I’ve been working on the “special project” most of the week. It was killing me. I was handed some of THE most complicated scenes in the project. They were technical nightmares. To make matters worse, I had to make Quicktime movies of the scenes to show to the director, but the scenes where so complicated that I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the program to put all the pieces of the scene together to be able to make movies out of them. On top of that, BECAUSE I couldn’t put all the elements together to test out my scenes, I didn’t even know if the pieces of the scenes where working together as intended. So even after I turned the scenes in, I wasn’t sure how good a job I did. It was nerve racking.
I was stressed and worried most of the week, including the weekend. I haven’t worked so hard on the show since I boarded show 500. I’m a bit wiped out, and a bit brain dead.
BOARD GAMES/FAMILY
My kids like playing board games. I don’t know why…OKAY maybe I do. Anyway, they often ask to play a board game. Sometimes they ask me to play, and I do, but most of the time I don’t. If I don’t, it’s because I’ve got some other thing I need to do at the time they ask.
I enjoy spending time with my kids playing a board game, but I’ve found that I don’t have FUN playing board games with my kids. I enjoy being with them but the playing is often unsatisfying. The reason for this, is because I usually can’t be very competitive playing board games with my kids. I can’t “do my best” in the games we play. I can’t “play to win”. I can only, “play for the sake of playing”. I always have to hold back and help the kids learn and generally, try to help them have fun. This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s really not the reason I like playing board games. I like the challenge, the thinking, the back and forth between everyone at the table. None of which I get when playing with my kids. I mean, they’re little kids, what do you expect?
Well, this weekend Elizabeth (5 years old) and Dante (4 years old) asked me to play a board game with them. Since I had the time, I did. We played Sorry! Sliders.
Here’s the official description of the game:
Slide, COLLIDE and SCORE TO WIN!
Grab your roller pawn and take aim – then skillfully slide it down your track onto the target board! A good slide could score big points, but watch out! An opponent’s pawn may slam your pawn onto a Sorry! space – and out of the game!
This is a new twist on the Sorry! franchise with 4 different ways to play:
Race For Home
Instant Home
Instant Sorry!
Danger Dots
I’ve played this game with them before. The first two times I played the game with them, I read the rules and tried to get the kids to play the game by them. It didn’t work out. The kids where too young. Almost two years younger than they are now. Ever since then, when I play this game with them, we just ignore the rules and slide the pawns around the board for no good reason other than to do it. It’s simply an activity.
Well, THIS time, if the kids wanted to play the game, I wanted to actually play the game by the rules. SO I told them I would read the rules and we would follow them. I read them, and explained the rules to the kids. They understood what I was telling them and we began to play. WE HAD A BLAST. The kids followed the rules and it was great. Not only that but I didn’t hold back (much). I was truly trying to win the game. The game is of such a chaotic nature though, that it could be anyone’s game.
The final tally after playing three games was:
Elizabeth won 2 games
Dante won 1 game
I won, no games.
I lost every game. That was awesome. I lost and I was trying to win. I had so much fun. The kids had so much fun. It was great. We cheered and laughed and just had a good time. And the kids understood the rules and played by them. That was great. I hope this is a taste of things to come. I hope we can find another game in the collection that we can do the same with.
VIDEOS
Wanna watch 100 episodes of THE SIMPSONS all at once?
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Slightly less hectic work week this week. I’m trying to finish up both Act 1 and Act 3 this week. I would have been done with Act 1 last week but Tuesday of this week, we got revisions on the revisions. I had to go back and adjust what I’d finished. Turns out this show is too long and there need to be things cut from it.
Act least the rewrites on Act 3 are lite.
MY WEEK
I’m still trying to recover from two weeks ago. It tends to directly effect my creativity outside the work place. I’ve found I need a longer break from my personal project, just to get the energy back to really WANT to get back to it. I’m working on a small project for my wife right now. I hope to get it done fast. I’m already almost done with it.
I think the break will do me good though.
Whenever work gets me stress out, I tend to alleviate the stress with games. My mind just automatically goes there. So here’s the result…
APPS/BOARD GAMES
I love playing board games but I don’t often get to play them. Mostly because I just don’t have the time or the people around to play them with.
Well, the next best thing is actually playing digital versions of board games on my iPod Touch. I can play them on my own time and I don’t have to have anyone around to play them with. It’s not as fun this way but I take what I can get. Although there are plenty of board game apps now, that allow you to play asynchronously against other people. Which greatly increases the social aspect of playing theses games.
That said, I thought I’d write up a list of my top 10 board game apps. ALL of these game have physical board game counter parts. So if you like the app, you might really like the actual board games.
First though, here’s the honorable mention. Game that didn’t make my top ten but they’re worth trying out anyway:
Dominion is THE game that created it’s own genre, the “deck building game”. This is a really fun game.
The object of the game is to have the most points by the end of the game. You do this by buying card from the center, which eventually become part of your deck. In turn these cards will allow you to do more interesting things in your turn that may make your deck better so you can have more points at the end of the game.
Why didn’t it make the list?
The interface and A.I. isn’t all that good and it can be downright confusing. But it’s free so it might still be worth a download if you don’t mind fighting through the lousy interface. Give it a try and find out why Dominion is such an incredible game.
If you’ve seen the second PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movie, you’ve seen this game played. It’s one of the funnest games to play with friends and family. That said, if you want to try out how it plays and don’t have any friends around, this is a good place to start.
The object of the game is to be the last player left. You do this by rolling dice hidden from everyone else and betting on how many dice of a certain number is rolled by everyone on the table (which are also hidden) without going over. Everyone takes turns raising the bid until someone thinks the bid is too high by calling out “Liar!”. Everyone reveals the dice they rolled. If the dice show the bid was lower or equal what the dice show, the accuser losses a die from his hand, but if the accused has bid OVER the dice on the table, then THEY lose a die.
Why didn’t it make the list?
This game is no where near as fun to play digitally. You really need to play this with real people. But again, just like Dominion, it’s free, so why not.
COST: $0.99
Hive is an abstract game, similar to Chess, only the pieces move in a way that resembles bugs. The game doesn’t have a board. As you place down pieces a board of sorts is created by the way the pieces are touching each other. The object of the game is to surround you’re opponent’s Queen Bee.
It’s a decent version of the board game. I’d rather play the real deal but this is a good alternative. As you improve, you get more difficult modes.
Unfortunately, as of the time of this writing the game is…well…a bit buggy. As in, the code is buggy…well you know what I mean. It needs a few updates.
I tend to like dice games. This one is a fun one. This game is a “dice dueling game”. The object of the game is to capture you’re opponents dice. You pick a character who has certain types of dice that have different sides and affects. You then roll and depending on the outcome, you decide what dice you want to capture from you opponent. It’s a fast game and it has enough decisions to make it much more than a luckfest.
