ANIMATION – Thoughts on the Legion of Superheroes Animated Cartoon
Simpsons Quote:
Lucy Lawless: I’ll take you home.
[Lucy flies, carrying Bart and Lisa]
Lisa: Hey, Xena can’t fly.
Lucy Lawless: I told you, I’m not Xena. I’m Lucy Lawless.
Hi. So as I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of animated cartoons, and one of my all-time favorite animated cartoons is the Legion of Superheroes, and today I’m going to be talking a little bit more in-depth about that.
You can either watch the video or read the transcription below:
Some of the links below are affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
A Bit of Gushing
I liked the Legion of Superheroes cartoon. I’m very disappointed that there’s only the first season of it on DVD. I want the second season, because I happen to be a huge Superman fan. A huge Superman nerd. I’m such a nerd when it comes to Superman. Love Superman.
Legion of Superheroes season two has one of the most interesting versions of Superman. There’s this character in it called Superman X that’s like a cross between Batman and Superman, with Superman’s powers, and it’s good.
Why I Like the First Season
I’m getting way too ahead of myself. Let me at least talk about the first season. Why do I like this show?
Well, first, I really like the approach that they took with the designs. I really do think that these designs are way more pushed than, say, they took the Bruce Timm style and they kind of cartoon-ified it even more and pushed it, and so that’s one of the things. I like the look of the show.
What is the Legion of Superheroes?
Second, the stories are a lot of fun. If you don’t know what the Legion of Superheroes is, it’s a group of superheroes, and they’re all aliens on Earth being superheroes.
They’re a superhero team of the thirty-first century that were inspired to come to Earth to be the alien superhero of Earth because Superman was an alien superhero. So, since he has become a legend by the time of the the thirty-first century, it inspired a group of young kids to also come to Earth and be the superhero of Earth.
There were so many of them, they all kind of banded together and they became the Legion. So one of the things that they did was, because they wanted to meet their hero, they created a time bubble and they traveled back in time to Smallville, and met Superboy, who was at the time their age, and brought him into the future and have adventures with him.
Clark, I guess, just graduated high school or something, and now he’s Superman. He’s about ready to go into Metropolis, but then he goes into the future to have adventures with the Legion.
The Feel of the Cartoon
It’s a great cartoon. I like it. The animation is great, the stories are fun, it’s not as serious as, say, Batman Beyond and the Bruce Timm Batman, and The Batman, and I would even say Justice League and Justice League Unlimited.
It’s not as serious, but it also is not as wacky as, say, Teen Titans animated cartoon. It’s somewhere in between. My kids like this cartoon also. But I didn’t get that for them, I got it for me.
All right, so check out that Legion of Superheroes first season. Maybe if they sell enough of them they might release the second season, which I think is much, much better.
Why I liked Season Two
Like I said, it’s got a clone of Superman from the forty-first century. It’s a fun character. His name is Superman X. I have no idea why DC has not made a comic of Superman X, with Superman X in it.
He’s a cool Superman. I’m going to have to draw Superman X, because he’s cool. And it’s funny because the design of Superman X looks like Tom Welling from Smallville, the live action Superman TV show that went out for ten years. I think that’s great. I’m a fan of Smallville also, so I thought that was a cool nod to that version of Superman.
Below you’re going to put links to some episodes of Legion of Superheroes season two, with a Superman X episode.
You can watch, if not all, most of season two of Legion of Superheroes on YouTube. It’s the only way that you can see them right now.
Have you Seen This Show?
Okay, so let me know if you’ve seen the show. What do you think? Do you have the same opinions? Do you not like this show? I’d like to know.
Leave a comment below. If you want a free “Art of” book from me, with all my artwork in it, subscribe to my newsletter. You will get a free copy of the book, and if you want a copy of the print version of the book, you can go to Amazon and get it there.
VIDEOS – Legion of Superheroes Season 2
Here are the first two episodes of Legion of Superheroes Season 2. Enjoy:
How learning to draw basic shape can let you draw anything.
How to draw stick figures with style.
What professionals know about tracing correctly.
How to draw basic cartoon characters…and much more
Most “how to draw” books always assume you have some level of competency. This book doesn’t. It helps you from the ground up.
Draw as if you’ve been born to. Amaze your friends. Have fun drawing again, like you did when you were little.
For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIESIf you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
ANIMATION – Thoughts on the Animated Show, Tron: Uprising
The Simpsons Quote:
Homer: “Er…it’s like…has anyone seen that film Tron” Frink: “No” Dr. Hibbert: “No” Chief Wiggum: “No” Rev. Lovejoy: “No” Patty: “No” Chief Wiggum: “No” Frink: “No” Marge: “No” Chief Wiggum: “Yes…wait, I mean NO”
My favorite type of animated TV show is action/adventure. And today I’m going to be talking about Tron: Uprising. Which happens to be an action/adventure animated show.
You can either watch the video or read the transcription below:
Some of the links below are affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
My General Thoughts About the Tron Franchise
I like Tron: Uprising. I watched it OnDemand. I used to have cable at the time. And whenever a new episode would update I’d watch an episode and I loved it.
As a kid in the ‘80s, I watched Tron the Movie. I thought it was weird. It kind of freaked me out a little bit. I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie.
But it was part of my childhood and I liked it okay. It was all right. So then I watched Tron: Legacy because I had seen Tron as a kid. And I made sure that I rewatched Tron before I went to watch Tron: Legacy .
Well, another reason that I liked or at least wanted to watch Tron: Legacy was because I’m a fan of cyber punk. So I watch Tron:Legacy and I liked it okay. I liked it about as much as I liked the original Tron movie.
I like the concepts. I like the idea and it’s a cyber punk movie.
Then I watched Tron: Uprising based on Tron: Legacy .
About Tron: Uprising
The story takes place sometime in between the Tron movie and Tron: Legacy . It kind of is like the bridge story. It’s basically about a program named Beck who takes the place of Tron. He tries to liberate the grid from Clue who has been established as this guy who kind of oppressed the grid.
So the gist of the story is that this character named Beck pretends to be Tron or at least it’s a little bit Batman Beyond-ish where you’ve got Tron and he’s training his new protégé, Beck, who is going to be liberating the grid or at least, this town.
The First Reason Why I Think Tron: Uprising is Cool
But what is it about it that makes me excited? What is it about it that is so good?
First of all, the designs the character designs on Tron: Uprising are designed by this incredible designer by the name of Robert Valley.
Now Robert Valley is amazing. He’s such a good artist, but I really, really like his designs for this show. And the show is a CG show. It’s a computer generated show and somehow they’ve managed to capture the design style, his design style so perfectly and clearly. It’s amazing.
So it’s really eye-candy. The look of the show, the colors, the way that it looks, the way it feels, the graphics, something about it, it’s just pretty, so beautiful.
You Can Watch it (as of the time of this writing) on Netflix
Because I didn’t watch the entire show all at once when it aired as it aired and I only caught it OnDemand I eventually wasn’t able to keep up. I kept forgetting to watch it. I just couldn’t make the time to watch it. So I eventually saw the rest of the show recently on Netflix.
The entire show is on Netflix now, the first season. The show has been tragically cancelled after the first season and that’s a bummer because the way that the season ends is wide open for the next season. It’s left wide open so it’s really disappointing to watch the show and then have it just kind of end, right? And you wanted know what would happen next.
The Second Reason Why I Think Tron: Uprising is Cool
One of the other reasons I really enjoyed the show was because it’s so well-written.
