I had a crazy last day of work last week. I spent the entire work day plus extra hours working on The Couch Gag I was assigned. Everyone had forgotten that Good Friday was going to be a holiday and I didn’t have the designs for the Couch Gag until Holy Thursday morning, about an hour before lunch. I started working on the Gag before I had the designs, hoping I would have them by the time I needed to clean up the characters. I had the rare opportunity of animating a lot of the Gag. In the end, I didn’t get to fully animate it, but I got all the keys and timing down the way it ought to be.
The Gag didn’t have a standard family run in. It had a slightly different version of the characters and I had to redo the run in. I ran it past the director and he gave me his notes on what he wanted. I redid the run in again, and he approved. At that point, it was already two o’clock. The problem was that the run in was only the first half of the Gag, the second half had an animated pull out and some action after that pull out. This gave me only two hours to finish something I really should have had at least two days to do.
It’s one of those mixed blessing. On the one hand, I got to do some fun animation. On the other hand, they gave me no time to do it, which kinda killed the fun a bit.
I got done by ten o’clock. I timed it and even made a mini movie out of it. I was very very tired at that point, but also very happy with how the Gag had turned out.
The irony came when I was about to turn the Gag in. Usually when we’re done with an assignment, we just upload the work onto the server. The problem was, that since I wasn’t officially working on the show after that day, I got logged off the server. They didn’t know I was still working. Everyone was gone by that point and I had no way of letting anyone know I had a problem. So I couldn’t turn in the Couch Gag.
I decided to go home and left a few messages informing production what had occurred. Monday, I was informed that they had retrieved the work and everything was fine.
What a way for me to end the season.
MY WEB COMIC
Below is the rough for the page above. Not much else to say really, except that I didn’t use a red pencil under drawing on this one. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask:
VIDEOS
Yet another great animated short from the Animation Workshop. Not exactly a topic I would picked for an spoof on superheroes, but I enjoyed it anyway:
WRITING
I decided to watch a few movies to see how the Magick was handled visually in them. I looked at, LORD OF THE RINGS, HELLBOY, and the DOCTOR STRANGE animated movie. I didn’t really like any of their solutions, BUT I did get an idea from the HELLBOY movie. It actually came from a line at the beginning where the narrator says something about how the Nazi’s where using technology and magic.
This got me thinking. I told my wife about the line and she pitched me the idea that the Sorcerers can be wearing machines that take out their blood so that they could do magick. THAT was the key I was looking for. That would make it both practical and visual. The Sorcerers use machines to do magick. GREAT! Now, the question was, what will the magick be? Could I still use the fireballs? I kinda don’t want to, because it’s a bit generic, so the hard part now is to come up with interesting attacks for them to pull off. At least I have unique visuals now. Perhaps I’ll have them do some sort of incantation and gestures when they do it too. That would help.
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
The last show I worked on before I left the show was the show that stars Neil Gaiman. I really like his stories so I had fun working on the show. It’s one of my favorite shows of this season.
I’m now on a one week break and then I go back to work next week. I had originally thought I was going to be out for two weeks but I guess I’m not. When I return to work, it will be for two weeks. I’ll be revising the last show of the season. Once that’s done, I’ll be out of work for three weeks. I might open myself up for commissions, I haven’t decided yet. Especially since I’ve never done it before and I don’t know if anyone would be interested.
MY WEEK
I’ve been very busy this week. Besides working on my new BLACK TERROR KID comic, I’ve also taken on yet another job. This time it’s for my wife. She has an 85,000 work novel manuscript she’s finished and has been sending it around to agents. She’s had a few close calls but not bites yet. She’s decided to e-publish the book herself. She now needs a cover for her book, so I’ve volunteered to help her with that.
Monday we had a friend of her’s come over to model a photo shoot. That took up a lot of time. I hope to get started on that cover soon.
VIDEOS/ART
The very beginning of this video has one of my favorite artists Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius) drawing on a Cintiq. The man is (as of the time of this writing) 73 and is a master of his craft. The best part about it, is simply seeing his process. Being a master draftsman, he could have simply drawn directly what he wanted, but he didn’t. The piece he draws is a bit more involved and so he chose to not only put in a perspective grid, but he also drew a quick, rough under drawing of what the wanted to draw.
Why do I point this out? Because after so many years of drawing and being a master draftsman, he STILL relies on the basics. I’ve experience, to often, fellow artists who have been professionally drawing for over ten or twenty years that seems to scoff at the idea that they need to put down a perceptive grid or set down an under drawing because they think they are masters themselves after so many years of drawing. Yet I doubt anyone of them has as much experience as Jean Giraud and HE still uses them. If it’s good enough for him, why not us? Are we better draftsmen then he?
WRITING
Alright, before I begin, I have to apologize to everyone who has read my treatment so far. I have recently reread the whole thing since I first wrote it and discovered how awful the writing in it is. Again, I apologize. It’s all written in a stream of consciousness sort of way and I guess I hadn’t realized how reader unfriendly it actually is. The problem is that I didn’t really want to labor over it too much, since:
it’s not the final product, just a guide for myself, and
it’s the first draft.
My hope is that the ideas presented are good enough for you to realize what I’m after, even though the prose style is completely awful.
Okay so, on with what I did with this part:
After beating my head against the wall writing action, this last scene was a piece of cake. It was pretty straight forward.
I developed the hot dog vendor a bit more here. Gave me ideas for sight gags.
If you read the synopsis below, you’ll notice it’s a bit different than the final treatment. It’s basically the same thing, just in a slightly different way. There’s only so much planning you can do. You have let the story do it’s own thing:
Scene 9 (Thought/Actuality)
Rob puts down his weapon, walks away. He helps the other Sorcerers up and then starts picking up his things, which are now all over the destroyed area they fought on. By the time he’s done, the Sorcerers are gone. When he begins to walk away, the hot dog vendor calls out to him. He has two hot dogs for him, seemingly bought by the Lead Sorcerer. (Resolution)
Outdoor Shopping Area – Day concluded
The Sorcerer stares at Rob as he walks away. How dare he say those things. Who does he think he is? How DARE he. After the MERCY he has shown to Rob. The nerve. This shall not stand!
The Sorcerer begins to cast a spell. He’s going to strike Rob down once and for all.
Rob kneels down to check on his raven friend. He doesn’t notice what’s going on behind him. The hammer has since returned to it’s minuscule size. The raven seems to just be stunned. It blinks up and squawks happily at Rob. He looks a bit scuffled but otherwise, he’s okay.
The Sorcerer aims and is about to strike. But stalls just a bit too long and sees the way Rob treats his bird. He thinks about what Rob said. He looks around at his companions. One is still knocked out and the other is so self involved with himself sobbing, he hasn’t even checked on the woman he’s supposed to have a crush on. He sees the destruction around him. He looks at his hands ready with the spell. He takes a long look at himself and reflects on what’s happened in the last few minutes. He’s about to strike a man in the back. He drops his hands and doesn’t cast the spell. He hates to admit it, but Rob was right. The injustice was theirs.
Rob gets up and takes the raven over to his backpack. He sets him down and the raven shakes itself. Rob unzips a pocket in his pack and takes out some gauze, tape and disinfectant. He begins to apply the disinfectant and cleans his wounds. Once done, he wraps up the wounds. He doesn’t manage to wrap them all up, but he gets enough of them. He then puts the disinfectant away and unzips another part of his pack. He reaches in and takes out a clean shirt. He carefully puts it on. The process is obviously painful. He dearly wishes the Sorcerers would just leave him alone. He doesn’t have a lot of clothes to spare. When he gets a chance, he’ll have to change his ripped up pants also.
He zips up his pack, painfully gets up, and delicately puts the pack on. He forces himself to look around for the Sorcerers. They are gone. There’s no sign of them. Good riddance. His stomach grumbles and he feels the hunger again. He sighs. It’s bad enough he feels the pain all over the outside of his body, but he still has the pain on the inside and he can’t do anything about it. Maybe he could find a water fountain somewhere to fill his belly. He calls to the raven who gingerly lands on his shoulder and he begins to walk out the of the shopping area.
He hadn’t taken two steps before he hears someone call out to him. He turns to see that it’s the hot dog vendor in his stall. Miraculously, the stall survived the chaos of the fight, unscathed. Rob goes over to the stall. The hot dog vendor hands him two hot dogs on a plate. The hot dog vendor still has the same expression and attitude as he did earlier. It’s as if the crazy fight and the destruction around him, hadn’t happened. He tells Rob that the hot dogs are his.
Rob asks the vendor if it’s a gift from him?
The vendor looks scandalized and denies the accusation as if he’d been insulted. He tells Rob the hot dogs were bought for him by the skinny guy with the eighties pompadour. Rob looks around again for the Sorcerer but he’s no where in sight.
