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THE BRÜTAL METAL OF DETHKLOK!!!

and lo, i am a proud member of the team! I just started as an animator on titmouse’s metalocalypse! prepare yourself for fewer blogposts!

i’m not dead, i’m just in jail…SUPERJAIL!

somewhere around thanksgiving of this year i got snatched off the street by an overzealous crime fighting robot [not robocop] for running a red on my bike and carried by the seat of my pants into this crazy volcano filled with rainbows and human blood!

that’s right! i’ve been working for titmouse [makers of metalocalypse] on my favorite modern cartoon: superjail!

it’s been a crazy ride and it’s about to get crazier!

SUPERJAIL! SEASON TWO PREMIERES THIS SUNDAY ON ADULT SWIM AT MIDNIGHT!!!

the episode airing is called “best friends forever” and it’s the first episode i worked full time on. and by full time i mean a lot more than full time! but so trying to sieve through this glorious piece of animation, how do you know what i did?

things to look for in this episode that i did:

mission control!
dinosaurs!
ed rothy eye bug outs!
the final payoff…

and so much more!

“when your problems overwhelm you; go get drunk it’s party time!”

when you’re undead, dead, or a reanimated collection of corpses what better way to spend the afterlife than to PARTY!!!

chocula, frankenberry and booberry decided to set aside their differences to hold a total rager known as “spoons toons and booze” at the knitting factory last saturday. frankensmo was slated to host [coincidentally frankensmo doesn't even drink!] but a scheduling debacle led to the event being canceled and frankensmo was left to wander the streets; but our monster friends are now further immortalized in this ink drawing!

the middle cleanup pencils above were done using the sample blackwing i was sent by pencils.com! more on this soon! i used a bunch of windsor newton inks and a higgins for the brown.

would you want prints of this? because i might make some REGARDLESS!

here’s a 3d computer model i built recently:

meet rolf and dolf! these USBeasts will eat your portable flash drives for breakfast and crush your binary with both their heads! this was a present for a friend that started out as me wanting to make a mix cd and spiraled out of control…

they spontaneously manifested out of armature wire, aluminum foil, super sculpey, acrylic paint, acrylic gloss medium, and two 2 gig usb drives they decided to eat and cram into the side of your macbook when it’s not looking, to play you battle music.

you might say “smo, instead of using two 2 gig usb drives why not just use one 4 gig one? so people can look at all the information on the drives at once?” to which i would reply “because this wolf has two heads and they’re both hungry, poindexter!”

these guys were almost triplets, due to the drives i mangled coming in a 3 pack; but i think you’ll agree that fran krause really needed to be made aware of the works of ronnie james dio, so that extra drive was put to good use! also it seemed like they might have a difficult time jamming their faces into a usb port otherwise, but hey, there’s always extension cables for that sorta thing, right?!

i’m thinking about making some stuff like this to bring to comic cons this year…WOULD YOU GIVE ME MONEY FOR THINGS LIKE THIS?! would you like to see stuff without usb drives being digested too? PLEASE TELL ME INTERNET!!!

next time: “we finish what we started [2 years ago]” or “what’s a two part mold?”…

this was supposed to be a flyer for an oi punk show i got nagged by banshees from the bowels of hades to make; but in the end i was told it wasn’t tough enough…and “those kinds of skinheads [the bands playing] don’t like scooters.” i don’t like those kinds of skinheads!

i let this sit after it was spurned but i figured i’d give it some color and make the girl in the middle wear a crass t shirt. i was going to wait till i finished the background to put this up, but gee golly gosh, i’ll call it a process post!! floating characters ahoy!

i was looking at a dan decarlo book when i made this to fuel that punk rock archie vibe. after years of only drawing cartoony animals [outside of figure] i’m starting to dig this whole drawing people thing! i really like making loose references to my friends in these sorts of drawings too. there’s a couple in this one…

oh! speaking of friends and rock and roll ladies! i just added a link on the side to krysti pryde! scope out her ramblings! and those of chloe rice too while you’re at it!