The stories are a lot of fun. It expands on the universe. I don’t know what it is about it, but it just pushes all the right buttons for me.
It has the cyber punk elements. It’s got this guy Beck is wearing this like white Tron suit that looks great and he looks cool. Like I said the visuals are great.
The characters, you get to like them. You get to enjoy their relationships to each other. It does have a little bit of that Batman Beyond vibe. If you like that show, you’d probably really like Tron: Uprising.
Back to Robert Valley , the character designs the caricatures of the actors in this CG show are really great. It captured their likenesses so well. Unbelievable how good they look.
Some of the original actors also voice the characters that they played on the movie.
In Conclusion
It’s a great show. I highly recommend it. Go watch it. It’s great. It’s so much fun.
Rumor has it that if you watch it on Netflix and if it gets good enough ranking on Netflix that they might consider running another season or creating another season. Whether or not that’s going to happen is up in the air.
I don’t know, but it’s worth watching anyway. If you’ve got Netflix streaming or if you can get it on DVD, I highly, highly recommend Tron: Uprising.
Go take a watch.
Have you Watched It?
If you have seen this show, go ahead and let me know so that we can talk about it and see what you have to say about it. I would like to hear what you think about this show.
New post on the drawing website this week. It’s been six months since there was one on that site. I’ve been sending newsletters every week to subscribers but post have been long in coming.
ANIMATION – Can the General Public Tell the Difference Between 2D animation and CG animation?
The Simpsons Quote:
Homer: This place looks expensive. I feel like I’m wasting a fortune just standing here. I better make the most of it. [Homer burps]
Something has come to my attention that’s kind of odd to me working in the animation industry, but I found this to be relatively true. I’ve asked on my Twitter page about this and my Google+ page and I found a few things out, but it’s still inconclusive.
So here is what bothers me.
The general public, the non-animation aficionados or geeks or fans or employees don’t really know the difference between 2D animation and computer generated animation.
That’s what this post is video/post is all about. You can watch the video or read the transcription below:
It all Started at Figure Drawing
I was speaking with a friend of mine at figure drawing at work. On Tuesdays, we go figure drawing. We got to talking and one of the things that my friend, Richie Chavez, said kind of struck me as odd, which was, that the general audience doesn’t know the difference between CG and 2D animation.
I didn’t believe him. I’m like no, that can’t be right.
An Eye Opening Conversation at a Kid’s Birthday Party
But then I went to a birthday party for a family friends’ kid. Now this is a family friend. They know what I do for a living, okay? They know I work in an animated cartoon.
At this children’s birthday party they were showing The Owls of Ga’Hoole and Lilo & Stitch. That was what was on TV. And while they were watching Lilo & Stitch I decided to go up to one of my friends.
It was his child’s birthday. They were watching the cartoon. And I went up to him and I asked him so, do you know how this is done? Do you know the difference between the hand-drawn 2D stuff and CG? And he turns to me and he says,
“Well, now that you mention it, I kind of have an idea that there is a difference, but I’ve only recently become aware of it,” And I asked him,
“This cartoon, Lilo & Stitch, CG or 2D?” And he’s like,
“I’m not sure,” I mean seriously, he didn’t know. He did not know the difference between hand-drawn.
Explaining the Difference
I told him one is, you know, a computer generated puppet that you move around. There’s more to it than that, but it’s generally, the gist of it is that you have a computer generated puppet and you move him a little bit and then you take the picture and you move him a little bit and take the picture.
Sort of like that. It’s not really how it happens, right? But I just kind of wanted to get his head in, thinking that way.
And then I told him in 2D, you do the same thing but with drawing. You hand draw the thing and then you put it under the camera. You take a picture and then you do the other drawing. You take a picture. Then once you have 24 drawings of those or 12 drawings of those exposed twice, for 24 frames there’s one second and the same kind of goes for CG.
Sometimes they go with 30 frames a second, sometimes with 60 frames a second. But I was trying to explain to him the difference between a hand-drawn thing and a CG thing and the difference in the way it looks.
What’s Your Experience with Non-animation Fans?
By looking at the movie, you should be able to tell the difference. So I guess my question is, is your experience the same as his? Can you tell the difference?
When you’re a fan of a thing you tend to be really into the thing. So you kind of know more than the general public.
But if you are part of the general public or better yet ask your mom that’s not in to this stuff. Ask your spouse, whoever it is that is not into this stuff. Ask your friends who are not into this stuff. Ask them if they know the difference between 2D and CG animation.
I would love to know the answer because if you are a fan then you are not the person I want to hear from. I want to hear from the people who aren’t fans, because I would love to know if they can tell the difference.
So yeah, leave a comment at the bottom of this blog.
This is the sequel to Man of Steel. I would have liked another stand alone Superman movie before they introduced other Superheroes, so we could flesh out Superman’s character a bit more.
Batman is arguably, more popular, he’s going to overshadow Superman in his own sequel.
Normally you’d think that if Superman and Batman fought, it’s no brainer, Superman wins right? Well, no. For the last 30 years, just about every time Superman and Batman fought, Batman would win. So…yeah.
If they keep to this tradition then Superman would lose to Batman in his own movie. That would suck.
I was going to do a video about why all this bothered me but then I saw the video below. This guy says EXACTLY what I was thinking and feeling about this whole thing. EXACTLY. It’s amazing.
He cusses a lot so be warned. Oh, the only thing I don’t agree with is that Christian Bale should play Batman. I actually don’t want him to, otherwise, I agree with what this guy says. He basically said it all for me.
What do you think?
For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIESIf you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
“I’m not normally a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me, Superman!” ~ Homer
So I’m a big Superman nerd. I’m a big Superman fan. I love Superman. And I thought I’d give you my two cents on Man of Steel and all the things around it and all the arguments I’ve been getting into about the movie.
You can either watch the video or read the transcription. That said, there’s A LOT of links and videos below. LOTS more. This video only covers SOME of what I’ve got to say. So scroll down for the rest of it:
Some links below are affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
My Favorite Superman Movies
Now, Man of Steel and Superman. Like I said, I’m a big fan of Superman. I love Superman. My favorite Superman movie is All-Star Superman.
What? It’s not the Christopher Reeve Superman that everybody else— the Donner Superman— what’s going on? What is wrong with you?
No, All-Star Superman is my favorite Superman movie, okay? You now know my tastes and where I’m coming from and how different my tastes are. My second favorite Superman movie is Superman vs. the Elite. I love that movie and the story in it.
I like the Donner movie just fine. I liked watching Smallville. I watched all 10 years of Smallville. I’ve watched and own all the episodes of the Bruce Timm Superman animated cartoon. I watched Superman in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited and in Young Justice and in Legion of Super Heroes, all those animated cartoons.
I’ve seen every single animated movie that they’ve made of Superman. And on top of that I also happen to read the comics as well.
What I DIDN’T and DID Want to See in Man of Steel
Okay, so I go in to watch Man of Steel. Here are the things I do not want to see. Let me start with that. What I don’t want to see from Man of Steel going into the theater is:
The Donner movie. I do not want to see the Richard Donner Superman movie redone. I want this new movie to have nothing to do with the Donner movie. I don’t want the actor to look like Christopher Reeve. I don’t want to see Lex Luthor being a big joke. That’s great for the Donner movie. It worked great for the silver age. Fine. I didn’t want to wait half an hour before I got to see Superman or an hour before I got to see Superman because he’s living his life in Smallville. So here’s another thing I didn’t want to see.
