Update: Woggy #8

Back in October, I had mentioned my Lil' Me (working title) cartoon was a woggy I had hinged much of my medium-term professional aspirations on. Well, especially since this is a woggy I truly have my heart set on actually completing someday, I have come to face certain facts over the ensuing months, and have thereby decided to drastically alter the path of this little tadpole's future.

In fabulous amphibian fashion, this Lil' Me cartoon project does hereby officially transform into the shape of ... a comic book! Yes, seeing all the technological and other hurdles before me, and the inevitable complications of the task that are impeding this project's progress, while all my fab concepts, characters and ideas continue to chomp at the bit telling me to just hurry up and get on with it already, I've decided the best way I can get on with this in a way that will allow it to fruit into reality as close as possible to my vision is to create a comic book series instead. (how's THAT for a long sentence!! Take that, Mr. Dickens!)

All of the essential elements will still be there. The characters and stories can stay the same, and it works fine with an episodic format. the only thing that will have to be missing will be my fabulous theme song, which was the seed that started this whole project in the first place, but I will probably figure out some way to make that work in a comic book. Or, maybe I'll just sing it to myself while I'm drawing.

Best of all, I can return to the format I prefer anyway, which is the drawing on paper. In an instant I have erased all technological hurdles in my way!! And, even better, With me getting all my episodes out in comic book form, it will still be possible for them to be one day picked up as an episodic cartoon, with someone else doing all the fancy-pants work and me just letting everyone know the general idea of how everything should turn out.

I first started to think about this as a possible solution to my problem when I saw the movie Persopolis (which by the way is really awesome and I really reccomend you go see it if you haven't), most especially when I saw the DVD extra where they went behind the scenes and talked about how the movie began as a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, who also co-directed the film.

I've mentioned elsewhere in this wog that I've always been drawn to graphic novels and comic books, but have always felt a bit like a fish out of water whenever I was around them. My recent purchase and reading of Best American Comics 2008, as well as Lynda Barry's highly inspiring and wildly creative What It Is (which I am still in the middle of), have helped me find some more courage in that area, helping me to see this art form as a medium that might be just right for me, especially in the case of my "Lil' Me" story.

Then a defining moment came one day when I heard my sister, who works as a professional graphic artist, mention how much she'd really like a drawing tablet, which she does not actually have, causing me to look over at my dusty and paper-buried graphic tablet on my work table, considering exactly how long had it been since I had last used that thing anyway? And would I ever in fact be really using it for anything more than a glorified mouse before it became obsolete? Surely it could be put to better use by a professional who actually would use it everyday (i.e., my sister). This was in fact the most defining fact of the many facts I had brought myself to consider over these past several months.

Then on a recent visit with family, I found myself saying to my Grandma, who had just asked me what projects I was working on, that I was making a comic book of the cartoon I had told her about before. So there it was, I realized. I guess that's really what I was going to be doing, after all!

The last hurdle that was standing in the way of this official transformation was the purchase by me of some actual blank notebooks. Being a writer I have many blank lined notebooks lying around the house, but up until today I had no blank blank notebooks anywhere. Whenever I draw or "doodle" as I like to refer to it, I usually use either blank computer paper, or my favorite, sheets of white "typing paper" (or as they call it now a "writing tablet") which are quite nice for drawing on, but come in a tear-off pad, which is not very useful when trying to create a cohesive work of many pages that follow each other. I'm happy to say that I purchased not one but two blank notebooks today, of the size and binding I like most in their cousinly lined-paper forms, and am now officially ready to embark on the next phase of this woggy adventure.

I hereby rewrite my woggy to-do list...

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:

• Dig up my old plot and story notes, and my folder of character drawings
  
• Sketch out a plot for my introductory episode/book
• rough storyboard the book
• draw book #1
• admire fab new book!
• repeat process for several more books
• research publishing graphic novels/ comic books, including self-publish options
• begin sending out stuff/ doing whatever initial stuff i need to do to pursue publishing of first few books
• continue making more books
• consider creating a dedicated website for the books
• write more to-do steps
  

Woggy Project #8: Lil' Me Cartoon

Ahh, juvenile me. Aren't I adorable? I think so, but then again, I'm probably biased...

