Pen: "WOW!!! Look, there are butterflies playing volleyball in my Cheerios. AWESOME!! C'mon guys, let's hop on my coolio cosmic magnetocycle and head on over to Jake's pad-eroonie!"
Pen: (Moments later) "Hey Jake, my main dog, what's hanging?"
Jake: "Well, I was contemplating the state of wormholes in the seventh dimension, but I guess I'm free to accompany you on your journey to the planet of perpetual platitudes as soon as I can locate my cybermuzzle. Oh look - bunnies!"
Pen: "BAROMETRIC!!!......Let's go, Jake - It's ADVENTURE TIME!!"
So, what do you all think of what I've just written there? Quite the brilliant piece of dialogue, don't you think? What's that you say? You think it's stupid and makes no sense? Hmmmm....
Well, that makes two of us then, as I agree that it IS stupid and it DOESN'T make sense. But I have to tell you, if what I'd just written was a portion of an actual script from "Adventure Time", then I'd apparently be hailed as a genius by many of the current readers of Cartoon Brew. Take a look here to see what I mean. And here is "Adventure Time" itself, courtesy of YouTube:
It seems that the so-called Cartoon Network has picked up this insipid little time waster to produce as a regular series. Yet that's just fine with the Cartoon Brew's Amid Amidi, who lately seems to champion anything he perceives as being fresh and different, even when it's plainly devoid of any real writing or art talent. He's also real gung ho for this nasty, ugly thing, so I'm afraid I just don't share his taste in some new animated TV series. Yes, I know I'm being blunt in my negative assessment of this show, but I think it's time that some of us take a stand against mediocrity or it will continue to take over all areas of the entertainment world, squeezing out anything of any real artistic merit in it's wake. Here are just some of the things that are wrong with "Adventure Time":
- The script, such as it is, sacrifices linear storytelling in favour of stringing together non sequiturs, hoping like hell that the audience doesn't notice the absence of a coherent plot. As I just proved with my example at the top of this post, there is nothing difficult or clever about this sort of writing - it's just stream of conscious randomness masquerading as dialogue, not being driven either by plot or development of character. Some may call it "quirky". I call it the work of a hack.
- The character designs are not really "characters" at all - not in the truest sense anyway. Like so much of the mediocrity in contemporary animation, there seems to be a trend toward child-like minimalism in the drawing: Amorphous head shapes with nothing more than dots and dashes representing the eyes and mouth, formless outlines in lieu of real structure or appealing distinct shapes, and no regard for trying to communicate feeling through body language and facial expression. As such, all of the characters' thoughts and emotions are carried completely by the dialogue, which itself is meaningless to begin with. As a test, try watching the clip with the sound turned off, as you'll see that the visuals completely fail to communicate anything on their own. This is a cardinal sin in animation, as the communicating of an idea should be possible through the visuals alone, with the dialogue remaining secondary.
- Even the layouts are really bad. There is poor composition as evidenced by the tree that seems to grow out of the boy's head in the opening scene. Also in that same scene, the dog's head keeps hitting the horizon line as he bobs up and down. Students of animation are told to avoid drawing tangents like this, and are instead instructed to break past such a border so that it is clear that one thing exists in front of another. Much of the layout composition is sloppy and uninspired throughout the entire clip.
- Then you have the garish colours so typical in today's computer coloured animated shows. No skilled background painter would ever choose to paint the grass in that "Lite Brite" neon green, yet so many show creators today seem to believe that the brighter and gaudier the better. I applaud John Kricfalusi for continuing to decry this trend as he has often pointed out deplorable uses of colour in modern cartoons, while showing examples of inspired and harmonious colour schemes in the TV cartoons of the past. Here is a compilation of his writings regarding background painting that provides numerous examples of both good and bad colour for comparison.
In short, this sample from "Adventure Time" flies in the face of every time honoured artistic principle that exists, both in terms of the visual artwork and the writing. But, judging from the "awesome" accolades found in the Brew post's comments section, many of the Brew readers just refuse to see its severe shortcomings and have hailed it as a masterpiece. Not all readers are so gullible, however, and I applaud freethinkers like Jason, Brooke, and Eric for not drinking the Kool-Aid. We need more discerning viewers like them.