The vendor asks Rob if he’s going to take the hot dogs. If he isn’t, he’ll just throw them away.
Rob looks down at the hot dogs. What if it’s a trap? What if they are poisoned or worse?
The vendor takes them and says he’s tossing them. Rob stops him. He’s so hungry he doesn’t care. He asks for them. The vendor hands the hot dogs over. Rob asks the vendor why he’s so calm after what just happened. The vendor tell Rob he grew up in — El Salvador and that he’s seen worse. Rob just kinda thinks oookay and then turns and walks away.
He looks down at the hot dogs and his mouth begins to water. He wonders what made the Sorcerer buy him the hot dog. Perhaps, this is a sign of good things to come. He smiles. He walks over to the fountain and sits down on one of the walls that surround it. He tells the raven there’s enough for each of them. He hands the raven a hot dog and takes one himself. He takes a bite.
Best thing he’s ever tasted. Life is awesome.
THE END
At this point, it’s tricky for me to say how much out of story “business” like the hot dog vendor should be in the final story. On the other hand, he’s kind of important since he give Rob the hot dogs.
Okay, so the next thing there’s left for me to do is figure out a good magick system. Once I do that, I’ll rewrite the parts of the treatment that are effected by the new system. I’m so glad I’m finally done! At least, with the first draft. I think the reediting will be much easier. I don’t think I’ll post the second draft. I might just make a note of the changes (perhaps).
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
I got sick on Thursday and Friday of last week. I came into work both days. I don’t think I could have made it through the day, had it not been for the fact that I spend the day sitting down. During lunch, I would eat and then pass out for the rest of lunch. It was pretty miserable. I had to finish the work I was given though. Specially since I didn’t know how heavy the next act I was assigned was going to be. Turns out that it didn’t have all that many fixes. I probably could have stayed home and it would have all turned out okay.
Oh well.
GHETTOMATION
Once again Jim Lujan makes another Ghettomated cartoon. This one actually came out a few weeks ago but I didn’t get the chance to post it till now. It’s unbelievable how many cartoons this guys turns out. I’ve been working on my cartoon for about eleven months and Jim seems to have come out with eleven cartoons for my (still in progress) one.
WRITING
What I’ve written below is not what I wanted. At least the first half. The second half is much closer to what I had in mind but still not quite right. This is what happens when you don’t come up a good logical magick system for your story. You end up not quite knowing what’s possible to do in it. It’s too open ended and then suddenly you’re lost. Then, since there’s too much to think about, you end up having the magic users, just throwing projectiles. Boring. Might as well give them ray guns. So the question I had to ask myself was, “What would be interesting to see?”
Too bad I ignored the question because what I ended up with is NOT very interesting. Nor do I want to work on it. I’m going to leave this as is, just as a place holder until I can come up with something better. I think I’ll need to work out the magick system better and see if I can’t come up with a more interesting final battle.
Scene 8 (Thought/Knowledge)
Seeing the might they have unleashed on themselves the Sorcerers are shocked and two of them are incapacitated by Rob. The Lead Sorcerer seeing this, thinks he’s proved his case and does the crazy thing of putting his guard down to prove to Rob who he really is. Rob sees this and fights to bring down his rage. The Lead Sorcerer expects to be struck down, only Rob surprises him by NOT doing so. (Act 3 climax)
Outdoor Shopping Area – Day continued
Rob straightens up and turns to look at the stunned Sorcerers.
This snaps them back to their senses. The Lead Sorcerer immediately commands an attack. He guessed wrong. He now assumes the hammer Rob holds must also give him a boost in strength or something. In any case, as long as they hit him with everything they have, this should be over quickly.
The Lead Sorcerer commands The Other Male Sorcerer to create the most intense heat blast he can, next to Rob, while The Female Sorcerer should make a thick shield of the coldest ice she could make to protect them from the heat and cocoon Rob. Meanwhile he will attempt to turn the air around Rob into natural gas so the very air around Rob would roast him.
Rob doesn’t like what he hears. He thinks he better move before it’s too late. The thought hadn’t left his mind before the fire and ice had trapped him. A small layers of ice forms on his skin. Instantly a fireball start growing before him increasing in intensity. Rob simply reacts. No thought, just instinct. The hammer hits the wall of ice. It was three yards thick and he hit a hole right through. Then Rob starts running through the hole. An explosion from behind, sends him flying through and out. He rolls tumbling on the ground and at the last moment manages to use the last of the momentum to come to his knees. Steam rising from his body. No burns on him. The ice ironically shielded him. Rob finds himself, only a yard from The Female Sorceress.
In spite of their shock and in spite of the fact that all that magick had taken a lot out of them and left them exhausted, The Female Sorceress takes the opportunity to attack Rob with all she has left. The demon that gives her power, almost physically manifests around her as she attempts to freeze Rob’s insides.
Rob screams in pain as he feels his body begin to freeze. He moves toward The Sorceress.
She creates a wall of ice to shield herself. She’s now very weak and can hardly maintain the two spells.
Rob feels the spell waver for a second or two as the ice wall goes up. He smashes right through it and his hammer continues on until it hits The Sorceress in 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 effects of the Sorceress’ spell waring off.
As far as the Other Male Sorcerer is 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 attacks Rob in a fire filled rage. The demon that gives him his power almost become fully manifest in him and around him. His hands become torches. Fireballs explode out of his hands like machine gun bullets shooting at Rob as he runs toward him.
Rob begins knocking fireballs into oblivion, with his hammer, as fast they reach him. The heat of fire still gets through. Sweat begins to gather on Rob’s forehead and begins to get in his eyes blinding him. Just as Rob blinks the sweat off, The Other Male Sorcerer reaches Rob and strikes. Rob takes a full on, fire punch, to the face. Once again, The Other Male Sorcerer has knocked Rob to the ground.
The Lead Sorcerer, isn’t idle through all this. In fact, he was just about to cast a spell in order to help The Other Male Sorcerer in finishing Rob off when Rob’s Raven begins attacking him. Completely taken by surprise by the fury of the attack, The Lead Sorcerer could only think to swat at the bird and run from it.
The Other Male Sorcerer step up to Rob and goes for the killing blow. A beam of pure fire shoots directly at Rob from his hands at point blank range. At the same moment, Rob brings the hammer up. The fire beam and hammer hit. The hammer, acts like a shield and it seems to soak the fire into itself. Rob stand up and shoves forward, hard, making the Other Male Sorcerer stumble back. The fire beam goes off for a second. As the Sorcerer raises his hand to strike again, 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. 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.
Rob turns from the man, telling him that he had been given the chance to leave. He also tells him to put his hair back on his face. Rob is kinda freaked out by how ugly he is.
Meanwhile, The Lead Sorcerer, loathing to use any of his power on a pesky bird. Decides to try using just enough to get it off him. He takes some molecules in the air and creates a quick burst of air that knocks the Raven far up and away from him. Satisfied that he bought himself some time, he looks toward Rob and the other Sorcerer, only to see Rob walking toward him as his companion weeps. He was too late to help and now it’s just him and the killer. The Lead Sorcerer begins a spell. Time to die a hero.
Rob stops his approach. He tells the Sorcerer not to do it. He tells the Sorcerer it doesn’t have to be this way. He could just walk away. He tells the Sorcerer that he doesn’t want to fight anymore. That he’s tired. That they caused enough destruction.
Rob’s words, rather than being taken the way they were intended, are heard by the Sorcerer as a man who is too weak to fight and is now bluffing for his life. Since the Sorcerer thinks Rob is evil and insincere, everything he says must NOT be what he means. That said, The Sorcerer DOES see how much of an act Rob’s been putting up all this time. The Sorcerer decides that before this is over, he will force Rob to admit what a monster he truly is, and that he deserves to die.
Reaching up and grabbing the air before him, the Sorcerer begins to press the air molecules together in order to crush Rob.
Rob is suddenly stuck in place. He feels as if he’s between two walls, getting crushed by them. He tries to raise his hammer hand and finds it too difficult.
Through gritted teeth, the Sorcerer begins talking to Rob telling him how Rob has shown his true power now. Pointing out to him how he ruthlessly dispatched his companions without a second thought.
Rob tries to respond but can’t. The ground he’s standing on begins to crack and break apart from the pressure.
The sweat runs down the Sorcerer’s head from the strain. He orders Rob to admit that his power is too great. That it WILL overcome him. That even if he thinks he hasn’t been seduced yet, that he’s fooling himself. He tells Rob he can see that he enjoys it. That he WILL want to use it for personal gain, and eventually he will abuse it to conquer and rule the world and so deserves to be stopped.
