The entire book is boarded!

The entire 150 pages of this, my first manga graphic novel, have been storyboarded! That, I must say was a task, a learning experience and a lot of fun. Of course, none of this is to say there isn't corrections and suggestions from my editor to go back and implement, but that is small stuff. The point is, next week, actual final page production begins!

Aside from being able to read and study the many manga titles given to me by my editor, being able to read through the new U.S. version of Shonen Jump, particularly, the interviews with some of my favorite creators, has been a great source of inspiration and motivation.

I just saw a strange light in the sky...

Sometimes I get it...

When doing the storyboard phase of a manga I find some days are better than others. This is the point where the creative juice really goes into laying everything out after all. Some days I find myself struggling to not become boring and repetitious, and others it just comes to me. Like today... without thought or effort the pages seem to draw themselves. Each panel leads to the flow of the next. Each page dictates the next.

I will probably finish all the boards for this, my first graphic novel, by Sunday. Then the finals begin!

The bad news just gets worse in the animation industry. It's really too bad that the business side seems to always win.

Here is an interesting site showing off some cel shaded animation. Very nice models. It is a motion capture style and very slick in a music video type sense.

You will be needing the 3ivx codec to play it. Still, it is definitely worth a look.

I had the weirdest dream:

I was running around, on foot, in Iraq until they started kicking foreigners out of the country. Me and my guide found there a was group with trucks capturing people and taking them off somewhere. We assumed it was someplace bad, so I got some local clothing and pretended to be Sudanese. I could speak Arabic after all. The group didn't pick us up. Me and my guide headed west to study religion in Lebanon.

One must wonder where dreams come from.

Anyway, I have completed the trade show materials. Now there remains one chapter to go for storyboards on my book. I got a copy of the cover today. It looks cool. Will post when I am allowed. For now, back to work...

I have a Toshiba Tablet Pc over this weekend to play with for a bit. Naturally I had to test Aura on it. while this new way of working might take a bit of getting used to, I see so much potential here. Imagine, being able to do manga anywhere!

In drawing, the line doesn't perfectly match the tip of the pen, but this could be due to calibration. I could probably spend more time with it. I remember being more accurate when I played with it in Fry's. Also Aura is not made for tablet Pc's. For that reason I would like to try Alias Sketchbook and see if it performs any better.

While I would not buy this particular model, I am very interested in the concept. I heard of a newer slate coming out which will be much faster and have better features. Very soon I think my mobile manga dreams will come true!

Today I was reminded of just how good Sol Bianca: The Legacy really is. I've had the first disc for ages, and have certainly seen it before, but I must have forgotten. I must get the rest of this series!

Up early again! (been up for a while now) I must be a morning person because I love getting up and jumping into production. Don't get me wrong, I can burn the late night oil with the nest of 'em, but when I wake up super early, I think I get more and better quality work done over the day.

2 more spreads to go! Then I will be finished with my trade show assignments, the pages and art materials needed to promote my manga this summer. I will probably be back to storyboards tonight, with a plan to finish boarding out the book over the long weekend.

Have you heard this one?

ADV Films to Make Live-Action Evangelion with WETA
Anime producer and distributor ADV Films has acquired the rights to produce a live-action feature film based on the anime television series...

Those of you who have seen the live action attempts at Sailor Moon that, I think, Saban did probably have a good idea what to expect. :) Let's not forget the Live action Gundam film too. Like that one, I am sure Evangelion effects done by WETA will be incredible. The rest...

IN THE GROOVE!

I may not be a Rave Master, but I am definitely in a groove. I am feeling it now. I am talking about getting the manga thing going. I am still working with the publisher on final resolution, how it will print and so on, but it is really starting to look like something. By the week's end, I will even have all the storyboards done. Then it's time for some real fun!

With the trade shows coming up, there's a ton of work to do for the marketing of my first manga. Apparently there will be a very big marketing push. I have to get a lot of materials prepared this week. luckily for me there's a three day weekend ahead.

I had an idea...

