Captain Bullshit - The First two Scenes

It took a while before I posted them, but here are two of the scenes from Captain Bullshit. They premiered at the graduation expo, and now they're here for everyone to see :). They are not FINAL final yet, but pretty darn close to it. Of course, they ain't full quality here since Blogspot can't handle that kind of awesome :P. Also, I have started the work on the pilot again, and hope to finish it by december. Good luck with that...  Enjoy!

Sort of an Update

Hey all! Wow, it's been more then a month since my last update... WHAT HAPPENED? Well, I'll tell you all about it.

First off, I graduated! Believe it or not, but I didn't just graduate instantly. My teachers were kind of curious if I really DID know my character, Captain Bullshit, very well. My thesis was on characters, and they missed Captain Bullshit's 'Psychological Profile'. So then, I had to write a supplement. I ended up giving them eight extra pages to read. After that.... They pretty much let me graduate :D.

Sadly, there were some complications after that. I won't go into details, but I had quite a big medical setback after that, which took the wind out of my sails for a good two weeks. Two weeks which were already very busy weeks to begin with. Not only was Captain Bullshit introduced to the general public, but much more exciting (to me) was that I got to be best man at my best friend's (she's a girl) wedding. It was an exciting day for all of us, but I was honoured that I was allowed to be part of it from so close up.

After that, I started moving stuff from my room in Hilversum, which is kind of useless to me now. It simply costs too much, and I don't have a job around there. I do have a job at my parent's restaurant for now, so that's raking up the cash. It also takes quite a chunck of time out of my schedule which I could use to animate or find an animation job, but... Well, those things will come in time. 

To treat myself in these stressful days, I finally bought a Playstation 3, the new slimline model. I've gotten Metal Gear Solid 4, Street Fighter 4, and will have Batman: Arkham Asylum for my birthday, which is tomorrow! 26 years already... I'm growing OLD. So that's relieving some stress, as long as I don't get my ass kicked in Street Fighter.

And finally, I received my diploma last weekend. The paper is in my hands, school is done with... So now... Real life starts! Expect some Captain Bullshit clips up here real soon :).

Momma Bullshit

Well, it seems like me 'taking it easy' yesterday is going to pay off. Yesterday evening, I managed to do a colored image of Captain Bullshit's mother, Momma Bullshit. Today, I have spent time working on the same shot, too. I think it will be ready for animation in about two hours from now. Seeing as it is mostly lipsync animation, it won't be all that hard to get it moving once I start with it, and that scene is roughly 20 seconds, so that's very nice :). Without further ado, the picture (don't mind the background).

Momma Bullshit actually came out better-looking then I originally intended :). My first thought was to have a really old lady be his mom, but I found that, when combined with her voice, a slightly younger mother would also work, and be fun in the process. Besides, there's an old lady in the animation later on, so who wants to look at two really old ladies, right? Well, maybe the audience of 'Golden Girls' would...

I also came across a picture I drew only two weeks ago for one of the first scenes. It clearly demonstrates what is a problem to many animators who use 'traditional' tools, namely that they have to get 'a grip' on their character. This being one of the first fully worked-out pictures I've drawn, it now looks a lot less good then the ones in later scenes (compare it to the Captain Bullshit above, if you will). Luckily, I think this is the only picture that seems to have that problem. Guess I'll have to redo it a bit, then. Perhaps I can just do some touch-ups to make it look more in style again *sigh*. 

On a bright note, I received a lot of backgrounds from the Artrix yesterday. This means I have most, if not all backgrounds for the animation sequence I've prepared for the exam committee and the exposition. So that'll look real good once it's finished. 

So, with tuesday coming ominously close now, I guess I should get back to work. See ya!

One of 'those' days

Do any other animators ever have one of those days where they feel they can't really produce anything that day? Well, I do. Right now, I feel like I really have to force myself to work, moreso then usual. It's not really pleasant, cause you get relatively little work done on those days, and the work tends to be less good in quality.

Perhaps it was because of yesterday evening. Some of my parent's friends came over to barbeque. That ain't a big problem, but they always have kids with them (teenagers). On those nights, it's kind of my 'duty' to go do stuff with the kids and play videogames and stuff, which meant that yesterday evening I couldn't do anything for my project, which was a shame, really.

