So today’s my birthday. Happy fucking birthday to me. I barely had a day home before I had to head back out on the road.

Here I am in Washington, DC. It’s almost 10 p.m. on Sunday and I’m just finishing up work. I’ve got melting snow in my shoes. They don’t pay me enough for this shit.

Anyway, I don’t have much animation news. I did treat myself to a new book, The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar. It’s awesome so far even though I only got through the first chapter during my delay in the airport. It’s already giving me many ideas of where the current Hermit Joe script is lacking.

All right time to wrap up, hit a bar to grab dinner and toast myself for my birthday. How pathetic is that?

yep. That time again. My connection to the internet has been terrible. My link at home has been sporadic dial-up only and it’s hard to score a connection on the road.

Here I am in Dallas. Work is hard, hectic and insecure. Still I have managed to get some animation work done.

I watched Svankmajer’s Alice again this weekend before shipping out. How fantastic! If Alice alone was my legacy I could die happy.

There’s this one scene where two knights popped fresh from playing cards sword fight. It’s cut-out animation done as 3D stop motion. You can see their backs as they flip around.

I realized that this is the effect I really want with the cut-out scenes. I would love to do those like stop mo too. Unfortunately there’s no way I can do it with my resources. (But man, if I had the time???)

What it made me realize is that I need to hide the computer effects as much as possible. Make it look as organic as possible. As much as I can emulate cut-out stop motion I should.

Finally back home for a day and a half then back on the road. Political intrigue at the work place has been at an all time high. I’ve been wondering whether I have a job and if I do whether it’s worth keeping.

Doing all this from the road is even harder and has kept me away from any work on Hermit Joe.

Well, since my local book store didn’t have a copy of Hollywood Cartoons and since I needed a book in a hurry for my current trip, I picked up the only thing they had in their “Media” section that approached animation history, Masters of Animation by John Grant.

It’s not bad. It’s an odd collection of 35 animator’s bios. There are the usual suspects, like Tex Avery and Chuck Jones; the odd, like Norman McLaren and Jan Svankmeyer; and the modern, like Pympton. The bios are a little too forgiving and fawning (like the entire section on Ralph Bakshi, bleh), but all in all I’d recommend it.

It’s been a long time and I’m writing to you from the wintery city of Detroit. Outside it’s snowing. I haven’t seen snow in three years. Good thing I don’t have to go out.

I haven’t posted in awhile since my network connection at home has been down for close to a week. I’ve been working on Fish Doctor more, opting to start from scratch. The post of him on Feb 5th is so god awful, I’ve had nightmares ever since.

Really great paper on “The Future of the Cartoon Feature Film”. It’s mainly about CGI, but there are great sections on stop motion.

I especially like this quote from Peter Lord (Aardman fame):

–it may take you a whole day to do, say, a second and a half, but you have so many opportunities throughout that day to change your mind on how the shot goes. And ideas come to you, because you’ve got all that time.

And God do you have time.

I’m just not happy with him yet. He’s getting close though. He’ll be at about half this scale in a wide shot.

Click on image for full size view.

Spent a part of the evening working on Fish Doctor. Each moving part needs its own layer in Photoshop. Joy.

Got Queen Aimee done tonight. Obviously I only needed to do the head.

Click on image for full size view.

I have to pick up this book:

Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age by Michael Barrier.

Of course, I’ve had King Vasil done for a couple of weeks.

Click on image for full size view.

I need to create the following characters and backgrounds.

Characters

Queen Aimee Waterdragon
King Vasil Waterdragon 381st
Fish Doctor
Incense Specialist
Herbal Rub Specialist
Potion Specialist
Advisor
Jelly
Hilda
Young Joe

Backgrounds

Outside Castle
Queens Bedroom
Hallway
Throne Room
Dining Hall
Underwater
Exterior Rusty Hook
Interior Rusty Hook
Beach

The real benefit, of course, is that I can reuse all of this for the actual animation.