I could get an external USB or firewire case which will take the drives from the system that died. I will then, once again, have access to all that data I lost!!

Well I guess I better hope this old heap will really perform now as the deadline for my manga is rushing up on me rather quickly. It would appear that the book will have to be done by the end of June. I am halfway through the storyboard phase of the book, but have not completed a single final spread. Time to get busy!

MANGA READY!

She may be old, but this heap has gotten me through more than a scrape or two.

Well, I have this 500Mhz Vaio as setup as its gonna get. it's ready to do some manga. It may not be as fast, and it certainly doesn't have the RAM to handle 300dpi print res pages very well, but nothing's going to stop me from drawing. It's time to show them what I can really do.

Blast TO the Past!

I have now come to the startling realization that fate has it in for me. There is a force out there... an evil force... which does not wish for me to keep making cool stuff. I am now back on the 500Mhz Sony Vaio that I probably bought 4 years ago. It is all that remains working now. I wish I could show you what remains of the "beast" in a heap on the floor, but I don't even have firewire and video setup.

It is not a total loss. It is very possible the hard drives from that great system are fine. I can't read them on this old thing, but the data is still there. Maybe I can get an Ultra ATA 133 controller for this thing and pull some of that stuff off.

I can at least draw manga on this old thing. At least I think I can. I haven't yet tried opening a 2550x3300 pixel image in only 256 MB of RAM on this thing. But if I can draw comics, I can at least create something.

Of course... when I consider that both Chaos and Shadowskin were actually made on this very machine... the anime dream is not over...

My computer is no more... I am typing this from the shell of my old 500Mhz Vaio (good thing I didn't sell it.). Open... drives hanging out... barely running. This morning I awoke to my beautiful "beast" as always and pressed the icon which opens Outlook Express. The computer worked fine all day yesterday, I hadn't turned it off overnight. The mail program even opened fine and started checking mail. No warnings from Norton or anything like that. The next move I made of the pen, however, (I use only a Wacom Tablet) and off the computer went... never to boot again. Now the motherboard won't even post. I turn it on, fans spin up... it just sits there.

I will have to try and set this Vaio back up for production. I have much manga to do. I can't imagine at this point doing it all traditionally. Still, with only 256MB RAM... I don't even have mail setup yet. I may not remember my accounts even if I could.

Today will not be a good day.

"Seventeen years ago, Lucas sold Pixar - the computer graphics division of his San Rafael-based company Lucasfilm Ltd. - to Apple Computer Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs for $10 million. Today, as the industry leader in computer animation, Pixar has a market capitalization of $3.3 billion and has been valued at more than $4 billion by industry analysts."

From an LA Times article on Lucasfilm starting a feature animation division.

NINJA SCROLL TV SERIES

I had always wondered how much of an American influence there would be on the Ninja Scroll TV series. I had it on good authority that Threshold Entertainment had the rights to the Ninja Scroll property, and I think most of us have heard they are doing a live action film. I spoke with someone pretty high up there not too long ago and there was mention of the TV series.

Recently I had the opportunity to see an episode of that series, now running in Japan. Nowhere in the credits, from what I could make out as they were in Japanese, was Threshold mention. I didn't see any foreign names in the credits except one on the music page. Like the movie it seems to be Yoshiaki Kawajiri and Madhouse. It is directed by someone whose name I cannot read, but not Kawajiri himself (whose name I can read).

I half expected this show to be episodic and geared more towards American TV. I was wrong. It started off kind of weird and I first noticed the somewhat techno-ish music rather than the traditional Japanese sounds of the film. The traditional sounding music however, is still there and the story, clearly a single continuous series story, got good really quickly. Don't get me wrong, it is very cliche and predictable, but if you're a fan of the genre, and enjoy Sonny Chiba films and the like, you know how this type of thing goes an you will love it. I am pleasantly surprised.

Why are anime dubs often bad?

"When you go into the booth, you often haven't seen the script. You have to look at the page, memorize the line, match the mouths on the screen – and try to get a hold of the character."