By the way, "Adventure Time" also strikes me as being an inferior derivative of TerryToons' "Tom Terrific". Watch this clip and you'll see how this cartoon, while also very simple in its visual design, is just so much better in terms of real cartooning, with sprightly posed characters and expressions that communicate:
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Maher-velous Bill!
Since I was recently ranting about the inanities of political correctness, I think my caricature of this guy would seem to fit in with my feelings on this topic:
I did this sketch last Sunday night while watching a repeat of "Larry King - Live" that had run earlier in the week. I personally find Larry a little tiresome most of the time, but I'll always tune in if the always interesting Bill Maher is the guest, as it also seems to bring out the best in Larry too. I just love Bill's candid, blunt responses on every issue. Besides that, I think it's great that he doesn't toe any party line and, while mostly liberal, he will also occasionally stand up for conservative types when he's impressed with their integrity. He's a big fan of Republican hopeful, Ron Paul, for example. I think Bill Maher is one of the most refreshingly honest guys I've ever heard, and it's because he really doesn't give a damn what people think of him or his opinions.
I used to watch Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" show pretty much every night back when it was on, and just loved the way he could gather such diverse guests from various fields and different points on the political spectrum. Sometimes you'd get surprising results from throwing all these seemingly unrelated personalities together. I particularly recall Florence Henderson bonding with Marilyn Manson, no less! Oftentimes a little known starlet might show that she was just as politically astute as the most seasoned veteran politician. And Bill Maher kept the whole thing lively with his provocative questions putting his guests on the spot. Unfortunately, we don't get HBO here in Canada unless one has a satellite dish, so I haven't seen his current show, "Real Time". But from watching clips on YouTube, it looks like it's as good as his former show used to be, though a little more formal in presentation. Here's a clip from this week's "Larry King - Live", the same show that I drew this caricature from:
I did this sketch last Sunday night while watching a repeat of "Larry King - Live" that had run earlier in the week. I personally find Larry a little tiresome most of the time, but I'll always tune in if the always interesting Bill Maher is the guest, as it also seems to bring out the best in Larry too. I just love Bill's candid, blunt responses on every issue. Besides that, I think it's great that he doesn't toe any party line and, while mostly liberal, he will also occasionally stand up for conservative types when he's impressed with their integrity. He's a big fan of Republican hopeful, Ron Paul, for example. I think Bill Maher is one of the most refreshingly honest guys I've ever heard, and it's because he really doesn't give a damn what people think of him or his opinions.
I used to watch Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" show pretty much every night back when it was on, and just loved the way he could gather such diverse guests from various fields and different points on the political spectrum. Sometimes you'd get surprising results from throwing all these seemingly unrelated personalities together. I particularly recall Florence Henderson bonding with Marilyn Manson, no less! Oftentimes a little known starlet might show that she was just as politically astute as the most seasoned veteran politician. And Bill Maher kept the whole thing lively with his provocative questions putting his guests on the spot. Unfortunately, we don't get HBO here in Canada unless one has a satellite dish, so I haven't seen his current show, "Real Time". But from watching clips on YouTube, it looks like it's as good as his former show used to be, though a little more formal in presentation. Here's a clip from this week's "Larry King - Live", the same show that I drew this caricature from:
Monday, August 25, 2008
Gouache Meets Photoshop
In my previous post I showed some sample illustrations from a couple of Disney books that were painted completely in the traditional method of paint on illustration board. However, just so you don't get the idea that I am totally against using Photoshop, here are some samples that employ a hybrid method that I like to use.
This illustration is from a book published a few years ago by Random House, entitled "Beauties in Bloom", which featured two spring themed stories, one featuring "Snow White" and the other, "Cinderella". This was the first in a series of seasonal books put out as part of the "Disney Princesses" program. Though I'm admittedly not keen on the packaging of the characters under the "Disney Princesses" banner, I do enjoy illustrating the classic characters in original new tales, rather than just retelling the film stories.
