WE'VE HAD OUR FUN

I had fun doing this, but don't want to draw any more attention to this page. There is no room left to put additional information. It's too loud anyways, I think it'd be better if things were a little quieter.


Hope you enjoyed it.

HOW MANNY AND KHAN CAME TO BE

I had completed my internship on Foster's Home, and was visiting CN, saying hi to peoples. I went to see Joey, who had recently been promoted to a well deserved artistic position. When I walked in he was doodling this little guy below. He had never animated before, and wanted to learn Flash, so he was working on some characters for his first ever short. The short was "Big Foot and a Gnome". I thought it was a great idea... considering the first short I ever animated in Flash was oddly enough Sasquatch and Elf Boy... about a Sasquatch (Big Foot) and an Elf Boy (a Gnome). We knew it was a sign, and decided to team up.

Below; Screen cap from my first
Flash animated short Sasquatch
and Elf Boy
We started doing a rough storyboard, writing gags, and figuring out who these characters were. Production was shaky, as Joey was busy on Foster's, and quite frankly we didn't know how to work well with each other. After a month or so away from the project, CN announced the Cartoonstitute and both Joey and myself felt like Big Foot and Gnome was a good fit, considering the type of shorts they were looking for; character driven, minimal background/props, and an ability to be turned into a series. We were fortunate enough to be able to book a time to pitch, and went back to work developing the short.

We pitched on June 5, the exact one year anniversary that I had moved out to LA to intern at CN. We went in with a few drawings and a short list of episode ideas, which we presented to Craig McCracken and Rob Renzetti.

(The B.F.F stands for "Best Fucking Friends")

They liked the set up and relationship between the two, but wanted to see if we could "change" what these guys were and make them more unique, a re-casting of sorts, keep their personalities in tact just change the exterior. So me and Joey went to work re-designing Big Foot and Gnome.

First up to the plate was Gnome, and it was either hit or miss with him.
We liked the pairing of a humanoid figure with an animal/mythical creature, so we tried to keep that balance. Joey came up with the idea of a Merman or a Mer-Monkey (1/2 Merman 1/2 Sea-Monkey), which I thought was hilarious.I don't remember exactly who suggested a leprechaun, but basically we just took Gnome and put him in a Leprechaun's outfit, and it worked. And that (in part) is why Khan is not actually a Leprechaun, just some guy sporting the outfit. Since we had a human figure established now we knew the Big Foot character would continue to be of a creature nature.

It was very straining (at the time) to come up with various "beings" for Big Foot. I had known him as Big Foot for so long, that nothing else seemed right.
We tried things like; land-sharks, dragons, but the character needed to be soft and lovable. I've always liked platypi, and since we didn't use the platypus design for Khan, I tried it for Big Foot. It was ok... but he had to be mythical, so instinctively, I made him half-man. The same way a Big Foot is of essence half man half ape, this guy would be half man half platypus, and at that point "Man-O-Puss" just popped into my head. I didn't really think much of it, but Joey liked it a lot. It was also an easy fix for Big Foot, it was basically the same design just with a duck-bill instead of a nose. Rob and Craig were cool with it, so it stuck. So after a lot of pushing, Manny and Khan were born.

So you see, although it may appear as though a Leprachaun and a Man-o-puss are a completely random coupling, there is actually a quite logical explanation for the odd-pair (except for the half man half platypus part).

DECODING CARTOONS

Below is a little card I made for some of the guys who helped bring Manny and Khan to life.

Joey put some pictures up on his blog from various points of production, and this one below makes me laugh. We got bored one day and made this poster. We tried to turn our cube at CN into a super awesome tree fort, to replicate the one our kids live in, and this poster is definitely something they would have nailed to the wood paneling. We also had a paper-cup attached to a string hanging from the outside of our door, so people could page us. But that's pretty much the extent to which the fabrication of our cube fort reached.

During production we sat in the same area as a lot of the other creators, and I learned so much from just talking with them. Greg Miller was always a highlight of my day, I highly recommend you check out his blog; http://fuzzybotom.blogspot.com/

I leave you with a very special sketch, I think this was the first post-it that was ever passed between Joey and myself. It was either number 1 or number 2?

TOON info for fans in different time ZONEs.... ( .net)

Production on Manny and Khan is going swimmingly.

(I don't remember exactly why I drew this)

Now despite what you may think, Khan is not actually a leprechaun, but in fact a small man who dresses like a leprechaun because he thinks its cool. And Manny, who's been refered to as "a giant platypus", is actually a Man-o-puss; half man half platypus.

During the heat of production Joey and I would leave each other friendly post-it notes, as if to say "I was here" or "hey buddy what's up?" or;


Stay tooned for more post-its and updates on Manny and Khan. And for further research check out Joey's blog.

One individual at Cartoon Network who really helped mentor me and Joey through The Awesome Chronicles is the incredibly talented story-master Derek Dryman. He was more than willing to tackle any of the questions we could come up with, and always had a brilliant and sensible answer. In addition to his wealth of knowledge, Derek is also one of the nicest people I've ever met.


Below; Random Flap and K-nuck doodles I did during work.

MARVELOUS MISADVENTURES

I started working on Flapjack this week. The guys were kind enough to bring me on board to do storyboard clean-up and revisions for them. I've only been on for a couple days, but it's such a fun show to be a part of.The crew is great, and the board I've been given to revise is hilarious.


We finally got all our animation back from overseas for Manny and Khan. They did an amazing job with it. We had an incredible timer, Robert Alvarez, who translated our storyboard into real time. Alvarez has had an incredible career in animation and brought a boatload of experience to our short (which helped cancel out the lack of experience Joey and I came in with). He wasn't just a timer for us, he was also a mentor. He is a bottomless well of knowledge and was nice enough to share every last drop with us.

It was his birthday this week, so I made him this little card;

FLAPJACK TEST

Some random pages from a Flapjack storyboard test I just did. These characters are really fun to draw.


Below; My favorite page.It took me a while to figure out Flapjack, I kept drawin him real long.
Early K'nuckles drawings.

2008 WAS GREAT, 2009...DAMN YOU LOOK FINE

Happy new years people.
Coincidentally, its also my Blogday! I started this blog exactly 2 years ago while cooped up in my pasty-walled dorm room on a hot and humid day in Savannah Georgia.

2008 has been pretty good to me. I've been very fortunate thus far in my young career to have an opportunity to work with some incredible people, and I want to send a big "thanks" to each and every one of you. So now we part ways 2008, but I will never forget you.

2009, I look forward to what you have to offer. If you're anything like your younger brother, I can't wait to hang out with you. Hopefully soon you'll all get a chance to see "The Awesome Chronicles of Manny and Khan" a short I've been working on for the past 6 months with my good friend Joey Giardina at Cartoon Network.
Above is a little sneak peak at the awesome chronicles.

Below; some doodles i've drawn over the last couple weeks. I was blog browsing back in 2008 and came across someone's fan pokemon they created (I can't find the link anymore), but they were really great and creative and inspiring, so I thought I'd give it a go and try to create my own pokemon.




I'm not sure if they look like 'pokemon' or if they look like me trying to do pokemon?









This last page is my favorite I think.

On a side note, in the most recent issue of Animation Magazine, they spotlighted "a day in the life of Craig McCracken" (very well deserved). And if you look closely at the spread, you might just see a familiar face... or hat.

Below: At 3:15, that's me. In my conductor cap. Choo Choo.

And fittingly enough, the article is on page 72, my number.

2009, I know we've only just met, but I think I love you.