RubberOnionBattle - 6 from 2016

Here is my compilation of entries from 2016's #RubberOnionBattle challenge. I only ended up completing 6 of the 12 monthly challenges.

It's made in Flash with the exception of the "hammer" scene which was made in the app Flipaclip.

Cheers!

Assorted 2D bits - Royalty free green screen animation

In no particular order here are some animated bits from my 2016 #RubberOnionBattle submissions. These were created in Adobe Flash with the exception of the "Hammer" shot which was created in the mobile app Flipaclip.

Feel free to use these clips in your own projects and send me a link so I can see what you've come up with.

You can download the video here: http://bit.ly/2p2pmPu

Happy remixing!

Worst Video Game - #RubberOnionBattle

Hey guys,

For April the theme for #RubberOnionBattle was 'Worst Video Game'.
You can see my submission on Instagram and Newgrounds.com or embedded below.

I decided to try an animation in the style of a video game from yesteryear.

It was my first time working in Pixel Art (thanks to the Pixel Tools v2 extension), I enjoyed it and found it to be pretty forgiving. You can download Pixel Tools v2 at Newgrounds.

Walk Cycle... what Walk Cycle?
I decided that not having a walk cycle animation would help crown this as the worst Video Game.

Look out for the compilation video featuring all the submissions coming soon.

This could be the worst video game. Music: "After dinner jazz" by mathgrant. #rubberonionbattle April. @rubberonion

A video posted by Jeff Cook (@aperturejam) on Apr 29, 2016 at 9:30pm PDT

If you're on Instagram, Show me love! ♥♥♥

Music:
After-Dinner Jazz by mathgrant
I was searching for Chiptunes tracks on the Free Music Archive and was thrilled to find this piece. It's perfect as I was looking for something casual and non-epic. It has a real catchy bounce to it.

Thank you mathgrant!!

You can hear the full track or listen to other tracks by mathgrant at the links below.

After-Dinner Jazz (mathgrant) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

My development work:

Here are the development sketches and some experiments with Pixel Art.

Pixel Art:

I used Pixel Tools v2 as a clean up tool for my rough animation... although the final version doesn't have any character animation. 

Don't blink!

An animation test for #rubberonionbattle. #pixelart #pixel #animation #walkcycle #loop #hypnotic

A video posted by Jeff Cook (@aperturejam) on Apr 9, 2016 at 5:12am PDT

Cheers!

Robot Coworker - #RubberOnionBattle

Hey,

The March theme for #RubberOnionBattle was 'Robot Coworker'.
You can see my clip on Instagram or Newgrounds.com.

Theme: Robot Coworker My March entry for #rubberonionbattle. A bit of a rush to get this finished as I'm going out of town for a few days. #Robot #Coworker #robotarm #animation @rubberonion #kitchen #Cartoon #toon

A video posted by Jeff Cook (@aperturejam) on Mar 29, 2016 at 5:56am PDT

March had 9 entrants, which you can check out in the compilation below. They're all great and worth checking out.

My Development:

Pencil sketches from the beginning of March. I looked at Chef Skinner from Ratatouille for inspiration of the Head Chef. I was also thinking of celebrity Chefs during the design process.

Indie animator Rob Yulfo also picked that the Chefs dialogue was inspired by Doctor Zachary Smith from TV's 'Lost in Space'.

A layout of the kitchen scenes.

A layout of the Human Resources scene.

Bonus features:

You may have noticed that the kitchen hand is from my January clip 'Casual Friday gone wrong'.

He's had a change in career to a role where he is attempting to chop a Rubber Onion... I know, I know.

Outside the Human Resources meeting room there is a Comic book featuring 'Tom Plumb: Bathroom warrior'. Also known as one of the useless superheroes from February.

One of the looky-loos in the kitchen is this Rat, who is so chilled that he's in the exact same spot when we next return to the kitchen.

Fluffy Kitten Teamwork Motivational Poster

Cheers!

Superhero with useless power - #RubberOnionBattle

So the February theme for #RubberOnionBattle was 'Superhero with useless power'.

Theme: Superhero with useless power. My Febuary entry for #rubberonionbattle. #Superhero #Hero #HeroLanding #animation @rubberonion #Bathroom #Cartoon #toon

A video posted by Jeff Cook (@aperturejam) on Feb 29, 2016 at 12:53am PST

Also on Newgrounds.com :D

 Here's a compilation of the February entries and they are hilarious.