Rob can hardly breath. Something about what the Sorcerer is saying rings true. The power feels good. He does enjoy it in him. He doesn’t know what that means but he’s afraid that it MIGHT corrupt him. But if that’s so, how can he tell? Has he done anything that shows that he’s corrupt? Not that he can remember.
On the other hand, HE didn’t attack the Sorcerers. They attacked HIM. Who is this guy to lecture. It only makes him angry at the injustice. He struggle to free himself so he could at least take a breath. If he’s there any longer, he’s going to pass out and then die of asphyxiation.
The Sorcerer feels himself loosing control of the air. Rob is breaking free. He calls on more power. The manifestation of the demon that gives him his power surrounds The Sorcerer and he orders Rob to admit that he’s evil and deserves to be stopped at all cost.
Rob’s raven flies down and begins attacking the Sorcerer. The Sorcerer attempts to strike the Raven with one hand.
Rob feels the spell weakening. He lets out a mighty yell, grip the hammer tight, lifts it, and breaks free from the spell.
He takes in a mighty breath of air and coughs. Then turn to look at the Sorcerer, just in time to see him strike the raven with some sort of air punch that sends the bird bouncing and tumbling to the floor.
Anger surges through him. All he wants, is to pound on the Sorcerer. Enough is enough. He roars with rage. Run towards the Sorcerer like a barbarian berserker, mad with rage.
The Sorcerer sees it. What he was looking for. There it is. The monster. He was completely justified in his action. He knew it. Now the monster comes for him in truth. The Sorcerer tries one last thing. He tries to take the oxygen from Rob’s lungs.
Rob gags. Stumbles, struggles to get air. Gasps for it. In a wild rage, Rob just swings the hammer in the direction of the Sorcerer who is too far away…and strikes some sort of Magickal connection that sends the Sorcerer flying back and frees Rob from the spell.
The Sorcerer slams against a wall.
Robs runs at him, hammer up, ready to strike.
The Sorcerer smiles. He has enough strength to move away. To strike once more, but why? He’s won. So he tells Rob to do it, since he has won, and has shown Rob who he truly is. He closes his eyes and waits to be struck.
But it doesn’t happen.
He opens his eyes, and sees Rob right in his face. Rob grabs the Sorcerer by the scruff of the neck and slams him hard against the wall. Then Rob tells him everything he’d been dying to say. He tells the Sorcerer that after all that. After getting him that furious, he was STILL wrong about him. Rob brings up how even after THEY ATTACKED HIM and destroyed his lunch he STILL gave them a chance to walk away. Which they didn’t use. That no matter what Rob said, they deliberately took it in the worst way they could when he was simply being sincere. Whose fault was that? He points out that, after he had the hammer, THEY chose to attack. EVERYTHING he did was self defense. Just as it HAS been ANYTIME he’s for Sorcerers. He tells the Sorcerer to look around. What part of the destruction was Rob’s compared to the destruction they caused. He asks him whose fault was it that those other two Sorcerers lost their powers? Who attacked who. Who is evil. Who has acted with just cause? Who has acted with hatred and ignorance. He tells the Sorcerer to open his eyes and take a good long look at himself. Who here makes a pact with a demon for power? He tells the Sorcerer to ask himself, whose actions speak louder than words here?
Then Rob lets go of the Sorcerer, turns, and limps away in the direction of his raven. He’s had enough. He needs to make sure his friend is okay.
END OF SCENE
Overall, the thing I’m most unsatisfied with, is how generic the magick is. I mean, it just seems like one has ice powers, the other has fire powers and the third uses “the Force”. It doesn’t really say “magick” to me.
Unfortunately, this means I have to change my plans a bit. After I’m done writing the treatment, I’m going to have to sit down, do some research, and come up with an interesting, visual magick system. Then I’ll have to go back to the treatment and give it a second pass. I think it’s important that I, at least, get the magick right and get the treatment in a more ready condition before I start writing dialogue. I don’t want to waste my time and effort once I have to start doing the final parts of the story. The more problems I solve in this stage, the more fun I’ll have in the later stages.
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
I received the news this week that my hiatus is coming up. In two weeks I’m going to be out of a job for two weeks, then I’ll come back to work for two more weeks, and I’ll be off on hiatus again for two more weeks after that. Once those two weeks are up, I’ll start back on the show for the new season. What this all means is, that I’ll only be working for two weeks for the next two months. I hope my finances can take the hit. Too weak.
In other Simpsons news, I had a meeting this week with the producer who’s getting to run the episode I’m working on right now. It’s not Al Jean. It’s someone else. The person is supervising two episodes this season.
He came down to the studio in order to have a meeting with the director because he really wants to make sure all the notes and things are clear and are working. He also wanted to be able to hear any suggestions we have to improve or adjust things in order to make things clearer and better.
That just rocks.
It’s probably the reason why this episode is so well put together in the first place. I think it’s one of the best shows of the season and it work real well.
The meeting was a blast. I hope I get to work with him again. I hope I can weasel myself into the next meeting, the way I did with this one. It was cool.
GHETTOMATION/CATHOLICISM
This “Illustrated Film” is obviously just comic panels put to music. And it works GREAT! Nothing fancy, just the panels. Very cool. And the subject matter is perfect for Lent. The comic book artist who originally drew the comic is an illustrator by the name of Simon Smith.
This turned out longer than I thought. I didn’t expect that.
So I think I know what the hammer is now. I think I know whether it can be trusted or not. I’m not sure whether I should say just yet. I’m considering redesigning it. I’ll draw a few sketches of it and decide whether I like it or if it’s even necessary to have a redesign. My deciding what the hammer is DID inform the final version of the scene though.
On a different note, at the end of the last scene, Rob was left in a situation where he was perfectly justified to seek revenge. The thing is, he’s the “good guy”, and to me, this means his very actions need to be examples of goodness. Especially since the very case Rob is trying to make against the Sorcerers is that, what he does, is who he is, and while it’s not always perfect, is not bad or evil. Rob CAN’T take revenge, because that would be taking the “low road”. The “easy road”, and Rob is suppose to be virtuous enough to take the “road less traveled”. His actions also have to be in contrast to what the Sorcerers would do. So once Rob is on even footing with the Sorcerers, would he just start kick the tar out them them? No. So how can I get Rob to fight these guys?
Only if he gets attacked first. Then all he’s doing is defending himself. So if you notice, during the following scenes, Rob will not initiate a fight. He will only respond to it. That way, his actions have just cause. Even if deep down, he was hoping they would attack him, if only to give him an excuse to fight back. He’s still human after all.
Scene 7 (Desire/Ability)
Rob becomes angry and his Raven flies from the bushes with Rob’s little weapon in it’s talons. He drops it on Rob’s hand were it magically grows large and he begins to fight off the monsters and Sorcerers in an almost out of control berzerker rage.
Outdoor Shopping Area – Day continued
There’s only so much a guy can take before he says enough is enough. Rob has hit this point. Weapon or no weapon, he needs to take some action, if only for his sanity’s sake. He decides then and there, that he’s not going down without a fight. Rob sits up and begins to vent out loud. He points out that it wasn’t like he was asking for anything unreasonable. He wasn’t even being mean or rude, in spite of that fact that they were being rude to HIM. He even kept his side of the deal they’d made, which THEY broke.
During this time all the Sorcerers stop and listen to Rob. The creatures don’t move, seeing their masters are still. The Lead Sorcerer is annoyed at Rob for pointing out what he knows all too well.
The White Raven comes to his senses and finds himself in the bushes. He turns and sees Rob’s weapon, right next to him.
Rob continues, his face looking down at the ground. His eyes forward.
He recounts how long it took him to scrounge up enough money to buy the hot dog. That running from Sorcerers like them had made it difficult to hold down a job long enough sometimes to even collect his paychecks. How he hadn’t eaten for almost a day and a half and he’d specifically made a point to earn enough to eat THAT hot dog from THAT hot dog stand.
The anger inside Rob begins to swell. He continues with how he had ONLY asked for ten minutes. How the only thing he had asked for was that small moment to finish his lunch. Yet they didn’t give it to him. And yet, after all that, they have the gall to call HIM evil. To say HE is wrong. He tells the Sorcerers that he’s almost gotten used to being hated by them. That he can take being misrepresented by them. He can even tolerate being constantly attacked by them on occasion. BUT, he draws the line when someone steps on his lunch.
At that point, Rob’s weapon falls from the sky and into his hand. Rob hadn’t expected this to happen but he hears the sound of his Raven above him and knows where it came from. The power in the weapon begins to surge through him.
The Sorcerers are surprised to see the weapon fall into Rob’s hand and look up to see the Raven above.
