoonist-types from the general vicinity of middle-Alabama. We've had a few get-togethers now, and this afternoon we had a sort of mini film festival. Several members brought DVD's and played their animations for the rest of the gang. There was some awesome work, so I was really glad we did this. (You can read more about this latest Salty 'Ham Slam HERE.)


Anyway, my point is, I showed Riverside, as the work-in-progress that it is, and it was well received. It's always great to get encouragement, especially from such a talented bunch. This'll help me keep hunkered down on this project as I soldier on.

Riverside Update

Hey, so . . .

Although the project's not finished, the Cultural Alliance has smiled on me. They awarded me the final installment of the grant money, based on the progress I'd made before the grant period end date of September 30th, 2009. Hooray! [You can go back and read my first post about the Cultural Alliance grant HERE.]

I'm still slogging away at the video, slowly but surely. The key drawings are done for 28 of the 38 total scenes, and in-betweens are finished for 18 of those 28. Also, Andrew has painted a lot of backgrounds and done a bunch of work on the effects that we'll lay over the cartoon, to create the final product.

Here are a few more little teaser frames for you:

Back to Work

Gee whiz, I've just inadvertently taken 10 or 11 weeks off of this project. I had the opportunity to get something published in a comics anthology, and I felt like I couldn't pass that up. So I spent several weeks working on a 4-page comic. You can read it here --> Ptooey and Loogie in: The Mommy of All Hiccups.

I might blame my wife for another chunk of that time off. She made me go with her to Atlanta to buy a bunch of shiny new furniture for my office, which I then I had to take a lot of time assembling. I also had to go on a weeklong vacation to the beach with her. And I had to draw another set of storyboards for one of her live-action TV commercial productions. But I can't be mad at her for that kind of stuff; that's what I signed up for when I got married. And if it weren't for her help facilitating my artistic goals, this whole project might not be happening at all.

Plus I organized a couple meetings of the Salty 'Ham Cartooneestas. This is a group of Alabama cartoonists, and maybe forming this club will help with future cartoons and comics. And I also took about a week cleaning up my aunt's house, spackling and painting it, getting it ready to sell. But most of that hassle is out of the way now (I hope).

So no more excuses! I'm back on Riverside now, and I've GOT to stay focused!

Riverside Update

Here's a layout drawing from Scene 23:


I'm done with the key drawings on the whole Tunnel-of-Love-on-the-River-Styx sequence. Actually, I've finished the keys for 25 out of 38 scenes, and most of those scenes are already in-betweened. All the remaining scenes take place in one room, the bed chamber (or bed cavern, as it were).

So, in a certain way of looking at it, I'm sort of 2/3rds of the way through! Not as far along as I'd like to be at this point, but at least I'm starting to finally feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even if it is just a pinpoint.

Death and the Production

Fans of 13ghosts know that, in an earlier incarnation of the band, they lost a member to suicide. That tragedy weighed heavily on singer-songwriters Brad and Buzz, and it's been reflected in the dark themes of their music ever since.

When I set out to animate the video for Riverside, I took that into account. The song makes subtle references to having lost someone to the grave, so I'm playing that up, turning it into the death of a lover and a journey into hell.

Now, this exploration of grief is made all the more relevant by events in my own life. My mother-in-law, Paula, was stricken with cancer in her lungs and liver. As she got weaker, my wife and I took her in at our house. Since I work here at home, I was the one taking care of her most often. Work on the video slowed almost to a stop during that time, but I couldn't concern myself with that, when we were just hoping to keep her as comfortable as possible in her final days. She stayed with us for about seven weeks, before her peaceful parting. Paula was 81.

Paula Janett Holt Lowry

LOWRY, PAULA JANETT HOLT, of Tarrant, passed away at 7:45 A.M. on April 4th. Paula was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Paul M. Lowry. Paula is survived by her daughter, Sylvia Swann (Chris Garrison); daughter-by-marriage, Linda Foster (Gary); very special nephew and niece, Steve Burford (Cristina) and Sonya Gilbert; sisters, Hazel Burford and Bonnie Copeland; and brothers, Roy and Ray Holt. She retired from Bellsouth after 30 years of service. Paula was a life-long Democrat, who cared deeply for others. She will be greatly missed by neighbors, friends, and family.

Preview Frame

Riverside Update

Out of a total 38 scenes:

- 17 scenes are finished
- 2 more are in the pencil test stage
- another 2 have the key poses completed, and some of the in-betweening done.


So we're pretty much 'bout half-way through!