Oh well. I'll just try and do some relaxing stuff first, and then try to tackle some animation work. The show must go on!

Storyboard Comparisons

A bit of a lack of posts lately, but that's because I'm actually making headway :). I have a lot of cool animation done by now, but I want to save it for the exposition on september 11th. After that, I'll be sure to post it on the blog here, too.

Meanwhile, I thought it would be nice to take a look at how the thing went from rough storyboard to animation. First picture is the earliest storyboard, the second is the storyboard in style, and the final one is how it looks in the animation. Pretty cool, I think. Enjoy!

You can also see the difference between the style in the beginning and later on here, if you look carefully. Captain Bullshit was designed to have a cape at first (which was too much of a hassle in the end), and Earl was entirely different. I also played with the idea of Earl having a long nose, but that didn't really work for the frontal shot you see here. So this is what it is now :).

FINALLY! Animating!

This marks the first day I truly felt like I was 'animating'. Now don't think I've been sitting on my bum so far. I animate in Anime Studio Pro, which basically is a computerized cut-out animation program. It's very easy, and goes really fast, but the preparation (the puppets to use) take a lot of time. Fortunately, the bulk of the work I'll be tackling for the school deadline is done.

I'll be honest. I had some doubt as to weither or not my models would work. Especially the lipsyncing was causing me nightmares. Fortunately, it worked GREAT! Better then I had even hoped :). Sure, it's a little gimmicky, and there have been better attempts at lipsyncing (darn you, Disney!), but I'm happy with it for now. I really laughed my butt of when I saw the results. My poor computer wasn't laughing, however. It seems that working in Full HD is a step too challenging for it. It lets me animate in Full HD, and export it too, but playing it... That's a different story alltogether.

I'll go back to work now, and finish another scene. When that's done, I'm positive that I can put out that particular scene before the deadline. So long!

A hard day's work

Well, the photoshopping for today has finished. I always do my 'main animation work' from 10 am. to 5 pm. Then, I have dinner at 6, and afterwards I'll do some clean-up on the storyboard, say from 7 'till 10. Good news is that the storyboard drawings are nearly all finished, which means I'll be able to wrap that up soon and then show you guys some of that. I don't want to spoil too much yet though, part of it is the whole thing being a suprise during the project market, september 9th (more on that later). So here's the results of a hard day's work:

Yayz! It's a pair of shoes! Plus, a crappy background (I can't draw them if my life depends on it... Though this was a rushjob and hardly a final background :p. Even I can do way better then that). Is that all?! No. This took me thirty minutes. The rest of the day I spent working on a very complicated, animation-heavy scene. It's ready now, but I'm keeping it to myself so you can be surprised by that later :). Look forward to it! 

Background art by the Artrix

And here it is, the first background done for Captain Bullshit by The Artrix. Here's hoping that it's just one of many :). It's from a scene in the train station, for the final portion of the animation. For those who can't tell, it truly resembles a Dutch train station. I also love all the crazy little details on the machine (which you probably can't read unless you enlarge them). I've also included a shot of the animation in which the background is used. I'm still thinking about adding some small line art to the ticket machine, though... But I'm not sure what looks best. Okay, I'm back to work again! Enjoy!

And some Artwork

Yes, I am working on the animation at the moment... But most of the stuff is simply incomplete or not ready to be shown yet. So I figured I could show you some shots from scenes I have prepared so far :). This one is from a scene where Captain Bullshit loses it. It's more detailed then most shots, as it is a very powerful/funny/dramatic moment. Kinda the Ren & Stimpy feel, only Joost-style.

And I think it's time I revealed 'old man Earl'. The following picture is actually the first time I drew him. By now, I have made his face a bit smaller with more emphasis on the chin. Don't have any finished pictures of that yet, though (am quite close to finishing them, just not yet...),  so here's Earl.

I'm quite happy with the design for Earl, as he seems to fit nicely along with the style I used for Captain Bullshit himself. I'm hoping to finish a lot of the artwork from one of the to-be-animated-scenes, so hopefully I'll actually do some animation tomorrow. The mouths required for lipsync are a pain, however, they take forever to make and recycling them would simply look bad.

