Books...

Book characters...

Stand Up

Working on a stand up comedian for a client. Telling jokes and drinking... and thats just me!?!

I'm currently producing my animated book... its on its way but very much in its infancy. Here are quick character studies... more to be revealed as we go along. Stayed tuned.

Artwork

Another collection of artwork done in Flash. Playing with characters, scenes and props.

More of those scenes and characters all mixed.

Been having fu testing out the creations. Making stories and narratives, here's a little taste.

Characters and Scenes

Here's a little mix of what I've been doing for Whaang.

All Flash, vector based graphics, super lite...

Backgrounds

I've been developing some backgrounds for an online comic client and thought I'd share some ideas. Created in Flash.... they are also designed to give a feel of a place where something could happen. I feel its always the ordinary where the extra-ordinary happens.

Thinking, freedom, creativity and true success.

Flash Artwork

Here's a little look at a couple of characters I've been working for Whaang.. should be going live soon, very excited about it. Users can choose backgrounds or situations, then drop in characters with different props to create there own comic stories, its a lot of fun and a great concept.

Design...

Recently been embedded in Flash illustration and to get me re energized and fresh I go out and cut the lawn or go for a run... Now these two things have recently had great change and given great thoughts.

Mowing the lawn was a chore, I had an anti Eco petrol mower that spread all the dust, twigs, small stones and occasional blades of grass over a mile radius of my garden. The kids, my wife and dog locked up safe inside as I blasted my country location with noise and fumes... NO MORE. I have an old fashioned Hodder der der (Thanks Eddie Izzard) But its more than a leap in ecological gardening, its a brilliant design. When Brilliant designs arrive you know immediately because its form and function in perfect harmony. Its like walking in the park, yes 'G and T' in one hand, kids running around, the grass looking healthy, birds singing and an amazing feeling of really enjoying myself. Another huge design feature, by accident or on purpose, is when you push the mower there is a slight by very satisfying resistance... it kicks in a split second after you start pushing giving you enough time to push with ease before it gets slightly harder and ... it feels really good. Its that simple, immediate bio feedback. Addictive and satisfying.

Now running. The foot. Michael Angelo called it the greatest of designs and now I'm trusting in evolution and my body by running barefoot. The first time just 10 minutes down the track in the woods... I smiled the whole way, it was liberating and I had so much energy. Day two rested as my calves certainly felt the difference. Day 3, 15 minutes in the woods.. feeling really good. So I just started but so far it feels right. After all they were designed for this. Inspired by Born to Run by Christopher McDougall and Barefoot Ted. Its all about thinking, really thinking about why we do what we do.

I know, no Flash in there but it'll all come out in the wash.

Character sketch

Some roughs for Flash characters.

More form the sketchbook.

Some drawing from life and as roughs for upcoming animation/comic site client of mine. All to be done in Flash, but I love the feel of pencil and paper

Characters

Been playing with some seaside characters for a online book I'm animating thought I'd share a few of them. Coming out as an interactive book about seahorses with Tumblebooks.

Characters

Fish in Flash

Kite Boy....

Sketch that led to one of my.. almost but not quite pop up cards....

Sketchbook

Here are some sketches from the sketch book.... Playing with hair styles. They are still in their infancy but I'll nurture them and see where we get to.

More Sketching...

I've had this little character in my head for a while, inspired by my daughter... she's a real free spirit, country girl with a curious fascination for pop music, Lady Ga Ga and Gymnastics... she loves her hair. I created a series of "How I wear my hair". This is one of the early ones. I'll try and upload the rest. As you can see my sketch book is used a lot the other drawings are coming through... but you still can get a good feel of where I'm going.

AND I know, no arms... but I feel it really works.

Sketchbook

I've decided to share my sketches with you.. well with anyone really. So I've started scanning my pencil drawings, these are playing with characters and situations. I guess its all part of master plan... but that will come later. These are pretty rough and you can see ideas being pushed and scrubbed around the outside, but theres still that magic quality of pencil on paper (A nice heavy 3b as well) Nothing will ever replace pencil and paper its such a wonderful sensitive and immediate medium, I love it.

Anyway I'll be posting more from my sketch book. Some are related to my animation work and some for the love of drawing.

Flash CS5 icon play time....

Playing with the new CS5 icons and banner... Just seeing how it would look if it were me. Glad its not me to be honest.

duplicateMovieClip.... where did you go?

OR ... there really is no duplicateMovieClip in AS3. So where do you go and what do you do? I used this alot in AS2, great for developing organic animations and out of synch, natural effects. so I was a little lost in the beginning. Thankfully there are lots of far more talented people than me about so stand on the shoulders of giants to help you go further.

There are many options like this from ~ Senocular ~.  The I came across this at ~ Mr. Doob ~ So clean and simple. I really like it, although it duplicates objects/swf's from outside your file, for me not a problem. You just have to keep your assets in good order. He has some great lab works to play with as well.

If you search there are many ways round it, seems a shame to lose such a useful tool, but I guess its out shone by everything else that AS3 has to offer.

A quick sketch of Obama. Done in Photoshop with my Wacom.

Photoshop fun and biscuits...

Logo fun for You The Biscuit. 