Vote on the most useless super power on YouTube.

My Development work:

#superhero #Sketch and #design work for February's #rubberonionbattle

A video posted by Jeff Cook (@aperturejam) on Mar 3, 2016 at 6:07pm PST

Pencil Sketches 

Digital Sketches

The Concept which basically got tweaked into the final character model.

Layout

I went back to a character I designed for Botur's Fight Squad and used his orange janitorial jumpsuit as the basis for the Bathroom Warriors super suit.

You can read more about the work I did on that project here and see other designs at the Squad Blog.

Cheers!

Star Wars Uncut - Empire (2012)

Hey,

Today, from the files of the old and abandoned...

I found some of my old development work from the fan collaboration Star Wars: Empire uncut from back in 2012. 

So what is the project about?

Star Wars Uncut is a crazy fan mashup remake of the original Star Wars movies. It is the brainchild of Casey Pugh, a developer dedicated to creating interactive experiences on the web. In 2009, Casey was inspired to use the Internet and an ever-ready pool of passionate Star Wars fans to crowdsource the classic film Star Wars IV: A New Hope. This pet project turned into a labor of love and creativity on a large scale. Nearly a thousand fans came together to participate and the resulting movie is equal parts fun, kooky, and dearly nostalgic.

So, I picked 2 scenes and didn't get very far with either of them. It was a lot of fun though.

SC117 - "Why do we have to cut these things so damn close?".

This scene was from the Battle of Hoth.
I had the idea of using dialogue from Back to the Future with Luke McFlywalker joining the battle in a souped-up Delorean.

Here's a clip of the Lip-Sync along with some concept art.

"Why do we have to cut these things so damn close?" Part of an unfinished scene for Star Wars: Empire uncut in 2012. #animation #behindthescenes #lukeskywalker #martymcfly #starwars #bttf #empirestrikesback #backtothefuture #lipsync

A video posted by Jeff Cook (@aperturejam) on Feb 16, 2016 at 12:22am PST

SC284

This was a scene with Luke and Yoda on the Dagobah system.
Basically just Luke walking around and Yoda frowning and looking disappointed.

This scene didn't get further than rotoscoping over frames from The Empire Strikes Back.

Luke Skywalker rotoscoped for Empire Uncut. Or The Seven Skywalkers.

Here is a teaser trailer for Empire uncut... You can also watch the full Star Wars and Empire uncut films online.

Star Wars Uncut: The Empire Strikes Back TEASER from Star Wars Uncut on Vimeo.

Hopefully they announce Star Wars: Jedi Uncut in the near future as I've got some unresolved Star Wars business that I need to get out of my system.

Cheers!

Instagram

Hey,

While I've been away from the blog for many years, I've found time to post regularly on Instagram.
You can find me here.

Please check out my page to see photos of places I've been and the occasional behind the scenes bit.

Just a short clip after a long weekend. #animation #cartoon #wip #digitalart #workinprogress #behindthescenes

A video posted by Jeff (@aperturejam) on Feb 1, 2016 at 2:48am PST

I'm feeling creative and inspired after the last animation, I've started working on another clip. #animation #cartoon #wip #digitalart #workinprogress #behindthescenes

A video posted by Jeff (@aperturejam) on Jan 28, 2016 at 2:05am PST

Last nights exercise. #behindthescenes #workinprogress #wip #animation #cartoon

A photo posted by Jeff (@aperturejam) on Jan 28, 2016 at 1:49pm PST

Thank you for a fantastic year. Happy holidays to you and yours. #2015bestnine🌟 #montage ✌🐣😊🔑🐊🎁🍰 #Dinosaurs, #sunsets and #railway shots.

A photo posted by Jeff (@aperturejam) on Dec 30, 2015 at 1:30am PST

Send a few hearts my way :D ... It is Valentines Day after all.

Thanks!

2016 - #RubberOnionBattle

Hello,

It's me... with my first blog post since the end of 2012.
In short, I'm starting to feel creative again for the first time in many years. :D

I've also updated the URL of this blog to be more in line with my other social media accounts.

#RubberOnionBattle
Freelance animator Stephen Brooks aka Rubber Onion decided to "throw down" an animation challenge to animator Rob Yulfo but soon invited anyone who wanted to participate.