After my final pencil layouts of the pages have been approved by Disney, I then separate the elements of characters and backgrounds. I transfer the background drawing onto a sheet of illustration board using graphite paper and a photocopy of my drawing that I can trace over with a sharp hard pencil. Once the background image is on the board, I start out painting in the large areas such as sky and grass using dilute washes of gouache on the surface which has already been pre-moistened with water brushed on evenly with a large flat brush. Once the larger expanses are in, I can start building up the details of bushes, trees, and surface texture on the ground.
In the case of "Snow White", since the film's backgrounds were rendered in watercolour, I am using the gouache more dilute in order to approximate the look of real transparent watercolour. It's a bit of a cheat, but then I'm pretty sure that even the Disney artists used some opaque gouache in areas that needed lighter highlights over dark areas. Frankly, I've never been good at handling real watercolour, so I prefer to use gouache because I'm more comfortable with it. Once all of the backgrounds have been painted, then comes the rather tedious task of scanning them into Photoshop, usually in two or three sections because of the limited area on the scanner plate. I then have to reassemble them into single Photoshop files, which is often tricky due to some areas having scanned a bit darker or lighter than others, and therefore needing some adjustment.
With the backgrounds out of the way, I can then get to the characters. Working from my clean pencil layouts, I place a sheet of matte finish mylar film on top of each one and, using a very fine #00 watercolour brush, carefully ink each set of characters as delicately as I can in order to approximate the way they used to hand ink the old animation cels using a crowquill pen and ink. When these are all completed, I then scan in each sheet of character art, again sometimes having to reassemble any large character groupings that were too big to scan in one piece. (Fortunately, that doesn't happen often.)
At this point, each page of character line art has to be converted into a transparent layer in Photoshop. This is so that I can then colour the characters by "painting" on a second transparent layer below, thus resulting in an image that really does approximate an animation cel with solid flat colours beneath the clean ink lines. What's nice about this method too, is that I can very easily go over separate areas on the line layer to change the colours of the line to something that relates better to the area of colour they contain. This is also the way they used to ink the cels in the early Disney feature films. Usually I keep this part pretty basic; just brown lines to surround warm colours and dark blue lines for blues and greens. I do a bit of tonal modeling on the areas of colour, but I keep that real basic too, otherwise the characters start looking too much like plastic.
Once both backgrounds and character layers are in the computer, it is then a very easy and fun process of assembling them together for the final picture files. The benefit of working this way as well, is that if either Disney or the publisher require any changes to be made, it is not much problem to slightly shift or adjust the size or colour value of a character, without having to worry about the background. Finally, the real benefit for me is just sending the client a couple of CDs containing all of the page setups, instead of sending a bulky stack of original illustration boards by Fedex, which can be quite costly, as well as nerve racking, hoping they arrive safely.
Because I really enjoy trying to match the background painting style of the original film, here are a couple more examples of my Disney book work which show some variety in approach:
This is a scene from "Happy new Year, Pooh!", that I did as one of a series of "Winnie-The-Pooh" books for Reader's Digest. It was a book of the month type of thing, where each title related to something in each month of the year. I did three books in the series. I quite like working with the Pooh characters, as well as doing the looser pen, ink and watercolour backgrounds that the film employed to adhere more to the original Shepard book illustrations. These backgrounds are more like coloured drawings than true paintings, and therefore are easier for me.
Still, that doesn't mean I shy away from more painterly approaches, as I had fun trying to mimic the style of background artist, Eyvind Earle, in "Sleeping Beauty". Eyvind would paint in large, opaque, flat areas of colour, then build up the surface detail in multiple layers with his gouache. My paintings are a lot more basic than his, though, as he would create incredible textures and ornate design work in his film backgrounds. In June of 2007, I got to see the exhibit of original Disney animation art that was on show in Montreal (having first debuted in Paris). It was a real pleasure to be able to get up so close to some original Eyvind Earle backgrounds and analyze his approach in the brush work and order in which he would paint all of the elements. His gnarled, old tree trunks were incredible to behold. My simplistic "forgeries" pale in comparison, I'm afraid, but it sure is fun trying to paint in his style!
This illustration is from a book published a few years ago by Random House, entitled "Beauties in Bloom", which featured two spring themed stories, one featuring "Snow White" and the other, "Cinderella". This was the first in a series of seasonal books put out as part of the "Disney Princesses" program. Though I'm admittedly not keen on the packaging of the characters under the "Disney Princesses" banner, I do enjoy illustrating the classic characters in original new tales, rather than just retelling the film stories.