I did not want to see Smallville The Movie. I did not want to see young Clark growing up, pining over Lana, having relationships with his teenage friends, growing up on a farm, discovering his powers. I saw that. It was called Smallville. It went on for 10 years. I don’t want to see that again in a movie. It’s been done.
So already, two things I did not want to see from this movie, Smallville: The Movie and the Richard Donner version of the movie remade. What did I want to see?
I wanted to see Superman punch somebody in the face. I wanted to see Superman have superpowers and fly around and have super fights and be super. That’s what I wanted to see. I wanted to see that Superman. If he was Clark Kent sometimes fine. But I just wanted him to be mostly in the suit being Superman, fighting giant gorillas or whatever almost like an updated version of like the Fleischer shorts where it was basically just an excuse for Superman to be super. That’s all I wanted to see in this movie.
So I go into the movie and guess what I got? Pretty much everything I wanted to get from this movie. To the point where it was almost too much of everything I wanted.
So in a lot of ways be careful what you wish for. On the other hand, I can’t complain because I got it everything I wanted and I got too much of what I wanted which was okay with me. I left happy.
So if you haven’t seen the movie I am going to spoil it now. Stop reading if you haven’t seen the movie. You can come back to this later, but at least now you know two things.
One, I liked it and
it’s not Smallville: The Movie and it’s not like the Richard Donner movie.
Now that you know that, you can go watch it and then come back and read the rest of this.
The Spoilers Begin
I’ve gotten into all kinds of arguments about this movie with friends who basically wanted this to be the Richard Donner movie. And because it doesn’t hit every beat it’s no good.
It’s like a bunch of people who grew up with Batman: The Movie from the 60s and then going to watch the Tim Burton version or the Chris Nolan version and deciding that it’s too dark and where’s the zap and the pow? Right? I have a problem with people that keep trying to shove the Donner movie into this movie because that’s not what it is.
Superman, the Dick Donner movie, was done in the 70s. It’s done. Superman in the comics has moved on from that, gone past the silver age into the bronze age, into the iron age, into the modern age, into The New 52.
He’s a different character. In its trappings and the way it feels there’s lots of different stories. Man of Steel felt a lot more like a comic by the name of Superman: Earth One . The first volume felt a lot like this. It had a lot of similarities to it. In Superman: Earth One Vol 1, Clark was even pushed into becoming Superman because of an alien invasion just like in the movie.
What I Didn’t Like
A few things I didn’t like about the movie and very there are only a few.
Yes, there are plot holes as big as a truck but I’m going to link below to some articles that defend the movie.
This Superman movie was great, BUT I’m also going to link to this hilarious critique of the movie done in almost a MAD Magazine style and it’s hilarious. There’s just a lot of, kind of goofy stuff about the movie that just kind of doesn’t work, but that’s okay. I completely ignore those things because Superman got to have super fights in this movie.
But the one thing that really, really, really bothered me was Jonathan Kent and his portrayal. And I’m going to link to two really great videos from Smallville, that really shows what I would have liked Jonathan and Clark’s relationship to have been like in Man of Steel:
And here’s one of my all time favorite scenes from Smallville where Clark talks to Jonathan’s ghost years after his death:
And that’s me comparing Man of Steel to that Smallville, but here’s the thing about Jonathan that I thought kind of needed to be there. I wanted him to be much more supportive and less paranoid.
It’s okay to be guarded and trying to protect Clark, but I did not want him to be so negative to the point where it was as if he did not believe in Clark and did not believe in his son. And it was just like, what? You saved a bus full of kids, maybe you should have let them die. I mean, really? And it’s like, “yeah, don’t save anybody, ever.” Really?
You could have at least had him go,
“Well, uh, you know, find a way to do it without being seen,” or something like that, right? But it was really cold. It was a very cold portrayal of the character who is traditionally very, very, very supportive.
And the way he ends up dying was lame. It was dumb. Everything, everything that Jonathan did in that scene in the hurricane before he dies he could have allowed Clark to do and he wouldn’t have had to use his powers.
Jonathan wouldn’t have had to die. Clark couldn’t die. It was a win-win. It felt so forced and lame. There wasn’t a good reason why Clark shouldn’t have been doing what Jonathan was doing while Jonathan protected his wife.
The Two Biggest Critiques of the Movie
The two big critiques of the movie is Superman kills Zod and Superman doesn’t save people while he punches Zod into buildings. Besides the giant plot holes that you can drive trucks through, that one is the main complaint. The the death toll and Superman kills Zod.
First of all, let’s not forget that the Tim Burton Batmankilled a ton of people and eventually tied a gargoyle around the Joker’s leg and threw him off a building. So yeah, Batman in that movie killed people.
In the Chris Nolan version he indirectly kills Ra’s al Ghul, you could argue. He didn’t save him, right? But he has a code against killing mostly because at least, my logic is that, he experienced murder. He knows what killing is like. He understands the pain that death and killing somebody leaves, what it can do.
In the Man of Steel this Clark Kent doesn’t. In Man of Steel, you don’t get a fully formed Superman until perhaps near the end of the movie when he’s destroying the drone. Perhaps that is the fully formed Superman we were waiting for and he really only has a few lines of dialogue.
In the rest of the movie, Superman is not complete. He is not Superman. Just because he’s wearing the suit doesn’t make him Superman. It just makes him Superman in training.
So, the first time he’s ever let loose was on Zod’s face.
“You think you can threaten my MOTHER!” and he starts whaling on him, right? He’s never been in a real fight. He’s always been holding back. So he starts getting into a fight with a bunch of Kyptonians.
He knocks them into an empty place. They knock him back into Smallville. And then he has a big fight, it’s all he can do to be fighting much less saving people. He can barely save himself, right? He’s barely trying to hold on and do what he can.
Same with Zod. He fights Zod. He punches Zod into outer space. Zod comes back and knocks him back into Smallville. I don’t know if it was Smallville or Metropolis, I would have to see the movie again. But the point is he knocks Zod into space, tried to get clear him of the crowds and the places and Zod takes him right back.
You could argue that Zod strategically picks this, Metropolis, to fight in because he’s a tactician. Superman is not. Superman is not thinking and he’s knocking, punching Zod across into buildings and stuff because he’s not thinking. He’s just fighting Zod.
He’s trying to survive. He’s trying to deal with the matter at hand. He is not Superman. He doesn’t think the way Superman thinks yet because he hasn’t been in a situation like this. He ends up killing Zod in an impossible situation.
Zack Snyder has said that the reason why they put that into the movie even though originally it wasn’t, Zod was supposed to be sent back in the Phantom Zone with all the other Kryptonians, was because he wanted to show the reasons why Clark doesn’t kill, why Superman doesn’t kill.
He basically killed the last Kryptonian. He understands the pain of what he did. He doesn’t want to ever go through it again.
The flaw, of course, being that he didn’t get enough chance to grieve about it. We never got to see him really, truly process it and grieve. It just kind of— the movie turned happy too quickly, so you didn’t get that effect.
But that was the logic behind it. I was okay with that logic, as long as you pay it off in two ways in the next movie:
He makes sure that the next super fight he has, he tries not to have the same thing happen again to Metropolis, and
He doesn’t kill again.
It sets up Lex Luthor great. It sets him up as the savior of Metropolis who put Metropolis back together after the two aliens destroyed it. It creates a great antagonism.