Anyway, this project happens to be one in which I invest much of my professional goals for the medium-term future. I would like to create my own cartoon series, somewhat loosely based on experiences growing up, somewhat based on experiences that belong to people who are completely not myself but who I have observed in a comedic way over the years. As such, I will need to be just a little bit vague about the cartoon itself, even though the details of it are very non-vague to me, for the simple reason that, knowing how slow I am to achieving my goals, I wouldn't want to just lay out a whole blueprint for some ill-intentioned fiend of the interwebs to come and steal my brilliant ideas as their own, simply because they happened to be a little better at the speed of finishing a project thing, if you catch my drift. For example, the name of my cartoon is definitely not "Lil' Me", but that name will just have to do for our purposes. This is of course, all to speak of the future, so let's get to the beginnings of my little woggster, shall we?

I was vacationing in a particular unnamed place with my husband, one which helped pop up some memories of yesteryear, when all of a sudden I woke up in my hotel bed on a dark and early morning with a terrific idea. I was going to write a cartoon!!! The beginnings of the theme song came ridiculously easy to me, or at least the first half did, and I wrote it down immediately in a little notebook that I always carry around in a hopeful manner whenever I go on trips, even though the exact number of pages I have filled in it and other similar ones on similar trips probably could be counted on the digits of one or two hands, tops.

I was very excited to finally have something to write down, let me tell you. I could hardly wait the three hours it would be until my husband would wake up so I could sing my theme song for him, but as I knew he probably wouldn't appreciate its genius at that hour quite as much as me, I decided to spend the time in between thinking up some characters and episodes to go along with my fab new theme song. Of course, I didn't write them down, but little changed about them between then and the time when I actually did get around to drawing and writing about them.

My enthusiasm for this particular project blazed forward in a fashion I had not seen in years. It was quite exciting, let me tell you! I sketched, I plotted, I purchased items of technical importance, I found and began demo-ing professional animation software! I tutorial-ed like the wind!!! I created playlist soundtracks for my characters, I researched pop culture for technical accuracy, I planned my website debut, to be someday followed by a full cable network contract!! (Well, the last two in my mind anyway)

And then... well, then my demo expired, and it was time to buy the whole professional shebang and I sort of faltered, and believe was assisted by our old computer opting for early retirement during my period of faltering-ness.

With a new system brought differing system requirements, blahdeblahdee, and then, and then, and then, here am I today. In the same place. Many sketches, many computer files, many ideas, a complete theme song, but still no cartoon.

The primary obstacle here is a technical one. Having begun the tutorial process I became happy to see that mastering computer animation was a skill that actually seemed quite achievable. However, I quite dismayingly also realized that man, this learning curve was going to be waaaaaaaay longer than I had originally anticipated.

You see, I had, it is true, had ample experience creating films, and understood that part completely, and had read several books on the animation process. I had even, as previously mentioned with Woggy #6, made some simple animations that I had included as parts of my films before (ones in my thesis my advisor even called out as a primary quality highlight of my film, though they were only seconds long). But I had never actually been through any sort of formal animation training, nor had I ever walked through a complete animated production from beginning to end. Not to mention the highly technical process of using software nowadays, which while making some parts easier, makes the learning part much more difficult.

What I wanted was for all of my fab, fab ideas to spring straight from my head, or at least my hand, and quickly make themselves into the fabulous cartoons I could already see fully formed in my mind. What was real was that as I walked through my technical tutorials, I realized that while I had thought I was in cartoon college, getting ready to complete my PhD in cartoonology by say, next month, in reality I was actually in cartoon kindergarten, and it was going to be a long, long time before I would be able even to figure out how to animate my own stick figure silently jumping up and down for three seconds with a pretty background. Let alone create my first character study for my cartoon, let alone have a full fledged pilot episode to show someone somewhere. All of the fabulous episodes, many of which I already know the plots and settings to, would be many a distant day in the future indeed.

So, let's just say I was a bit discouraged.

And that's where I sit today. I still think my idea is fab. I still think my cartoon could really make it and be amazingly funny. I still think this could be the future of my career. And I even still think I will someday soon quite capably enter and one day complete the little old home-self-school course I call Computer Animation 101, taught by professor Online Tutorium.

Now when that day will be, that, I don't know. Let's keep hoping for the best!!

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:

• Get a new drawing program for my Mac
• Purchase professional animation software
• Purchase needed tutorials
• Begin tutorials
• Complete all tutorials
• Create a short & simple trial animation with one of my "Lil' Me" characters.
• Make a new list, based on what I learned in the tutorials, of all the remaining steps between now and a completed pilot episode of "Lil' Me", and do all of those things
  

Updates! Woggies #8, #10, AND #16!

Yes spring has sprung, and it's verdant atmosphere has brought about updates in not one, not two but three woggy projects, all within the past two weeks!

