I haven't posted for quite some time. The heat is on for the completion of my manga project as we enter the final stretch. I am cranking out pages daily to get it done next month.

Early in July, the promotional effort begins as a few major conventions arise. I will likely be at these conventions care of Tokyopop to talk about both the manga and DVD project coming later this year.

If you remember, (or maybe I never wrote about it) we created the manga in a Japanese style, first doing what is called in that industry, "name". This is like a rough storyboard phase of the manga. We could not have come up with a better plan because now that everything is well planned out, I can load these in as my "underdrawing" and reference them for the final pages, making it a quick and easy process. It's a lot of fun to see pages come together.

This entire webpage will undergo considerable change shortly, to focus more on the current World of Hartz project. To get an idea of how it look, check out my Japanese page.

There is other big news on the horizon as I am also working a couple of other potentially major projects. Of course, there is my next original indie anime film to consider as well.

I guess it's official!!

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My page appears to be back up... but one can never be too sure...

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Hulk's A Smash
Director Ang Lee's big-screen adaptation of Marvel Comics' The Hulk didn't smash any major box office records, but it did pull in plenty of green over the weekend. The Universal release made an estimated $62.6 million

Blogger Pro seems broken. I am attempting a post from "Blog This!"

If it works, note that the major industry news today seems to be found at The Apple Website.

One of the things I truly like about having this nice new Vaio computer is the integration. Not the simple stuff, like how everything is tested and truly works together properly, but the stuff you just don't get from your typical PC.

I mean, most PC system you open them and you can't tell what you're even looking at. Cables and wires going everywhere and it seems like you need to get past a million screws to get at anything. This Vaio you can open and it looks clean. You can see everything. The drive bay can be easily removed by a simple lever. The case is all sliding and snap-on pieces. Most importantly, it's having things like front side ports for USB, Firewire, composite video in, S video in and line audio. Just like a set top box. All the same in the rear plus Optical audio.

I checked out systems from Dell, Compaq, even BOXX and while they all offer the exact same specs and competitive prices, you just don't get the coolness factor. Simple PC-like cases with no real life to them. That's just my opinion of course, as I continue my Vaio Legacy.

Remember, Understanding Chaos was made on my first Vaio. A Pentium (P2?) 333 Mhz system with 256MB RAm, most of which I added. That was the most amazing system I had encountered. Up until then I had played the game of building Intel boxes, changing out parts every 3-6 months and upgrading constantly. Never settling down on anything that just worked.

My next Vaio was my P3 500Mhz machine. On this Shadowskin was made. This machine was still being used right up until last Friday! 4 YEARS and while it had some problems, most of them were caused by me, mainly adding a creative SB Live to a machine that didn't want it. Now, the next phase...

My new Vaio is one of the best system experiences I have ever had. Speed, power, it makes work more fun not having to wait for stuff. For once, the main limitation in my production will be ME.

Comic pages scream. Aura is lightning fast. Even high definition video is now within reach...

We gon' have a lotta fun now!
--Emilio Estevez -- Young Guns

I just got Lightwave 3D up and running on this system. I honestly can't believe how much faster it is, especially rendering radiosity scenes from "Hartz". I can truly do a high definition production now... easily.

RESTORED

At long last I am back in the saddle with a new system. This time, continuing a five year legacy, I have a new Sony Vaio Digital Studio. Pentium 4 3.06 Ghz with hyperthreading, 1GB RAM, 300GB storage, GeForce 4 and all the DV and image extras you could want.

Needless to say this thing smokes that now dead Athlon system which lies in a heap on the floor. I wish I could remember the link to a recent benchmark page. It would show that this system is a great deal faster than my DUAL Athlon 1.67 system was. Add to that the fact that the only application which even took advantage of the second CPU was the renderer (and only the renderer) of Lightwave 3D and you can see how much of a performance increase I am experiencing here. Truly a different world!

I just got an email from CD Japan, from whom I order my import anime DVD products, which had a surprising listing in it. SHIN HOKUTO NO KEN!! That would be "New Fist of the North Star"!!