So I think that, to me, as long as it gets addressed in the next movie, it would make it okay. There’s nothing I can think of, unless they put more flashbacks with Jonathan, that can fix Jonathan at this point. I thought Jonathan was really poorly written.
The Stuff I Really Liked
Overall, I loved Man of Steel. I loved it. I thought it was great. I had a lot of fun watching it, except for Jonathan Kent.
I liked Jor-El being an action hero. I liked how he was a maverick, so maybe he was trained to fight by Zod.
I liked how Clark got his suit. Where did that suit come from? Come on, man, where did the food come from in Star Trek? Replicators, right? Who’s to say that there’s no replicator room or was an ancient piece of armor or the armor can’t be created by the machine run by Jor-El? I don’t have any problems with that stuff.
I don’t mind Lois immediately pretty much knowing who Superman is from the very beginning. Not having the traditional Lois doesn’t know that Clark is Superman thing. Yeah, let’s skip that. Go straight to the other thing. Because if Smallville has taught us anything, it’s that if you don’t know Clark’s secret, you are pretty much a useless character in the show. And you look like a big dope because you can’t help Superman out.
So yeah, I liked Man of Steel. I thought it was great.
I think you should read the comics to get acclimated if you only know the Donner movie. Nostalgia doesn’t make Man of Steel bad. It just makes you nostalgic.
If you liked the Donner movie, buy it and watch it. But if you want something else, go watch Man of Steel. It’s a different movie. It’s a different take on Superman. It’s still Superman. It’s just not the fully formed Superman that flies out of the fortress of solitude in the Donner movie fully formed. We’re watching the actual formation in this movie.
Some Last Thoughts
All right, I’m sure you disagree. There’s many of you who disagree. Chime in. I don’t mind.
Oh, if you don’t like how long those fights took there’s a video of a very well choreographed fight that is very, very similar to that fight. I put it down below. Go watch it.
One more thing, somebody on Facebook wrote this about the movie:
I had some problems with the movie, but at the end of the day I’m willing to cut Snyder a little slack. He only had to bring the most iconic and difficult to adapt superhero to the screen for a 21st century audience, satisfy the nerdboys like us who were going to dissect everything he did, and bring in the casual fans who they really need to make the movie profitable. As Hollywood movies have ballooned in costs, this one cost right at about 450 million to make and market, I’m sure some artistic choices were sacrificed because he had the studio up his ass. Let’s not forget that The Dark Knight was the second film of the trilogy, after Nolan had established that he could sell his Batman Universe and was given some leeway from the suits. Batman Begins was nowhere near as ambitious. Textbook origin story.
All in all MOS satisfied my summer movie requirements, and like you said Graham the effects were very well done. And there are much worse superhero movies in the Cosmos. Green Lantern anyone…
All right so, I think that pretty much sums it up. And those are pretty much my feelings, too. Give it some slack. All right. That’s my incredibly long rant on Superman.
Superman having an epic battle in metropolis, destroying the place and punching villains through buildings is nothing new. It’s just new to some. Case in point:
Seemed familiar right? A lot like this? (Don’t watch if you haven’t seen the movie):
And here’s the cover art for Action Comics #3 of the New 52, showing how happy people are at Superman for being an alien that tends to destroy their city. Pay close attention to the newspaper subheading the guy is holding at the bottom of the drawing:
And let’s not forget that Superman kills Zod in Superman 2:
I don’t know about you but I think the Man of Steel version had more of a reason. I mean, Zod was helpless in Superman 2.
Also, as flawed as Man of Steel was, at least it didn’t have “what the heck?!” moments like this:
Also, the first episode of Superman the animated series from the 90s had a very action adventure Jor-El as well:
Hi. Today I’m going to talk to you about having worked on Lisa the Vegetarian. You can watch the video below or read the transcription:
How Much Do I Remember?
It was season seven directed by Mark Kirkland. I’ve been asked to talk about this. Apparently it was a topic of discussion in the NoHomers.net site. To be quite honest I don’t remember working on the show in such a way that it is a clear experience in my mind as to what I did and how I did it. I do remember having watched the show recently, in fact only two things or areas in the show that I worked on…well, three.
The first when I was watching it I’m like,
“Hey wait a minute I did that scene and I did this section.”
B.Y.O.B.B.
It was when Homer comes in with the B.Y.O.B.B. little note with the pig note. And Bart says something about cartoons are about getting hit in the head and all this other stuff, after having watch the Itchy and Scratchy cartoon. And then Homer slams the door open on him that was all me.
I remember having worked on that show, having done that scene and doing the Bart acting. There’s a lot of hand acting in it.
At the time I was trying really hard to animate and really act out stuff. So you’ll notice in that scene where Bart is talking about the cartoons then he walks over and he’s using his hands a lot. I use my hands a lot.
But Bart’s using his hands a lot and you see him moving around and moving his hands. And to me having worked on that scene it looks so spastic like I was trying so hard to act. I was acting. So yeah, I over emoted.
And then Homer comes in with his note and then I remember just basically tracing over the model sheet for that scene, for that pig invite prop and then just adding some dimension to it and adding Homers hand around it I think.
“That was a typo,” you know, his little gag.
You Can’t Win Friends with Salad
This doesn’t look like my art. I think someone revised my drawings.
So I do remember that definitely. And you don’t win friends with salad. I don’t remember if I did that scene or not. I believe that I did bits. I worked on some of it but not all of it. So that is vague.
I don’t recall all of it. I mean I would’ve remembered – it seemed like something that would be something really involved, a pain in the butt and that I would of remembered working on. But that section was mine so it must’ve been me. I just don’t remember now.
Lisa Eats a Hot Dog
The other scene that I do remember working on was in act three where Lisa goes and finally gives in and she eats a tofu dog in the Kwik E Mart. Apu tells her that it’s a tofu dog. I remember working on the scene where she sees the hot dog.
I remember working on the scene where she grab the hot dog and that close-up of her with the dog I remember drawing that. I remembered drawing the view of the hot dog coming over to you. And then it would just get bigger.
I remember doing that scene and taking a bite and eating it and she says, “There I did it! Are you happy?” I remember doing that. I think it was a match cut and it was a pullout and it was a huge pain – it was very technical and a pain in the neck.
I think that’s where I stopped. I don’t think I did the rest of it. I don’t remember doing the part with or did I do the part where they open the door to the non-alcoholic beer? I may have worked on that scene to and then they go upstairs.
Revisions
So those are the only two scenes I remember working on. I remember working on revisions in the earlier scene in the barbecue where everybody was eating. I did do some revisions on some characters there. I believe I did some revisions on Wiggum.
“I can’t seem to get up my own energy”…or I forgot what it was.
I do believe I did a little bit of that scene or there was some kind of revisions that needed to be done. I did not remember anything in act one that I may have worked on.
I Was a Rookie at the Time
You’ve got to understand that at the time I was very new still. I had just gotten rehired so I was still very much a rookie and they weren’t giving me a whole lot to do. My artwork in those scenes I did; those characters just weren’t as good, well drawn, as they ought to have been.
So yeah that’s my recollection. That’s pretty much what I can remember working on Lisa the Vegetarian. Good times. I like watching the old shows. They are a lot of fun to watch and sometimes they trigger my memory.
Want More Simpsons Info?
So that’s it for me today. Sign up for my newsletter.
I tend to talk a little bit more about the Simpson on my newsletter than on my blog generally so if you like that go ahead and sign up. Also you’ll get a free copy of my Art of Book. It’s a digital download and if you like it enough maybe you can purchase the print copy on Amazon once I get it up there. It’s coming soon.