Rob begins to glow white. He slowly rises to his feet. The tiny little hammer in his hand begins to grow on it’s own. It grows enormous. The hammer head alone, becoming larger than any warhammer they had ever seen. It too glows with it’s own power.
Rob grabs hold of the remaining rags of shirt still on his body and tears them off himself, revealing a bloody and bruise torso. He raises his eyes to the Sorcerers for the first time. They are glowing white, and seem as bright as two suns.
The Sorcerers are taken aback. They hadn’t expected this and they all become uneasy.
Once more Rob speaks. And once more, he gives the Sorcerers one last chance to walk away and leave him alone. Even now, after all this, Rob is STILL willing to let the Sorcerers go as if nothing had happened.
The Lead Sorcerer seeing his companions are shaken, claps and commends Rob for the show, but he tells him they don’t scare off that easily. The Lead Sorcerer, who is the only one of them who sensed the power in the weapon, knows it’s a weapon not to trifled with. Yet, he also has eyes, and sees Rob’s condition. He doubts he has the power to fight and is therefore bluffing. Otherwise he wouldn’t have given the Sorcerers “a chance to walk away”. He tells Rob they aren’t afraid of him. The other Sorcerers are reassured by their boss’s words. They all look ready to strike. The Lead Sorcerer turns to them and they all exchange looks. They nod to each other knowing the next move as if they had been told verbally.
The Lead Sorcerers yells out a command and all the creatures attack Rob at once. He commands the other Sorcerers to not throw ice, or fireballs, to avoid hitting the monsters, but he tells them they need to make sure Rob doesn’t escape from them.
The two Winged Apes reach Rob moments after each other. Rob saw them coming and began swinging his hammer at the one that was going to land first. Before the Ape knows what hit him, the hammer comes crashing into it’s chest. An explosion of white light comes out of said contact and the Ape shatters into the magick particles it had been constructed out of. Within the same motion, not missing a beat, Rob removes the bottom half of the hammer’s hilt, revealing a long curved dagger and swings his arms over his head and down to his opposite side from where the hammer is. The dagger finds the second Winged Ape, just as it land by Rob, seconds after the other. It get cut from head to chest, revealing magickal light from it’s wound. Surprise on it’s face, it explodes into magick particles.
The Sorcerers are a tad shocked.
Rob returned the dagger back to it’s place in the hilt of the hammer and turns to face the approaching Viper Creature. The two pause as they stare at each other for a beat. Then Rob makes the first move and runs at it. The Viper Creature strikes. Rob jumps out of the way, just as the Viper Creatures fangs are about to strike. Rob then brings the hammer down hard. It catches the creature right on it’s head. The force of the hammer takes the creature’s head straight to the ground smashing it between the hammer and the floor. The floor cracks with force. The Viper Creature’s body recoils, knocking down trees and benches. Then the creature disappears, returning the magick particles it was created from.
Stunned, the Sorcerers can do nothing but stare in disbelief.
END OF SCENE
I thought about making the fight longer. I thought I might have Rob take more time dispatching the creatures, but then I thought we’d seen enough fighting. I kinda wanted to get to the point. The story needed to move on.
Whether I will need to make that fight longer later will be up to what the final version looks like.
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
Last week I managed to not only rough out Act 2 but also Act 3 on show 21. I spent this week trying to tighten up the roughs on both boards. I managed to finish Act 2, I have yet to finish Act 3. I’m not sure my revision partner will get to Act 4 and I might end up getting it at the last minute. I hope not. We’ll see.
WEBSITES/COMIC BOOKS/CATHOLICISM
I’m usually not a fan of “Catholic religious comics”. The ones I’ve been exposed to have really been way too sweet with Saints that are so perfect they might as well be walking icons. They’re so perfect they’re inhuman and the stories are so preachy and contrived, they are completely unrelateable.
If they aren’t that, then they are so serious, humorless and full of suffering that, reading them is like subjecting yourself to torture.
I myself have thought about creating a Religious comic in order to see if it’s possible to create an appealing, compelling, fun and entertaining one. Well, I’m happy to say that I don’t have to do that, because someone already HAS.
Mitchelle D’Souza, a cartoonist currently (as of the time of this writing) living in Canada is working on a Fatima Webcomic, and it’s exactly that. It’s appealing, compelling, fun, entertaining AND FUNNY. I LOVE it. It hits all the beats I wanted to see in a Catholic comic. If I make a Religious comic, I hope it’s half as good as this. Reading it really made me smile. The characters are human, and full of flaws, which makes you really feel for them.
It’s a comic that retells the true story of the extraordinary events that happened in Fatima in 1917 to three Shepherd children. It’s all told through the eyes of the youngest of the three, Jacinta. Her antics are just really fun to read.
Here’s a sample page from the comic:
If you’re Catholic or interested in history, or are really into Fatima. If you want to put a smile on you face to see Jacinta do silly things, you should read this comics.
It’s moments like these that I wonder why I decided to go with an action story. There’s nothing worse than sitting down, knowing you have to write action and not knowing what the heck to write. Trying not to repeat myself while attempting to write something interesting was a huge pain. Perhaps I was approaching it the wrong way, I don’t know. All I know is, that this was very difficult for me. In the end, I think I DID repeat myself a bit.
It’s hard because the point of the fight was not the fight in itself but the outcome of the fight, namely, the prevention of Rob being able to eat his hot dog and the knocking away of the hot dog from Rob. In fact, I kinda started in the second part of the fight before I wrote the first part. I don’t know why. It just seemed like a way to get started.
The entire fight was just a stream of conscientiousness kind of thing. I didn’t know what I would write until I wrote it. I’m just glad I was able to put something down.
You will notice that the small synopsis below is different than the original I wrote a few weeks earlier. I moved the stepping of the hot dog moment into this act as opposed to next act. I thought it would create a much more climatic low point for act 2.
Scene 6 (Inequity/Projection)
Finding himself friendless and trapped, Rob decides to eat his hot dog there and then only one of the monsters causes the hot dog to end up a few feet from him, safely on it’s plate. The bad guys close in. Ignoring the Sorcerers, Rob goes for his hot dog only to have the Other Male Sorcerer step on it, leaving Rob stunned for a second. They laugh seeing that they’ve won and look forward in anticipation to the glory they will receive. (Act 2 climax).
Outdoor Shopping Area – Day continued
Trapped, friendless and alone, Rob sees there’s no hope for getting away. The Sorcerers and creatures slowly make their way closer, relishing the situation. Rob has reached the point of not caring about anything anymore except getting to eat his hot dog. If they aren’t going to let him leave, and they’re not going to leave him alone to eat his lunch in peace, he might as well eat it in the midst of all the chaos. He’ll eat as he fights. At least that way, he can get what he wants in the end. It may not be the most ideal way to eat, but he’ll get to eat.
Rob expresses this out loud to the Sorcerers, and it actually hurts their pride to be taken so lightly by him. Especially considering the situation he’s in.
He 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. He quickly climbs over a bench and hides behind a tree putting 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 dodges a tree that was hurled at him from an Ape. The plate was hit off of Robs hand and goes flying through the air.
Rob runs after it and catches it. Before he could catch his breath his looks up to see the Viper Creature’s fanged face lunging at him. He doesn’t have time to leap and he finds himself prying open the Viper Creature’s jaw with one hand and his two feet, while holding on to the plate with his lunch the with his free hand. The Viper Creature begins to fling it’s head around, trying to get Rob to stop. Rob tries to hold on to his hot dog while keeping from being smashed. His strength begins to give out. He could only hope he could let go of the jaws fast enough to not get caught in them.
He let’s go and goes flying through the air. 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.
Everyone stops to look. They all turn to look at each other for a beat.
Then chaos.
Ice flies toward, Rob who dodges it. Rob runs toward one Winged Ape. The other Winged Ape slashes at him but he was using the other Ape to crawl and leap off of. One Ape slashes the other sending it reeling. Rob sees fireballs coming his way, at the same time he sees the Winged Ape that was left standing coming at him. The Viper creature spins around to get at him as well. He heads in the direction of the Viper creature as the fireballs land behind him. The fireballs continue to follow him landing on the Viper creature’s body and it hisses in pain. He heads toward the hot dog, jumping on the viper’s body as it tries to get him off. Fireballs still hitting it. The Winged Ape flies up to reach Rob, and Rob leaps off the Viper Creature as a fireball hits the Ape which land in the spot he had just vacated. The fireball blast sends Rob tumbling to the ground. He looks up and sees his hot dog a feet away. He scrawls to reach it. Right as he about to get it, a foot slams into it and smashes it. The hot dog is nothing but mush and completely uneatable.