The best part of the app is that it has a pass and play mode. I found it’s best to play the game this way. That said, the A.I. gives you a good challenge so it’s a fun game played this way as well.
Okay now, with Kingsburg, we’re getting into a much heavier game. This one take about 20 to 30 minutes to play. The point of Kingsburg is to be the person with the most points at the end of the game. A game lasts about 16 turns and what you generally do each turn is roll dice in order to get the help of a specific person which will give you a special benefit. The sum of all or some of the dice will tell you which person you can choose to get help from. The “help” can be in attaining resources to build special buildings for your town, increase your military might, peek to see who will raid the town in winter, or buy special effect that will help you manipulate your dice rolls. The buildings give you special abilities or protection from attack, as well as victory points. Since each round of turns is one year with four seasons, at the end of winter, there is an attack. Everyone rolls a die and adds their defenses to it. If it roll over the raider’s attack number, you fend them off. If you don’t, you lose a building. At the end of 4 rounds of 4 seasons, the person who has gotten the most victory points wins.
This is a fun game. It’s a little difficult to get used to because the actual game board is so big, it couldn’t all be fit in the iPhone/iPod Touch screen. This means you have to switch screens a lot to really be able to decide what to do. Once you get past that, it plays great. It even has a pass and play option but no online option.
The only reason I don’t play this more, is because it takes so long to play.
One of THE best board game strategy games out for the iPhone/iPod Touch. The object of the game is to reduce your opponent’s base to zero points. You do this by placing hexagonal tiles on the board with programmed special abilities. Every turn you may put down, 1, 2 or no tiles down and then your opponents may do the same. At some point, either when the whole board has tiles on it and therefore no one can put a tile down, or when someone puts don’t a “combat” tile down, all the tiles are activated and you see how the battle plays out, based on each tile’s special abilities and turn order.
If the bases are still there after combat ends, you continue putting tiles down as before.
The game can be played with up to 4 people and there are 4 different armies to choose from.
You can play asynchronously online or pass and play.
This is a fantastic game and it’s tough to beat the computer in higher difficulty levels.
Wanna play a Civ game that lasts about 10 minutes? This is your game.
The point of the game is to get the most points by the end of the game. You do this by rolling special dice, “Yahtzee style”. In other words, you roll some dice, and you chose what to keep and what to re-roll. The dice faces have food, workers, money, jars and skulls. Workers can be used to build wonders or build up your town so that you may roll more dice each turn. Food allows you to feed your workers so you don’t lose points each turn. Jars allow you to build up resources that you can use to get special civics. The civics give you victory points and provide you with some sort of special ability or benefit, like protection from famine. Coins supplement your resources when buying civics, but if you don’t use them on the turn you roll them, they go away. Skulls are bad, they do bad things when you roll them (like cause famine) and they can’t be rerolled once you roll them.
For a game that shares a mechanism with Yahtzee, this game manages successfully NOT feel like Yahtzee and totally feels like a Civ game. I really like this game, it’s simple but deep. You can play it solo and try to beat your own score, or better yet, you can play pass and play. But it has no online play.
Now we get to one of the “modern classic” board games. Ticket to Ride Pocket is a very good implementation of it’s board game counter part.
Once again, the object of the game is to be the person with the most points at the end of the game. You do this by connecting cities on the board by placing train pieces, but you can only do so if you have the correct number of matching colored cards. At the start of the game, you chose between getting 1 to 3 destination tickets which you must complete by the end of the game. Doing so gives you the points written on the tickets, failing makes you get negative points written on the ticket.
For a more in depth overview of the Ticket to Ride games, I suggest you read, my Ticket to Ride article HERE.
For an article on Ticket to Ride Pocket, CLICK HERE.
Being aware of who is placing things where is key. Deciding when to place your trains and when to pick cards lends a good tension to the game. I’ve found the AI is really tough to beat, which I think is good.
This version of the game supports, solo games, pass and play, and online games. The interface is simple and the tutorial is very good. Expansions are also available to purchase so you can change the game up a bit. I recommend it.
The people that haven’t heard of Settler of Catan is slowly shrinking. Here’s yet another way people can become aware of this fun little game.
The way I see it, Settler is a “Civ lite” game. The object of the game is to be the first to get 12 points. You do this by building your civilization, or colonies, as best you can with the resources you have on hand, and by trading wisely with those civilizations around you.
For a more in depth view of Settler of Catan, I wrote an article comparing it to Monopoly HERE.
I think the best part of playing this version is the Campaign modes with unique winning conditions. Not only that but you can also buy expansions that change the game up. But even if you don’t get those, the game is different every time because of the nature of the games’ variable board.
The iPhone/iPod Touch version allows you to zoom in and out of the board so you can place things the way you want, and the interface is very intuitive. There’s a hot seat mode, but no online mode. Still, it gives a solo player plenty of options and unique ways to play. Great game.
Why is this game my number 3? Because I play it quite a lot. This is ALMOST a brainless game (ha, ha brainless…I is funny). Seriously though, this is a fun quick game. It’s a dice rolling game where the object is to be the person to collect 13 brains or more. Once someone collects 13 brains, the other players try to get more, if they fail the person with 13 brains wins.
On your turn you roll the dice, and you see what you get. If you roll brains, you keep them. If you roll foot steps, it’s neither positive or negative, they don’t do anything. If you roll the explosion, that means you got shotgunned. You can then decide to continue to roll, or stop and keep your score. If you choose to roll again, you have the opportunity to get more brains, BUT at any point during your rolling, if you accumulate three shotguns, you lose your points for this turn. What makes this game just a tad thinky, is the color of the dice. Green dice have only one shotgun while the red ones have the most and the yellow ones are somewhere in between. Depending on how many brains you have, how many shotguns you have and the probability of the dice you need to roll, you make up your mind as to whether you should continue to roll or not.
It’s a fun little diversion of a game that you can play in minutes. It’s also very silly. Oh, and it’s FREE! Well, it is if you plan to play it solo. If you plan to play it pass and play, then you can spend $.99 for that option. I had so much fun playing the game solo that when given the opportunity to play with my brother, I bought the option. I haven’t regretted it. It’s so fun to play this game with others.
For the same reason I like Zombie Dice above, I like this game too. It’s free. It’s fun. I like it. I play it a TON and this version has a great interface. It let’s you play against computer opponents from the start and it’s not just a “beat your best score”, solo game.
This game is considered, by many, the best iPhone/iPod Touch board game port out there. I bought the game mostly from the hype. I played it and didn’t quite understand what all the fuss was about.