I’ll let you know on my blog once it is ready to purchase through Amazon when it happens. Okay and that’s all from me today.
THE SIMPSONS NEWS – Simpsonized Game of Thrones
Artist Adrien Noterdaem tends to Simpsonize a lot of characters from pop culture. Here’s his version of the Simpsonized Game of Thrones characters.
For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIESIf you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
WRITING – Four Things to Think About When Writing a Novel Part 4 of 4
Simpsons Quote:
Bart:“Hey, writers! The Da Vinci Code just sold another hundred copies!” (loud moan from the writers).
Hi. Welcome to video four of “Things to Think About When You’re Writing a Novel”. These are four things to think about when you’re writing a novel. Today we’re going to be talking about dialogue tags and I’m here with my wife, Alesha Escobar.
You can either watch the video or read the transcription below:
Some of the links below are affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
About Dialogue Tags
Luis: I’ve been editing my wife’s third book out of the trilogy, which is of The Gray Tower series. One of them…
And yeah, so we’re going to be talking about dialogue tags today and what do I mean by dialogue tags?
Alesha: Basically, he said/she said after a character speaks.
Luis: Yeah. I personally don’t like them. And I just kind of became aware of them in the way that they work without them after I listened to author Michael Stackpole, which – who used to be a – what’s the word. A host of the podcast The Dragon Page where he often gave a lot of writing advice, and one of the writing advice – one of the things of advice that he gave about dialogue tags is this: he’d rather see a character described doing some kind of acting or action and then in the way that a dialogue is said. For example, and here’s like an exercise that he gave out and I thought that it was really interesting. If you could write a dialogue between two characters and the way you write them indicates cadence or accents or expression or emotes and you can just through dialogue know who is talking without having to have a dialogue tag then – I mean, that’s a good exercise that helps make dialogue flow and feel a little bit more natural, right. But it’s just an exercise that in and of itself.
Another exercise he said was what if you were sitting say across the room in an office and you were looking at two people having a conversation between a wall of glass. Like here’s a glass and another wall of glass. You couldn’t hear what they were actually saying at all, but you can tell exactly what everybody was saying and how they were saying it just by the acting and the body language. So if somebody was mad or angry or upset, just through the description of their body language in and of itself you can tell what the conversation might be about, what it’s possibly about, what they’re acting talking about, what the conversation might be about.
So if you’re that good of a description – if you have that much description in the character’s body language then a bit of dialogue might very well be clear at least in an emotional level.
So that’s what I – so when I look and I read through Alesha’s book and the manuscripts I try to find places where you can get rid of the dialogue tags, but here’s the thing…she doesn’t agree with me.
Alesha: I don’t agree with you, Luis. And I’m going to tell you why. Okay, first of all, when you have more than two people speaking in a scene you’re going to have to use tags at some point just to indicate who is speaking. Or if someone who has spoken before has stopped speaking and letting others speak and then they rejoin the conversation I think that’s acceptable. It’s still kind of I guess you would say standard to have dialogue tags, but I do partially agree with you in the sense that it’s not always needed like just straight down the line and I think that’s what you’re trying to say. And there can be times where you would just use body language or description to communicate to the reader who’s speaking and maybe even how they’re speaking and indicating their tone but, you know, I still use he said/she said and I think it’s fine. I think it’s fine, Luis.
Luis: Again, I would much rather read a book that doesn’t. I’ve become hyper aware of it. I just think the pros works better and it feels better somehow. I wish I had the book with me but it’s upstairs with the baby and I don’t want to wake him up. It’s a book called Daemon. I guess the author’s last name is Suarez – I
forgot. I forgot his first name. But I’ll link to it on below but, yeah, the – it’s his first novel and the book is like this big monstrous book like that and there are scenes where there’s a room full in a meeting and people are talking back and forth and there’s six, seven character having a discussion and throughout the entire book, if you look through the entire book, he never once uses any dialogue tags in the entire book. And everybody that has some kind of dialogue is clear who is speaking and I thought, see, it can be done. Like that’s – and it really – you don’t notice it. You just don’t notice that he didn’t use any dialogue tags. I mean, after I read that I’m like, see, it’s possible. It’s possible. It totally works. I sometimes just – it’s just much more difficult not to do the dialogue tags. I think that’s the biggest problem and if you don’t do it well it gets really confusing. So, I don’t know. I mean, that’s what – you know…
Alesha: I think if someone can write without using dialogue tags then go for it, but…
Luis:Well let’s see in the Tower’s Alchemist a section where dialogue tags weren’t used and how it would work.
Alesha: Okay.
Luis:Do you want me to read it?
Alesha: Start right here.
Luis:Okay. So here’s a little bit. I don’t even know who’s talking this time but it says:
“You had to go all the way up north?”
Ken nodded. “So I get there, and I find out that the guy had been guillotined.”
“Ouch…” I frowned. I supposed the SS wanted to break up the monotony of firing squads.
“But I found out he had left three notebooks of ciphers with his assistant before being arrested.”
“Where was the assistant?”
“Erm…in jail, but he was in Mantes.”
“Wait, didn’t you start off in that area?”
“I know, makes you want to punch something, doesn’t it?”
Bernard laughed. “He’ll probably end up punching me.”
“You two know each other?” My gaze went between Ken and Bernard.
“Do I know him?” Bernard shot Ken a quick glance. “If it weren’t for me, Drake wouldn’t know how to make it down the street in Paris.”
So, I mean, the whole time you didn’t use any dialogue tags and it was just like: “Bernard laughed,” you have, “my gaze went to Ken and Bernard” after her dialogue. You know, “I know him, ‘Bernard shot Ken a glance.'”
So that’s kind of like what I’m talking about. Like the entire time you tag it without specifically saying “said” or “I said” or whatever and you just add like a moment of action. And it kind of works like a dialogue tag only you’re doing it with a moment of action. I turned, Bernard laughed, he looked up, scratch – I don’t know. Scratched his head, you know, something. And so, it can be done. It’s just so much, much, much more difficult to do it that way and it can be confusing if you don’t do it well.
Okay. Well you got both our points of views and this is real obvious, so.
Alesha: Let us know what you think.
Luis:Yeah. Yeah. Right now the Tower’s Alchemist is free for the Kindle at the time of this video. I don’t know, it may not be free later on but right now it is.
Luis:Okay. And I’ll see you guys next time. I’m not even going to plug my newsletter where you can download my free book. Go to my blog and find out how you can do that. All right. So we’ll see you next week from Luis.
Alesha: Bye.
Luis:Bye.
VIDEOS – Superman vs. Thor
I thought this was fun. For a fan movie with no budget (?), this is pretty darn good. Enjoy:
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WRITING – Four Things to Think About When Writing a Novel Part 3 of 4.
Simpsons Quote:
Lisa: ”Can you tell me what happens at the end of the series?”
JK Rowling (kind of ticked): “Yes, he grows up and marries you… Is that what you want to hear?”
Lisa (sighs, happily): ”Yes…”
Hi. Welcome to video three of “Things to Think About When You’re Writing a Novel”. Again, I’m joined by my wife, Alesha Escobar, and today we’re going to be talking about decompression.
You can either watch the video or read the transcription below:
Some of the links below are affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
About Decompression
Luis: I’ve been editing my wife’s books for quite a long time and I’ve been reading her books even before she was getting published – publishing her books. And currently she’s writing the Gray Tower.