So for January 2016, we got the first #RubberOnionBattle. It was a lot of fun, especially because it got me creating a little short of my own.

Basically, anyone who wanted to participate could. They had to create a 15 second short before the end of January and upload it to instagram. The theme of the shorts was Casual Friday gone wrong.

Check out my short below and compilation of Januarys entries below that.

Casual Friday gone wrong.

 
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/669603

RubberOnionBattle Jan 2016

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/670053
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiVXf2nfJNw

The February challenge is now underway and you can find details on Twitter and Instagram. 

Join in.

My Development work:

See the Rough layout and the final frames.
I've left the edges of the image in so can see where the background gets cropped in the final animation.

There were originally going to be more gags, both in the animation and scattered throughout the background but I felt the scene was getting too busy and cluttered.

I was sad to cut the Rubber Ducky as well as a potential action figure from the desk.

In fact the original punchline was going to involve electrocution but I decided to go lowbrow and lift a gag from Caddyshack instead. 

Cheers!

"An Eye for an Aye-Aye" July Preview 2010

Here is a preview segment from my short cartoon. It's most of a sequence, there are a couple of shot's which I haven't Cleaned Up yet and so they weren't included. I won't be putting up a lot of video's from "Aye-Aye" anymore, not until the cartoon is finished anyway. I will be uploading video's from other animations I work on though.

This is just a short sequence from my cartoon. I'm quite deep into this now and I would really appreciate any feedback you could give me. Be it on Style, character design, animation timing, anything really. I just need to know that people are actually going to want to watch my cartoon when it's finished. Please leave a comment here or on the video page and share this preview with your friends too. All help is welcome.

Show notes and technical bits:

3 of the shots in the segment were made in 2007 while the 4 other shots were all made 2010.

The way each of the shots was put together varies greatly.

In 2007 I was in my final year at Freelance Animation School. Those shots were Cleaned Up traditionally with pencil and paper, then Scanned one frame at a time. The animation frames were coloured in Toonboom and the backgrounds were coloured in Photoshop. Toonboom would trace over my Clean Up drawings and Vector them. 

The quality of the vector depended on my pencil clean up along with the size and quality of the original drawings. Doing it this way, any dirt or registration marks left on the paper during scanning would need to be erased later in Toonboom. It wasn't always possible to find all the bits of dirt on the frames.

 From 2008 onwards I have been working with some Open Source software to achieve the same results as with Toonboom and Photoshop. These days my animation shot pipeline goes a little something like this...

• Traditional Hand Drawn animation - Pencil and Paper on an animation desk.
• Line test the animation using a webcam mounted to an old photographic enlarger - See Here
• If I'm happy with the timing of the shot then I start Digitally cleaning up the captured frames. I do my clean up in a program called 'Pencil'. Digital CU can take the same amount of time as Traditional CU.
• Although pencil has colouring capabilities, I like to do all my colouring and background art in Gimp.
• Then when the shot is cleaned up and coloured I use a program called Wax for the compositing.
• Audio is done with Audacity and then my final edit is made in Pinnacle Studio 12 (which isn't Open Source).

I will go into these steps in more detail one day but that probably won't be until things wrap on "Aye-aye".

 Cheers.

Showreel June 2010

Here is my updated Showreel of traditional hand drawn animation. It includes full colour shots and rough pencil tests.

Music: 'Sweet Georgia Brown' by Latché Swing.
All the content in this video is hand drawn, with paper and pencil (the traditional way) and then Cleaned Up, Coloured in the computer and composited together into a final shot. This was all done by me and mostly with Open Source software.

Here is a list of clips I have used:

• Several colour shots from "An Eye for an Aye-Aye" bookend the Showreel. This includes 2 shots where we hear my character, Tim Portans speak for the first time.
• The Superhero segments are animation made for background use in the short film 'Michael John Shadbolt'
• The Line (pencil) tests include a clip from "An Eye for an Aye-Aye" and 2 early animation clips I made at Freelance Animation School.
• All 4 of the 'One Shots' to date are also include throughout the video.

Let me know what you liked or disliked or maybe tell me about something you want to see more of.

YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXA-6iNVbiY
Vimeo     - http://vimeo.com/12969907

Cheers.