Farewell to Thee

Tim Rocks came on a while back to do some in-betweening on the cartoon (I introduced him in this post here). It's been great having him; he's helped me knock out a whole bunch of scenes, moving the production forward by a goodly chunk.

But now, due to budgetary constraints, I have to lay him off for a while. Plus, he's caught up to me, so I have to do the key drawings on some more scenes before I can have any more work to give him. Hopefully I can hire him back after a while.


So long, Tim. You will be missed!

Note: Tim is the consummate actor. He knows that by maintaining a completely blank expression, the viewer will supply his or her own emotions to the character.

Also note: I'm sitting at the desk where Tim was sitting last time, because both our backs were bothering us. So we switched desks.

Preview Frames

Here's a rough layout drawing from Scene 6:


And here's the unpainted background from scene 16, with our hero's end pose in that scene included:

Riverside Storyboards

Okay, I'll show you a few more storyboards, and then I'm cutting you off. First, let's recap. Click these to see the storyboards I've already posted:

Scenes 1-4
Scenes 5-8
Scenes 9-10
Scenes 11-13

And today, I present scenes 14 & 15.:


Up to here, it's sort of all been set-up and backstory. Flashbacks and tone poems. Nothing's actually happened yet. But now is the point in the song where the lyrics leave off, and the rousing guitars and trumpets take over. The plot moves quickly from here on out. I don't want to spoil the story, so I'll have to keep the rest of the storyboards a secret. But I'll keep putting out the occasional preview panels and such, so you'll definitely get some clues. Stay tuned!

New Blood

Good news: I've brought on Tim Rocks, a very talented area cartoonist, to help me with the cartoon. Here he is at work in my humble studio:


Hooray! I'm training Tim in the art of in-betweening as we go. I think he'll do quite nicely. He seems to be enjoying it well enough, so I'm hoping he'll stick with me for a while.

Riverside Update & Storyboards

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress.

That is to say, I'm done with animating the commercial! For all intents and purposes, anyway. Maybe I still have a couple of tweaks to make. But the point is, I can now resume work on this video.

Here are a few more Riverside storyboard panels for you to look at. These are for scenes 11, 12, & 13:

Old Animations

Hey - as long as I'm taking a break from Riverside, let me show you some old stuff. We just managed to get this up on the YouTube. (Warning: This stuff is kind of PG.)

Here's some stop-motion puppet animation I did as a student, in 1993:



And you can see more of that on the YouTube channel that my buddy John Walker and I put up: YouTube.com/Miltonicity .. By the way, the music in these Viva La Revolution shorts is by 13ghosts, the band for whom I'm animating the Riverside video!

And here's a short I did for MTV's Cartoon Sushi in 1998:

Riverside Update & Storyboards

6 scenes are finished. 5 more have the key poses completed, and just need in-betweening. And another 3 have the keys nearly done. Out of a total 38 scenes.

New news: Just as I get my grant, I'm taking a break from Riverside. I did get a few good days of work in, but it's time to switch over to another animation project for two or three weeks now. My plan was to eschew paying gigs, while I still have some grant money to work with. However, my wife is producing an animated commercial, and her company is hiring me to work on it! So, since it'll mean money for her and me both, I can't exactly pass it up.

Not to knock it. It'll be a lovely piece. And since the animation will be rather limited, and there's a firm deadline, I should be able to crank it out and get back to work on the Riverside video in relatively short order.

In the meantime, here are a few more storyboard panels for you to look at (from scenes 9 & 10):


I've been doling these out a few frames at a time. I'll try to take a moment to put up a few more panels when I'm in the middle of the commercial. Tally ho!

Cultural Alliance Grant!

Wow, super-great news! Back in the spring, I applied for a Grant for Individual Artists, from the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham. And now, after much wondering and waiting, it turns out . . . I got it! They call it the Jack Drake Award. They'll give me a wonderful little chunk of change, which will help me to concentrate on this film for a while, instead of worrying about bills all the time. This should really speed up production on Riverside. Yay!

The Winners (I'm in the purple shirt)

Here's the official announcement, detailing all 8 grant recipients. Note that there's actually another animated film in the batch besides mine, and, like mine, it will also be starring the devil! I don't know if that says something about Birmingham, or about the devil, or what. Innn-teresting.