This is a “deck building game” like Dominion above, (I think it was the 3rd game of it’s kind on the market) only much more random. The goal of the game is to have the most points by the end of the game. You do this by buying cards (which give you points) from six random cards that are placed into the center row. These cards give you special abilities once they show up in your deck after they get shuffled into it.
You can also “fight” and destroy monsters that show up in the center row. When you do this, they get banished into the discard pile. Many monster, once you destroy them, give you a special one shot ability.
So I played it and thought it was a bit too random. I didn’t really get it. The game was easy to beat and it didn’t seem like it had many decisions. THEN I played it four player with each AI opponent at it’s highest difficulty setting. I couldn’t win the game. The AI consistently beat me. WHY?!
Turns out the game has all kinds of depth I didn’t realize it had. I started playing this game like crazy. Trying to at least win ONE game. Many many close games later, many many strategies later, and I finally did. That doesn’t really mean I “solved” the game. I still lose more games than I win, but at least now I know ONE way to play the game that can give me victory.
Like Poker, it has that random unpredictability to it that makes it a new experience every game but, like Poker, the game pays off best when you play what cards you have in the best way you can.
This game can be played pass and play as well as asynchronously online.
Alright, that’s it for me. I have nine other board game apps in my iPod Touch I didn’t write about. Perhaps I will some other time. This list was my Top Ten though, and I’m sure as time goes by, it will change.
If you download any of these games or own them already, let me know what you think of them. Or better yet, let me know so we can play together. Bye.
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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.
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.
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:
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So last Friday, was a bit tense at work over the whole actors signing to do another season. At least it was for me. Even though I tried not to think about it, I couldn’t help but be a little anxious about whether or not I’d have the job after this current season of the show was over. It was pretty much a typical day at the office and looking around you would have never guessed that somewhere, some people where out there deciding our livelihood without us being able to do anything about it.
On the one hand, we’ve been through it before. On the other hand, this somehow seemed a little more tense than prior years.
Sometimes I forgot that it was happening though, so I was mostly fine. It was only when someone came in and asked about it or talked about it, that I started worrying again. Still, I had had a talk with my current director, the day before, who didn’t really seem to think it was a big deal. This helped set my mind at ease at times.
That said, it was a relief to hear that the show was going to go on for another two seasons. It would be VERY nice, if it went on for three more after that. Here’s hoping…
BOOKS
I know I said I’d post some of my wife’s book this week, but I think I’ll wait till next week for that. Especially since, I think the hard copy of the her book will be available for purchase then. This week, I thought I’d talk about a different project…
VIDEO
My friend and co-worker Erick Tran is branching out. Erick has his finger in a LOT of different pies. This time around, he’s trying to raise money to produce a season of his animated cartoon for the web. He’s put all the info on Kickstarter.
If you’ve never heard of Kickstarter, it’s a website that helps you “crowd fund” projects that you would like to get off the ground. The way it works is, you post up a project with a video of what it’s about. Then people support you by donating however amount of money they would like to donate and in return, they get some kind of benefit you provide for helping out. Each Kickstarter project has a goal it’s trying to meet and a deadline to meet it. If the goal isn’t reached, the donators do not get charged for their donation, and therefore they don’t pay. BUT the product doesn’t raise any money and the donators don’t get any benefits either.
Erick‘s goal is $100,000 by Tuesday November 8th. Depending on your donation, you can actually have an Executive Producer title on this cartoon.
Number 10 is DOCTOR RUTH’S GAME OF GOOD SEX and it all goes downhill from there. Check it out for a good laugh.
ART
I started working on my cartoon again. I mostly got time to start actually writing my “script” but I did get some drawing in. I’ve changed enough of the details of my story so that I now have to start doing some new designs of something things. One of them being, one of my Winged Apes. It’s now going to be a Zombie Winged Ape or something that looks much more like a “dead” looking Ape. Here are my first attempts at the design of the face:
I don’t think this is what I want but I think I now know what I DO want.
I’ll have more drawings on my project ready for next week.
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Interesting week this week. I was taken off of Storyboarding because there was nothing to revise. I was on Show 17 last week but there doesn’t seem to be a Show 18 or 19. Show 20 has just been storyboarded and now it’s going into the story reel process. Since that was the job I had before I started on storyboards, I was put on the story reel crew until it’s done AND THEN I’ll be working on the revisions for the show after the rewrites are done. I have a feeling this is going to happen with both show 18 and 19 too, so I better get used to doing story reel work again.
Meanwhile, today (Thursday), I stayed home to take care of baby Ambrose who is sick.
FAMILY
Tio Carlos passed away in October of 2010. His death has me paralyzed. I don’t know how to deal with it. I don’t know why. It’s like I don’t want to believe it and I’ve been hiding from the reality of it. This video made by his daughter Lily, forces me to confront it. It hurts so much:
Love you Tio Carlos. Please pray for him and his family, especially my Godmother (his widow).
ROLE PLAYING GAMES/BOARD GAMES
Alesha and I have gotten into a gaming group that occasionally gets together to play Dungeons and Dragons 4E. I’ve never been in a steady role playing gaming group before. My friends and I used to role play once in a while but there was nothing steady or consistent about our games. We’re having fun with this new group.
Well, it seems our kids have gotten curious about it all and wanted to do it too. Especially my daughter. Keep in mind she’s five years old. My oldest son will be four this Month and he wants to play because his big sister is playing. I own a LOT of role playing games but what Elizabeth gravitated to was a the game DESCENT: JOURNEY IN THE DARK by Fantasy Flight games. It’s a dungeon “hack and slash” board games that’s meant to put four player (who play heroes) AGAINST the “Overlord” (the person who runs the dungeon). It’s a very visual game and comes with a bunch of miniatures and tiles that allow you to create lots of different environments.
Well, the game, as written, is a bit over their heads BUT, I thought there would be no reason why I couldn’t use the simple battle rules as a basis for a fun and simple role playing/story game for them. I would just take the traditional role of playing the “Storyteller”or “Game master” and take them on an adventure. This I did, and they LOVED it.
Their first adventure was a generic “find the treasure in the dungeon” game. They fought some Beastmen and Giant Spiders, defeated them and where rewarded with a treasure chest full of…candy. Yes, candy. When I told them there was money and jewels in the chest I didn’t get a reaction but when I said candy and treats where in there too, suddenly their eyes lit up and they got excited. From that point on, I knew what I was going to do when we played again.
Their next big adventure was to help an old lady get a cake back from an ogre. They got very serious about that. It was obvious that, to them, it was bad to steal someones yummy cake. It was very funny to see how important it was to them.
I enjoyed running these games for them. The mechanics that DESCENT uses for resolving conflict is very visual and simple. The kids caught on to them real quick. They love the tension of the dice rolling.