Preview Clip

Here is a shot from my short cartoon "An Eye for an Aye-Aye". You can see the original pencil test, followed by the final composite. This was a slightly more complicated shot to put together as I ended up with the following layers:

1. Tim Portans
2. The Branch
3. Gun Smoke 
4. Prop Shotgun (briefly)
5. Background

I'm very happy with the way it's turned out.

This was created mostly with open source software, The sound effects are from http://www.freesound.org

Thank you to gcmax, nthompson and Alienxxx for the sounds.

"An Eye for an Aye-Aye" Shot Progression

The cartoon I am making is called "An Eye for an Aye-Aye", I started it a few years back when I was studying animation. Recently I have started working on it again in my spare time and using as much freeware as I can to get it completed.

This sequence shows the development of one shot from the cartoon. It has an early pencil test, a more detailed pencil test, the digitally cleaned up line, the digitally coloured cel and the final composite. The linetests are actually from late 2007, whereas the clean up and colouring is from up to a few days ago. I hope you will excuse the lineboil and other little nitpicks and enjoy this little sequence.

This was cleaned up with a program called Pencil, All the colouring was done in GIMP and composited in WAX.


Thanks for dropping by.

Showreel 2006 - 2009

Here is my showreel of hand drawn animation from the past 3 years. Full colour shots and rough pencil tests. From studying at 'Freelance Animation School' to working with a home setup.

The clips include some animation tests from school, shots from my student film and work I was doing for friends.

Music: 'Sweet Georgia Brown' by Latché Swing

Here's a link for those of you who prefer to use Vimeo.
http://vimeo.com/7749548

And here's a link to the YouTube page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB82GMsHbRE

Now I can check Showreel off my list of things to do in the end of year wind up. If you know anyone who might like this, please share the video and point them in this direction.


Thanks guys.

'An Eye for an Aye-Aye' 3d Test shot

'An Eye for an Aye-Aye' 3d test shot from Jeff Cook on Vimeo.

Just a test of a 2d animated scene converted into anaglyph 3d. It is slightly enhanced if you wear 3D anaglyph glasses but at the same time it's not too hard on the eyes without glasses at this resolution.

Background elements were made in The Gimp, camera moves were done in Wax. I use Faststone Photo Resizer for all my batch needs, in this case it was to get the colour values correct. Then I put the image sequences back into Wax (which thankfully has a layer multiply tool) and slightly offset them until I saw some 3d.

This IS a scene from the opening of my student film. It's the establishing shot of the location and my main man, Tim Portans.

Guess I should stop playing around now...

High School daze: 'Infectious Happiness' Logos.

School Day logos. from Jeff Cook on Vimeo.


Heres some stuff from my high school days (2004), I was part of a passionate group of student film makers and during our final year in high school we managed to make 3 short films in our spare time. Those were crazy, brilliant times! We were an excited bunch led by a terrific, enthusiastic film teacher.
After high school we managed to meet up annually for the following 2 years to compete in 48hours Furious Filmmaking... Now THOSE were even crazier experiences, I think I still have the psychological scars from those.
Heres to the 'Infectious Happiness' team and the 5 films we made together!!

Anyhow these are the logos I made for the team.

Two of them were made in flash... flash 5 I believe.
Actually the bright orange logo was never used on any of our films... computer problems, format problems or stress? Ah well it never got used.
The other one was replacement animation made with construction paper cut-outs, it was a lot of fun to make this one and though its simple it is my favourite of the bunch.

Then lastly I included a shot from the title card of my work-in-progress film. Not much too it except it's meant to be a throwback to retro animation where the cartoon character is introduced on a title card filling the screen.

Ah memories...

Side by Side shot comparison

Rough Animation / Final Composite from Jeff Cook on Vimeo.

Yay! Double post day!!
Why not?

Here is a comparison shot between a rough animation pencil test and the final coloured composite.

The pencil animation was filmed on a webcam and captured in Monkey Jam (and had some compression issues), traced digitally in vector program Pencil and coloured in Inkscape. The Background was created in The Gimp and everything was composited together in Wax.
If that all sounds like gibberish then maybe you would like to know that those are all Open Source freeware software.

This is a shot of self proclaimed "Flying Ace!" Tim Portans in search of that pesky and elusive Aye-Aye.

Enjoy...

'Regurgitate' bumper

An unused bumper submission for ISTV.