So this is how we had planned to get ping pong balls shooting all over the screen. It seemed to make perfect sense, and a ping pong ball gun seemed pretty harmless. After some notes from Fred and crew, the gun became this:
Anyone that does 3D, or has opened a software package before knows that making a perfect sphere is a very quick procedure. They’re built in to almost all 3D applications these days.
The trick with this project is that the spheres need to be ping pong balls. One thing about a ping pong ball that makes it stand out from other spheres is the way that it reacts to light. If you look at a ping pong ball, you can see a phenomena called “subsurface scattering”.
What does that mean? Light enters the ball and bounces around inside the material, exiting at a different point than it would if the ball were clear. If you look at the equator of the sphere, you can see a line. This line is where they seal the two halves of the ball in it’s manufacture. The material is a bit thicker there, and that’s why [Read more…]
You might recall that last March we started a logo competition for our shorts show that had been first known as Oh Yeah! Cartoons Season 4 and then renamed by Nickelodeon as Random! Cartoons. Or that the competition was won by Michael Lapinski inspired by Darron Moore.
The question, of course, “What’s next?” The answer is that we have to come up with an opening for the series, and for each of the shorts. We’re going to create a 30 second version for the half hour episodes (three shorts together) and a two or three second version for the beginning of an individual short.
Floyd Bishop’s Bishop Animation of Honesdale, Pennsylvania will be creating the animated portion. The studio is also one of our creative team on Six Monsters. The sound design will be created by Jon Kane and Warren Fischer of the Bunker in Brooklyn, New York. Aside from being close colleagues for over 20 years [Read more…]
Here’s some biography on our Random! Cartoons logo winners. (To see all their entries just type their names in the search box on the right.)
Michael Lapinski writes: “Born and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey; I now live and work in Park Slope, Brooklyn. After getting my degree in Graphic Design from Rutgers University, my first job was painting cels for the old Jumbo Studios. Since then, I’ve served as a Lead Designer on Nickelodeon’s “Blue’s Clues” and more recently as Color Supervisor on “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” for Dancing Diablo Studio. At Diablo, I also had the opportunity to write, design, and direct the short “Home Sweet Home,” about a lost tree frog, for Sesame International. I’m currently doing more traditional design work (posters, packaging, logos) for theatre companies and musicians, and soon I’ll be art directing an animated interstitial created by Amy and Liza Steinberg for Noggin. I like the [Read more…]
May 1 is here, and, as promised, the winner of our Random! Cartoons logo competition.
Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Michael Lapinski.
Michael’s a New York based art director. We’ll put up a more detailed profile later in the week. Michael will be receiving the $1000 prize, and a credit on all of our Random! epsiodes. Congratulations.
The winning entry was inspired by one of Darron Moore’s entries. As Michael’s muse Darron’s got $300 coming to him. Congratulations.
What a great competition. And a difficult one for me to judge, I must say. Aside from all the controversy, there were 128 entries, most of them fantastic. As I think I wrote elsewhere, there were people I was biased towards (the folks on the Random crews), and people I was rooting for (some of our biggest fans were also among our most prolific entrants). In the end, I’m glad the winners were both people we didn’t [Read more…]
This submission just came in last night. Submissions have been officially closed since Tuesday, but I thought I’d share Jonathan’s work anyway. -Fred
Logo name: Jonathan
Creator: Jonathan
Explanation: Every time i thought of Random i thought of drawing
straws. Hope you guys like!
Logo name: RandomCartoons-6
Creator: -Ovi Demetrian
Explanation: Here is one more last minute idea. See my previous Email for further info.
Logo name: logo_again
Creator: Stephen Levinson
Explanation: Heres 2 more.
Logo name: logo_again2
Creator: Stephen Levinson
Explanation: Heres 2 more.