On another note, I have received my first background art from Artrix, and I must say it looks great! Just what I expected from him, the perspective in the art is just amazing. I'll post pictures of it as soon as I have characters to put in that particular scene/background. 

That's it for now. Hopefully more posts the next coming few days.

The Man who came from Sniper Island!

This doesn't really have to do anything with Captain Bullshit... But it sure is a motivational boost for me to keep going :). I'm not much of an action figure/collectibles kinda guy, but when I see something cool from a series I really like, I can be persuaded into buying action figures. And this one was simply a must. From One Piece, I present to you the king of snipers, Sogeking!

What I really like, is that you can really add/remove stuff from this figurine. It can be Sogeking, but it can also be his alter ego, Usopp. I'm probably one of the few One Piece fans who considers the cowardly liar Usopp his favorite character :P. And if you don't know what One Piece is, or who Sogeking is, you're really missing out. It's by far and away the best comedic anime since Dragonball Z. So go over here, and find out why Sogeking is so awesome!

The Artrix' take on... Captain Bullshit!

Here's something I've been keeping from you for a while. A drawing of Captain Bullshit, made by fellow animator (and quite possibly background artist), Arjen Lammé, aka. The Artrix. I've been holding onto it for a while, 'cause I wanted to give him the chance to reveal it on his Deviantart account first. Now that he's done so, I see no harm in showing it to you in all its awesomeness:

It's a very funny thing to have someone else draw your character, I must say. The cool thing about it, is that it still rings true to the character, while looking completely different. Once again, thanks to Artrix for this amazing drawing. Please post your comments on the drawing on his Deviantart account and take a look at his gallery while you're at it!

You want to be famous?!

Sounds like an ad, right? Well, it is! Check it out :).

One of the more important props for Captain Bullshit, seeing as it will set the entire plot in motion. I'll also try and show you some storyboard clippings soon, but I'm still making that look a bit better. Have a lot to do for my big graduation day...

*thinks*

I really should be drawing/animating more stuff right now.

I'm done with Stupid

I know, I know... I promised a bunch of updates this week, and haven't delivered much yet. As always, I have an excuse. This time, I FINISHED my thesis, which is pretty much the obstacle standing in the way of me making my animation. It's still called 'I'm With Stupid', and aside from spell check and some literature references, I'm done with it. Here's a little logo I made for the cover:

The thesis turned out a bit longer then I originally planned, going from 40 planned paged to 70 final pages. Yeah, I know. It's a gift and a curse for me, when I start writing I just go on and on... Luckily, teachers seem to like that, so I'm in safe waters as far as that concerned. I did learn quite some cool things from the thesis about character pairs and their comedy. It's a shame really that I had to start working on Captain Bullshit during the writing of this... Otherwise, I might have made some other choices storywise. Gaah.

So a little Bullshit updat: I'm working on the first animated scenes now. I've also got a final design for 'Old Man Earl'. Not sure if I told you about him already, but you'll like him cause I want you to :P. The program I'm animating with is being a pain right now, I hope we'll get along by the end of all this, though. That's it for now!

Captain Bullshit Final Design

Without Further Ado, I present to you:

So yes, this is the design I've settled on for Captain Bullshit. It's simplistic, and slightly corny. People also noted that he is quite 'shaggy/shoddy' in his costume, which is good, cause that is the point.

At this stage in the project, I guess it's also time to tell you guys what it's all about, right? Well, gather around the campfire that is you computerscreen, and listen to the story.

Captain Bullshit is a 30-year old Superhero wannabe. All of his fathers/grandfathers etc. have been superheroes, and now HE wants to be one. That would be fine, but there is one major problem: he's an idiot who's only in it for the glory. To achieve that stardom that is superheroism, he lives without compromise to reach that goal. Even if that means hurting people in the process. 

This is also what the pilot episode will be centered around. Captain Bullshit has a chance to get to a super hero convention, where he can get his minute in the spotlight. The public transportation, however, seems not as eager to bring him there, causing countless delays along the way. This irritates Captain Bullshit to no end, causing him to put a halt to it... violently. 