-- Debra Rogers

The last remnants of the old republic have been swept away! Oh wait... What I meant to say was... All the animation for Justice 4 All is...

IN THE CAN



THE END

Complete with an opening sequence and ending credits backdrop, the final tape of J4A is packed and on its way to Florida for post work. Having seen the work Kevin Bair of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office did on episode 1, I am very excited to see some of these other episodes come together. Speaking of episode 1, since I have it on DV, I will capture a few stills to show some of the cool things Kevin is doing with the show. I'll perhaps post it tomorrow. Certainly by this weekend.

There is, of course, still plenty for me to do. One of the main things is, naturally, getting back to THIS!

I have a lot of drawing ahead of me yet.

We got DOA. We got FTP. We got CNN. We got BBC...

Much shipping was done today. Many packages did I ship!!! Some, at least the heavy ones were from concluded ebay auctions. The rest were usual DVDs. beyond that...

Episode 7 of J4A is underway. It will complete tonight leaving, finally, Episode 8 and an opening and ending montage to be edited. The final stretch is coming to the last leg.

Episode 3 is now in the can. Two more to go in the final stretch. Now it becomes clear that the time spent working solely on the 3D CG aspects of J4A were to great advantage now that the show is finally being put together. Rather than jumping back and forth, only 2D work and compositing are the order of the day. There is nothing to slow down the workflow.

Halfway through episode 3 in the final stretch of J4A and I have quite a bit of shipping done too. Not only the orders of the day, but also items from my many ebay auctions which recently concluded. A busy day continues, but now for a little break...

Episode 10 of J4A is complete. These two can now be output to tape and sent off to Florida for final post. I can then move on to Episode 3. On the other hand I also had a number of ebay auctions conclude so I have a lot of shipping to do tomorrow.

Another fine day awaits!

Episode 9 of J4A is complete. Episode 10 is soon to follow. This by no means should imply that the series will be done. Not all episodes were done in order. 3, 7 and 8 remain! The crunch is on.

The fight continues. Crowds have been conquered. Pushing forward. Expect new things on the horizon as I enter the final stretches.

RECOLLECTIONS PART 01

I believe it was in the summer of 1998, when I had just arrived in my beloved Vegas. I was living with a roommate whose wife was Japanese and she would take the children to Japan for the summer. Upon her return she brought me back a Newtype magazine. Not the first one I had ever seen. I had already been to Japan once, and even before that gained a small collection starting with the big Char's Counterattack special. Still this magazine opened my eyes to the new world of anime.

One of the first things I noticed was a huge spread and an article titled "All That Bebop". As you might have guessed, a big preview for the upcoming TV show Cowboy Bebop, a program that would change the way anime was viewed considerably. I knew I was interested, but at the time I had no idea the show would be that innovative. I couldn't grasp a concept like the music from a simple article. Still, I couldn't wait to see it.

This magazine held another innovation for me. It has an article on Blue Submarine No. 6. This would mark the first time I had encountered the idea of Lightwave 3D playing a role in actual anime production. This is, after all, before I had even attempted something as simple as Skeleton Man even though I may have toyed with cel shading a bit shortly before. (I had a P166 at the time.) Now I was looking at images from an anime showing 3D models mixed right in with the show. Granted this show was only the beginning of a learning curve in the anime industry which is still incomplete, but a seed had been planted.

Finally, the magazine held a large spread featuring images from A Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight. This show is unfortunately incredibly low budget with animation quality hardly befitting its remarkable story. It is very well written. The intro, however, features some of the most beautiful anime ever seen, so seeing stills in this magazine did set me up with unrealistic expectations for a TV show. I was a fan of the original Lodoss OVA series (I wish I could find my copy now!) so it was interesting to try, along with the article, to piece together what this new show was about based on the images in the title sequence.

Although everything I had seen was pretty big news, I couldn't even begin to see how much anime was going to change from that point. Of course I had no idea that I myself would actually be doing anything like Chaos.