Base14

I told you we’d be bringing artsy back! And just in time for Christmas day. I have to give all the idea credit to Alysha for this one. May it bring a little extra holiday cheer to your season!

And that’s the rest of the story.

Well, our animated film “Ara” continues to develop at a healthy pace. This week the team put our heads together and refined the artistic illustration style for the film. Our ideas were influenced by modern television cartoon series, most notably the “Star Wars: Clone Wars” television series. What we ended up with is a hybrid of those styles and a bit of my own natural cartooning style. You can see the result, and the final design for the main protagonist Ara, on the right.

Spending time developing the style was important because I didn’t want this film to look too much like what I’ve done before, nor did I want it to look too much like anything else in pop culture. A unique artistic style will help the film stand out and be memorable. Also, as some of the animation will be divided among other animators, it’s critical we have a set standard.

Well, back to final character design and animatic production. More updates to come!

I had a great plan to make this week’s comic a nice, well-illustrated, colorful comic with all the free time I have during winter break, but then i realized two things. I don’t have lots of free time this break (because of the movie production), and something is lagging my computer to a point where it’s hard to draw with my tablet. So thanks to improvisation, I present to you another stroll down stick-man lane. Mark my words… next week we’re bringing artsy back.

Joy to the world.

The final installment of the strange but alluring Triangles Series.

I’m thrilled to announce that Base14’s next big film, “Ara,” has officially entered the production stage of development! After months of story and script development, the crew wrapped up the first round of voice acting this afternoon using a custom built sound booth in my very own apartment.

Chief audio technician Rick DeSutter helped me construct a make-shift booth in what used to be my pantry. We ran cables from a filtered mic to a soundboard, then through an external sound card hooked up to my computer. From there signal was captured via Adobe Soundbooth and saved in anticipation of the film animatic. By far this was the most advanced audio production setup the company has ever devised. It was extremely rewarding to see a bit of extra effort go a long way to improving sound quality.

Rick and our actors Kim, Shauvon and Andrew were all a pleasure to work with, and we’re all planning on bring the performers back together in January to do a second run. By then all the wrinkles in the timing, tone and mood will be ironed out and all voices finalized. And maybe I’ll remember to take some pictures while the others are still around.

So continuing with our Triangle series, here’s “Triangles #2.” This one comes at a good time, seeing as the theme is most appropriate for the season.

Today we bring you the first in a series of comics I did way back in 2005 that were never published, and are simply just too… weird… not to share with the world. Enjoy!