After my final pencil layouts of the pages have been approved by Disney, I then separate the elements of characters and backgrounds. I transfer the background drawing onto a sheet of illustration board using graphite paper and a photocopy of my drawing that I can trace over with a sharp hard pencil. Once the background image is on the board, I start out painting in the large areas such as sky and grass using dilute washes of gouache on the surface which has already been pre-moistened with water brushed on evenly with a large flat brush. Once the larger expanses are in, I can start building up the details of bushes, trees, and surface texture on the ground.
In the case of "Snow White", since the film's backgrounds were rendered in watercolour, I am using the gouache more dilute in order to approximate the look of real transparent watercolour. It's a bit of a cheat, but then I'm pretty sure that even the Disney artists used some opaque gouache in areas that needed lighter highlights over dark areas. Frankly, I've never been good at handling real watercolour, so I prefer to use gouache because I'm more comfortable with it. Once all of the backgrounds have been painted, then comes the rather tedious task of scanning them into Photoshop, usually in two or three sections because of the limited area on the scanner plate. I then have to reassemble them into single Photoshop files, which is often tricky due to some areas having scanned a bit darker or lighter than others, and therefore needing some adjustment.
With the backgrounds out of the way, I can then get to the characters. Working from my clean pencil layouts, I place a sheet of matte finish mylar film on top of each one and, using a very fine #00 watercolour brush, carefully ink each set of characters as delicately as I can in order to approximate the way they used to hand ink the old animation cels using a crowquill pen and ink. When these are all completed, I then scan in each sheet of character art, again sometimes having to reassemble any large character groupings that were too big to scan in one piece. (Fortunately, that doesn't happen often.)
At this point, each page of character line art has to be converted into a transparent layer in Photoshop. This is so that I can then colour the characters by "painting" on a second transparent layer below, thus resulting in an image that really does approximate an animation cel with solid flat colours beneath the clean ink lines. What's nice about this method too, is that I can very easily go over separate areas on the line layer to change the colours of the line to something that relates better to the area of colour they contain. This is also the way they used to ink the cels in the early Disney feature films. Usually I keep this part pretty basic; just brown lines to surround warm colours and dark blue lines for blues and greens. I do a bit of tonal modeling on the areas of colour, but I keep that real basic too, otherwise the characters start looking too much like plastic.
Once both backgrounds and character layers are in the computer, it is then a very easy and fun process of assembling them together for the final picture files. The benefit of working this way as well, is that if either Disney or the publisher require any changes to be made, it is not much problem to slightly shift or adjust the size or colour value of a character, without having to worry about the background. Finally, the real benefit for me is just sending the client a couple of CDs containing all of the page setups, instead of sending a bulky stack of original illustration boards by Fedex, which can be quite costly, as well as nerve racking, hoping they arrive safely.
Because I really enjoy trying to match the background painting style of the original film, here are a couple more examples of my Disney book work which show some variety in approach:
This is a scene from "Happy new Year, Pooh!", that I did as one of a series of "Winnie-The-Pooh" books for Reader's Digest. It was a book of the month type of thing, where each title related to something in each month of the year. I did three books in the series. I quite like working with the Pooh characters, as well as doing the looser pen, ink and watercolour backgrounds that the film employed to adhere more to the original Shepard book illustrations. These backgrounds are more like coloured drawings than true paintings, and therefore are easier for me.
Still, that doesn't mean I shy away from more painterly approaches, as I had fun trying to mimic the style of background artist, Eyvind Earle, in "Sleeping Beauty". Eyvind would paint in large, opaque, flat areas of colour, then build up the surface detail in multiple layers with his gouache. My paintings are a lot more basic than his, though, as he would create incredible textures and ornate design work in his film backgrounds. In June of 2007, I got to see the exhibit of original Disney animation art that was on show in Montreal (having first debuted in Paris). It was a real pleasure to be able to get up so close to some original Eyvind Earle backgrounds and analyze his approach in the brush work and order in which he would paint all of the elements. His gnarled, old tree trunks were incredible to behold. My simplistic "forgeries" pale in comparison, I'm afraid, but it sure is fun trying to paint in his style!