After 15 years Kenshiro and the Mad Max-ish world of Fist of the North Star returns to animation in a new story based on a 1996 novelization. Apparently featuring modern animation (I can guess lots of CG as that's the rage these days) and lots of action. I can't wait to see this one!

Yesterday I had a meeting with the editors on my first graphic novel project, having recently completed all the storyboards for the book. After a few more minor corrections, the time to drop headlong into production on final pages is at hand. The goal is to complete final pages in about two months time.

In the animation front, I think I have gone entirely too long without creating anything. Naturally I want to continue to push forward and keep improving on the skills I have gained from my last two productions rather than go too far off the mark and let my skills deteriorate. If there's one thing I have learned from my days of full CG animation at the different studios, it's that I have to keep it up! I have a new story in the works.

When I do a story, I always write the basic outline in a three-pass technique. The first pass is an attempt to rough out the entire idea. The second to refine it, and the final pass to polish it into what feels like a complete and cohesive story. This is usually done over the course of three days. I did my first pass yesterday. Still, as I am constantly reading and learning new things in my other favorite pastime, the study of ancient culture, language and mythology, I already want to make some major revisions to this story. It will not likely be done in three days.

Over the next month, while the bulk of my time will be spent on cranking out final comic pages, I will also continue to study and little by little start forming my next major animated project. There may be another project hidden in there to do as well, but no final word on that yet. Still, having been away from the grind of making an anime film for such a long time, I think I will do something I haven't done in ages. A "proof of concept".

The Animatrix DVD, and all its extras, has been one of my greatest inspirations of late. Seeing the tiny proof of concept the Square guys did to show that they could do something like The Final Flight of the Osiris is what has led me in this direction. Since my production process will be substantially different from Chaos or Shadowskin part one, I think doing a two or so minute proof of concept will be the perfect way to test all my new ideas, and lead to a much larger production.

I just got the Animatrix DVD. What could be more exciting, more inspiring, more motivating than being able to watch some top notch anime by some of the best creators in the biz, and then be able to watch a truck load of extra features of them talking about it and how they made it?

Since each episode is presented in English, Japanese and with director's commentary, this disk will be heating up the player for hours to come.

What would you do if given the chance to work on The Matrix?

Someone just sent me a link and I had to post it. It's a amazing what level of artistry you can find in the Lightwave world if you look hard enough. There is some very amazing work at this site: Digital Amazons.

Suddenly I have a number of requests for a bio. I would hate to think there might be an old bio laying around on my computer that dies. Knowing pretty much nothing about myself, this is difficult to write. I don't even remember what I did last week! Anyone have a bio on me out there? :)

Lucky me! Thanks to the new Shonen Jump I get to see a storyboard example from the man himself, one of my favorite manga artists, Masashi Kishimoto, of Naruto fame.

It's funny. When me and my editor started doing "name" (the term used for the outline/storyboards in the Japanese manga biz) we showed the first few pages to the publisher who said they were a little "advanced" for storyboard purposes. I wondered about that. Having seen some boards from Otomo's Akira, I noticed that they were as basic as can be. Mine don't take long and they are rough. I board out a page in about 20-30 minutes. It's easy to get an idea where I am going, and easy to change and edit.

What's good for me is the "name" serves as my underdrawing as well. I simple load it into the background layer of my final page and draw right on top of it. I think final pages go much quicker as a result.

POLISH

Well, getting up early and putting in a few hard hours on manga can have some great results. I have gone though the previous chapters and made my corrections and fixes as based on my discussions with the editor. The book has expanded to 154 pages and now I can say that process is truly done. Well, at least until I show it to him.

Polishing my work is something I really don't do enough of. Yet, it makes a world of difference. In my next anime endeavor I intend to do a major polish pass when I get a first cut done. I have no reason to work with heavy deadlines and hard schedules. This is not to say that I intend to take forever on it, but that I can adopt a more, "It's done when it's done right/" type of attitude about it. I think the final product will be a whole lot better as a result.