I'm not going to give away the ending yet, but be prepared for crazy superhero hyjinx of an adult who in all honestly is a big, selfish kid. The coming weeks will be spent on test animation, character desings and stuff. Also, The Artix (check out his work at Trio Solution in the link bar) has volunteered to try and do some backgrounds for the show. Of course, I'm very happy that he agreed to try and do this work, and I hope to show you some results of that, soon. So expect some updates in the coming few weeks. SALUTATIONS!

Music, Sound and Voice Acting!

Well, it's been a long wait, but today I've taken the liberty to make a short teaser for the voice-actors and sound design of Captain Bullshit :). It's been done by some very talented folks, so enjoy!

Captain Bullshit Sound Teaser

Music: Stan Koch, Than van Nispen

Voice Recording: Jelle Visser

Captain Bullshit: Joop van den Beucken

Old man: Juus Piek

Mama Bullshit: Joop van den Beucken

I would once again like to thank every single one of these talented people. It really gets me going and in the mood to make this animation a great succes! More to come... soon!

Promotional Material

As said, it have been a few busy weeks, and there are quite some more coming up. So I'll tell you where the project stands right now.

Just a week ago, I went out to do the voice recordings for the episode. I can tell you now that it was very cool. I got to work with two very talented voice actors, and was very happy with the results. I'll try and post a fragment of what they did soon, but for now... Hang on tight.

With that, the people who are making the soundtrack for this particular cartoon, can get started. The moving storyboard has been timed with the actual voice recordings, and it's a matter of making the music now. What I've heard so far sounded pretty good, but the sound folks assured me that it will sound way better when it's finished. Obviously, I'm quite curious to hear it. I'll be hearing the first bits of it this week.

Aside from the project itself, there's still a thesis to be written before august shows its face. Therefor, I will concentrate on the thesis during this week and possibly the next. I hope to get it out of the way, so I can concentrate on 'Captain Bullshit' from then on.

Captain Bullshit is still, technically, a working title, but since nothing better has presented itself to me during my brainstorms, I have gone and used it in the pilot episode. So for now, we'll call him Captain Bullshit. Today, I had to make some art for promotional material. It will be shown at the big HKU expo september 11th, but I thought I might show it to you. Again, the design and stuff is not final, but I had to send it in now, or they would KILL ME!

...........

Well, they wouldn't. But they definitely would try.

Anyway: behold the promotional artwork!

Craptastic

Not much posts lately, quite busy. Here's a little teaser.

'Nuff said.

Old Storyboard

Right now, everything considering my animation is finally starting to fall into place. I have managed to create a main character I understand, figured out how an episode should work, and I'm currently in the middle of creating a storyboard for the pilot episode I'm going to animate. With that said and in mind, I would like to start showing you some of the phases the story went through before I got that far.

What I'm going to show you now is actually the very first drawn-out version of a 'story' for the superhero. It was used for a pitch to get some money to afford voice actors (which was succesful, I got the money). This story is quite different from what it's right now, especially the way the main character works. In this story, the main character is basically a lazy-ass person who doesn't really WANT to do anything besides sitting on his ass and watching TV. In the end, this proved too hard to keep using as a motivation, so I re-tooled him in newer versions of the stories. But more on that later. Enjoy!

EPISODE: 'The Spectacular Sidekick' 

One day,  someone comes knocking on the Superhero's door.

His visitor is a young boy called 'the Sidekick', who is appointed to study superheroism under his wing by the government.

Because the superhero doesn't quite feel like doing 'super' things, he talks the Sidekick into cleaning his house, claiming it's 'for training purposes'.

The Sidekick gladly does exactly that, and the Superhero ignores the fact that the city is in terrible danger at that moment. He's not one to actually WORRY about the city.

The Sidekick, however, has too much energy in his body, and starts kung-fu-ing with the vacuum cleaner....

Destroying the superhero's appartment instead of cleaning it up.

The Superhero decides that it can't be helped: to make sure the Sidekick behaves himself, he has to fight crime so that the Sidekick will be happy. Thus, he defeats the monster threatening the city.

