Base14

This past weekend I visited New York City for the first time, and while I nearly collapsed from carrying my luggage with me everywhere I went, it was a thrilling trip. I was in town for the Animation Block Party in Brooklyn, the first major venue to screen Duck ♥ Teslacoil alongside the work of well-known professional animators and studios. I got to town a day early to get my bearings and rid my system of any general tourist urges. The Empire State Building, Times Square and Grand Central Station — I had them crossed off before sunset. That evening I journeyed up to southern Connecticut to visit fellow Purdue University alumnus Jac Piette, who works at Blue Sky Studios. This was a terrific opportunity to talk to a real professional in the modern feature animation industry, and it fit the theme of the weekend perfectly!

The following day was the Duck ♥ Teslacoil screening, so after spending the afternoon exploring Wall Street, the World Trade Center Site and Battery Park, I took the subway to Brooklyn and arrived at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the last night of the Animation Block Party. I finally got to see Duck ♥ Teslacoil on a big screen and hear how a large audience responds to the film. After the show, I mingled with fellow filmmakers and School of Visual Arts alumni well into the night. I’m amazed how naturally I connect with other people who work in animation — it reassures me I’ve finally chosen the right path.

I’ll spare you the details of the third day, when I spent 19 hours stuck in the La Guardia Airport, but rest assured it has a lot to do with why you haven’t seen this post any sooner. Despite that, my first visit to New York was certainly worth it, and I’m left with a strong urge to visit again… as soon as I find another good excuse.

Ironically, I have ‘overlooked’ writing a post about this recent piece. Despite the fact that I completed it for the end of Spring semester, I still think it merits a post. ‘Overlooked’ was intended to be my final project for Drawing II, but I got a little carried away and it quickly became much more work than the project specifications (or time limit) were designed around. The theme of the piece easily lended itself to a notebook which also fit with the eclectic art mix my brain was begging to create. (The pictures below show a mere sampling of the pages in the notebook.)

I have a personal fascination with the idea of what happens to pennies that are tails side up. In our society, pennies have no perceived value; we feel free to take or leave a penny without thought. This notebook is a study of things that are often overlooked, with an underlying feeling of deep personalization given to each page. I brought in old photographs and materials to reference what is forgotten in time, and I used transparency and layouts that reference the physical process of looking (or overlooking.) By incorporating some interactive elements, my goal is to force the viewer to give personal input to the piece, making it harder to ignore or forget.

Unfortunately, effect is lost without the physical interaction with the materials. A lot of time was put into materials experimentaion. I wanted to explore materials that are often overlooked as art media, and use them in unexpected ways. Some examples are tissue paper and ink (manipulated and heated in different ways to create a range of textures) sandpaper, and a U.S. map that folds out of the book.

I can’t recall the last time i went 65 straight hours without sleep… perhaps that’s because I’ve never done it before. But that’s precisely what it took to complete our entry, entitled Frozen, for the 1st Annual Savannah 48 Film Project, which took place this past weekend — from 7:30pm Friday to 7:30pm Sunday. And it was awesome.

Photos by Rhys Edouard Samaniego-Finch

It started back in June when I asked a few people I knew if they were interested in forming a team, and somehow we managed to recruit some of the best film students at SCAD to join up. Pretty soon we had a complete crew, a stellar location and some slick talent (a.k.a. actors). As part of the rules, each team draws a different genre which they must adapt to a character, prop and line of dialogue. As team leader it was my job to draw the genre, and as fate would have it, I picked “Film de Femme,” a name coined by the contest for a film featuring a strong female lead role.

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I’ve been kicking this idea around in my head for some time now, so with the Half-Blood Price out in theaters as of 12:01am yesterday, I thought I’d be a good time to finally draw it. Actually, if already you’ve seen the movie, this should look pretty familiar. If you haven’t, reading the comic should sum up about half the movie’s plot. No, seriously.

This was the first time I’ve drawn Base14 characters on a Wacom Cintiq. I think the sketching phase went really well, as I expanded on what design elements were successful in last week’s comic. The third panel has especially nice depth and forms. But something went wrong in the clean-up phase. The line quality isn’t effective and the color palette isn’t very cohesive. I’m working with source art that’s now 16 times as big as the final web comic (for eventual book printing), so I haven’t fully adjusted to the best brush sizes to use when inking. I’ll work on that.

I hope everyone had a good Fourth! Here at Base14 we wanted to celebrate the holiday by tossing our hat into the ring of recent political activity. The result is the comic below.

Today’s comic probably took longer to make than any other Base14 comic prior, but the extra effort shows! What also shows is the effect my 2D animation classes are having on my drawing abilities. Compare today’s comic to that of the typical comic from last season. There’s a very noticeable improvement in character aesthetics, line quality and three-dimensional forms.

This comic also marks the first time I’ve used Photoshop CS4 to produce a strip. Already I’m finding a few new time-saving features to be well worth the upgrade:

• Canvas Rotation – Allows me to draw from angle angle I like. For example, I tilted the canvas 15° to draw the birthday cake. From my point of view it was level, but when the canvas was righted again, the cake was tilted. Nice!
• Brush Resize – There’s a new, super slick way to resize brushes on the fly. Now with the brush tool selected, all I need to do is hold down Alt/Option and drag horizontally with my right mouse button. And if that wasn’t handy enough, I can also adjust the hardness of my brush by holding down Alt/Option+Shift and dragging. It’s way faster than the old bracket keys.
• Birds-Eye View - Several tools in Photoshop CS4 now are spring-loaded, meaning if you hold down a shortcut key, you will switch to that tool only as long as the key stays down. Then you switch back to you previous tool. This is how panning has worked with the space bar forever, so Adobe added an extra function when you hold down the “P” key. It switches to a “Birds-Eye View” of the entire document, allowing you to reposition your screen like on the navigation panel. This is very useful when I’m colorizing, and need to jump around to different parts of the document to sample colors.

Certainly Photoshop CS4 will be a boon to drawing Base14 Comics in the future. Now I just have to wait for SCAD to put it on all the lab machines, so I can utilize it on those lovely Cintiqs!

This has been a terrific week for Base14! We were  officially invited to two major film festivals this week on opposite sides of the country!

On the East Coast, we will be featured at the Animation Block Party in Brooklyn, New York. This the self-proclaimed premier animation festival of New York City, and features the work of some legendary contemporary animators from around the world, including one of my favorites, Don Hertzfeldt. In fact, his work was such an inspiration to the comedic timing of Duck ♥ Teslacoi, his name appears in the credits. The Animation Block Party runs July 24-26 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Cinématek.

On the West Coast, Duck ♥ Teslacoil will be showing at the Feel Good Film Festival in Hollywood, California. As soon as I heard about the Feel Good Film Festival from a friend (Thanks, Kate!), I knew it was a perfect fit for Duck ♥ Teslacoil. I mean, the film was made to leave you feeling warm and fuzzy! Well, evidently the festival programmers agree. It’ll be held August 7-9 at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre right on Hollywood Boulevard. Classy!

Well, I’m absolutely thrilled with all the exciting places Duck ♥ Teslacoil is going. With luck, we’ll be make it into a few other film festivals. And maybe if I can scrounge up some money for travel expenses, I’ll even visit a few. Strangely enough, I still haven’t experienced a large venue showing of Duck ♥ Teslacoil yet!