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Nara Shikamaru wallpaper
Nara Shikamaru anime
Nara Shikamaru photo
Nara Shikamaru pictures
Nara Shikamaru nice
Uchiha Sasuke anime
Uchiha Sasuke cute
Uchiha Sasuke pictures
Uchiha Sasuke closeup
Uchiha Sasuke posterFriday, August 22, 2008
Andy Panda & Great Poses
I love this cartoonist, whoever he is- great expressive poses that remind me of Fred Moore's drawings in "The Little Whirlwind"
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Asuma wallpaper
Asuma nice anime
Asuma pictures
Asuma wallpaper
Asuma poster
Umino Iruka pictures
Umino Iruka anime
Umino Iruka wallpaper
Umino Iruka posterWednesday, August 20, 2008
Naruto Jinchūriki Forms
Naruto Uzumaki is a Jinchūriki of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. When Naruto taps into the demon fox's chakra, it increases every physical aspect of his body. Increased healing, near-limitless chakra, an almost impenetrable shield, and great stamina. Naruto has unique access to the demon fox's chakra due to the seal the Fourth Hokage placed on him. The seal split the demon fox's chakra in two halves, the Yin chakra made it inaccessible to Naruto, but the Yang chakra allowed Naruto to access it.
Jinchūriki Form
By simply tapping into the demon fox's chakra, Naruto's blue eyes turn red, his pupils become slitted, his nails and incisors grow long and sharp, and his whisker marks become more feral. Depending on how much chakra is unleashed, the red chakra could glow around his body in an untamed way. Naruto first reached this form when Sasuke Uchiha was thought to be killed by Haku, causing the pure rage to take over allowing the demon fox's chakra to leak out of the seal.
Even though this is the weakest state of his Jinchūriki forms, it is still a deadly foe as it increases his physical strength and healing well above most shinobi, and increasing his speed to such high levels that nothing short of a fully matured Sharingan is able to track his movements. Until special training from Jiraiya, Naruto could only reach this state through rage or if his life was in imminent danger, but after having a inner talk with the demon fox, he is able to tap into the demon fox's chakra on his own, or by simply telling the demon fox to give him some power.
[edit] One-Tailed Transformation
During Naruto's battle with Sasuke at the Valley of the End, when Naruto was at the mercy of Sasuke, the demon fox told Naruto that he should be grateful to it and gave him more chakra. The amount of chakra is so great that it leaks out of his body in a denser state. All the physical traits of the basic Jinchūriki form are present and slightly altered, including a black ring appearing around his eyes, longer nails and canines, and more beserk looking eyes, with one major bonus; the red chakra becomes a complete shield around his body, in the shape of a fox, complete with long ears and a tail, known as the demon fox's cloak or shroud.
In his one-tailed transformation, Naruto fights more like a beast. Instead of using his fists, he instead uses his sharpened claws. While he can stand on his own two feet, he can move at greater speeds on all fours. But his most powerful weapon is the chakra itself. The bubbling chakra appears to have a mind of its own: when a strike that was meant for Sasuke missed, the chakra itself stretched off Naruto's arm and hit Sasuke before he could react. Since the chakra has a mind of its own, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to predict Naruto's movements, as Sasuke was able to see Naruto perfectly, but couldn't predict what the chakra would do with the Sharingan. The chakra can stretch far from the body, as Naruto was shown using his "arms" to attack Sasuke from great distances, at one point being on an opposite side of the valley, and still attacking him with the chakra arms. The shield around his body appears to be impenetrable, comparable to Gaara's Ultimate Absolute Defense: Shield of Shukaku.
[edit] Two-Tailed Transformation
After catching the Akatsuki member, Deidara, and beating what he thought was Deidara to pieces only to realize he had been attacking a substitution, his anger at losing Deidara and not being able to avenge Gaara's death caused Naruto to slip into his two-tailed transformtion. His physical characteristics match the first two forms, but his red eyes and incisors grow larger, and his lips get a black outline, similar to fox gums. The chakra shield's only difference between the one-tailed transformation and the two-tailed is the extra chakra tail that has grown.
