…and pencils!

Flash and Toonboom Digital Pro may have made it possible for ‘paperless animation’, but I still needs me the feel of a thick lead on paper in order to draw anything decent.  Here are some of my warts ‘n all roughs (which I cleaned up in the next stage) for the Los Campeones storyboard.

And remember – Los Campeones de La Lucha Libre premieres in Mexico October 17th! -Eddie

A couple of stills from our final 2 promos

10 highly stylized Boomerang promos for Cartoon Network Asia-Pacific.  Character designs by CN, animation and BG design by Fwak!.

Two more to go…we’ll post some videos when we have the final clips.

PS.  Back from a one day comic con assault.  Heath Ledger’s Joker is this year’s Star Wars Stormtrooper.

UPDATE: Read scriptwriter Keith Rainville’s take on the evening HERE

Hundreds of our friends and colleagues came, Mariachi Los Toros played, then for the first time an audience watched our first feature film ‘Los Campeones de La Lucha Libre’

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for such a show of support and respect.  Our midnight premiere at the marvelous Vista Theatre was a wonderful evening and a perfect ending to an epic project.

Lili Chin (Creator/Designer/Animator/Supreme Event Planner) & Keith J. Rainville (Sciptwriter, Graphic Artist and Classy Speech-Giver)

Mariachi Los Toros perform before the movie.  Their awesome work can be heard in the film’s score

Awright!  Let’s get rolling…

Inspired by true life events(!) ‘Here’s Jimmy’ is a situation cartoon about a perennial wannabe hipster who finds internet dating can be a drag dad, when two Russian gals respond to his emails and arrive on his doorstep.

This episode ‘Jimmy Is Cool’ sees Jimmy trying to attain coolness to prove himself to his female co-habitants.  Along the way he gets guidance from the all-time king of cool, Edd Byrnes, who reprises his hipster jive-talking ‘Kookie’ character from 77 Sunset Strip

Here for the first time is our animatic in 3 acts: note that this is in fact an animatic and not intended to be viewed as an indication of the final animation.

Act 1  Act 2  Act 3

Some images from the animatic…

Found on YouTube:

Next week at Meltdown on Sunset, the man hisself – Ralph Bakshi – appears in store to celebrate the release of the very fine ‘Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi’ anthology.

‘Unfiltered’: Awesome designs from Coonskin (click for larger image)

As animation books go, this is right up there, crammed with sketches, designs, stills, and BGs that show Bakshi’s contribution to animation.

Okay, we are partial to the occasional dwarf, princess, superhero and green ogre in our animated films (actually, that’s not entirely true.  We have no love for green ogres), but can you imagine animation without Bakshi?  We can, and we are eternally grateful that he went out and did his own thing.

On to things Fwak!-related…we are storyboarding our ‘Rocquita’ short for Cartoon Network by way of Toon Boom Storyboard Pro.  It’s an awesome tool and I just wish I’d have had this for Los Campeones.  Next step is the animatic, then we finally get to give Toon Boom Digital Pro animation software a workout!

Screenshot of Stoyrboard Pro showing Rocquita panel (click for larger image)

(Thanks to Keith J. Rainville for the awesome poster design)

Ever since we completed production on our movie – Los Campeones, one of my side projects has been drawing dogs to raise funds for BostonBuddies, the non-profit Boston Terrier rescue organization that I have been fostering for; also where I adopted my own dog. (Yes, you may count me in as a “crazy dog person”) All the medical care received by these rescued dogs are paid for by donations, so I came up with this deal: “I will draw your dog in exchange for your donation to BostonBuddies”, and in the past 2-3 weeks, I have several commissions and raised a few hundred dollars. If you are a BT lover like me and would like to help save and provide care for more BTs, here is more info on the BostonBuddies website.

BOOGIE (my little pouty monster)

SAM (who has one eye and is blind)

BRUISER

ZIPPY 

GUNNER

PIXIE and MUGSY

OLIVE

RUFUS and HARLEY

BUTCH and EMMA

STINKY and MIGHTY

CHUMLEY

TRIXIE, PATCHES, ROCKET and BUSTER