Speaking of tension, they call the game “the scary game” because they have to fight monsters and because it gets very tense for them. Also, when they first started playing, I would build up the atmosphere by describing the look, sounds, and smells of the place. This got them a little scared. When they got up to a door for the first time and I told them they heard growling on the other side, my son’s reaction to this information was to run out of the dungeon. I convinced him to stay and open the door, but then they discovered Beastmen on the other side of the door and my son decided to run out of the dungeon again. My daughter, on the other hand, stood her ground and fought them off because, according to her, she was “a Superhero”.
One of the more entertaining parts of the game was when confronting Giant Spiders, my son ran out of the dungeon AGAIN leaving Elizabeth to fight all the monsters alone. When he say she was fighting alone, he stopped his character of the exit to the dungeon and said,
“No, I won’t run away. I’m going to help,” turned his miniature around and went to help out his sister. I laughed on the inside because I had just seen my son accidentally take his character through a dramatic story arch.
Another time, in the cake adventure I mentioned above, when they finally found the room where the Ogre was, the Ogre told the kids he wouldn’t give them the cake he’d stolen. Elizabeth then went off on a huge heroic speech about how they would get it back because it wasn’t his cake. It was really funny how long and serious it was.
Now the kids are always asking me to play and I don’t always have the time nor the energy, but I’m glad they do. I just have to make sure to play the game with them, more often than I don’t. It’s just difficult because my daughter wants to do it all the time. I’ve created a geek.
WRITING
(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.)
Below is an excerpt of what I wrote the last two weeks, as set up for what I’m writing about THIS week, in case you’re interested in following along with more depth:
Right now, the theory of story that I like to use to flesh out my plot is the DRAMATICA theory. Unfortunately the DRAMATICA theory is so complicated and convoluted, that I can’t really sum it up in a nut shell. If you want to get an idea of what DRAMATICA is all about, click the link below:
As I did the last two weeks, I’ll put up the DRAMATICA Table of Story Elements in order for you to understand what I’m talking about and so you can follow along. For a clearer pdf version of the chart (download chart now):
Alright, so I’ve hit a very confusing section of the DRAMATICA system. I’m STILL not sure how to break up Act from Sequences in the chart. Here’s what DRAMATICA says about it on pages 137-139:
Scenes
By the time we get down to scene resolution, there are so many cross-purposes at work that we need to limit our appreciation of what is going on in order to see anything in the clutter. First, however, let’s touch on some of the forces that tend to obscure the real function of scenes, then strip them away to reveal the dynamic mechanism beneath.
Resolution and Sequence
Earlier we spoke of plot in terms of Types. We also speak of plot here in terms of four resolutions: Acts, Sequences, Scenes, and Events. Both of these perspectives are valid appreciations depending on the purpose at hand. Because all units in Dramatica are related holographically, no single point of view can completely describe the model. That is why we select the most appropriate view to the purpose at hand. Even though looking at plot in terms of Types is useful, it is true that “plot-like” twists and turns are going on at the scene resolution as well. However, these dynamics are not truly part of the scene, but merely in the scene. An Act, Sequence, Scene, or Event is really a temporal container — a box made out of time that holds dynamics within its bounds. Much like filters or gratings with different-sized holes, the resolutions “sift” the dynamics trapping large movements at the highest levels and allowing smaller nuances to fall all the way down to the Elements.
What’s in a Scene?
At the scene resolution, the effects of Types and Variations can be felt like the tidal pull of some distant moon. But scenes are not the resolution at which to control those forces. Scenes are containers that hold Elements — anything larger cannot get crammed in without breaking. So the richness we feel in scenes is not solely due to what the scene itself contains, but also to the overall impact of what is happening at several larger scales.
What then does a scene contain? Scenes describe the change in dynamics between Elements as the story progresses over time. And since Elements are the building blocks of characters, scenes describe the changing relationships between characters.
Characters and Scenes
Characters are made up of Motivations, Methodologies, Means of Evaluation, and Purposes. These terms also describe the four major sets of Elements from which the characters are built. The driving force of a character in a given scene can be determined, such as whether their argument is over someone’s motivations or just the method they are employing.
6 Goes Into 24 Like Theme Goes Into Scenes
We have spoken of the three and four act appreciations of story. It was illustrated how both divisions are valid to specific tasks. When dealing with scenes, we find that no scenes ever hang between two acts, half in one and half in the other, regardless of a three or four act appreciation. This is because there are exactly 24 scenes created at the Element level: six per act in a four act appreciation, eight per act in a three act appreciation. In both cases, the scenes divide evenly into the acts, contributing to the “feel” of each act break being a major turning point in the progress of the story.
Sequences, on the other hand, exist as a six part partition of the story. Therefore, they divide evenly into a three act appreciation but not into a four. Since the four act view is objective, sequences — as they define Thematic movements — are truly an experiential phenomenon in the subjective appreciation and lose much of their power objectively.
What has me stumped is that the whole:
6 Goes Into 24 Like Theme Goes Into Scenes
I just don’t know quite what it means when it comes to the chart. I mean, all the quads under Truth, Evidence, Suspicion, and Falsehood when compared to each other DO break down into 24 comparisons, like this:
Truth
Knowledge/Thought
Knowledge/Actuality
Knowledge/Perception
Thought/Actuality
Thought/ Perception
Actuality/Perception
Falsehood
Equity/Inequity
Equity/Projection
Equity/ Speculation
Inequity/Projection
Inequity/Speculation
Speculation/Projection
Evidence
Ability/Desire
Ability/Aware
Ability/Self-aware
Desire/Aware
Desire/Self-aware
Aware/Self-aware
Suspicion
Order/Chaos
Order/Inertia
Order/Change
Chaos/Inertia
Chaos/Change
Inertia/Change
Then DRAMATICA says:
This is because there are exactly 24 scenes created at the Element level: six per act in a four act appreciation, eight per act in a three act appreciation.
So am I suppose to assign 8 of these comparisons to an Act? If so, how? By using the Sequence breakdown as a guide? It’s not clear. Even if I DID do that though, I still don’t know exactly what the comparisons actually mean.
Here’s the closest answer to the question I’ve found, which is in pages 68 and 69:
What’s In a Pair?
Finally, we can use our Chess Set of Elements to learn something more about our character’s relationships. In each quad of Elements, we find not only Dynamic (diagonal) Pairs, but horizontal and vertical pairs as well. Horizontal Elements are called Companion Pairs, and vertical Elements are Dependent Pairs. Each kind of pair describes a different kind of relationship between the Elements, and therefore between the characters that represent them.In addition to the three types of pairs, we can look at each Element as a separate component and compare it to the overall nature of the quad itself. This Component approach describes the difference between any given Element and the family of Elements in which it resides (quad). Therefore, the degree of individuality the characters represent within the “group” can be explored.