Luis:And this is the second one: Dark Rift. And I’m currently working on reading through the manuscript, Circadian Circle – she’s already finished the first draft. And I’m a little bit over halfway through. So I’m kind of in editor mode right now. But again, one of the things that we wanted to bring up his decompression. Now decompression. What do I mean by decompression?
Alesha: By decompression you mean taking a scene that is merely just a summary or maybe crunched up a little bit too short and developing it so that you add some more detail, maybe some more dialogue and kind of make it a bit more flavorful.
Luis:Right. I’ve noticed that when you’re starting – when most beginning writers start writing they just tend to just sum up moments just to get to either their favorite moments or the good parts or I don’t know what, or just to get through the story. And a lot of the times that’s okay. Sometimes you just kind of want to sum up things because they’re not really all that important. But most of the time you would kind of want to err on the side of decompression, only because what it does is it opens up the characters more. You get into the character’s heads more, you live through the moments more, you empathize with the characters a lot more. So that’s kind of the benefits of decompression.
Very early on Alesha used to compress way too much and it was a very fast read. But it also didn’t have any emotional impact because it was much too compressed. She doesn’t necessarily have that problem anymore. Occasionally, I would say this paragraph might need to be decompressed a little bit more. But generally it’s working really well. So let’s talk about Tower’s Alchemist and let’s talk about a moment in the book where we had to decompress something, where I thought it would be a good idea.
Alesha: Yes. I believe its close to the middle of the book where Isabella has to make it into a weapons factory, infiltrate it basically under a false identity with a couple of allies and basically uses her alchemy to neutralize these chemicals that have been kind of mixed in with a dark alchemical spell.
Luis:Yeah. So it’s kind of like the, “defuse the bomb moment” right where like the character has to defuse the bomb before it blows up. I’m only saying that so that you don’t put too much detail about what’s actually happening. But it’s kind of that, that kind of a moment.
Alesha: And I think originally I had her go in, you know, she does her job; she’s efficient at it, right. She’s trained. But then it first didn’t have the impact that it should have because it wasn’t as decompressed. For example…
Luis: Yeah, it didn’t – it lacked a little bit of the tension. It lacked tension because it was just too summed up. It was just a little bit too summed up.
Alesha: Right. So what I added was kind of what’s going through her head at this moment. What process is she going through while doing this? Especially for readers who may not be as familiar with alchemy and, you know, working with just in general chemicals. Like how does one thing effect the other and why’s this so important? Why is she nervous, you know? Why is she scared? So to have a vested interest in whether or not she will succeed, you have to kind of understand the scene and get those details and get those emotions. So by decompressing it and giving it that detail and that flavor it works a lot better in that respect. So that’s what I ended up with.
Luis:Yeah, yeah. And now the scene really works and it has a lot of tension in it and it’s a very exciting moment. So stuff like that. So just generally look for moments that you may have summed up a little bit too much. Like I said, it’s better to err in the side of decompression than to compress too much. That said, you can over decompress and end up with – I don’t even know if you guys are familiar with Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series but I personally think that that is just way too decompressed. There are moments in that book, in that series that could really use a little bit of compression in just summing up characters, getting up and doing whatever it is that they’re supposed to be doing. It just drives me crazy.
Alesha: What are you talking about? I like 20-page descriptions of what someone is wearing.
Luis: It doesn’t further the plot and then you’re like, “What was that for? Why?” I mean, you care about the characters but really it’s like nothing happens for like half a book just because all you’re doing is describing somebody getting up and getting dressed, and that really doesn’t do anything for…
Alesha: But luckily you just love the characters so much that you’re…
Luis:Well, again, and part of the benefits of decompression is the character building aspect of decompression and empathizing with the characters. So yes, I guess that’s…
Alesha: Where did I leave off in that series, by the way?
Luis: I don’t remember. I think you were like in book ten or 11. I don’t remember.
Alesha: Yeah, I think so. The only person I care about now is Egwene.
Alesha: Yes. Amazon and Smashwords and at the iBookstore.
Luis:All right. It’s free on the iBookstore?
Alesha: Yes.
Luis:Oh. I didn’t know. Hey, I didn’t know.
Alesha: We go to the iBookstore.
Luis:There’s an iBookstore? i…Books? And if you want to pick up another free book you can subscribe to my newsletter and you could pick up my Art of Book. And you should get a free digital download as soon as you sign up. So until next time, there’s an iBookstore. We’ll see you in the next video when we’ll be talking about something else. All right. Bye.
BOOKS – The Memory Book
I’ve been reading a lot. I’ve been education myself quite a bit lately on just about anything that strikes me as useful. I’ve become obsessed with something new lately, namely, my mind, my brain, my memory. I want to learn faster, and retain more. To this end I picked up the book The Memory Book: The Classic Guide to Improving Your Memory at Work, at School, and at Play.
This book rocks.
I wrote a post a few months back about learning to teach yourself. Well, one of the skills you need to master when teaching yourself is “encoding.” Being able to retain the information you obtain, at will. I knew about a few mnemonic devices but this book really breaks them down into ONE, namely “association.”
The info in here works great. I can retain any information I choose to retain at will now. It’s amazing. It just takes a little imagination.
That said, I will add a disclaimer. mnemonic devices do NOT improve your “natural memory”. By which I mean, the memory you were born with. What they do is give you tools that will improve your “active memory.” By which I mean, the memory you use when you consciously want to remember something.
Still, it’s a fantastic book and I highly recommend it.
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BOOKS – Four Things to Think About When Writing a Novel Part 2 of 4
Simpsons Quote:
Lisa:“I think books have an amazing power to bring people together. Look, even Cletus is checking one out.”
Cletus: “Now hold still. Nothing cracks a turtle like Leon Uris.”
Hi, this is part two of four of “Four things to think about when you’re writing a novel.” This time I’m joined by my wife, Alesha Escobar, and we’re going to be talking about setup in stories.
You can watch the video or read the transcription below:
Luis:The thing is that because I was talking about this, I thought maybe I might as well invite Alesha over to talk about this stuff, especially because we started talking about it anyway. She’s gradually gotten really good at not doing this anymore, but when she first started out, setup was an issue. And what do I mean by setup? Setup is when you are trying to convey something like an emotional moment that’s going to happen to a character. Say, if they’re afraid of spiders and they’re going to get over their fear of spiders. Setup is something that you do to lay the groundwork within a story so that when that moment happens where they are able to triumph, you’ve actually laid the groundwork already. You’ve set that up a little by giving clues, by giving examples of the problem.
So Alesha, what do you think about setup? Using the novels as an example, how do you now setup? Because now, you do it really well.
Alesha: Well, I think when you’re first starting off and you’re trying to find your way, you really want to, like you said, hit those great moments in the story and bring the reader along. But you have to be able to lay the groundwork for that so that it’s fully appreciated. So for example, in The Tower’s Alchemist, I would say, what was, I guess, one of your favorite payoffs?
Luis:Well, I don’t know how much I can say because it would be too much of a spoiler.
Alesha: Ah, okay. It’s Tower’s Alchemist.
Luis:Oh gosh. Now you put me on the spot.
Alesha: As I should.
Luis:Here, let me get back to you. I’ll have to read it, hold on.
Alesha: But I understand what you’re saying about that, because I think when I wrote like, maybe my first draft and we went over it together, we really had to take some parts that needed that fuller development so that when the reader would hit it, go ah-ha! Or, wow! Or, ah-mmm! So, I think they would appreciate those specific moments with—
Luis:Yeah, I just remember being really harsh going, what the heck!? Where’d this come from?