Rob looks on shocked. He can’t believe it. After all that. The ONE thing he wanted. The ONE thing that made the intolerable situation he’s in tolerable. He slowly looks up, his eyes following the foot that had smashed his hopes. The veiled face of the Other Male Sorcerer stands about him. His shoulders chuckling in amusement. Rob lowers his head in defeat. He gives up. They won.
The Sorcerer mocks Rob, like a bully in a playground. Asking him if he’s going to cry. The female Sorcerer laughs. The Lead Sorcerer frowns at his colleagues’ childishness. The Other Males Sorcerer, glories in their triumph over Rob, as he announces out loud to the Lead Sorcerer how they will gain honor and prestige from all the other Sorcerers for doing what no others had been able to do before them. The Lead Sorcerer responds, telling the Other Males Sorcerers that even if it’s so, they should at least behave with dignity and have some semblance of honor in their triumph.
The Other Main Sorcerer, tells his boss that he’s giving Rob all the honor he deserves and proceeds to kick Rob in the face.
END OF SCENE
The last kick to the face was just to add insult to injury (or is it, injury to injury?). At this point in the story, I’m hoping the audience is emotionally ready to see some justice done.
Since I wrote the above, I thought about it a bit, wondering if I could improve it somehow. I’ve decided to leave it that way it is for now BUT it’s not set in stone. I think if I change it, I will go with another version that I thought up recently. I was thinking that, instead of the bad guys trying to hurt Rob, they might just be trying to destroy the hot dog deliberately. That would actually change the dynamics of the fight quite a bit and might even make it more interesting to watch. I’ll think about it some more and decide on what I’m going to do at the storyboard stage.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
Just managed to get done with the revisions for the Halloween show. It was a pretty hectic last two days of the week. I’ve now moved on to show 21. My first assignment on the show is the show’s Couch Gag. It was difficult one. It had a TON of Springfielders and it got complicated. Took me two days to do it.
MY WEEK
In spite of the fact I haven’t got the time, I started working on another Black Terror Kid comic. It’s going to be five pages long and will only be in black and white. I’m creating it in order to have something to put up on a gallery for a special event in May. This means I have till April to finish it. The gag is written out already. The thumbnail sketches are done, and all I need to do is start drawing it.
This one will be about what happens when the Black Terror Kid tries to sell The Claw some cookies for charity. I’m looking forward to drawing it.
Once it’s done, the pages will be up for sale at the gallery, so if you like them enough, you could buy them.
Thing is…I probably won’t want to sell them…so…I might jack up the price so that no one buys them.
For more on the Black Terror Kid and his adventures:CLICK HERE.
I’m obviously joking around. Jerzy is awesome. The videos is great.
WRITING
This was difficult. Action is hard.
I had a few things floating around in my head that I thought should happen in the fight, put them into the treatment. What I ended up with, I think, is a good basic skeleton of what should happen. I’ll probably watch some Jackie Chan movies for more inspiration when it actually comes to drawing this stuff for storyboarding. Especially since a Jackie Chan style fight is what I’m really going for here.
As I’ve been doing the last few weeks, I wrote out the synopsis of the scene followed by the more fleshed out treatment:
Scene 5 (Desire/Aware)
Rob tries to escape but the Sorcerers summon monsters to get in his way. Rob’s Raven gets hit into the bushes while trying to protect Rob. The lead Sorcerer points out to Rob that he is only proving his guilt by attempting to run. THAT is true evidence.
Outdoor Shopping Area – Day continued
Rob is overwhelmingly frustrated. His stomach growls in spite of the chaos around him. He looks down at this hot dog longingly. He searches for escape routes. If he could just manage to ditch these jerks, he could at least finish his lunch. The situation is so out of hand that he just wants to wash his hands of the whole thing.
He spots a way out of the Shopping Area and he goes for it.
Guessing his intention the Other Male Sorcerer calls out to stop him from escaping. The Female Sorcerers summons an enormous Winged Ape which appears before Rob and slashes him, ripping his shirt and nearly knocking the hot dog off his plate.
Rob gets hit one more time and gets thrown to the side clutching his lunch so that it will be safe. He lands hard. He’s dazed and confused for a moment. The Ape attacks again. Rob’s Raven comes to the rescue pecking and scratching at the Ape. The Ape swats at the Raven and hits it, sending it flying into some bushes. Rob comes to his senses just as the Ape turns it’s attention back to him. It lunges toward him. Rob sees it coming and in the same split second sees another potential exit he can go for. He feints to one side and then uses the Apes momentum to have it crash to the side as he steps over it and goes for the other exit.
Seeing this, the Other Male Sorcerer summons another Winged Ape who blocks Rob’s attempt at freedom. It backhands Rob and sends him skidding to a stop near a fountain. Clothes ripped and bleeding Rob quickly gets to his feet as the Ape leaps at him. He uses the nearby fountain to dodge and hide from the thing. He jumps from the fountain to a wall surrounding the fountain dodging the Ape’s attacks. All the while, nearly dropping and recovering his lunch. He uses the cover of some nearby trees and benches to avoid the Ape.
He looks for more exits. He sees the other Ape has recovered and is moving in his direction. Both Apes are between him and an exit. He turns and see one more exit. His stomach grumbles. He runs. The Apes try to catch him. He leaps just as they get to him. They hit each other. Rob keeps going. He’s home free. Suddenly an enormous Viper like creature appears from nowhere before him. Rob comes to a screeching halt.
The Lead Sorcerer smiles, a little tired after having summoned the creature. He points out to Rob that he says he’s innocent, yet he run like a guilty man. He tells Rob his actions speak clearly.
The Viper thing lunges at Rob and he moves out the way just in time to avoid it’s fangs. Rob moves away from it. All exits blocked.
END OF SCENE
I think even if it’s as straightforward as this, the fight scene should work okay. After all, the point of this scene is to whittle away Rob’s options.
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
Monday was a bit problematic this week. I hadn’t realized that daycare was closed and I ended up getting stuck with the kids. I couldn’t take them home because daycare is half way between my house and work. It had taken me about an hour to drive there and I was running late. I took the kids to work with me after calling my wife. She agreed to pick the kids up. I fed them when we got to my job and they played while I attempted to work. They were very good and I got more work done than I thought I would.
I’m still working on the Halloween show this week. This is our last week on it and things are really hectic. The rewrite was heavy in two of the Acts and it’s all we can do to get it all fixed up on time. As of the time of this writing, we have two days to start and finish the last Act that needs revisions.
Looking up some reference on the internet for the show, I came across the drawing below. It was a drawing I did, for a calendar I drew some art in a few years ago.
VIDEO
Yet another “Gamification” video. I’m fascinated by the idea. It also bothers me a bit because it’s such a manipulative tool. On the one hand, it’s okay when it’s in a game, but I’m not sure I would like it in EVERYTHING. On the other hand, it can potentially make mundane things fun to do.
Still trying to figure out a good way to use it with art.
WRITING
Alright it’s time for the fight. I’m going to try to plan as much of this fight as I can at this stage. If after I’m done with these next three scenes, if I don’t think there’s enough stuff physically going on, I’ll probably add more. I might also add or adjust the fighting at the story boarding stage as well.
Scene 4 (Knowledge/Perception)
Rob is shocked by the betrayal. He attempts to convince the Lead Sorcerer to stop by attempting to call up some sort of evidence that he is telling the truth. The Sorcerer stubbornly refuses, he doesn’t trust any of his evidence.
Outdoor Shopping Area – Day continued
Rob feels the fireball before he sees it. With one swift motion he grabs his hot dog plate and jumps out of the way as the fireballs smashes into the metal chair he was using and melts it.
Rob complains loudly about The betrayal. The Other Male Sorcerer fires again. Rob dodges it. The female Sorcerers delightfully joins in by throwing sharp shards of ice at Rob. The Lead Sorcerer is furious at the other two for having him break his word. But what is done is done. This was going to happen anyway. He will need to deal with the other two later. For now, he has a world to save he begins summoning power for a spell.
Rob reprimands himself. He should have known better. He protects his food as he dodges the fire and ice. He calls out to the Lead Sorcerer, telling him that this is the sort of thing that always happens. That it is the Sorcerers that attack him and he just defends himself. He points out that he didn’t start this and he that he even left himself defenseless.
The Lead Sorcerer, eyes glowing with power, turns to Rob and says, this proves nothing.
END OF SCENE
I have to admit, this is pretty intimidating. I’ve never written action before. I read the description of the scene and I had no idea what I should write. It seemed as if I should have written more than I ended up writing.
There were two problems I encountered in trying to write the scene. The first one was, I wasn’t sure what I meant by:
“He attempts to convince the Lead Sorcerer to stop by attempting to call up some sort of evidence that he is telling the truth.”
I thought to myself, ‘What does he do? Reach into his backpack and take out pictures of the other times this has happened?’ In the end, I think what I came up with was simple enough.