The monster, defeated, falls. Right on the Superhero's appartment. Everybody rejoices, save for the Superhero himself.

Though this story did essentialy work, you can also see the problem already. The superhero needs some kind of 'pressure' from outside to be goaded into any form of action. It would simply be too bothersome to keep this up if this animation would ever be serialized. There had to be SOME motivation from the main character as well. As fun as the idea of a superhero sitting on the couch was, it simply wouldn't be as effective on the long run. I did like the sidekick, though, and decided to keep him around for future storyboards.

Workspace Pictures

I thought it would be nice to give you guys an idea of my workspace, so I took some pictures today :). I share the room with four other animators (who were conveniently away when I took the pictures). Enjoy!

The door to my office... Prepare for the awesomeness behind!

Tadaam! My working office! My spot is in the back, on the left!

And there, we find my Imac (provided by school) A bit messy, like I like it. I can't seem to work in a tidy workspace!

The upper part of my wall.... early animation ideas..

..And the lower part. Mostly stuff for my Character Thesis.

The first story draft I made the past week. More on that soon!

My wall calender. The green things are important appointments! Mustn't miss those!

...And our bookcase, Filled with lots of cool books to read!

As an extra, my 'office' (or room) in Oostvoorne. Also a bit messy, as you can see!

And let's look at the wall there! Drawings I'm happy with! Hurray!

That's it, folks! More updates really soon, I hope to get some go-aheads for the story soon, and if I do, I will post those! See ya around!

Animation update!

Well, it's been a while... Crazy stuff going on here, but I finally found the time to give you another update on what I've been doing these past few weeks. Of course, I am still working on my thesis, and I can say it's going really well. Basically, I have no worries in that area whatsoever, and I'm quite confident I will be able to finish it in time, as well as making it an entertaining piece to read. 

That being said, let's look at the animation I'm maki

ng. It has gone through a lot of stages by now, so I want to give you some background into that. The idea for this animation came to me almost a year ago. I wanted to make an animated series about a superhero. Superheroes have always been a great interest of mine, I have a whole stash of comics (mostly spiderman) back at home. Since I knew quite a bit about the subject, I figured it would be nice to make fun o

ut of it :).

At first, I came up with the idea of having a superhero with a major burn-out. Someone who would basically NOT be interested in crime fighting, but rather just hangs around his lair, using his super-large monitor as a cinema screen instead of having it to observe the city and that kinda stuff. He would also have a sidekick, literally named 'the Sidekick'. That kid would be an irritating little boy with too much energy in his body, trying to get the superhero to work. I still really like the first idea, but quite soon, I ran into some problems with the concept. Basically, the main character (the superhero) had no motivation besides having none. Looking at other animated series, these characters hardly ever are used as main characters, and for a reason. They are incredibly hard to write for. You have to put them into a situation where they can't do anything but act, which is quite hard. So I made some changes.

My discision was that the superhero had to be kind of interested in his job. In the end, it turned out that he was most interested in the the adoration that being a superhero brought along. He is in it for the appreciation of the crowd. Unfortunately for the character, he has some inherent flaws that prevent him from reaching that goal. For instance, he is an impatient, arrogant bastard whose main drive is to achieve HIS goals, not those of other people. Still, he believes himself to be a good guy. He thinks he is a blessing to the city, and also acts like that. The fact that the other people complain about his actions, is dismissed by saying that the people are just being ignorant, and don't see the bigger picture.

Another element I am thinking of adding, is having the superhero being plain delusional. For instance, if a sweet old granny crossing the road is forcing him to wait, he will actually FORCE himself to see the granny as a supervillain, and attack her. You could also say he's just plain psychotic, which is good :D. As for the sidekick, I'm still thinking about keeping him, but perhaps as more of a 'voice of sanity'. More on that later.

Right now, I'm working on the storyboard/script for an episode that I want to animate. I'm hoping to be able to show you some more of that later on. So, see ya next time, hopefully with some MORE visuals.

Five Temperaments

Research is slowly starting to pay off at this end. As we speak, I have one chapter of my thesis written out. That chapter is also the most important one for the thesis, as it is all about character psychology. I found out that basically, there are five temperaments of behaviour, and people act accordingly to their temperament. Of course, mixtures are possible and such.

