On pg.5 Sam reviews his favorite stumps.

This probably does it for the clips. If I post anything further I will basically have shown the whole cartoon. Also, the well of content has been plumbed nearly dry by now.

[Read more…]]]>

On pg.5 Sam reviews his favorite stumps.

This probably does it for the clips. If I post anything further I will basically have shown the whole cartoon. Also, the well of content has been plumbed nearly dry by now.

CLIP: High Suspense!

CLIP: Pratfalls!

Here’s a pencil test of the preceding clip’s first scene. You can see how his ending position was shifted left in the final animation to avoid the strange pivoting. It’s an alteration which, I realize now, almost nobody would have noticed. Fascinating stuff!
Pencil Test

Bonus! A Somewhat Special Feature:
Deleted Scene

BG Layouts by Edward Juan

With apologies to Xavier Robel

Clip 1

Clip 2

The screening at Nickelodeon went pretty well. Thanks to all the crew who attended. That was the first time I had watched the cartoon with a sizable audience and it brought to light a major miscalculation on my part. See, I thought that Sam was a funny character. That’s what I hoped, at least. But it turns out his humor is overruled by his adorableness. Expected laughs were supplanted by awwws. Which is not a complaint, but it really did take me aback.

Also, for good measure, here are some color progressions for a few of the characters. My coloring book versions are on the left. The intermediary and final versions were done by Saelee. Perhaps you will find the differences illuminating. Perhaps not.

Karl:
[Read more…]]]>

With apologies to Xavier Robel

Clip 1

Clip 2

The screening at Nickelodeon went pretty well. Thanks to all the crew who attended. That was the first time I had watched the cartoon with a sizable audience and it brought to light a major miscalculation on my part. See, I thought that Sam was a funny character. That’s what I hoped, at least. But it turns out his humor is overruled by his adorableness. Expected laughs were supplanted by awwws. Which is not a complaint, but it really did take me aback.

Also, for good measure, here are some color progressions for a few of the characters. My coloring book versions are on the left. The intermediary and final versions were done by Saelee. Perhaps you will find the differences illuminating. Perhaps not.

Karl:

Conrad:

Nessie:

Sketch by Nicole Mitchell

His slimming secrets revealed. Someone, somewhere, has been remiss. So here’s a parade of images without context offered in atonement. Mostly, I just wanted to showcase more of the sterling BG designs (these JPEGs don’t do them justice) of Seonna Hong and Edward Juan. They’re nicely complemented by Saelee’s colors, too. Thanks for stopping by.
[Read more…]]]>

Sketch by Nicole Mitchell

His slimming secrets revealed. Someone, somewhere, has been remiss. So here’s a parade of images without context offered in atonement. Mostly, I just wanted to showcase more of the sterling BG designs (these JPEGs don’t do them justice) of Seonna Hong and Edward Juan. They’re nicely complemented by Saelee’s colors, too. Thanks for stopping by.

[Read more…]]]>

Title Cards by Souther Salazar

These are the cards that Souther made.  They turned out awesome and I’m still pretty excited that he was willing to do them.  Souther often describes intricate tiny universes in his paintings and sculptures.  Even in his post-it drawings.  For the cards I knew I didn’t want artwork that directly reiterated the designs of “Samsquatch”.  Instead, they would serve as an introduction to Sam and his wondrous and mundane world.  Originally, I envisioned sweeping tableaus of humans encountering fantastical animals and diagrams of unlikely taxonomies.  

However, as these images appear over the course of 10 seconds, that might have been overreaching.  To that end, he conceived of these views of a fortean library with the main characters represented as figurines arranged on canted bookshelves among other cryptids. The Dover Demon. Kongamato. See if you can name a few others.

This is Luis Narino, the composer for “Samsquatch”. My ideas were at their wobbliest when it came to the music for the short. Thankfully, the score he delivered is totally sweet. Below are a few samples he worked up initially. I liked this first one so much that it became the title theme:

Woods Theme

It’s never explicitly stated that the story takes place in the Great Pacific Northwest. But it probably does. Despite the title music’s Southern twang we wanted to have some musical cues that would evoke the region. Sea chanteys and logging camp songs, maybe? Thanks to a zealous music teacher in grade school, when I think of Northwest music I invariably think about the tune “Acres of Clams”. Not the Pete Seeger version.