Dynamic Pairs describe Elements with the greatest opposition to one another. Whenever two opposing forces come together they will create either a positive or negative relationship. They can form a synthesis and create something greater than the sum of the parts or they can simply tear away at each other until nothing is left (destructive). Within a quad, one of the Dynamic Pairs will indicate a positive relationship, the other a negative one. Which is which depends upon other story dynamics.Companion Pairs contain the Elements that are most compatible. However, just being compatible does not preclude a negative relationship. In a positive Companion Pair, characters will proceed along their own paths, side by side. What one does not need they will offer to the other (positive impact). In a negative Companion Pair, one character may use up what the other needs. They are not against each other as in a negative Dynamic Pair, but still manage to interfere with each other’s efforts (negative impact).Dependent Pairs are most complementary. In a positive sense, each character provides strengths to compensate for the other’s weaknesses (cooperation). Together they make a powerful team. In its negative incarnation, the Dependent Pair Relationship has each character requiring the other in order to proceed (codependency).Components describe the nature of the Elements in relationship to the overall quad. On the one hand, the individual characters in a quad can be a group that works together (interdependency). The group is seen to be greater than the individual characters that comprise it, at the risk of overwhelming the individuality of its members. This is contrasted by identifying the disparate nature of each character in the quad (independency). Seen this way, the characters are noted for their distinguishing characteristics at the risk of losing sight of shared interests.Dynamic Relationships are the most familiar to writers, simply because they generate the most obvious kind of conflict. Companion and Dependent Pairs are used all the time without fanfare, as there has previously been no terminology to describe them. Components are useful to writers because they allow characters in groups to be evaluated in and out of context.By constructing characters with thought and foresight, an author can use the position of Elements in the Chess Set to forge relationships that are Dynamic in one dimension while being Companion and Dependent in others. Characters created with Dramatica can represent both the structural Elements of the Story Mind’s problem solving techniques and the dynamic interchange between those techniques.
Summary
Altogether we have outlined four dimensions of characteristics, each fostering an aspect of the eight Archetypes. Each of the Archetypes can be sub-divided into internal and external Elements resulting in a total of sixteen Elements in each dimension — a total of sixty-four characteristics from all four dimensions with which to build characters. Complex character can be created by stepping out of the archetypal patterns and relationships.
The thing is, what’s written above is specifically talking about Character Elements, which are EXACTLY the same Elements that Scenes are created from, BUT in the Character Element level, your suppose to use ALL the Elements in a “Class”. This means you actually end up with 64 Elements, which, again, is very confusing.
I’m trying to put two and two together here. My clue is from the part that reads:
Characters and Scenes
Characters are made up of Motivations, Methodologies, Means of Evaluation, and Purposes. These terms also describe the four major sets of Elements from which the characters are built. The driving force of a character in a given scene can be determined, such as whether their argument is over someone’s motivations or just the method they are employing.
Pages 64 – 67 explain about Motivations, Methodologies, Means of Evaluation, and Purposes but I won’t post those pages here. However, since I need to move forward and from what I have gathered from Robert Mckee’s book on writing, Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting, where he states:
In each scene a character pursues a desire related to his immediate time and place. But this Scene-Objective must be an aspect of his Super-Objective or Spine, the story-long quest that spans from Inciting Incident to Story Climax.
and:
A scene causes changes in a minor, albeit significant way. A Sequence Climax is a scene that causes a moderate reversal — change with more impact than a scene. An Act Climax is a scene that causes a major reversal — change with greater impact than Sequence Climax. Accordingly, we never write a scene that’s merely a flat, static display of exposition; rather we strive for this ideal: to create a story design in which every scene is a minor, moderate, or major Turning Point.
From these thoughts I have come to a decision as to what I’m going to do.
I THINK that Scene, tend to be MOSTLY about character SO, I’ll use the Elements as a guide to describe the conflicts between characters in my story and how they play out. Especially since the Elements, is what DRAMATICA characters are made up of. ALSO, DRAMATICA uses the Elements quads to point out the Problem, the Solution, the Focus (Symptom), and the Direction (Treatment) of the story. In MY story it breaks down like this:
The Problem in my story is:
(Wrong) Perception
Solution to this problem is:
Actuality
The Focus or rather the Symptom this problem causes is:
(Erroneous) Thought
The Direction or rather the Treatment used to fix the problem is:
Knowledge.
DRAMATICA says (in page 192):
Change Characters and the Crucial Element
In the case of a Change Main Character, he will either contain the Problem or Solution Element. In the case of a Steadfast Main Character, he will either contain the Focus or the Direction Element.
So since my character is a Steadfast Main Character he will contain the Focus or Direction. I chose Direction. This says to me that however I breakdown the Scenes, the Element “Knowledge” must be in the Major Turning Point Scene. The Scene where the story climaxes.
Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking. Using the example about of the Major Turning Point scene above, I’m thinking that the where ever in my story it occurs, the Element comparison will be:
Knowledge/Actuality
Those two Elements are found in the Truth Variation quad. Looking back to my Sequence break down from last week:
Act 1
Falsehood/ Suspicion
Truth/ Suspicion
Act 2
Truth/Evidence
Falsehood/Evidence
Act 3
Truth/Falsehood
Suspicion/Evidence
I see that a Truth Variation can be found in Act 3, so I will assign Knowledge/Actuality to Act 3, leaving me with seven more Element comparisons left to assign to that Act. I will do that to every Variation until I have the 24 Scenes. I’m thinking, without an actual description of what goes on in each Scene, this will be a difficult and abstract process SO, I think I’ll begin to actually write out a quick description of each scene and see what Element comparison best fit it, or vice versa.
What do you think of my solution? I don’t think I’m doing it right but it’s the best solution I could come up with. Do you have any suggestions? I’d be happy to hear it. Please leave a comment in the comments section if you do, that way you won’t be limited by any Social Network limitations, like the ones Twitter and Facebook have.
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Well, I managed to finish my Act 1 board revisions this Tuesday. Usually I’m done by the Friday of the week before. It all those little things really add up. I was then assigned Act 3, which thankfully isn’t as bad. It’s also shorter. This one I HAVE to get done by Friday.
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.)
Okay, so here’s the deal with these drawings. I’m not convinced that these are the best drawings I could do. I kind of want to keep noodling around with them. On the other hand, I want to get this done, since it’s just a test, so I have to say, “good enough” and keep going.