Woggy #8 Update: "Lil' Me"

With my notebook-buying obstacle out of the way, and my proper time-era enhancing pandora station created and at the ready for inspiration, my mind and hands were set free to begin with the drawing. After a small bit of research to verify a few additional time-accurate details, I started my concept drawings and began the intro to my first book. I was a little slowed for a bit after completing the introduction, trying to decide what the story for this first episode/issue would be, but after a bit of brewing I was able to successfully work out a storyboard for the whole issue.

At this point all that is left is to sit down a little bit each day and continue the work on the final, finished-drawing versions of the storyboard for this issue to be finally complete. Time intensive to be sure, but right now the road is clear and straight up through the end of this book. Hooray!

I can now check some items off my Woggy To-do list:

X Dig up my old plot and story notes, and my folder of character drawings
X Sketch out a plot for my introductory episode/book
X rough storyboard the book

And for the record, I have begun working on:

• draw book #1

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:

• finish drawing book #1
• admire fab new book!
• repeat process for several more books
• research publishing graphic novels/ comic books, including self-publish options
• begin sending out stuff/ doing whatever initial stuff i need to do to pursue publishing of first few books
• continue making more books
• consider creating a dedicated website for the books
• write more to-do steps

______________________________________________

Woggy #10 Update: Understanding Comics

In the course of me working on the drawings for Woggy #8's introduction, I ran into a bit of a problem figuring out how to represent a particular action sequence that was very important. Considering how to solve the problem, I thought immediately of Understanding Comics and figured there would probably be something in there that might help me figure out a good approach.

Funny enough, the place where I had stopped reading, or more specifically the chapter I had bookmarked as the next one to begin, covered exactly the topic I was needing to read about. So that afternoon, while I had pulled the book off the shelf thinking I would just flip through to a section I had already read, for a few references and words of advice, I ended up instead sitting down and reading a whole new chapter of the book. In this way I not only learned what I needed to know for Woggy #8 right when I needed it the most, helping me solve my problem & inspire me, I also inadvertently completed a new step towards completing Woggy #10 at the same time.

Items I can check off my Woggy To-do list:

X Take book off shelf and begin reading again
X Consider buying another book from the graphic novel section! (actually did this a while ago, as mentioned in the last Woggy #8 update)

Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• Set aside an evening or afternoon
• Read more of book
  
• Repeat until book has been finished

______________________________________________

Woggy #16: New Bed

Completely unrelated to the above two woggy updates, I am happy to finally report progress on this woggy. A lovely spring day brought us out for a walk in the park, and subsequent walk home right past one of our favorite furniture stores down the street. While there we both saw a bed frame we both liked and discussed it as a possibility, and found a fab couch on super discount, which after a half-day's thought, resulted in our decision to buy it.

While it was a couch purchased, and not a bed, those of you looking at the poster above might have noticed these are not unrelated. A new couch in the house brings about a quite urgent need to remove the old one, especially when one lives in a small downtown condo. Mind ever-quick, I jumped on this opportunity to point out that we would probably save alot of time and effort if we added the box spring and old bed frame to our flyer, since we already knew we were going to get rid of them.

And thank you, terrible economy, someone has already offered to take both of these worthy objects off our hands and out of our house within the week.

Of course, this means that from now until the date of bed frame delivery (to say nothing of all the steps in between) we will be sleeping on the very basic and chic "mattress on floor" layout, the ultimate in minimalist bed furnishment. But no one said progress was without its downside...

Items I can check off my Woggy To-do list:

X go to a store to look at a bed
X put our box spring and frame up for give-away
X give away our stuff to give-away person (ok, this one's almost checked off..)

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:

• go to more stores to look at other possible beds
  
• decide on a bed and buy it
  
• get our new bed delivered
• say, "Hey, doesn't our new bed look great?!"

Woggy Index Page

Numbered index to all woggy files:

#1: BC Scrapboook
#2: Mario Livio Book
#3: Learning Calc
#4: Velvet Shirt
#5: Monkey Novel
#6: Looking For America
#7: Election
#8: Lil' Me Cartoon
#9: Mini Walden
#10: Understanding Comics
#11: High Seas Adventure Novel
#12: Giving Plan
#13: Lego Taj Mahal
#14: MOC Page
#15: Getting Out of My Mind
#16: New Bed
#17: Family Tree
#18: Window Shade
#19: Mail Sorter
#20: Home Inventory
#21: Game Night Bag
#22: Driver's License
#23: DJ Dress
#24: Moon Walk Novel