Free of that impediment, Luis came up with this sample which ended up being Sam’s theme:

Northwest Mix.

[Read more…]]]>

This is Luis Narino, the composer for “Samsquatch”. My ideas were at their wobbliest when it came to the music for the short. Thankfully, the score he delivered is totally sweet. Below are a few samples he worked up initially. I liked this first one so much that it became the title theme:

Woods Theme

It’s never explicitly stated that the story takes place in the Great Pacific Northwest. But it probably does. Despite the title music’s Southern twang we wanted to have some musical cues that would evoke the region. Sea chanteys and logging camp songs, maybe? Thanks to a zealous music teacher in grade school, when I think of Northwest music I invariably think about the tune “Acres of Clams”. Not the Pete Seeger version.

Free of that impediment, Luis came up with this sample which ended up being Sam’s theme:

Northwest Mix.

Looking dang serious.

Thunderbird Theme

Early on, I was having some trouble visualizing the Thunderbird character in flight. I don’t know birds. Jen knows birds, though, and she graciously supplied these sketches. After some inbetweening, the resulting animation test was sent to Taiwan for reference. Thanks again, Jen. I should have some screenshots and maybe some clips up by next week.

Flight reference drawings by Jennifer Hager

Hey. Pencil tests. A round of tests arrived from Wang Film Productions late last week. We requested those scenes which might have posed problems for the animators so we could get a leg up on fixes and retakes. Since the rest of the show is due to arrive tomorrow, though, that plan has lost most of its advantage.

This short will be a talkie (and probably far too talky, at that) but these pencil tests have no audio. No text or context this time around. Instead, imagine the sounds of dueling bon mots, fierce oaths, and solemn gurgling.

CLICK BELOW for ANIMATION:

SAM

CONRAD

NESSIE

Back in March, I was having a tough time finding a character design for Conrad that didn’t make my face hurt. Cute woodland creatures are very forgiving subjects but funny humans? The drawings just wouldn’t click. Bland, awful stuff. It wasn’t until I stumbled onto a MySpace profile, of all cockamamie [Read more…]]]>

Hey. Pencil tests. A round of tests arrived from Wang Film Productions late last week. We requested those scenes which might have posed problems for the animators so we could get a leg up on fixes and retakes. Since the rest of the show is due to arrive tomorrow, though, that plan has lost most of its advantage.

This short will be a talkie (and probably far too talky, at that) but these pencil tests have no audio. No text or context this time around. Instead, imagine the sounds of dueling bon mots, fierce oaths, and solemn gurgling.

CLICK BELOW for ANIMATION:

SAM

CONRAD

NESSIE

Back in March, I was having a tough time finding a character design for Conrad that didn’t make my face hurt. Cute woodland creatures are very forgiving subjects but funny humans? The drawings just wouldn’t click. Bland, awful stuff. It wasn’t until I stumbled onto a MySpace profile, of all cockamamie things, that I reached the present course. While I’m still not completely satisfied with the version, it does allow for the range of cartoony expressions and poses I was after. Thank you, Hirsch.

Final Color by Saelee Oh

Exploratory drawings of a Hirsch

Plush by Nicole Mitchell
Painting and design by Edward Juan

Ladies and gentlemen, two pieces of printed ephemera for your ocular ingestion. One of them is a promotional postcard for “Samsquatch” while the other is a prop appearing in that self-same fiction. Special thanks to Ed and Nicole for lending their expertise on the postcard, both digital and textile, on short notice. I contributed just a few messy sketches but they both did a bang-up job executing the final version . . . that I promptly stamped my name on, Chihuly-like. Ed, incidentally, was recently interviewed on the Character Design blog:
Read it here.

Finally, the McGuffin that kicks off the cartoon.
[Read more…]]]>

Plush by Nicole Mitchell
Painting and design by Edward Juan

Ladies and gentlemen, two pieces of printed ephemera for your ocular ingestion. One of them is a promotional postcard for “Samsquatch” while the other is a prop appearing in that self-same fiction. Special thanks to Ed and Nicole for lending their expertise on the postcard, both digital and textile, on short notice. I contributed just a few messy sketches but they both did a bang-up job executing the final version . . . that I promptly stamped my name on, Chihuly-like. Ed, incidentally, was recently interviewed on the Character Design blog:
Read it here.

