Month: June 2003

  • It’s the end-of-the-financial year and tax time. Time to seek out those runaway receipts, buy software (before tonight), fill out BAS forms…

    Just downloaded CoolPage, a WYSIWYG website creation program that is very cool indeed. You can freely drag images (or text boxes) around on the page to position them. Too easy! Now the challenge of transferring all this into a HTML document for PDF printing…

    TRIVIA:

    A half-man half-ape has been spotted in China.

    I think I’ve found the perfect holiday destination – Polynesian island with free wireless internet access. Imagine soaking up the sun and blogging away on a beach with your laptop…

    After watching Lipstick On Your Collar and The Producers this week, we can’t get these two songs out of our heads:
    Sh-Boom  and Springtime For Hitler.(wav)

  • We have been linked to, at Invisible Shoebox . A few entries down the page, there’s also a very nice plug for our website. Thanks, Meredith!

    Today was the Fwaksters’ last day on our Cosmic Baby production; and their last day at Fwak! (for now, anyway). Good times have been had by all, so it’s a bit sad to have to say goodbye. Especially when they leave behind a gift like this:

    framed and signed

    Ironically, I am reading a book at the moment called Experiment At Work, which proposes a radical and socially-ethical model for running a business. The  company in the book, is St Lukes, a famous advertising agency(not that I had heard of it)

    In this book, Andy Law – himself now elevated to guru status – explains the philosophy and methods behind St Luke’s success. This is very much based upon putting personal growth and development ahead of business growth and development. In analysing the success of St Luke’s, Law provides points of reflection and a framework for managers and executives from any industry, who are seeking to get the most out of their employees in an age when human resources have become the vital component of nearly every company.

    Workable? Or too idealistic? I’m halfway through the book…

    (a page from the book)

    We finally bought a copy of Gene Dietch’s The Cat On a Hot Tin Groove. Straight from the fridge, Dad!

    And before we leave the studio this Friday night… we are pleased to let you know that the Friendly Persuasion Show is BACK! We used to listen to this streaming radio show all the time, while we worked. We’ll be tunin’ in Monday mornings 11am-1pm (Sydney time).

    Eddie: Beat me Daddy, eight to the bar!

    (Guess who just got a dictionary in Hipster Slang?)

  • Memo

    Outputting Flash for Broadcast TV:

    We do every stage of animation production up to THIS POINT. Need to learn more about the output/post-production part…

    * Update

    Flash to Video- Movie Dimensions?  Were-Here forums thread about movie dimensions (in response to my post)

  • * Updated

    While I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to convert a Flash file (text, vector art, bitmaps) to PDF format, and searching the Flash boards for help, I came across this tutorial on Flash Drawing. 

    It’s a very basic tute, and the drawing style is somewhat irrelevant for animation, but there are some neat (trad. animation-influenced) tips. e.g.,

    • Changing the colour of your rough sketches to BLUE (like using a blue pencil)
    • Flipping your drawing horizontally to check that is still looks good (like turning your sheet of paper over on the lightbox to doublecheck)

    More at: Flashkit Tutorials

    * Lili’s Flash Drawing Tips Part 1  Here it is at last (draft); to be submitted to the next issue of OzAnimation Magazine.

    From the studiowhiz.com forum – Lots of links for Cartoon Character Animation.


  • He’s a BOY… He’s a LOBSTER… He’s…
    BO-OOY LOBSTER!
    © Fwak! Animation

  • If you are good at something, are you also passionate about it? If you are naturally talented with math, do you also love it? If you are a child prodigy of violin, does it mean you are passionate about music? … 

    From this article: “Ego, Talent, Reward, and Passion“.
    There are more excellent pieces by the same author listed here.

    What we watched recently -

    The Guru. This was so silly (almost cringey-stupid), but fun. The Bollywood-style singing dancing bits were the best bits! I think we should visit the Indian video rental place on Bourke street soon…

    All That Jazz. Awesome. A musical biography by Bob Fosse about the life and death of a choreographer who is based on Bob Fosse. It’s kinda ironic that Bob Fosse would make a movie about his own physical/spiritual degeneration and death, with all the razzle-dazzle melodrama of his famous musicals yet the poor guy ended up dying on a park bench in real-life. Very self-indugent project, you could say, but highly recommended.

    Rabbit Proof Fence. Makes you realize how f*-cked up this country is. Depressing but ultimately satisfying ‘true-story’ film about three half-caste Aboriginal kids who escape from a detention center and walk thousands of miles home.