I started coloring the drawings as you can see:
I started drawing shadows on the drawings above but I didn’t get to the other ones yet. As you can see, I just colored in the “flat” colors on everything. I’m planning to find a fast way to make these drawings look more “rendered” without it taking forever to do. My plan is to add the shadow and lighter tones using a hard edge like I’ve done above. I’ve found, trying to find the right “planes” of the figure to darken, very tricky. Once I’m done, I’ll use the texture brushes to put in the firm, soft and lost edges. I hope that speeds things up. This is really going to show me how long it’s going to take to do this.
I put in the correct colored sky in the drawing below, just to see how it will look.
I decided to put the drawing below here so you can see the final pull out camera move.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how long it’s taking me to do this. I’m trying to figure out a faster way to do this so that I can work on it when I’m not on the computer. It would speed things up, so much more. I may have to come up with a system where I draw some of my roughs on paper, scan them in and clean them up on the computer. That way, I can also work on this when I have some free time at home instead of just working on this during lunch time at work. Even so, I think in the end, the coloring process might be the longest and most laborious part of this project. I hope it doesn’t bore me. This is suppose to be fun.
BOARD GAMES
As anyone reading my blog knows, I like board games. Well, I was surprised one day to be contacted by a priest who happens to also be game designer with at least one published board game under his belt. Fr. Ben Dallas has just recently contacted me to let me know that his second publish game has just recently been released. It’s a party game that goes by the name WHIRLED PEAS.
Since I haven’t played it myself I’m not sure exactly how it plays just yet. I do get the impression that it’s plays like a combination of CRANIUM and TIME’S UP!. It comes with a spinner called THE PEA-KING spinner. It looks like this:
The official description, on Amazon, for the game goes something like this:
Fr. Ben told me that half the profits of the game goes to charity while the other half goes to paying off their publishing debt. If you wish to purchase a copy, you can buy it at Amazon. Not only will you have fun playing this game, but it’s for a good cause.
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The act I’ve been given for this week has some HEAVY rewrites. I told my director I’d try to be done by the end of the week, but it’s pretty bad. I’m not exactly sure I’ll be able to make it. We’ll see how it goes.
Wednesday night, I showed my director my rough fixes for my act. Usually it takes me about a day or two to rough them out. It almost took me three for this one. I spent about a three and a half hours going over the act with my director. It was a very creative and exhausting experience. By the time it was over, it seemed to me that I had more work to do than I did before we started. And that was AFTER I had worked three days on the roughs already. I think the act is better off for it. I just wish I had more time.
…and now for something totally different…
Further down in this post I’ll be writing about GATCHAMAN. As I looked for pictures to use, I stumbled on these fantastic Simpsonized versions of the characters, courtesy of the FELIX IP blog. Go over to his site and give this artist/art director some love.
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.)
Since I just wasn’t happy with what Rob’s design looked like (still), I tried doodling a version on the first piece of paper I had on hand. It so happened to be the last page of revision notes I had for the show I was working on a week ago. The notes are cryptic if read out of the context of the episode.
I liked the doodles and I used them as a model sheet:
I changed the model of Rob’s face from last week. I also added the raven on Rob’s shoulder:
I then began to clean up the drawings, and as usual, have lost something of the “life” from the roughs.
If you notice, the background is blue in some of the drawings. Why? Because that will be the color of the sky BEFORE the bad guys show up.
I’m going to give myself permission to mess around with these drawings a bit more. Especially the raven’s wings in the first shot. Still, they are just about ready to be colored.
Before I even began to do a clean up line, I experimented with timing out the scene, just to make sure it would work. I even thought of roughing out some “anticipation poses” and an “overshoot” pose but I’m not sure it’s what I want. It may plays just as clear without them. So far, it looks like it’s going to look good. Once I’m done cleaning up the last pose, I’ll begin coloring. Doing that will give me a guide as to how long it will REALLY take to finish my “Illustrated Film”. At that point I’ll make the decision whether or not to render out all the drawings or not.
BOARD GAMES/VIDEO GAMES
If you’ve read my blog for while, you know I love playing board games. The problem is that I don’t have anyone around to play them with. Once in a blue moon I might get a game in, but it doesn’t happen very often and my games just sit there collecting dust. Occasionally I play with my kids but they’re 4 and 2 1/2 years old. It’s not quite the same thing.
Sometimes, the only alternative is to play a video game version of a board game. The thing is, most of my favorite games don’t HAVE video game versions…or so I thought. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon this “Geeklist” at Boardgame Geek:
Though DOMINION is not exactly one of my favorite games, it IS a game that I own that I haven’t gotten to the table almost at all and I’ve been dying to play it. This gives me a happy alternative. To download this game, CLICK HERE.
Then there’s a the homemade unofficial MAGIC: THE GATHERING video game. MAGIC is one of my favorite games (CLICK HERE for my review), so it’s nice to be able to play it whenever I’d like. This one turned out to be a pretty darn good homemade game.
And last but not least. The game that got me the most excited. One of my favorite games, (if not my all time favorite game) DREAMBLADE! (CLICK HERE for my review) So AWESOME! Now I can play DREAMBLADE whenever I want. Hurray!
Of course, none of these video games actually replaces playing the game against a human being around a table, but it at least makes you feel like you’re getting a little bit of board gaming done.
I recommend you look at the list to see if you can find a video game version of YOUR favorite board game.
WEBSITES/MOVIES
I forgot who linked to this on Twitter. My guess is that it was ShermCohen. In any case, I thought these storyboard where inspiring. I really want my “Illustrated film” to have this much energy and clarity. I thought I’d share the link below:
Last Friday I went on fellow CARTOONISTATed Seko’s IDIOT ENGINE podcast. It was a lot of fun and if you haven’t heard Ted‘s podcast, you’re really missing out.
Here’s the link to the podcast, if you’re interested:
It was Halloween earlier this week and, on Friday, the studio celebrated with it’s annual Halloween party. Lunch was provided and cash prizes where rewarded to the best costumes of the day as well as the best pumpkins. This is usually done with judges and a runway style display of the costumes. While the pumpkins get a table on the side for all to see. We had fun.
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.)
Do to circumstances beyond my control, I wasn’t able to do very much this week on my project. I did manage to fix the expression on the first pose so it’s not so crazed:
I think it looks better. I also tried fixing the second pose and I think it’s an improvement from the last one. Here’s the rough:
Notice how I tend to just search around for the drawing. I’m not the kind of artist that can just project the drawing from my head and just draw it on the paper.
Here’s the more cleaned up version:
I’m still not sure if it’s right though. I wasn’t happy with the hand and hot dog so I redrew it in red, but it still wasn’t right, so I moved it (it was on another layer) to a better position. Once I get it where it works best, I’ll combine the drawings together. Something I was making sure I did in the drawing above was to make the irises in the eyes look like they’re actually on the ball of the eyeballs. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just putting circles there but the they worked with the correct natural perceptive of the eyeball. It’s harder to do than you’d think.