Crunchy, tasty and really good dunked. Hows that for a pitch line...

Animation

Tall Thin Walk. AS3, bones tool is great for limbs and giving that pendulum feel. This is a different style. Wire in mind, just a simple character test.


link to animation here ~ http://www.youthebiscuit.com/play01.html

Not really but almost, Pop-up card.

I guess this is a cross over hybrid model. More of a 'bend round card' than a pop up. I playing with characters and exploring more interesting ways of showing them.

Card, pen and ink and a little glue.

Quick Sketch

Quick sketch of Jimi... to keep my hand ad eye in.

Character Animation.

I've been loving the bones tool in CS4 AS3 and have been able to clean up some character designs.

Links to the animation coming soon.

Characters to animate.

Here's another in that same style... a butterfly that makes me smile already.

Characters.

Just been playing in Flash and creating some characters to animate. I like the feel of these sketches not too clean and not too rough. Bright and colourful and quirky.

Bird nest.

InterActive Books

I've been working on developing some interactive educational books for Tumblebooks. Its been a great project and lots to work out. The key is always working out the way to show so much information in a simple clear and understandable way. Using standard symbols and expectations already brought on by the majority of internet sites is a good way to make users feel at home and give them confidence to explore further.

Dolphins is almost finished...

Sheep money

Before money we used to barter and trade our valuable assets and skills, pottery, cows and sheep.... Now you can do both. The sheep is valuable...

Thoughts on thinking and inspiration

Tips for Better Ideas from Andrew 'Big Show' Blodgett on Vimeo.

Really nice video about inspiration... when it doesn't come there are certain ticks to do and one is just to watch this. Makes me smile.

Photography ~ Flickr

Bark 01, originally uploaded by YouTheBiscuit.

I have at last created a Flickr account for my photographs. If you'd like to head on over there you can see my latest shots.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/youthebiscuit/

This was taken on a short walk in the woods, the bark of a big old white pine.

Never ever complain your too old !!!!

This is the most inspiring video I've seen in a long time. There is no message just joy and an incredible old lady... allegedly 90!!!!

What ever her age that is life living.

Apple Keyboard cleaning time....

OK this isn't really about my creations or discoveries animating and coding... but chores are chores and they've got to be done. I haven't iSkin for my keyboard and its suffered the consequence. I spent the whole morning taking apart and cleaning my keyboard and lucky to find this image so I could put the keys back together.

I was tempted to rearrange the keys and re-map them as the QWERTY layout was invented purely for the type writer so the mechanical arms wouldn't get stuck with fast users... As for an intuitive and easy layout its terrible. But I'm use to it and looking to sell my iMac for an upgrade.... if your interested?
Anyway its like new now and gleaming and a dream to use..

Happy cleaning!

Martin

Here's a little foot note for the Quicktime post... I found a great app called SoundConverter. Appropriate as this is what it does. BUT, what it does for me is convert PERFECTLY, with many choices, .swf to MP3 (and more).

Created by Steve Dekorte. The OSX version is free for files under 500K and only $14 for a license. Support small business and smart people. Thanks Steve.

Great bit of software creation. Get it here ~ http://dekorte.com/projects/shareware/SoundConverter

Flash CS4 and exporting to Quicktime

I know I'm not the first to have this issue... in fact I think its been around since CS3 but I've been having problems exporting Flash movie to Quicktime.

But lets take a step back because originally all I wanted was the sound files. I'm running CS4 on a Mac and I haven't got the original sound files. My first step was to go to the library and right clicking (CTRL Clicking) and using the 'edit with...' I then use a fantastic little app called Switch. It converts everything (Sound wise) to almost everything else and if you pay, to everything else. Its very simple clean app. for MAC and PC ~ http://www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html.

Anyway I digress.... the "edit with " approach only works if you have the original sound files... which I didnt. BUT wait, there's the obvious way, I hear you cry... just 'export movie' and choose WAV and there you go.... Oh no no, not if you have a MAC... its true!. It doesn't exist!! If someone can enlighten me to this incredible omission, I'm all ears.

So, next step export to Quicktime and then rip the sound out... actually I have the option just to export Quicktime sound, GREAT I thought. No said my mac... an error occurred. No number, no excuses, no info just an error! To cut a long story short here's what to do if you encounter many different versions of the same problem... and I'm still not guaranteeing success.

Instead of exporting to the last frame, use the time function.... divide your frame numbers by your frame rate to give seconds and then work out your minutes etc.... I have heard that it might be better to make it slightly longer that the actual movie as it can still hang. It fixed my errors and I used the exact time (Lucky me : ) ).

Using the “Quicktime Settings….” you can switch to Sorenson, with specific types of screen settings, this will help solve the hang/error.

Also if you have stop() action in the main timeline this might cause Quicktime to ... stop ! Playing with Quicktime’s compression settings can solve this. So make sure you don’t have a stop() action in your main time line that prevents the play head from getting there.

More fun and games with our beloved Flash soon....

Martin

Creative thinking for health.

Given the choice would you take the stairs or the escalator?

This is such a great idea. Confronting human beings innate lazy side with creativity and play. 66% MORE people chose the stairs.. this playful incentive really works.