here’s some post reading music from the aquabats while you wait:

the timeline is ever elusive. in most computer programs people, myself included, will act like they’re planning things out then just shift things around a billion times to eventually make it work. the beauty of this program’s timeline is it really makes you think about the timing of your animation before you even get too deep into your keys.

seeing as how you can actually make notes along the length of the column, you can plan things out and make arcs which you can reference later when you’re adding the drawings that fall in between your keyed out drawings.

here is what i animated based on column/character B of this x-sheet:

X-Sheet Test from smo on Vimeo.

this is a short clip [mostly because the project isn't getting done anymore] but i tried to stick to my pre-planning with it. from the key at fr. 61 to the key at fr. 89 which i just did this afternoon for kicks [the rest was done months ago], i didn’t chart things as thoroughly and i feel like they’re not as tight, though i did stick to the sheet for the placement of keys. also i noticed coming back from long periods of not animating, i try and draw crazy breakdowns, and apparently ignore tracking things like collars…

this was my second official time using x-sheets and charts for a project. my first was for a project i animated with the pink panther, but i wasn’t as thorough and did my inbetweens and breakdowns in a computer machine. this was always a sort of mysterious thing to me, which we touched on in college but i wasn’t able to wrap my head around yet.

page 290 in the illusion of life tipped me off about using arcs on the notes portion of the sheet to mark down a visual representation of “eases” and antics. i’d really like to do a bit more work with sheets to be able to get a grip on the process, but for me, being a scatterbrain, the x-sheet really helped tie down my drawings and give me a broader frame of reference. it seems like more work, but in reality it helped me plow through things, because when i was at the animation stage i didn’t have to think anymore…i did that all ready!

in the long run i’m happier with this timeline over those of many other programs i’ve tried. it really makes me think about things and get a feel for what’s happening in advance, instead of just shifting bits around. it’s refreshing and i can put a lot more into the action that i can on a machine. not to mention the control i have over the actual drawing elements!

i’m posting this months after i’d made these charts, and they’re rather scribbly at best, but if you’d like me to go into more detail about charts themselves and what i’ve learned by forcing myself to use them, let me know!

leatherface loves his slimming vertical stripes for strolling around town or a day in at the shop. freddy is sporting a finely woven long sweater in crimson and olive, sure to be on the minds of all the ladies this season. baby chucky is all about the springtime color combo, varying shades of bubblegum color under his designer overalls give him that vibrant springtime knifefight feel. while rowdy roddy has come here to chew bubblegum in his hand crafted plaid buttondown, let’s just hope he doesn’t run out!

you can see all these fantastic styles and get up to the minute news about what’s happening on screen and off over at bloody good horror! listen to their podcast! this image is owned and brought to you by them…oh and hey, it IS them! i drew it…but you knew that!

would you and your friends like to look as beautiful as these gents?! do you have money?! all your dreams and more can come true just email me at smo [at] smomotion.com for details!

but seriously, this stylus is amazing, you can even get a variety of different shapes, textures, smoothnesses, waxynesses, there’s so many qualities to consider! it’s like eating fine cheeses. so after eating some of these i did these weird stream of consciousness tests with some of the different varieties!

i hit a bunch of supply stores and collected various stylus nibs, but i wanted to make sure they were comparable based on some factor so i used only ones marked with the 6B and 4B distinctions. because this is already going to be retardedly in depth, i’m focusing on the 6B nibs.

so here’s some background you don’t need:

i used to always use prismacolor col-erase [usually blue] to animate. i thought they were the “animator pencils” and sure they’re great, but a friend slipped me these bob camp animation notes that had all these crazy bold lines on them and told me mr. camp will crush anything weaker than a 6B with his eyeball and that it makes a huge difference for quick sketching to use the softer grades. the colors are great for certain circumstances like signifying when there’s a partial hold, tracebacks or cleanups, something like that. but when you’re looking through a bunch of layers they don’t always hold up.

to compound that discovery i stumbled upon this interesting creature here.

so this blackwing was THE animator utensil of choice?! it was basically a 6B?! it used to be made in my neighborhood…and now it’s extinct?! MEGA BOGUS!!