While in this state, Naruto is still in control of his body, though to what extent is unknown. In the anime, he punched a tree, destroying it and a long line of trees behind it, and later he attempted to attack Kakashi Hatake, who later tried to calm him down, and possibly tried to stop him from finding Deidara. The amount of chakra produced by the two-tailed transformation was so great, that even Naruto's shadow clones doubled over in pain from the chakra.
[edit] Three-Tailed Transformation
After Orochimaru revealed himself to Team Yamato and baited Naruto with news of Sasuke, Naruto went on a rage and first attacked him in his one-tailed state. When that failed, along with further baiting from Orochimaru, Naruto skipped the two-tailed transformation all together, and went straight into his three-tailed transformation. The three-tailed state looks exactly like the two-tailed, again the only difference being the number of tails. His eyes become similar to the four-tailed transformation, but can return to normal.
The amount of chakra produced from this form is devastating. The very air around Naruto begins to hurt. This is the strongest form Naruto can reach and control. With the standard chakra shield's protection and attack power, a simple roar has the power to create a devastating sphere of destruction.
[edit] Four-Tailed Transformation
When Orochimaru was fighting the three-tailed transformation, Naruto turned to the demon fox in desperation and anger, and slipped into the demon fox's grasp. The demon fox's chakra began to burn its way through Naruto's body, destroying his skin, and rapidly healing it at the same time, eventually covering his entire body in a mix between the demon fox's chakra and his own blood. Everything from his face to his chakra tails became completely solid, his eyes losing its characteristics and became empty glowing circles surrounded by a black mask made of chakra.
In this state, in effect, Naruto takes the place of the demon fox inside the cage. The demon fox has complete control over Naruto's body, making it a mere skeleton for the fox's chakra, and every living thing in its way a target. The four-tailed transformation has all the benefits of the other tails, with upgrades. With a simple wave of his hand, it can send a shockwave of destruction for miles. The chakra shield, while being solid, still completely protects Naruto's body, and is so hot that it can burn the skin on contact. If Naruto is hit, the chakra itself can form another body, and strike back almost instantly. The demon fox also has the ability to charge a concentrated ball of chakra, consume it, and then fire it with such a force that it could destroy three Rashomon gates without losing strength. Finally its chakra shield's defensive power is so great that it is impregnable to any form of attack. Even Orochimaru's legendary Kusanagi couldn't even break the exterior shell of the demon fox's chakra, only bending it slightly.
In the end, despite it being Naruto's strongest Jinchūriki form revealed so far, the four-tailed transformation is Naruto's greatest downfall. Because the demon fox's chakra is constantly destroying and creating new cells, it also shortens Naruto's life, similar to Tsunade's Creation Rebirth. Also, because the demon fox has complete control, Naruto will attack anything that moves, including his friends. This discourages Naruto from using this state more than the fact that it shortens his life. Naruto first slipped into this state when he was training with Jiraiya, because he used the toadkey to "twist" the seal the Fourth Hokage placed on Naruto. A small "twist" of the seal unleashed the four-tailed transformation and almost killed Jiraiya.
[edit] Jinchūriki Chakra Control
In the event of the demon fox manifesting, Naruto's sensei, Jiraiya, gave Kakashi a special written seal that is to be placed on Naruto's body. This seal suppresses the demon fox's chakra and restores Naruto to his normal self. In addition, Yamato has demonstrated a technique that reverses Naruto's demon fox transformation, enhanced greatly by the First Hokage's necklace that Naruto wears. Naruto, in the anime, has shown that with enough will power, he is able to suppress the demon fox's chakra from taking over. However, the important factor to this is that the demon fox's chakra was responding to the vessel of its residual chakra so it is unknown if Naruto could use his willpower to suppress the demon fox's chakra if it forced its way in a similar fashion as his first four-tailed transformation.
Sasuke has also demonstrated the ability to forcefully suppress the demon fox's chakra. To parallel the demon fox's apparent connection with the Uchihas, Itachi Uchiha of Akatsuki was originally assigned to capture it as part of the organization's goal of obtaining all the Tailed Beasts. This task was later given to Pein.
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