Something I didn’t show was, when I looked at both drawings as a whole, I thought that the heads seemed too big so I shrank the heads a bit. I’m trying to make sure that these two drawings match the proportions of the last colored drawing. I’m still working out the design as I go. I just can’t seem to make him look just the way I want. Perhaps because I don’t have a clear picture in my head as to what it’s supposed to look like. My hope is to solve these issues as I go rather than make a model sheet. I might still need to make one. What I mostly think about when I draw these is, structure, silhouette, rhythm, and whether it all looks natural.
What bothers me most, is that it’s taking me a long time to draw each pose. If it’s taking me this long to draw FOUR poses, how long will it take to draw a multiple scenes with multiple pose?
FAMILY
Wednesday, I had to pick up the kids from daycare three hours after I dropped them off. Baby Ambrose wasn’t feeling too good. Not only that but Alesha had stayed home in order to take Elizabeth to the dentist, only to discover that the car’s breaks were messed up. She couldn’t drive the car and pick up the kids nor could she take Elizabeth for her appointment. I picked up the kids and drove them home, then I took the car to a mechanic down the street from our house in order to get the brakes fixed.
I was gone for three hours, which, I now have to make up. It was a long annoying day.
FAMILY
For Halloween this year, we did pretty much the same thing we did last year. The kids didn’t mind, they where looking forward to doing it all again. We went to local shopping area near the Claremont Colleges and went trick or treating with all the families there.
Elizabeth originally wanted to go as a kitty cat but she changed her mind when we went to the store and she saw a pretty mask there. We got it for her as well as a pretty dress and wings so she went as a pixie princess. Dante went as Superman again. He had grown into his costume this year, and besides, he’s really into Superman right now (we’ve been watching the Fleischer Superman cartoons lately). We didn’t “technically” dress the baby up, but we put him in a warm outfit he had that happened to make him look like a frog.
My parents, my brother and sister-in-law and their little boy Paolo, met up with us there and we all had a good time, talking and helping the kids trick or treat. When it was all over, we went to my parent’s house and spent a nice time there relaxing and talking while the kids played. It was a good day.
I own a copy of the original PS1 version of the game, a computer version of the game and a Gameboy version of the game. It’s one of my favorite games ever. Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered some one had made a “deck-building” card inspired by it.
What’s a “deck-building” card game?
A “deck-building” card game is a new genre of card game, which was created when the card game DOMINION got published in August of 2009.
A “deck-building” card game is a game where players start with a small personal deck of just seven to ten cards (depending on the game) from which you get a hand of cards. You then compete with other player to gather the best collection of cards into your deck from a community pool of cards located between the players (which usually has stacks of advantage giving cards). You do this using the cards from your hand, which you’ve drawn from you personal deck. The cards you’ve obtained from the community pool once in your deck, increases your chances of getting cards that will help gather even better cards to achieve whatever victory condition the game has put forth.
But Puzzle Strike HAS no cards.
Yeah but the mechanics of the game play is exactly the same as a “deck-building” card game. The chips in the game have the same function as cards except you take the chips out of a bag instead of shuffling the cards into a deck and drawing the top cards.
Here’s a video of what you get in the box:
Here’s a review of the Deluxe edition of the game plus an explanation of the how the game plays:
I personally think this game looks like a lot of fun. It’s too expensive though. Luckily they have a $10.00 version of the game you can download at the official site. You have to print out and cut out the cards yourself but it still plays like the chip version. I’ve printed out games before so I don’t think I’d mind doing it again. When I do, I’ll let you know. What do you think of this game? Does it sound interesting?
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Last Sunday was the season premiere of the show’s 22nd season. It took place in Universal Studios. After the park closed, they closed off a small section of the park (the part with The Simpsons Ride on it) and we had our party there. There was a giant screen which played the show live when it aired and everyone gathered around to watch it. This particular show stared the actors from the show FLIGHT OF THE CONCORDS. Actor Bret McKenzie was there but I didn’t see him. I just saw a photo a friend of mine took with him.
Matt Groening and (show runner) Al Jean where there. Oddly enough, so was Sergio Aragones.
I went with my wife and daughter. It was the first time I’ve ever taken my daughter to a work related party. She had never seen an episode of THE SIMPSONS before that night. We went on the ride, which she just barely managed to be tall enough for and she had a blast. She got a picture taken with Marge Simpson, ate, and imitated Maggie Simpson all night long with a toy pacifier we got when we arrived.
I usually don’t have a ton of fun at these parties. I generally walk around, enjoy the atmosphere and go home but I have to say, I had fun this time. It was because my daughter was having such a good time that I had such a good time.
My sons Dante and baby Ambrose stayed with my parents. The baby stayed because he was too young, and Dante stayed with them because he wasn’t feeling very good. He had fun over at my parent’s house, so he didn’t really feel like he missed out on anything.
A few years ago, I blogged about my Simpson Ride Experience. Click the drawing below to read about it:
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.)
So using Storyboard Pro, I inked my drawing. It is now a piece of vector art. I separated the character’s into their own layers. The Sorcerer’s in one layer, the Apes on another, the Viper on it’s own, Rob and the raven on their own layer and finally the background on it’s own. This meant that a I had to “finish” some of the characters. Like the viper. Also, I had to draw the full background as well.
If you compare this drawing with other finished versions, you will see two differences: 1. is that the background is actually smaller and lower in the frame than in the other version. The reason for this was because a friend of mine looked at the other drawing and suggested I clear the background more in order to give the characters a better silhouette. It was good advice. If fact, if you look at the original thumbnails of the drawing, I had it lower. The reason it was up higher was because I was originally going to make it black, remember? That way Rob would be left white and he would stand out. Since I didn’t end up doing that, there really was no need to keep the background high, but the change would be easier at this stage than it was with the finished pencil.
The 2nd difference is that the aspect ratio of the drawing changed. There is now more room on the top and bottom of the frame. This meant I had to draw the rest of some of the monsters.
Now that I have the drawing digitized, I can start experimenting with camera moves, colors and different types of looks. That way, I can test out what I want the final cartoon to look like.
I played some boardgames with my kids this weekend. On Saturday, while everyone was napping, my daughter asked me to play a board game with her. Ironically, I didn’t want to play. I wanted to read a comic book, but I decided that it was as good a time as any to play a game with her. I thought she was old enough to learn to play QWIRKLE. Before that day, we used to use the QWIRKLE tiles to play MEMORY. This time I would teach her the rules of the actual game. So I did, and we played, and we had fun. She picked it up very well and I was very proud of her. I helped her out a bit but overall I let her make her own choices as to where to put the pieces. We’re definitely going to do it again soon.