The second problem I had was coming up with a reason for the Lead Sorcerer to attack Rob. It wasn’t his intention for the fight to start so dishonorably, so I thought he might not fight at all. This would mess up the story and take it in a different direction. A direction I didn’t want to go. I then realized he was planning to fight Rob anyway. Rob is still the bad guy to him and that trumps everything. Problem solved.
This scene was the most difficult one to write so far. Hopefully the next one won’t be so bad.
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
I started board revisions on the Halloween show this week. I was given Act 1 which had the least amount of re-writes while my partner got stuck with the much heavier Act 3. It has a lot more re-writes and it’s much more complicated. It’s also the act the layout crew is starting on. It’s very funny and it had me laughing so much I was tearing up when we watched the screening.
VIDEOS
I’ve got some videos from fellow CARTOONISTAS I want to share this week.First up is Jim Lujan‘s latest cartoon HARD CRUMBLER. A story of a man searching for what he’s lost. Very funny. Jim has a way of making his cartoons seem so serious but they are sooo not. Great stuff:
Next is Raul Aguirre Jr‘s Act 1 animatic for a project he’s working on for El Padrecito Ministries. It’s a cartoon based on the HOMIES and MiJOS line of product of gumball machine toys, you might have seen. It’s amazing. Raul is the man. He obviously did all the voice work and put together an animatic single handed. Fantastic stuff. So much work. The project needs some stimulus money to continue so you might want to think about pitching in a few bucks, it looks worth it. Have a look:
Scene three is very short. The most significant thing about it, is that I officially pass the “antagonist baton” from the Lead Sorcerer to the Other Male Sorcerer (the guy who has his face covered by his hair). The Lead Sorcerer is no longer both the Antagonist AND the Impact Character. He is just the Impact Character. The way I’ve been writing him kinda forced me to split the role onto the other character. I’m just glad I had another character to give the role to.
As I have been doing, I’ll put the synopsis of the scene and then I’ll expand on it:
Scene 3 (Speculation/Inequity)
Rob hands over his weapon believing the Sorcerers will keep their word leaving him out numbered and without protection.The Sorcerers laugh at the weapon and throw it in the bushes.Just as he’s about to cut the hot dog they attack him. (First Act climax)
Outdoor Shopping Area – Day continued
The Lead Sorcerer takes the little hammer and thinks it’s some sort of joke at first. Then he senses that the thing has power. The others think it’s a trick, until the Lead Sorcerer tells them otherwise. The other two Sorcerers laugh at the puny thing. They both wonder that anything that small could do anything to anyone. They laugh at it and at themselves, wondering how anyone would be afraid of it.
The Lead Sorcerer doesn’t like holding or touching the thing any more than he has to, so as his companion laugh at the little hammer, he tosses it as far away from himself as he can. All the while pretending that he thinks the thing is laughable too. The little hammer lands in some bushes a few yards away. The Lead Sorcerer is relieved, knowing that they just barely managed to dodged that bullet. He hadn’t anticipated such power.
Everything being settled, Rob feels relieved that he’s at least going to get ten minutes of peace to eat. His stomach hurts from hunger so much he doesn’t really care anything about what the Sorcerers are doing. He takes his knife and is about to cut his hot dog again.The Sorcerers look on. The other male Sorcerers looks on as Rob is about to cut into his hot dog and hatred erupts in his belly. He sees no reason to give this monster any mercy of any kind. Before the Lead Sorcerer could stop him, he fires a volley of fire balls at Rob.
END OF SCENE
That last bit with the fireball was new. I didn’t know he was going to do that until I wrote it. I haven’t really worked out the Sorcerer’s magic system yet. Which means I kinda making it up as go. What I DO know, is that they get their powers by creating unions with “spirits”.
I find it interesting that, the more I write the more excited I get about it.
MY WEEK
It was my birthday on Sunday. I’m now 36.
For the first time in a very long time, I decided that I would actually voice what I wanted to do for my birthday. Most birthdays I sit back and let people do things for me for my birthday. This was fine for a while but I’ve gotten to the point where I would actually like to do something I really enjoy. Now a days, what I want to do consists of one thing: playing games.
Things haven’t really changed much since many MANY years ago (high school days I think), for my birthday, I invited a bunch of friends over to play video games with me. Things have changed only in the type of games I like. They mostly consist of tabletop games now. Well, I thought my wife knew what I wanted. When she asked me earlier this Month what I wanted, I told her,”You know what I like”. Thinking that she’d noticed I have a lot of boardgames around and I’m always asking her to play with me (which she mostly doesn’t do). I figured she’d think that I might want to invite some people over to play games for my birthday (because she knows I like that). Well, I found out Friday morning that she didn’t have that in mind at all. She thought I wanted to go to the park for some reason. I don’t know why.
I corrected that assumption and told her what I wanted. I wanted a game day and I thought it would be best to do it on a Saturday since people didn’t have to go to Church and some people had to work on Monday. So at the last minute, Alesha started contacting people about coming over on Saturday to play games.
I got very excited. Not only that, but I started to get a little worried as people started confirming that they were coming. It was going to be about eighteen people or so. This is a bit of a problem since most of my games average about four players, and I only had ONE table. My parents said they weren’t going to make it and my brother and sister-in-law weren’t either. I was counting on my parents coming to bring some extra tables, but in the end, I went over to their place to pick them up.
We cleaned up the house and rearranged the furniture to have the most space possible to have three gaming table ready. Then came the tricky part, what games to put out for people to play. I knew I was going to spend a lot of time explaining games because the games I have aren’t mainstream. Most people hadn’t even heard of them. So I thought hard and came up with some solutions. One table would have the game GYPE which requires you to read three sentences of rules before the game begins. It’s a fun fast game and I would just be able to point to the table and people could get started. It also plays tons of people.
On another table, I set up the game FORBIDDEN ISLAND. This is a very simple cooperative game for four people. It’s very pretty and easy to teach. Since it’s cooperative, it would be perfect as an intro to gaming, since everyone at the table is working together. I also wanted to hook up two TVs. One hooked up to the Nintendo 64 running MARIO PARTY. The other hooked up the my PS2 running DOKAPON KINGDOM (both are boardgame video games). Unfortunately I couldn’t get one of the TVs to hook up well, so that left only one. If I needed another one, I’d unplug the one in my office and bring it down.
For the “big table”, I wanted to put something I really wanted to play. Something a little bit heavier that I can really sink my teeth into. I wanted to play AGRICOLA, but I also wanted to go with COSMIC ENCOUNTER since it was silly strategic fun. I just couldn’t decide.
I forgot to tell you that the day before, Alesha had gone over and picked up her friend Rosetta who slept over. She’s one of Alesha’s best friends and she is one the few who LOVES playing boardgames with us. When she heard we where having a boardgame party, she couldn’t wait to come.
Everyone was suppose to come at two but by two o’clock, no one had come. Alesha, thought we should start playing something while we waited. So I chose DOMINION. I explained the game to Rosetta and we got started. We had fun, in spite of the fact that the kids kept interrupting the game. I was hoping to have other kids or people there already to keep them distracted but…oh well. By the time we finished the first game of DOMINION, we had found out that one group of people wasn’t going to make it because they were having car problems. That was okay, there were more coming. We started another game of DOMINION and finished the game much faster but still had lots of interruptions. Especially since Alesha was cooking as she played. By the time we finished the second game, we had received two more phone calls telling us the rest of the people who were coming weren’t going to make it because of car troubles. EVERYONE had car problems. Crazy.And so ended my big game day. We eat dinner after that. I was sung happy birthday and we eat cake. Rosetta had to go home (forty five minutes away) so Alesha took her home promising me that when she got back, she would play some more games with me. I stayed and played FORBIDDEN ISLAND with the kids (we lost twice) and then we played a game of TABLE GYPE (only using the flame side up).I love playing with my kids because it lets me spend time with them and they enjoy it so much. That said, I don’t actually enjoy any of the games I play with them. I mean, I really can’t be serious about playing against them or anything. They are just little kids. The games aren’t very satisfying and I was really in the mood to play satisfying games. After all, it was my birthday party.Well, I put the kids to bed soon after we where done (since it was their bedtime) and I was left all alone with three tables of games that no one used. I began to put everything away. I must admit, I was heartbroken. I knew it was my fault for not speaking up earlier and letting people know sooner. Still, it really sucked.