Alesha: Really, really harsh.
Luis:I just don’t remember—
Alesha: Big meanie.
Luis:I just don’t remember those parts were now because they’re all fixed, but, I mean, it happens. And you just, as a writer you have to keep that in mind. You have to make sure that you just don’t come out of left field with somebody just showing up and doing something. Oh, well it’s because this person really, originally had this power already, or you know? And it’s like well, no you never set it up. There was no foundation for that thing, you know?
Alesha: I think also, sometimes as writers, we’re the ones who created the world and the characters, so sometimes we forget that the reader’s don’t always know what we know about the world.
Luis:Yeah, you’re assuming everybody’s in your head. Yeah, there’s a little bit more of an explanation and you have to just like lay the groundwork on that sort of thing. So yeah, that’s what I would say about setup. It’s something that once in a while now, I may make a note of it. But really, you’ve gotten so good at setting everything up and laying down the groundwork that it’s really not much of a problem anymore. So, yeah. So that’s our tip for today. Just make sure that you setup all the things so that you’re able to pay off the emotional moments better when you get to them. And if you like this sort of thing, just leave a comment and let us know. And if you want a free book by me, you can—
Alesha: This isn’t about you, Luis. Oh wait, this is your video. Okay, never mind.
Luis:If you want an ‘Art of’ with my artwork in it, with an explanation of the art, you could subscribe to my newsletter. You could get it free. It’s a digital download for free. And if you want to get The Tower’s Alchemist for free, go to Amazon and you can download it for the Kindle. Yeah, it costs $0. So just go to Amazon and pick yourself a copy so you can see how good everything’s setup in that book. Alright, so we’ll see you next time with tip number three? Alright. Talk to you next time. Bye.
MOVIES – Did I Like Man of Steel
In case you were curious, I did go see Man of Steel last weekend.
Did I like it? YUP! I really did. I got what I wanted out of it.
I’ll give my spoiler filled review on a future post.
For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIESIf you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
WRITING – Four Things to Think About When Writing a Novel Part 1 of 4
Simpsons Quote:
Lisa: ”Miss Tan, I lovedThe Joy Luck Club. It really showed me how the mother-daughter bond can triumph over adversity.”
Amy Tan: “No, that’s not what I meant at all. You couldn’t have gotten it more wrong.”
Lisa: ”But…”
Amy Tan:”Please just sit down. I’m embarrassed for both of us.”
Hi, this is a four part series about “things to think about when writing a novel”. This part one. In this post I’m going to be talking about where to start a story.
You can watch the video below or read the transcript:
Some of the links below are affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
The Beginning
I’ve been my wife’s editor in her series, The Gray Tower series. Her first book is called The Tower’s Alchemist. The second one is called Dark Rift. The third one is called Circadian Circle, and I’m currently editing it. So I have that editor on the brain kind of a thing. There are a lot of things that I tend to look at when I’m reading her manuscripts.
I’m trying to make sure that the story’s going to be as good as possible, of course. But there are certain things that I’m really honing in on. Some things she’s gotten really, really good at that I don’t have to call attention to t anymore.. But there are some things that she still continues to do that I think could improve.
So, today I’m going to be talking about one of the bigger things that I think is really important when writing a novel. And that is the beginning of the novel. That’s where you get hooked, right? In any kind of story at all, you kind of want to make sure that you hook the audience immediately when you first start reading- at least the first chapter maybe.
In Medias Res
Just try to really like especially show what the reader’s going to be in for in the first chapter, what it’s going to be like, what’s going to happen. One of the best ways to do this is to start your story in medias res. In medias res is Latin for starting in the middle of the action. I keep telling this to my wife. Sometimes she likes to just start her story just in a conversation or something.
Well, it’s not the best hook. Often times, there’s really nothing happening. It’s all setup. I always get on her case about it. Usually what I tell her is start there, but keep writing until you get to somewhere interesting, then start there where it starts getting interesting and get rid of the first part. If it’s all setup and there’s a lot of things that need to be done, you can somehow put it back in.
The Movie LIMITLESS
There’s a movie called Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper. And it’s great, because what happens is at the beginning of the story, you see Bradley Cooper’s character on top of a building. He’s at the edge, he’s about to jump.
There’s obviously somebody at the door trying to get in, and he’s going to jump off the building and kill himself because it’s better to do that than to confront whatever’s trying to bash down his door. That is like, in the middle of the story. You immediately get hooked. You ask yourself,
“What the heck? And say, how did he get there!?” Then you flashback to the rest of the movie. It eventually loops around, and you start off back there where he was on a building.
But the whole point is to start where it’s good, and then work your way back. It’s really very important.
How it’s Done in The Tower’s Alchemist
With my wife’s book, originally— and I don’t think it’s a big secret, because she used to have both first chapters of her first two books, both of them online. In Tower’s Alchemist, when you read the book, the original first chapter was what is now, chapter two. If you look at chapter two, it’s good, it’s a conversation between two characters in the intelligence agency office right before her lead character got an assignment.
That’s great, and it sets up the world, and the conversation of these two characters, but it’s really dull because, you’re starting the story on a conversation in an office. And even though that’s the chapter where you get the catalyst to the rest of the story, what the story’s going to be about and the character’s sent off on a mission in that chapter, you don’t get a flavor or taste of what you’re in for.
If you read the actual chapter that’s in the book now, chapter number one, it starts off in the middle of gun fight. And basically, the entire first chapter basically goes, this is what you’re in for- this kind of action, this is the world that we’re going to be in, this is who you’re fighting, you’re fighting Nazi’s and then there’s like a monster in there, and then there’s Cruenty in the woods, and there’s magic being thrown everywhere. And it’s like, what!? You know?
You understand, from that first chapter, that’s what you’re getting in the book. Then, you can slow down and then rebuild back up to that. And that’s exactly what Alesha did. She wrote a really great first chapter, and then she was able to slowly build into the next chapter by moving chapter one into chapter two and creating a brand new chapter one which establishes the world. And it’s not just the throwaway prologue type of thing either, because what it does is it sets up the character’s motivation for the rest of the book.
That first chapter sets up the character’s personal motivation. You can actually see why the character is thinking the way she’s thinking in chapter two by that point. It’s great.
Pay Attention to the Beginning
So, that’s my first recommendation, to start in medias res. And like I told her, it’s okay, don’t kill yourself, just start writing wherever. Just start writing wherever. The moment it starts really getting good, that’s when you cut off everything before and that’s where you ought to start. Okay?
Those are just my tips. It’s one of the many things that I look for when I read my wife’s manuscripts and her story, and make sure there’s something that hooks the audience from the very beginning.
Alright? So, I’ll talk to you about the next thing, next time. And if you want to get a free book, Art of Luis Escobar, which is me, you can subscribe to my newsletter. Just put in your email and you’ll get a free digital copy of my ‘Art of’ book. Okay? So, I’ll talk to you next time. Bye.
MOVIES – Can’t Wait to See Man of Steel movie
(Some of the links below are affiliate links. Thanks for your support)
If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that I’m a huge superhero nerd. I love superheroes. But my favorite all time superhero is Superman.
He is definitely NOT the most popular. Arguably, I’d say Batman is. There is a LOT of people who think Superman is just lame.
They often say, “I can’t relate to Superman, he’s too overpowered.”
At some point, I’m going to have to write a post as to why Superman is awesome. BUT maybe I won’t have to. Maybe the Man of Steel movie coming out (as of the time of this writing) tomorrow will do the job for me.