A day later, my son Dante asked me if he could play a board game with me. He had woken up the day before to see Elizabeth and I finishing our game. Since his mommy and big sister had gone to Mass I thought it would be a fine time to play a game with him. I brought out the game CALLISTO. We played by the rules but we didn’t really play to win. At least I didn’t. We basically just put the TETRIS like tiles down until we used them all up, which led us to play again. It was a good game for Dante since he likes puzzles. We had fun playing together as well.
VIDEO
I came across a link to this video earlier this week. It’s darn amazing. I love everything about this little short. The character designs are amazing, the animation is fantastic, the personality of each character is really well acted. Great camera moves, fantastic timing and it’s all done in pantomime. The thing that gets me the most is the clarity of the story. It’s very simple but it’s clear and to the point. Very satisfying. I hope I could do something remotely close to this (in my own way) with my cartoon.
I’ve started opening the door to the office I’m in. It gets really lonely in that big room and it helps me feel like there are people out there when I leave it open. It helps invite people to come in and say hi as well. That helps.
Last week, I got locked out of my office. I came in at 7am and found the door locked and I didn’t have a key. Lucky for me, my producer gets in around 8:30am so she opened it for me. While I had time, I cleaned up my old cubicle a bit and wandered around the studio. Especially in the area of the studio where they’re producing the Marvel comics animated shows, like HERO SQUAD and THE AVENGERS. I walked around and geeked out over all the cool superhero artwork on the walls. It was both a fun and irritating morning.
FAMILY
Saturday was my mom’s birthday. We celebrated it by taking her out to a picnic in a park by a lake. We had a great time. We threw Frisbees, ate sandwiches, took walks, threw rocks in the lake and generally had a good time spending time with her, even though I got sun burned…and really sore. Ouch.
Happy Birthday Mommie! I love you.
BOARD GAMES
Two articles ago I wrote about how Mariam and Anthony came over with baby River and how Anthony and I played some board games. I also wrote about how we were going to plan to get together to play again sometime but this time, with everyone. Well, sometime was last Sunday. They came by in the late afternoon so we had plenty of time to play. It was going to be a big experiment, as far as I was concerned, because I wasn’t sure if the kids would let us play. We were going to play CRANIUM but their copy of the game had run off somewhere. It was a shame because I think the kids might have been able to participate. I ended up bring out CARCASSONNE because I thought the kids might want to participate helping out one of us in that game.
It sorta worked but Dante left in a huff after I told him he couldn’t flip over all the tiles and that he had to wait his turn. Elizabeth lasted a bit longer before she felt she wasn’t really playing, got up and left. We played the game to it’s end and then ate dinner. I put the kids to bed after we were done eating and we started a game of TICKET TO RIDE: EUROPE.
It was a very fun game with quite a few laughs. Especially once Anthony realized that he could start messing peoples routes up. He messed me up pretty good a few times and then he tried messing Mariam up. Once the game was over we started counting up all the extra points. That’s when the game really got interesting, mostly because Anthony and Mariam ended up with a tie for first place. The tie breaker would be the “Longest Route” card. Mariam won it and won the game.
We were all in good spirits after that and wanted to play something else but it was getting late. I brought out LOOT, which is a twenty minute long game. Alesha was on the phone pretty much the whole game, so it kinda messed up the fun of the game a bit. The rest of us were having a huge battle for merchant ships.
Overall we had a good time and the kids were surprisingly good. All of them, including the babies. Baby Ambrose hung out at the table and watched a lot. Unfortunately by the time I was holding him, he started getting fussy and the place on the table I was sitting at made it awkward for me to take care him well.
We had fun, and it’s possible that we’ll do it again sometime.
ART
I’m definitely past the “not wanting to work on my project” hump. Now, I can’t wait to get a chance to work on it.
Soon after I posted my last article, I remembered a website I bookmarked that might help me with my reference problem. I checked it out. Turns out I was right. It was exactly what I needed. It had both, good costumes and great character types. I spent my lunch hour downloading photos that I might be able use. That same night, I came home and began to sketch from them:
But then I thought to myself, maybe I should draw some silhouettes before I continue drawing faces. I went and got my copy of THE SKILLFUL HUNTSMAN, opened it to the silhouettes pages for inspiration.
The pages in the book where cool. I thought to myself, I could do that. I was wrong:
Wow, THAT didn’t go as planned. I rolled a critical miss on my “draw cool, well designed silhouette” skill check. Doing them is waaay more difficult than I had anticipated. I thought I understood what I was doing but I guess not. Frustrated, I stopped for the night and decided to try something else the next day.
After reading my last post, Zach Bosteel suggested that I ought to look at actors Tilda Swinton and Steve Buscemi for inspiration for character types. He was dead on. I thought they might actually work pretty well as Sorcerers. I started to sketch them:
My drawings didn’t quite capture their likeness but that wasn’t the point. I just wanted to capture their “type”. Still, I WAS trying to capture their likeness just as a personal challenge. Failed my “capture likeness” skill check too. You’d think with a face like Steve Buscemi’s I’d be able to draw him easier. Tilda Swinton, is just a pain to draw since she’s so plain. I’m just really bad a caricatures I guess. I need to practice it much more. I got what I wanted though, so I kept on going.
I then went into my photo reference and began mixing and matching a little. These are the photos I used:
My first thought (Groups 1 below) was to take the Steve Buscemi type and give him crazy hair while combining the vest from the guy (in the second photo above), the long haired guy’s pants (from the third photo above) and the happy guy’s shoes (from the first photo). In the end, I didn’t like it one bit. I then used jawbone boy’s face (the last picture above) and put it on that body (Drawing 2 below). It worked better but I still wasn’t happy.:
I gave that up and tried a different direction. I used the photo below and drew the guy on the left, pretty much, straight out for drawing 3 (above):
I liked it. I thought I could use that design as the second male Sorcerer. I thought it would be funny to give that guy a Steve Buscemi type face which would be the reason why wares his hair down over it.
A few days later I looked at some more photos and picked these:
I took the guy on the top right and tried drawing him (drawing 1 below). I thought it was funny since the guy looks like a rejected Duran Duran band member. I then thought I’d try something I’d been thinking about for a while and tried drawing jawbone boy with a hoodie (second photo above) (Drawing 2 below). I didn’t like it so I tried drawing the Duran Duran guy again using different shapes which I liked (Drawing 3 below). I then skipped back to the other design idea and tried to make the collar work (Drawings 4 below) but it just made him look like an astronaut or something:
So far I’m leaning more in the direction of the Duran Duran guy. I kinda like the idea for some reason. It makes me laugh. I also like the jawbone boy’s face thought. Either way, I’m getting closer to what I’m going to end up using.
What do you think?
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