They go for 30 bucks on ebay for a single one now!

that got me thinking, not every 6B is the same then IS IT?! NOPE! there are big differences! lead grades [6B vs 6B] tend to be similar but they vary company to company [so there's no solid standard for softness], and beyond that the lead itself can be smooth and waxy in one pencil and charcoally and brittle in another.

Now that i knew there was once the ultimate pencil and it had been defeated by capitalism and staples i needed to find a reasonable facsimile, so I endeavored myself in rigorous PENCIL TESTING! PUN!

here’s my incoherent musings:

i tested how they worked with different pressure, in a quick squiggle and how much they smudged. overall how they felt and “drew” too. there’s a lot of pencils here, so i’ll summarize a bit.

STAEDLER MARS LUMOGRAPH: before testing i was using mostly the stœdler mars lumograph, which actually racked up pretty high in the end! really smooth and easy to work with quick, puts down a solid line too. sometimes it feels a bit too waxy though and dulls fairly quickly. an all around good pencil, plus the proceeds for all those pencils go to some school in germany or something. you can find these everywhere. the graphite itself is a bit chubby which can be good or bad depending on what you’re doing.

GENERAL PENCIL CO. KIMBERLY: right after the tests my favorite was general’s kimberly pencil. but after numerous field tests at figure drawing and general drawing stuff this sucker doesn’t like pencil sharpeners. the lead quality is really nice though and they’re made from a sustainable cedar wood crop which is a rad aspect for them to boast. the 4B seems to sharpen a bit better than the 6.

TOMBOW MONO: the next i was skeptical of at first but i was swayed and then they were endorsed by this awesome dude simon ampel which only furthered their case. the tombow mono is a pretty slick pencil! it gets dark and draws pretty smoothly without being too waxy a real solid pick! i used the tombow mono homo-graph pencils from dick blick but apparently the mono 100 are badass and these use the exact same lead.

CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC PALOMINO: another being hailed as the potential replacement for the titan that was the blackwing is the smoothest ride in town; california republic’s palomino. i use this pencil a lot now, it’s become my general sketching pencil [though i do hop around a lot] and i’m animating with it too. it keeps it’s point and can get really dark despite claiming to be a 2B! this is definitely a pencil to check out! also comes recommended as far as modern pencils go, by this rad dude: robert ryan cory [in the comments of my paper post]

all of these are winners really it’s up to you to wrangle in what works the best for your purposes. for fast gesture and crazy doodling i use the mars a lot, sometimes the general’s [just not for figure] but the tombo and palomino are pretty well rounded and not too smudgy; good for just about anything!

another contender was the Lyra art and design pencil, but it’s dang expensive and not as good as the others so i opted against making it a finalist.

the turquoises aren’t so bad either but they have a hint of that charcoal feel that i don’t like, a bit of resistance irritates me when i’m doodling with a soft lead.

the general’s layout pencil actually boasts being used by animators on it’s website! but it’s a bit charcoally for me, definitely good at dark lines though and heck, good for layout if you’re more sure with your line than i.

that’s all i got, i have no idea if it makes sense but i’m clicking “post” before i think about it.

here’s some drawings that i did [there's a disembodied head in the upper left by mike carlo too] when i was testing these out that were more about how it felt when i was scribbling than what i was actually drawing so they won’t really help anything here at all!:

this post is a mess and i’ve had a lot of coffee.

:: EDIT :: – holy canolies! cartoon brew saw some sense in this and linked, totally rad, thanks guys! there’s a bit more discussion there too: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/tools/pencil-testing.html

whoa that blink tag worked?! i know what i’m using more of…

in celebration of one of the most important and broadly impactful holidays of the year; van halen-tine’s day i quickly rendered this van halen-tine. so as you’re shredding some sweet licks on your kramer be it made of wood or air, on this most blessed of holidays; please don’t forget to jump!