My family was going to hold a birthday party for me the next day. Unfortunately, games are almost never played at parties held for me at my parents house. In fact, Alesha even suggested that we should hold the game night at my parent’s but I told her I didn’t like that idea, for a few reasons. 1) It would mean I wouldn’t have access to all my games, since I couldn’t bring them all. This meant I couldn’t cater the games I brought out the specific group that sat to play a game. 2) It wouldn’t have been about the games at my parents house. It would be about the food and the socializing. Socializing would come first, then food and if we had time (which we almost NEVER do) we would play something. The game day, as I had planned it, had NO finger foods (no chips or anything you eat with your fingers), and the food was secondary to the gaming. It was meant to be unimportant. Also, you could socialize all you wanted and not play a game but if you wanted to socialize with me, you had to play a game with me because I wanted to be playing something all the time. I wouldn’t have gotten that at my parent’s house.
Anyway, Alesha came home about three hours later, completely beat. She’d been stuck in traffic for hours in rain and sleet. She was in no condition to play anything anymore and I was emotionally drained and sad so I didn’t really want to play anything either.
The next day was my birthday, I went to Church with Elizabeth and got ready to go to my parent’s house. I brought my games with me along with all the tables and chairs I borrowed. As I usually do, I pack up very specific games that I think the people at the party will like to play. I do this every time I go to a party (just in case someone says to me, “Let’s play a game”). When I got to my parents house, I left the games in the car. I do this because we rarely ever play them so why bother taking them out. Like I said, I bring them just in case. I kinda had the impression that I was expected to bring games since they didn’t come to my game party. I knew better though.
The birthday party was nice. The food was amazing. Eduardo, my Compadre, barbecued the most awesome stakes. I couldn’t stop eating them. I mean, these things were sooo good. They had this fantastic smoky flavor. Yum. The food was great and the kids had fun.
Everyone left early because it was Sunday and no one mentioned games. My games stayed in the car. We left soon after.
When we got home we put the kids to bed, Alesha asked me if I wanted to play something. We played a game of the CATAN CARD GAME and two games of DOMINION. We had a great time and I was very happy and grateful to her.
But here’s the thing. I might be self centered, walking around feeling sorry for myself but in spite of my flaws, something really good happened in spite of my disappointing game day. Alesha’s friend Rosetta had an INCREDIBLE time with us. She couldn’t stop thanking Alesha on the way home for being invited to come. She had been going through a lot of bad things and having come over to spend time with us and playing games had been the highlight of her year so far. She was so happy. So all this birthday stuff, it wasn’t about me. It was about her and what SHE needed. Sometime you have to stop thinking about yourself and see the big picture. I didn’t NEED a game day. I just wanted one. She NEEDED what we ended giving her and you know what? That makes it a great birthday.
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
I finished both Acts 1 and 2 for Show 20 last week and now I’m done with Act 3 and working on Act 4. That’s crazy. This will be the first time I was able to revise an entire show on my own. Unfortunately, things are a bit more hectic than they need to be. I needed to stay late all week in order to be able to stay home with the kids on Friday, since day care will be closed that day.
Still, I’m glad I’m so ahead on the work.
VIDEO/GHETTOMATION
Went to the comic store with some pals from work a few weeks back. They met up a with a guy who one my friend Dave knew who had had made a Superman cartoon for fun. He had it on his iPhone and showed it to my friends but I was somewhere else in the shop and missed it. They couldn’t stop talking about it, they liked it so much. Well here’s what I missed out on for everyone to see. It was animated by veteran Disney animator Robb Pratt.
Ghettomation at it’s most fully animated. And by Ghettomation I mean you’re making an animated cartoon with the tools you have on hand, Guerrilla style.
WRITING
This week on my personal project, I’m working on Scene 2 from Act 1. As I did last week I’ll put my Scene synopsis first and then I’ll expound on it.
This one got looong. The purpose of the treatment is to overwrite so you have everything you can possibly think of covered. I was trying to do this which made it difficult to be brief. I think once I’m done with this first pass on the treatment, I’m going to go over it one more time (though I probably won’t post it) just to make sure everything is working the way I want. It’s REALLY difficult for me not to write dialogue here. Especially since it’s my favorite part. I’m not saying I’m good at writing dialogue, I’m just saying I like to do it.
Scene 2 (Inertia/Order)
The Sorcerers confront Rob about his past and his future. Rob defends by explaining the circumstances behind those moments. If left alone nothing would happen. They try to convince him to turn himself over to the Sorcerers so they can lock him up and keep him from becoming evil. Rob tells them he has no intention of taking over the world. The lead Sorcerer tries to convince Rob that his cause is just. Rob just want to be left alone. The Sorcerers won’t do that. Rob asks if he could at least have ten minutes to finish his hot dog. They discuss it among themselves and grant him ten minutes on the condition he hand over his weapon. (inciting incident)
Now, I expand it:
Outdoor Shopping Area – Day continued
Settling himself down and mentally kicking himself for not paying more attention to the people in the area, Rob tries to play it cool. He hopes that if he’s nice, they will leave him alone to eat his hot dog. He smiles up and greets them. Then he asks if it would be possible for them to wait a minute or two while he finishes his lunch.
The Lead Sorcerer doesn’t like the attitude Rob has taken and suspects a ruse. He ignores the happy attitude and asks Rob to come with him and his two allies.
This is new to Rob. He is a bit puzzled. He usually just gets attacked and no one ever just asks him to come with them. He asks them where to and why.
The Lead Sorcerer thinks Rob is playing games so he tells him to stop. He tells him he know where and why.
Anger builds up in Rob’s belly but he holds it back. It is THEY that are bothering HIM. What’s with the attitude. Rob sincerely tells them that he suspects the why but not the where. He tells them that he suspects that they are here because they believe he’s some sort of evil dark lord that will take over the world. He also tells them that since it isn’t true, he doesn’t think he’s going anywhere with them. Especially since they seem so openly hostile.
The Lead Sorcerer is very surprised at this response. He’s angered by the blatant denial of his evil actions. He accuses Rob of lying about who he truly is. He challenges Rob to deny that he has previously incapacitated 30 other Sorcerers that he has come in contact with. He challenges Rob to deny the ruthlessness of those attacks upon them. He challenges Rob to deny that such power should not be considered dangerous and signs of an evil nature.
Rob is shocked at the way this is put to him. ALL does so called “attacks” where self defense. He got attacked FIRST and he defended himself. He can’t believe how out of context the situations are being portrayed. He immediately argues back about that very thing. Rob is outraged by how they’ve twisted what really happened.
The Lead Sorcerer doesn’t believe Rob. Though, he’s impressed with Rob’s very convincing acting ability. He does see a way to manipulate Rob’s act to his purpose. He proposes to Rob that if what he says is true, he would have no problem going with him and his companions to the Sorcerer’s High Tower and face trial. He tells Rob he will be set free and not bothered if what he said is found to be true.
It suddenly dawns on Rob what is going on. He realizes that that’s where they want him to go. They want him to go with them to some tower so he could be judged for defending himself. Rob can’t believe how messed up these guys are. He lets out a small laugh.
The Lead Sorcerer thinks Rob is mocking him and voices his outrage.
Rob tries to calm him down by telling him he wasn’t laughing at him, but at the ridiculous situation this was. He asks the Lead Sorcerer if the Sorcerer’s High Tower is where they wanted to escort him to.
The Lead Sorcerer confirms this.
Rob knows from his dealings with the Sorcerers that they always get the facts mixed up. These guys are only proving his suspicions. Even though he knows what the answer will be, he asks the Lead Sorcerer what would happen if he refuses.
The Lead Sorcerer assures Rob that it would prove he is guilty, evil, and exactly what the prophesy says he is because actions speak louder than words. Since only the guilty run. Having him prove he’s guilty in this way, they would have to kill Rob on the spot, in order to save the world from his slavery.
Rob sees the writing on the wall. This is going to end in a fight. His stomach grumbles with a hunger pain, which only makes him MORE upset. He tries to reason with the Lead Sorcerer, explaining that this was pretty much what led him to fight all the other Sorcerers. He tells him that they are only proving his point. He tells them he absolutely refuses to go with them. That all he wants is to be left alone, and more importantly, he wants to be able to just eat his lunch in peace.
The Lead Sorcerer didn’t want it to come to this, but he doesn’t have a choice and tells Rob this. He tried to reason with him, now it’s time to do it the hard way. He knows his companions where looking forward to this. They are itching to hurt Rob. They all get ready to attack.
Rob seeing this and calls out for them to stop. He’s at the brink of frustration and irritation. He decides to beg. He pleads with the three to let him have five minutes to at least eat his hot dog. Then he’ll allow them to try to kill them all they want.