    Gypsy. This was the Natalie Wood version. We thought the story was supposed to be about Gypsy Rose Lee, not her mother… Natalie Wood has no oomph and there was not enough Burlesque!

    Small Faces. A coming-of-age story about a bunch of Scottish lads set in the late 60′s. Gang-violence. That sort of stuff. We watched this after Quadrophenia and were kinda hoping the “faces” in the movie title had something to do with the Mod subculture, but not at all.

    Videos/DVDs hired for this week:  Lipstick On Your Collar, The Krays, Count Basie collection, The Harder They Come, Black Orpheus.

  • Surpise surprise…Just when I thought noone was reading this fwak blog (I even removed the xangahits counter), we’re currently at number 21 in the Aussie Blogs Popularity Index!

    Henshin Hall of Fame

    An awesome website dedicated to Japenese TV superheros from the 70′s!

    These heroes may be humans with special powers (Rainbowman) or cyborgs (Kamen Rider) or androids (Kikaida) or aliens from another world (Zone Fighter), but they have one thing in common, when innocent people are threatened by evil forces they henshin, transform, into their battle form to combat the evil. – from Geisha Asobi Blog

  • Meet Kid Wombat!

    He’s masked, small, feral, Australian and throws a mean boomerang. One of several designs we’ve been working on this week… Kid Wombat pic © WB Animation

     More images…
    Some pics from Cosmic Baby Cleans Up The Galaxy.

     Cosmic Baby images © Fwak!/Cartoon Network Asia Pacific

    * Eddie assures me he will take full responsibility if we get into trouble for posting any of these images.

    Links:

    Dublog -  ”Art” site.

    Kevin Kelley’s Recomendo - “Cool tools and conceptual trends”

    …the cover of a new art book published by the Outre Gallery people who also brought us Supersonic Swingers (SHAG artwork) and Taboo: The Art of Tiki. I have no idea when this book will be out in stores. The Outre Gallery newsletter points to www.beatsvillepad.com but there’s nothing there….

    OK, back to work.

  • Tips: Drawing Thumbnails

    Some excellent stuff here on this discussion thread…

    Here are some other things that are practical, that relate to improving at thumbnails:

    • Observe. Observe life and remember it, that’s what all the greats did and do, that’s what they advised. Draw from life.
    • Draw tiny–really tiny–figures. Or draw at the same size but use a huge chunky marker. The drawings may look terrible but if you do it enough, you will learn a lot about how to simplify, something which working from photos probably won’t give you.
    • Draw constantly. Fill sketchbooks. You will improve. Resign yourself ahead of time to the fact that many sketches will fail. Do it anyway, and you will be pleasantly surprised.
    • Go and watch people, and draw them, on the street, in a mall. If you want to get better at simplification (ie thumbnails), don’t draw them from close up—draw them from far away, like across the street, so that they appear tiny and simplified. There’s your thumbnail right there! Try to copy it down in a few simple lines. be as faithful as possible in the time you have.
    • If you aren’t outside, you can draw from the TV, but sit as far away as possible. for the same reason—to make everything smaller and eliminate detail.
    • If you see good thumbnails printed or online, copy them. You may gain insight into why they work.
    • When you draw from life, activate the “memorization” part of your brain. Try to memorize what different body parts look like from different angles, to use later. Treat it as an information-gathering exercise, not just “having fun doing swoopy arty-looking charcoal drawings”. It’s research for later!
    • Struggling to draw thumbnails or poses from your head will stir up a lot of questions—then when you go to a life drawing class, you can look for the answers, at least to problems of anatomy. In that, way, drawing from your head and drawing from life are two necessary sides of the same coin. You need BOTH to advance. Avoiding one stalls you. But if you tackle both together, they each complement and reinforce the other.
    • Life drawing gives you information on anatomy, but the poses themselves are usually meaningless–ie they are not “acting” poses, not symbolic, not storytelling. That’s why, in order to learn WHAT pose to draw in your thumbnail, studying acting is vital. I don’t mean necessarily taking classes in it, I just mean becoming more aware of good acting, what actors do. What good cartoon acting is. There are endless examples out there. it’s a big subject.

    None of this has to be “war on too many fronts”, which of course is synonymous with “losing”. Choose a few fronts and tackle those, pushing happily into the unknown. Use your ‘strengths’ to give you the courage to face your weaknesses.

    It’s all fascinating if you approach it simply, from love.     - Paul Rivoche

     

  • Kidscreen magazine June 2003 cover