THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Last Sunday was the season premiere of the show’s 22nd season.  It took place in Universal Studios. After the park closed, they closed off a small section of the park (the part with The Simpsons Ride on it) and we had our party there.  There was a giant screen which played the show live when it aired and everyone gathered around to watch it. This particular show stared the actors from the show FLIGHT OF THE CONCORDS. Actor Bret McKenzie was there but I didn’t see him. I just saw a photo a friend of mine took with him.

Matt Groening and (show runner) Al Jean  where there. Oddly enough, so was Sergio Aragones.

I went with my wife and daughter. It was the first time I’ve ever taken my daughter to a work related party. She had never seen an episode of THE SIMPSONS before that night.  We went on the ride, which she just barely managed to be tall enough for and she had a blast.  She got a picture taken with Marge Simpson, ate, and imitated Maggie Simpson all night long with a toy pacifier we got when we arrived.

I usually don’t have a ton of fun at these parties.  I generally walk around, enjoy the atmosphere and go home but I have to say, I had fun this time.  It was because my daughter was having such a good time that I had such a good time.

My sons Dante and baby Ambrose stayed with my parents.  The baby stayed because he was too young, and Dante stayed with them because he wasn’t feeling very good. He had fun over at my parent’s house, so he didn’t really feel like he missed out on anything.

A few years ago, I blogged about my Simpson Ride Experience. Click the drawing below to read about it:

ART

(For those of you coming in late to these posts, if you want to read what my project is about, CLICK HERE to learn about the general world the story takes place in, and CLICK HERE if you want to know the story itself.)

So using Storyboard Pro, I inked my drawing.  It is now a piece of vector art. I separated the character’s into their own layers.  The Sorcerer’s in one layer, the Apes on another, the Viper on it’s own, Rob and the raven on their own layer and finally the background on it’s own.  This meant that a I had to “finish” some of the characters. Like the viper. Also, I had to draw the full background as well.

If you compare this drawing with other finished versions, you will see two differences: 1. is that the background is actually smaller and lower in the frame than in the other version. The reason for this was because a friend of mine looked at the other drawing and suggested I clear the background more in order to give the characters a better silhouette. It was good advice. If fact, if you look at the original thumbnails of the drawing, I had it lower.  The reason it was up higher was because I was originally going to make it black, remember? That way Rob would be left white and he would stand out. Since I didn’t end up doing that, there really was no need to keep the background high, but the change would be easier at this stage than it was with the finished pencil.

The 2nd difference is that the aspect ratio of the drawing changed.  There is now more room on the top and bottom of the frame.  This meant I had to draw the rest of some of the monsters.

Now that I have the drawing digitized, I can start experimenting with camera moves, colors and different types of looks. That way, I can test out what I want the final cartoon to look like.

What do you think so far?

BOARD GAMES

(Photos taken from www.boardgamegeek.com)

I played some boardgames with my kids this weekend.  On Saturday, while everyone was napping, my daughter asked me to play a board game with her. Ironically, I didn’t want to play. I wanted to read a comic book, but I decided that it was as good a time as any to play a game with her.  I thought she was old enough to learn to play QWIRKLE. Before that day, we used to use the QWIRKLE tiles to play MEMORY. This time I would teach her the rules of the actual game.  So I did, and we played, and we had fun. She picked it up very well and I was very proud of her.  I helped her out a bit but overall I let her make her own choices as to where to put the pieces. We’re definitely going to do it again soon.

A day later, my son Dante asked me if he could play a board game with me.   He had woken up the day before to see Elizabeth and I finishing our game.  Since his mommy and big sister had gone to Mass I thought it would be a fine time to play a game with him. I brought out the game CALLISTO.  We played by the rules but we didn’t really play to win.  At least I didn’t. We basically just put the TETRIS like tiles down until we used them all up, which led us to play again.  It was a good game for Dante since he likes puzzles. We had fun playing together as well.

VIDEO

I came across a link to this video earlier this week.  It’s darn amazing. I love everything about this little short. The character designs are amazing, the animation is fantastic, the personality of each character is really well acted.  Great camera moves, fantastic timing and it’s all done in pantomime.  The thing that gets me the most is the clarity of the story.  It’s very simple but it’s clear and to the point.  Very satisfying.  I hope I could do something remotely close to this (in my own way) with my cartoon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYDquzEPLsw

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