June 8, 2003
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I have been sorting through pictures from our L.A. trip and revisiting the memories…
Some of our friends will remember the long rambling three-part email I sent you about our weekend in Las Vegas. For those who have the time to spare, trust me it’s a long one – here it is. (this is a slightly edited version with less pics. The link will also soon be added to “archives” at the bottom of this page)
Our Figurine Empire
Behold the first sculpt of Super Mahi Tiki!
Paul J. Wright is a modelmaker who is making us some promotional plastic figurines of our characters. We’ll have some finished ones to show you in a couple of weeks!
Flash Drawing Tutorial
The current pdf issue of OzAnimation Magazine (by Neil Hughes) has an introductory Flash tutorial - Wenzel Learns Flash MX - by Lorraine Binnington.
I am planning a second instalment: Drawing Tips in Flash for the next issue, due out at the end of June.
The target readership: Beginner Flash artists &/or artists who are more used to drawing on paper and are making the leap to drawing digitally. This isn’t a How-to-animate tutorial. It’s specifically about the DRAWING-in-Flash PROCESS. What it’ll cover:
- Wacom tablets
- From rough drawing to clean drawing (different methods)
- Brief overview of Flash drawing tools
- Strokes Vs Fills (Line vs Brush)
- Tips for using the line tool
- Tips for using the brush tool
- Grouping and Symbolizing (how this helps)
- Export formats (swf, jpeg, ai, gif etc.)
I won’t be repeating what’s already in the MX manual. These tips will come from our own trial-and-error personal learning experiences (between Eddie and me). I remember when we both started using Flash there were only TWO manuals in the stores. And we’d read them cover to cover and had to dig around online bulletin boards for answers to tons of drawing-related issues not covered by the manuals.
Now there are heaps of Flash manuals for character animators & artists. (e.g. by Mark Clarkson and Ibis Fernandez) I wish we had these back in 1998 but better late than never!
Any specific questions about “drawing in Flash”? Let me know and I’ll address these in the tutorial.
The new Ren ’N Stimpy: There are some clips here
We saw some of the storyboards and animation when we were at WBA (someone had a videotape) - The new season is totally EXTREME with lots of IN-YOUR-FACE HOMOSEXUAL (or homophobic?) gags.Which makes sense because someone like John K. would be expected to keep pushing those cartoony boundaries and he is doing just that. And for a network targeting young ADULT MALES no less.
When in L.A. we also saw the first pilot episode of the new Astro Boy series which I believe is coming soon to Cartoon Network Australia – yay!
It’s hard to judge the entire series by the pilot ep. alone – Astro Boy is newly-born; he’s still a bit awkward and not yet fully heroic. The visuals though, are slick and sophisticated. We just miss the original 60′s theme song.
Eddie: Although the pilot looked great (it reminded me a lot of ‘Metropolis’), my biggest disappointment was the fact that Dr. Elefun has been renamed ‘Dr. O’Shea’! So he’s IRISH now? Come on!
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