The Lead Sorcerer considers this. He sees a tactical advantage here but he wants to make sure he isn’t being duped. He tells Rob that he needs to consult with his companions. Keeping an eye on Rob, he steps aside with his companions and tells them what his plan. He tells them that if Rob really wants these five minutes (as he seems to) perhaps he would be stupid enough to give up his weapon for it. If it’s a trick, he would refuse, but if it’s NOT then he’s defenseless. The other agree but the other male Sorcerer thinks it would be foolish to give him the five minutes if he gives up his weapon. He thinks they should attack him. The Lead Sorcerer tells him it would be dishonorable to do such a thing if they bargain. The Other Male Sorcerer begins to argue but the Lead Sorcerer orders him to be quiet. They then turn to Rob and propose to give him five minutes to eat his lunch in return for his anti-Sorcerer weapon.
Rob considers. He’s so hungry. He thinks to himself, why not? If he’s going to die, he might as well die after happily eating his hot dog. Besides, the darn thing always seems to end up in his hand no matter what he does. If it finally stops being attached him, like a curse, it would be a win for him. He looks up at the Sorcerers and agrees but only if they give him ten minutes instead of five.
They agree.
He reaches over to a loop on his belt and removes what looks like a tiny medical reflex hammer from it. He hands it over to the Lead Sorcerer. He warns them that no matter how hard he tries, the hammer always finds a way back to him.
END OF SCENE
My big surprise as I’m writing this is, how honorable the antagonist is turning out. It’s something unintentional but the story needs him to be so. I originally envisioned him as a big jerk. I may need to change his design a little because of this.
I think the next scene will be much shorter. I’m very excited that I’m getting closer to getting to the final art and boards.
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
Moved on to the Halloween show this week. At this point in the week, I’m not sure I’ll get what I was assigned done. I’m going to try my best to finish. It’s my professional pride to finish what I’m given. I don’t like giving back scenes I didn’t get to. Especially since I know I only have this week to work on the this show. Next week I start on Storyboard revisions again.
FAMILY
Dante turned 3 years on Monday. We took him to Travel Town at Griffith Park. It’s an old train yard converted to a park/museum. Dante is train obsessed. He’s into Thomas and Friends. He was so excited to be going into the trains. He loved it.
I did too. Trains are cool. There was an enormous one that had wheels taller than me. It was a giant train engine. Amazing. We rode on the mini train they had there and I ended up buying Dante a James the tank engine from Thomas and Friends. We then drove to the other side of Griffith Park were Dante’s Godmother was. There, we took him to ride a pony and another little train. My parents met us earlier in the day at Travel Town, so they were there too.
Dante was dying to go home mid way through the day, not because he wasn’t having a good time, but because he so desperately wanted to go home and play with his trains. Unfortunately we had a party to go to that day and we went there instead. Lucky for Dante, there where toy trains at that house for him to play with, so it was all okay.
When we DID get home, he took his new toy train to bed and slept with it. The next day, he spent a few hours playing with it. Every day when we get home, he plays with his trains. He’s been doing it for almost a year now.
WEBSITES
Gamification is the concept that you can apply the basic elements that make games fun and engaging to things that typically aren’t considered a game.
I became aware of this concept a while back, but I really didn’t put much attention to it. Then I read an article on Purple Pawn that made me a bit more curious, so I decided to find out more about it. It was an article about a new website that allows you to “Gamify” your site called Gamify.com.
This kinda gave me a more concrete example of what Gamification meant. Not only that, but it made it accessible. I then made my way to the Gamification Wiki where I found these videos explain things a bit more:
All this has got me thinking about how I could “Gamify” my blog, or any comics I make, or any cartoons I create. I’d love to have people get into anything I do because it’s not only fun to read or watch but because it also has a meta element, like a game, to keep you coming back for more. That way you can get a longer lasting experience out of what I do.
As a gamer (and by gamer I mean I like playing table top games, as well as video games) I find this really fascinating. Especially since it would combine the things I love. What do you think?
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 from a few weeks ago, 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, last act. As I wrote this one out I realized I’m going to have to make a few adjustments to Act 2 (more about that below) but that’s exactly what this process is about. Adjusting the structure of the story until you get the pieces in the right places.
Act 3
OVERALL STORY THROUGH LINE
Innermost Desires – The Lead Sorcerer stomps on the Hot Dog the main character so desired thereby demoralizing him. The Main Character sees his hot dog as a representation of the peace he longs for. Seeing this, the Sorcerers rejoice in the fact that they have can potentially attained the one thing no other Sorcerer so far have been able to do. Namely, kill the Main Character. They relish in the anticipation of the glory they so desire.
Innermost Desires ======> Contemplation – Having lost his Hot Dog and having nothing left to lose, the Main Character truly fights back. Giving into his desire to get revenge for the peace that was taken from him. He beats the Sorcerers senseless. This causes the Sorcerers to realize their mistaken impression of themselves.
Contemplation – A moment at the end there where the Main Character could have taken the Lead Sorcerer’s life but didn’t, makes the Sorcerer rethink who he is, what he does, and what all the other Sorcerer’s say about the Main Character. This leads to a generous act on the part of the Lead Sorcerer, who buys the Main Character two Hot Dogs to replace the one he destroyed. This makes the Main Character thinks that there still might be some hope for peace left.
MAIN CHARACTER STORY THROUGH LINE:
Doing – Unfortunately the Lead Sorcerer destroys his Hot Dog, which forces him to pick up his weapon and fight them off or die.
Doing ======> Understanding – After dispatching all the monster and the other Sorcerers, he has the Lead Sorcerer in a weakened and vulnerable state. Understanding that the only way to show the Sorcerer that he’s mistaken about who he thinks he is. He chooses to let him go free.
Understanding – Rob realizes that it’s possible to change the minds of the Sorcerers and that gives him hope, that the attacks might stop and he’ll get the peace he wants. He also knows that every time he uses the warhammer, it gets more and more difficult to control himself and it.
IMPACT CHARACTER STORY THROUGH LINE:
Playing a Role – Rob begins striking down the Lead Sorcerer’s monsters and friends, making it easy to prove his point. He drives it home by showing Rob how easily he would strike down a helpless person, by NOT fighting him. Playing the role of victim to Rob’s predator.
Playing a Role ======> Changing One’s Nature – Rob shows the Lead Sorcerer that he HADN’T been as consumed and rage as he let on. Rob surprises the Lead Sorcerer by not attacking him when he has a chance.
Changing One’s Nature – The Sorcerer is deeply moved by this example and becomes very impressed. The Lead Sorcerer, makes a gift of two Hot Dogs for Rob out of respect, leaving Rob with a new perspective about the Sorcerers as a whole.
MAIN CHARACTER vs. IMPACT CHARACTER STORY THROUGH LINE:
Future – The Lead Sorcerer insists that the Main Character will enslave the world whether the Main Character says he will or not. The future is set, according to the prophesy. The main character insists it’s wrong, it’s false, it can’t happen.
Future ======> Present – In order to prove to the Lead Sorcerer that he’s not what the prophesy of his future says he is, he forces the Lead Sorcerer to notice how he acts here and now, by NOT treating him the same way the Lead Sorcerer treated, him. He doesn’t kill or hurt him once he’s down and powerless.
Present – Because of the way the Main Character treated the Lead Sorcerer, for now, the two characters end up, not as friends but not exactly enemies. There’s a type of mutual respect for each other that exist for the moment, that wasn’t there before.
Ignoring the Sorcerers, Rob goes for his hot dog only to have the Lead Sorcerer step on it, leaving Rob stunned for a second. Rob becomes angry and his Raven flies from the bushes with Robs little weapon in it’s talons. He drops it on Rob’s hand were it magically grows large and he begins to fight off the monsters and Sorcerers in an almost out of control bezerker rage.
Scene 8 (Thought/Knowledge)
Seeing the might they have unleashed on themselves the Sorcerers are shocked and two of them are incapacitated by Rob. The Lead Sorcerer seeing this, thinks he’s proved his case and does the crazy thing of putting his guard down to prove to Rob who he really is. Rob sees this and fights to bring down his rage. The Lead Sorcerer expects to be struck down, only Rob surprises him by NOT doing so. (Act 3 climax)
Scene 9 (Thought/Actuality)
Rob puts down his weapon, walks away. He helps the other Sorcerers up and then starts picking up his things, which are now all over the destroyed area they fought on. By the time he’s done, the Sorcerers are gone. When he begins to walk away, the hot dog vendor calls out to him. He has two hot dogs for him, seemingly bought by the Lead Sorcerer. (Resolution)
And that’s that. I’m thinking about putting the “hot dogs getting stepped on” bit in Scene 6. I think it will fit better there.
I think Scene 8 will need to be the trickiest one, mainly because there needs to be a moment of inner conflict for Rob in order to be climactic and showing it visually will be difficult.
Now that I have a quick synopsis of what will be in each scene, I can star writing the treatment. Once that’s done, I will start writing the dialogue (which is the part I dying to write).
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