That might sound boring, but it's actually quite fun. For instance, I found out that most main characters in animation are either loudmouthed or plain evil. Surprise, eh? Well, it was for me. Turns out a shy character just doesn't make the ideal main character. This is important for me to know, as I will be pinpointing the characters for my own animation in the next couple of weeks. For now, enjoy the pretty picture of the temperaments. It should give you a good impression of which temperament stands for which behaviour.

But how's about the animation? Well, that's the other message for this little post... I have decided that next week will be animation week :-). For a week, I won't be working on the thesis that much, and work solely on the animation. I will try and do a daily post (if I don't forget) about the stuff I come up with, so you'll get a much better idea of what in the name of Jim I'm doing here. Cya!

I'm with Stupid

If you would ask me what I am doing right now, my answer would have to be that I am not at all working on my final animation. Okay, so maybe in my head I am trying to make a bit of a story out of it all, but that's all very little compared to the other stuff I do at a daily basis. 

The other stuff would be the research I am doing for my graduation thesis. This thesis is supposed to complement my final poject, so it only makes sense that it should be the first thing I finish. That aside, I also want to finish the thing just to get it out of the way. Mind you, I am enjoying my thesis subject, but it is kinda in the way of what I REALLY want to do. So I am trying to plough my way through the thing as fast as possible.

The title of my thesis (as it is now) is 'I'm with Stupid', and it is going to be about comedy between two or more characters. There are lots of thesis at my school about comedy, some thesis about characters, but so far I have found no thesis that really covers the chemistry between two characters. Why is Spongebob with Patrick funny, even if they are both dumb? What is funny about the conflict between Zim and Dib in Invader Zim? This interests me a great deal, as to me, characters are the heart of a cartoon. So I really want to see why some characters work so well together, in order to flesh out my own characters for my final animation.

Right now, I am looking at some books (and reading them too, yes) about comedy in general. Since I will have to cover it anyway, it seems the smart thing to do, is to just get that part over with. After that, I will look somewhat more at the characters themselves (though I have some pretty good ideas already in that area), as well as doing some case studies, which most likely are going to be Spongebob Squarepants and Invader Zim. Funny, I always figured myself a Cartoon Network geek, but end up with two Nickelodeon shows.... Still, Cartoon Network builds on Nick's ideas, so I guess it's kinda logical :).

This was Joost, reporting for duty... now to get some coffee.

Brand New Showreel!

Hey everyone!

Though I do have some material lying around concerning my project, I think it isn't a good idea to overflow you with everything just yet. Instead, I'll try and post two or three things a week to give you a good idea of the progress.

Still, to tide you over until the actual project content comes... Here's a little something I put together today: a new showreel. The last one was two years old, and the material was a bit dated. This reel contains a lot of clips of the copyrighted stuff I've done and that you won't likely be seeing on youtube, but if you REALLY are interested, just ask me and I'll look up some stuff. For now, please have fun watching the showreel.

Let's get this party started!

Welcome to my blog! My name is Joost Vis, and I am a 2D animation student from Holland. I am currently in my last year, and am now in the planning phases for my graduation animation. For this animation I intend to make a pilot for an animated series, something that is extremely rare in Holland. People over here tend to make either commercial animations, or animated shorts. Though those might be great fun in and of themselves, I think there are plenty of Dutch animators who would like to go more towards the animated series branch. 

So what is my goal? My goal is, firstly, to graduate. But that won't be as hard. What's more important, is that I am going to try create a Dutch animation company that will be making animated series. That's a very, very though goal, and it might be way too ambitious. But nobody seems to be doing it, so I will probably be the very first to try this.

In this blog, I will try and keep you updated on my project. I will try and give you a 'behind the scenes' look. I will post my sources of inspiration, as well as how my research and the project itself are going. This way, by the end, I hope to have a great 'diary' for the project, that is not only interesting to me, but also to people who are working with me, or want to do so in the future. Feel free to comment in any way or at any time! All help is appreciated.

To infinity, and beyond!

Joost