Scene 11 Preview Frames

I've been working on Scene 11, where Ambrose flashes back to a time when he was running through "the greenest field." It's going to have an animated background; the trees, fence, and grass moving away from us, while we keep pace with our hero, his tears streaming behind him. Here's what a couple frames from that might look like:

Preview Frames

Before I turn the scenes over to Andrew for scanning, I scan a few of the drawings myself, because I'm bound to need them for reference, later. On account of, you know, the end of one scene needs to hook up to the beginning of the next. Anyway, here are a few drawings and set-ups for you:

Background 1 - The Riverside

Feeding the Swans

The Swans of Satan

Newly Resolved

Riverside Update

Hey, the album is out! 13ghosts' The Strangest Colored Lights is getting good reviews in a bunch of indie music magazines and stuff, so start googling it. I'll bet they get some write-ups in the bigger publications before too long.

Sylvia and I went to the CD release party show on April 12 at Bottletree. The band was awesome! They even had a horn section, and they played Riverside and everything.

I've finished animating 6 scenes, but Andrew's only scanned and assembled 2 of those. He's been busy recording and stuff. However, I think he can catch up to me without much problem, when he gets a mind to.

I finished the key poses on one more scene, and I'm thinking I might start looking for an assistant soon, to help me in-between. I've created an online list / gallery for middle-Alabama area cartoonist types, called Salty 'Ham Cartooneestas. It's got 25 artists on it so far, and about 10 more saying they'll join. So maybe I can find some folks there who want to learn a bit about cartoon animation and give me a hand with the video.

Riverside Update

13ghosts have made public the song that I'm animating the video for! (even though the album doesn't come out 'til March 18th) Go to 13ghosts' myspace page to hear it - Riverside is currently the song that plays automatically, but if it's not the one that starts when you get there, just choose it from the list of songs.

I've finished animation on 4 and a half scenes now, and Andrew has composited the drawings for 2 of the scenes so far. What with the holidays and various money complications, animation has slowed down. Must . . . regain . . . momentum!

13ghosts Poster

On a related note, I just took a little hiatus from working on the video to draw this here poster:I tried to "brand" it, so it sort of looks like the style of the video. Clockwise from top: Brad, Sammy, Trey, Andrew, Jason, and Buzz.

13ghosts Press

The band just got a nice plug for the upcoming album from CMJ - right here.

Character Design

Here's Belial's official design:

And for scale, these are the characters' relative sizes:

Riverside Storyboards

These are the storyboards for Scenes 5 - 8. That's a locket he's pulling from his inside pocket, in the last panel:

Riverside Update

I've finished the animation on Scene 13. That's 2 down, 36 to go. If I continue at this rate, I should be done in June of 2009. That's 15 months later than I want to be done!

However, these first 2 scenes were atypically complicated, so this estimate could be way off. Plus, I've found a couple sources of income that may pay well enough to allow for more time spent on the video, which would mean I'd finish sooner. So maybe it won't take me THAT long.

Riverside Character Design

Here's the official model sheet for Virginia:

Riverside Storyboards

Here are the first four scenes, in storyboard form:

Riverside Update

I've finished animation on Scene 2.

That's one scene, out of 38 total scenes. If we keep going at this rate, we'll be done at the end of May. That's at least 3 months late!

I might be able to speed up, because this first scene was more complicated than the typical scene. Then again, I might slow down drastically, when I have to work on my maps. Maybe providence will bring me a little extra cash, so I can concentrate less on maps and more on the video. And/or maybe I'll find someone to assist me with some inbetweening or something. If either of these things happen, I'll have a better chance of making my deadline. I'll just have to wait and see.

Riverside Character Design

Here's the official Ambrose model sheet:

Riverside Update

Here are the latest news items:

1) I've refined the character designs for the 3 leads - Ambrose, Virginia, and Belial.

2) Storyboarding is finished.

3) Andrew cut together the animatic, which turned out to be well worth the trouble, because the edits definitely needed a few tweaks. I feel great about the cuts now, though. I wish I could show y'all the animatic at this stage, but I can't let you hear the song before the record comes out, and I don't want to give away the whole story.

4) We also finished reading the track, so I can do all the lip syncing and have everything animate in time with the music. This means there's no longer anything stopping me from getting into the real live animation! Hopefully I can start working on it straight away.

Riverside Thumbs

Before you can really storyboard a thing, you often need to scribble down some little thumbnail boards, just to try to get your head around it. Here are some of the thumbs I produced before storyboarding Riverside:
Note: If you look closely, you might see some of the secret lyrics to this secret 13ghosts song, which won't be published until the album comes out (likely March 2, 2008).

Of course these thumbs only take us up to the middle of the video. I don't want to show you the rest, for fear of spoiling the story.