Some Dan DeCarlo studies

My portion of Gecko & Sticky is finally FINISHED!!!














Watch it here!!

Gecko & Sticky is 97% COMPLETE!!















Expect to see it REALLY SOON!!

Last night I got a SNEEK preview of the two episodes that David Gemmill is working on, and lemme tell you: they look freaking AMAZING!!!!! Talk about awesome & hilarious cartoon acting, David seems to be the king of it. It was also very apparent that he totaly busted his ass on the frame-by-frame animation. I lost count of the inbetweens when they hit 200 billion. DAVID YOU ASSHOLE!!!

The real life Old Man Hunger

also see Captain Pedo

THE DEATH OF REN & STIMPY

(if possible, please add this link to your blogs)

I recommend starting with these articles:
Cinefantastique Vol 24 #1 June 1993
Cinefantastique Vol 26 #6 October 1995
Wild Cartoon Kingdom #1 1993
Film Threat #7 December 1992

I'm going to Vegas for 5 days

See you when I get back!

This drawing is going to be meticulously rendered in photoshop.

Expect to see it colored very soon in an animated SNEAK PREVIEW involving the 60s house below!

Here's a concept drawing that I did for Bird Skipper back in 2003. It's for the mechanical bird wife scene.

Colored scene from Gecko & Sticky.

You can see the rough & cleaned up versions here.

rough bg

Come swoon with The Moonglows

Background final & rough



from Gecko & Sticky animatic

Hey everyone, I'm back from my ultra-violet cruise of pain

Now I have to get crackin' on Gecko & Sticky! Nickelodeon wants it SOON

Oldy McRanterson preaching to his loyal followers


also see Captain Pedo

weird wrinkled hand

from Gecko & Sticky animatic

"Bad Day" hasn't been getting too much attention latley because I've been cleaning up my Gecko & Sticky animatic.

Kinda makes you sick doesn't it

Starting a new cartoon

I still have a few incomplete cartoon projects that need to be finished (Bird Skipper for example), but there is one particular cartoon idea that I've had for a while now... and I, for a couple reasons, feel that now is the time to start it.

One reason is that I've had this idea for about 3 years now, but there were always blank segments in my head (segments that I didn't know how to fill). Recently, these blank segments were filled with a stream of ideas which flooded into my head (while listening to a song that I want to time the cartoon to). I'm very happy with these new ideas that now fill the previously empty segments of the cartoon. On top of that, I thought of the perfect ending.

Another reason I want to start this is because I haven't made any cartoons for myself lately (which, in my opinion, is when they turn out the best). Johnny Rocketfingers 2 was a two-year struggle & an extrememly hellish project. A project that was in NO way for me, OR for fun. So I think now is the time to make something for myself.

Let me tell you a tiny bit about the cartoon:

It is going to be very different from my other work. I plan to execute and tell the story in such a way that I hope to really sort of move the audience and make them actually feel something. Furthermore, I hope to really trip people out with it.

The cartoon is entitled "Bad Day" and, well, is pretty much about a guy who has a REALLY Bad Day. It's going to be pretty serious and dramatic. There will be nothing light-hearted about it and, in fact, it will be extremely dark. Also, there will be no dialogue. All emotion will be portrayed through character acting.

Now you might be scared.... Don't be. It won't be anything you can't handle. I'm not going to get really ugly or extreme with it or anything like that. It will just be a sad story.

Designing the main character

When I pictured the main character of this cartoon, I envisioned a very pathetic/depressed version of George Jetson crossed with Barney Rubble. To begin, I started out by drawing a few George Jetson heads:


After I 'sort of' got the hang of how George's head worked, I dove into trying to design my main character. I drew about 25 versions of what I thought he should look like, and they all REALLY sucked. This was kind of unmotivating, but I didn't want to give up. After drawing more and more failures, something clicked in my head.. I realized that I had SEEN this character somewhere before!! But where?! It finally dawned on me that I had seen him in a Games Ren & Stimpy bumper entitled "Cheese Fist." This was pretty much the character I had in mind:


After coming to my magical realization, I proceeded to shamelessy rip this character design off. Here was one of the first failed attempts:


After some more failed drawings, I finally drew a couple that I liked:




Now that I've achieved a character design that I like, I've started working on the actual cartoon. I'm pretty pleased with what I've animated so far because it looks almost exactly how I envisioned it in my head. Here are two screenshots from what little I have done so far:


Well, here's to hoping I don't cop out on this project!

Hi everyone, here are some screenshots from the one Gecko & Sticky animatic that I'm working on:





..and here's a distraught Sticky that I ended up not using:


What do you guys think..?

Gecko & Sticky Copyright © of Nickelodeon and Viacom

So, the Nickelodeon project that David & I are freelancing on is for a movie by Savage Steve Holland entitled Shredderman, which is a live action made-for-tv movie. I'm not going to say too much about the movie, but it stars a young boy who has a favorite cartoon that he watches on TV. There are three parts where he watches small segments of this cartoon on television (which is where David & I's part comes in). The cartoon is about a super hero named Gecko & his side-kick named Sticky (who is a stick bug). We're supposed to draw, storyboard & animate the animated segments with Gecko & Sticky. Here are a couple of drawings (also check out David's blog for G&S drawings):

This drawing's purpose was for figuring out what color schemes should be used. I really liked my colors at first, but now I realize that they are very bland/monotone. There really isn't enough contrast between all of the colors (which is probably why they picked David's).

..And here is a quick doodle of Gecko & Sticky:

Next I'll be posting a few screen grabs from the rough animatic. Stay tuned..

Gecko & Sticky Copyright © of Nickelodeon and Viacom

There is no excuse for 2 months of not updating my blog. I havn't been using my time very wisley.. most if it has been going into playing World of Warcraft (crack in the form of computer entertainment).

So, having said that, I want to start being more productive!

First, I'd like to re-design my website, but everyone knows what a huge obsticale that is. Originally, I wanted the new layout to be an early 60s Diner. I still like this idea, however, now I have a slightly different idea for the design/layout.

Here is a really rough test drawing of what I originally *sort of* had in mind (note: this is no longer what I am shooting for. I've got a different idea now)


Aside from the website revamping, David Gemmill & I are currently working on a freelance Nickelodeon project. The director of the project, Savage Steve Holland, is a super nice guy. He is giving us a LOT of artistic freedom, which is totaly awesome. What David & I are doing is creating character designs for the project, and now we are in the process of creating animatics for the lines of dialogue that were sent to us. There will be a total of three 20-30 second animated segments.

So far, Steve really likes the work we are doing, & his only real instruction is to "make the animation funny!" And that is exactly what David & I are trying to do :)

I will post some screen shots of the animatic & maybe some character designs very very soon!

-Ryan

More head/people practice..



These 2 are old, drawn from a celeb mag.

Wally Wood is the pimpiest pimp in all of pimp town. I wanted to start copying his girl drawings as a beginning step in "how to draw women." I ended up drawing mostly his men instead, and then got tired of drawing. So there should be a future post of me attempting to draw his women.

I was having really shitty & annoying computer trouble last night & tried to draw my frustrations away. It sort of helped.

This is a group of practice drawings referenced from some 50s magazine. I was trying to learn faces, girls & cars. Now I only have to do it about 50 million more times to become decent at it hahah.