Finally, the McGuffin that kicks off the cartoon.

Layout by Chad Coyle
Color by Saelee Oh

Layout by Chad Coyle
Color by Saelee Oh

It’s too bad that this story happened too recently to incorporate into the warp and woof of “Samsquatch”. I’m sure there could have been a scene of Sam being handcuffed to a rollbar in New Jersey. Y’know, like a cryptid Midnight Run . . . if Charles Grodin had been a Chupacabra.

Well, time marches inexorably onwards as we wait to get the pencil tests back. Pins and needles, friends. Here’s another rough walk cycle that was sent along as reference for the animators:

CLICK HERE for WOBBLY ANIMATION

[Read more…]]]>

Layout by Chad Coyle
Color by Saelee Oh

It’s too bad that this story happened too recently to incorporate into the warp and woof of “Samsquatch”. I’m sure there could have been a scene of Sam being handcuffed to a rollbar in New Jersey. Y’know, like a cryptid Midnight Run . . . if Charles Grodin had been a Chupacabra.

Well, time marches inexorably onwards as we wait to get the pencil tests back. Pins and needles, friends. Here’s another rough walk cycle that was sent along as reference for the animators:

CLICK HERE for WOBBLY ANIMATION

Background painting by Seonna Hong

I’ll be joining in on the promotional postcard hullabaloo once my submission gets approved. In the meantime, enjoy these suggestive, William Morris-inspired flowers. Why not.

Cranekicksquatch by Jesus Chambrot

No one I know makes drawings that wed the cute and the gruesome as readily as Jesus. By readily I mean compulsively. His other sketch of Sam was at least as creepily endearing.

Here’s one of the animation tests I promised Neil I’d post . . . months ago. This is the second version. On my first attempt I limited the swing of his arms so they’d dangle at his sides, just like the reported Realsquatch. I thought it mostly worked so I vetted it past the Larrys, both Huber and Leichliter. They weren’t as sold on it. So I took another pass:

CLICK HERE for HOT LOPING ACTION

(Edit- Sorry, I posted the wrong test earlier.) The first version looks like a Jumping Jack in comparison. I worried that he’d look too forceful with this stride but, since he’s walking on 16’s, his arms keep the unhurried swing I thought [Read more…]]]>

Cranekicksquatch by Jesus Chambrot

No one I know makes drawings that wed the cute and the gruesome as readily as Jesus. By readily I mean compulsively. His other sketch of Sam was at least as creepily endearing.

Here’s one of the animation tests I promised Neil I’d post . . . months ago. This is the second version. On my first attempt I limited the swing of his arms so they’d dangle at his sides, just like the reported Realsquatch. I thought it mostly worked so I vetted it past the Larrys, both Huber and Leichliter. They weren’t as sold on it. So I took another pass:

CLICK HERE for HOT LOPING ACTION

(Edit- Sorry, I posted the wrong test earlier.) The first version looks like a Jumping Jack in comparison. I worried that he’d look too forceful with this stride but, since he’s walking on 16’s, his arms keep the unhurried swing I thought they would lose by widening the arc. No, sir. Now it’s better than it was before. Better. Stronger. Faster . . .

Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh.

[Read more…]]]>

Background paintings by Seonna Hong
Color ships tomorrow. So here’s a few of Seonna’s gorgeous paintings of Ed Juan’s layouts. Keying in to the idea that everything in the short should have a rough-hewn edge, she painted these to look like paint-by-number kits. When we were first discussing the look of the backgrounds I was really attached to the idea of using collage (textures, wallpaper, etc.) with an unfinished woodgrain as the sky; all of which she used to great effect in Animus. That was until Seonna convinced me should could get many of the same effects with just brushwork. Also, that’s much more elegant than shipping a bunch of paper samples and scraps of wood to the BG painters at Wang Film Production.

A quick preview of the sweet colors and patterns that Saelee Oh came up with for Sam. Saelee is a great painter and illustrator whom I lucked into meeting through an internship. I somehow tricked her into foraying into cartoons and hopefully the vibrancy of her illustrations will rub off on Samsquatch.

Color Styling by Saelee Oh