I’m hoping that the movie will do to Superman what the first Ironman movie did for Ironman.
I really hope I don’t end up having to write a post on what Man of Steel got wrong.
All that said, I couldn’t get my mind off Superman for the last two weeks. But what to do? Well, I decided to re-watch as many episodes of the last three seasons of Smallville as I could.
The show is really the only way that you can really binge on a good modern live action take of the Superman myth. All the other live action Superman’s are either really dated or don’t get it.
Especially the last three seasons. They were exceptionally good. Those season introduced more DC characters combined than they the entire run put together. I mean, they even introduced the Legion of Superheroes for the first time in a live action setting. That is awesome! And it was written by Geoff Johns too.
So if you’ve seen Man of Steel and want more Superman or you’re like me and just want to watch live action Superman stuff before going to watch the live action movie, go watch some Smallville.
Homer: Astrid said the key to my art is anger, but you know me, I’m Mr. Mellow…
[Bart and Lisa look at each other]
Homer: …so I’m giving you kids permission to get me mad. Come on, give me what you’ve got.
Lisa Simpson: Well, if it’ll help… um, mom found out her engagement ring is made of rock candy.
Homer: [hits clay mold] Good work honey, keep it comin.’
Bart Simpson: Well I’m flunking math, and the other day I was a little attracted to Milhouse.
[Homer screams hysterically]
Hi. So, I was asked a question on youtube about how I approach character design. I spoken about this a few time, but not all in one place. I thought perhaps I should say as much as I could about the subject in one post and link to the other ones.
You can either watch the video below on the read the transcript:
The Question
I’ve talked about character design a lot in my own blog, as well as The Drawing Website that I’ve got. I’m going to try to sum up all of what I’ve written so far, and include links. But I’m going to try to also just, kind of really quickly explain it all here, so that it’s not just all scattered all over the internet the way it is in multiple websites and multiple posts.
This question was from MindOfAStoner and specifically said,
“i was wondering if you could do a video about how to design your characters, i have the idea of what i want to do, i just cant seem to put my character to paper and come up with my own drawing style, thanks in advance Luis”
First, Reference
Alright, so there’s a few things here. Okay so, one of things if you look, I did do a series where I was designing characters for an animated cartoon that I was working on that I still haven’t completed, and I’m sorry. But if you look there, you will see that what I did was, I went and I looked at a lot of reference.
I went online and I have the specific website that I went to. But as you can see in the posts, you’ll see that there’s like a lot of photographs. If you scroll down, you’ll see all the photographs I was using to try to get something, a jumping off point- something that will trigger that thing.
You need photography. Look for reference. It doesn’t just have to be in your head. It doesn’t have to just— you don’t have to live in a vacuum and not use real world things. Use real world things. Go out, look around, go to the mall, look at other people, look online, look for photographs, look anything. Just get your ideas going.
That would be my recommendation on trying to try to get them— just something to get them in your head, out on to the paper in some kind of tangible way- something that you can use, something that you could actually have physical there. I mean, it really does help me a lot.
Finding a Style
“I can’t seem to put characters to paper and come up with my own drawing style.”
Okay, so that’s a little bit different. There’s a few things to talk about there.
Drawing style- I have a video about not worrying about style. You ought to worry about draftsmanship first. Let’s assume that you’ve got great draftsmanship. You’re just as good as Frank Frazetta. Then what kind of style are you going to use?
Alright, so once you’re confident enough to have good draftsmanship skills, then I would recommend you just start finding sketchbooks of stuff from artists that you admire, styles that you like, comic books of guys whose styles you like, and then pick and choose bits and pieces of what they’re doing that you really enjoy. Try to emulate it in some way, shape or form.
This isn’t plagiarism, because what’s going to end up happening is that you’re not going to be able to copy them. You’re not going to be them. No matter how hard you try, you’re still going to be you and they’re still going to be them, and they’re going to do what they do better than you could possibly ever do. That’s because you’re not them.
What you’re trying to emulate is their personality and who they are. And because you are not them, you’ll never get what makes them unique.
That is a good thing! Because it means that whatever YOU do cannot be emulated either. What comes out of you eventually, from all the hodgepodge of different influences, will be uniquely you. So, if you want a specific style, you can do that specific style but it will end up being your version of that style which will end up being unique in and of itself. So, that’s another way you can think about it.
Some Words on Advanced Character Design
Okay now, I’m going to talk really quick about the Advanced Elements of Character Design, and When It Comes to Character Design. It’s all about the interior- where the character’s coming from, who that character is, will shape everything about the character including the way he’s posed, the way he looks, the way he carries himself, what kind of clothes they wear.
This is interior stuff. This is more advanced stuff. This is what the professionals think about when they’re just doing stuff, because they’re no longer thinking about the basics of design, okay? They’re thinking about acting, history, storytelling, making the character, creating the character from the inside out- emotionally, historically, who they are, the story behind the character. Alright? So always, always think about that stuff when designing the character.
Don’t Forget the Fundamentals
But now let’s go back to the fundamentals. Let’s go back, all the way back to elements that you absolutely need to have before you even start designing a character. And that is the idea of contrast. And in The Drawing Website, I do break this down with stick figures.
That’s how simple these elements are. It’s all about balance and contrast. It’s all about not making everything even, and making a character visually boring by doing something super, super even. That’s just really, really bad design.
You should be able to get it for free, but you could just read the post there because it’s the same information that’s in the book. I do talk about design. I talk about basic shapes. After that, you should read that post too. It’s very important to balance and contrast to make your design more interesting.
This is too big of a topic. I’m sorry, I have to sum this up so quickly. But I hope this helps. I hope this is good information that will help you be able to design your characters better.
Alright, so if you want another free book from me, I have The Art of Luis Escobar for free if you subscribe to my newsletter on my blog. And there’s designs and drawings there too, and I talk about drawing in that book as well. So if you’re interested, go ahead and subscribe to my newsletter below and you will get that book delivered to you for free, as a free digital book.
BOARD GAMES/VIDEO – Craziest Board Game Ever.
If you like board games as much as I do, you’ll love this video of the craziest board game ever. If you’re not into them that much, it’s still very funny, but there’s a few inside jokes in there that you might not get.
Enjoy:
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Simpsons Quote:
I liked the Legion of Superheroes cartoon. I’m very disappointed that there’s only the first season of it on DVD. I want the second season, because I happen to be a huge Superman fan. A huge Superman nerd. I’m such a nerd when it comes to Superman. Love Superman.
Second, the stories are a lot of fun. If you don’t know what the Legion of Superheroes is, it’s a group of superheroes, and they’re all aliens on Earth being superheroes.
It’s a great cartoon. I like it. The animation is great, the stories are fun, it’s not as serious as, say, Batman Beyond and the Bruce Timm Batman, and The Batman, and I would even say Justice League and Justice League Unlimited.
Smallville also, so I thought that was a cool nod to that version of Superman.
My book The Art of Draw Fu: Beginner’s Level is now in print! If you want to get yourself a copy, simply go to amazon.
, Clark was even pushed into becoming Superman because of an alien invasion just like in the movie.
. I guess the author’s last name is Suarez – I 
decompression than to compress too much. That said, you can over decompress and end up with – I don’t even know if you guys are familiar with 
, starring Bradley Cooper. And it’s great, because what happens is at the beginning of the story, you see Bradley Cooper’s character on top of a building. He’s at the edge, he’s about to jump.
as I could.
