24 January 2009

FAIL

Did I say my computer was working? I lied.

Something is seriously wrong with the graphics card connection. It was fixed two days ago.

It's ok. It's not like I have a thesis to do or anything...


So yeah, my screen looks like this:

FAIL.

Roadside Diner

I promise I’m working on thesis…that’s why I’m not here!

But since you could use a break from thesis news, here’s a post that’s related to both animation and diners!

Last semester we were given an assignment to create a pitchbook for a commercially viable television series or feature film. Seeing how long it took me to develop my thesis idea, I decided to take a shortcut with the pitchbook idea. In order to jumpstart my brain into coming up with something, I thought of things I'm familiar with. So here it is, my pitchbook about a sitcom series set in a diner.




To give you an idea about how desperate I was for ideas, all of the characters (with one exception) are based on either my pets, current or past, or teachers I’ve had. As for that one exception, he’s based on a large number of students I have encountered at school while simultaneously poking fun at an obscure family member that I’m not actually related to.

The drawings leave something to be desired (and you can probably pick which character was drawn with a tablet and not a Cintiq). I don’t really consider design to be my forte, especially when pressed for time, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t try. The diner on the cover is an homage to the Mack Diner of New Brunswick, a defunct record shop that stopped being a diner over 40 years ago. I really like its design…so I stole it for my diner. The Mack is a brother of the Empire Diner on 22nd and 10th.



Picture copyright whoever took this picture…I just wanted to show the diner as reference, don’t sue me.


When the pitchbook was done, I bound it with red gaffers tape and acetate to look like a diner menu. (I had tried to get a real diner menu so I could use the plastic sleeve and make it really authentic, but couldn’t convince anyone to give me one…which is another story.) Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of the finished product, so that’s gone forever now that I’ve handed it in. Though I could make another.




I’m also happy to report that my laptop is up and running again! This gets me back on track with my backgrounds (the studio Cintiqs distort the color ever so slightly, and since I already started doing color work on my laptop, I wanted to keep it there for consistency’s sake).

So the next post will be…backgrounds!

05 January 2009

New Name!

Welcome to The Animation Diner! I've changed the name of this blog because frankly, "Animation Etcetera" was lame. I never even talked about the Etcetera part.

So the place doesn’t look very diner-ish right now, but it will once I get out of thesis mode. I love diners. I could do whole posts just about diners. But I won’t because right now it’s only a good way to procrastinate when there’s legitimate work to be done. In the meantime, here are some nice diner pictures I've taken.
























I actually tried to write a thesis idea that took place in a diner, but couldn't come up with anything suitable this time around.