VENTURE BROS sketches: The Diving Bell Vs. The Butter-Glider

Ohhh my god I forgot about Venture Bros!!! I mean... I didn't forget to watch but I forgot to post sketches from my work on the episode. Some people like to see these. They are so old to me. Oh... I am so nostalgic for New York.

A little background: I was one of four Animation Directors on The Venture Bros. After the storyboards are completed we were tasked with timing out all of the action in the episode as well as clarifying character acting and adding little bits of funny business. Our job builds heavily on the work of the Storyboard Artists and the Storyboard Revisionists. Direction drawings are like the extra spice that punctuate these moments and work toward solidifying the feel of the show.

I only worked on the first 7 episodes of this half-season. I moved out to LA to work on Adventure Time and I missed my chance to work on the season finale extravaganza. (I read the script though and it's gonna be super-badass. Wish I got to work on it.)

Anyway let's get on with it!

Monarch's Butterglider! It's like a weird flying Segway. At least, that's how I thought of it. I also did a cycle for the exhaust when it's not moving. I was really impressed by how this came out, especially the smoke trails when Monarch flies in a circle. Really nice.

Some laser effects. Also some Billys! These are sorta wonky but man Billy was one of the best characters to draw because he's cute.

The Henchman go rogue. On the bottom-right you can see a plan for the order of the darts hitting Hatred's back. No reason it's that order, it's just gotta be planned out somewhere!

A nice detail in this episode. As hatred runs up the Venture Compound stairs, he wildly shoots into the crowd of Rogue Henchmen and nails this dude in the gut. If you can find it in the episode it looks totally brutal. That guy probably had a family! Sad.

Here's some of Hatred flipping out. These drawings of him spinning around wildly and grabbing his gun look very exagerrated. That's not a terrible thing because the overseas studio sometimes underplays the expressiveness of poses.

Okay that's it! Greetz to the VB crew I miss alla yall.

Posted via email from ianjq dot com

oh yeah! adventure time!

Oh right I should probably say something about this on my blog. This past month, I left NYC and my favorite show The Venture Bros. :(


...for LA to work on Cartoon Network's "Adventure Time With Finn and Jake"! It's been a big bowl of culture-shock since then but boy howdy I'm having a lot of fun and learning a lot of new stuff. This show has a talented and dedicated staff, every day it seems like I meet another genius. It officially comes out on April 5th but they're showing preview episodes on CN now. I really like the show- the designs, color and timing are really crazy and the humor isn't condescending, sarcastic or mean- it's prob the most earnest kid's show I've seen.

I'm getting settled out here so expect more posts soon. New comics are coming, too! Sadly I think nockFORCE is done so I need a new project.

Sing of joy, sing about a boy! Little hero Astro Boy!

can't stop watching this

post-it green geek

"uguu!"
/

THE VENTURE BROS: Pinstripes and Poltergeists

Whaaaat? Season Finale already? That doesn't make sense at all, how can this be the Season Finale!? Oh. That's because it's not. It's just the end of the first "half". Half. Half-season. Half-Season Finale.

Whaaaat? Half-Season Finale already? No time to waste let's do this thing!

Bored Monarchs.

There's a crazy part in this episode that I don't have any drawings of- I directed a sequence with the Monarch-mobile flying around and stuff. And eMation made the vehicle CG! What!!! That was crazy! I should just start putting notes like "please make this CG and really awesome" on the X-Sheets somewhere.

Now here's some sarcastic Monarchs.
Dr. Girlfriend and 21.
EXTREME LIP-BITING
Henchman Eye Theory:
No floating eyebrows!! This aint Garfield.
Mask eyeholes changing shape = yes!
Brow-indents and stress marks around the eyeholes = OK!
Blinking eyeholes = surprisingly yes, this is ok sometimes. I know, weird right?

Hm... ok really it's just floating eyebrows that are verboten I guess. Well that's an important rule.

Okay! Hope you enjoyed this ep! It was pretty great I think. As always, credit to the many writers, designers, storyboard artists, revisionists, colorists, background artists, and everyone else who's work I piggyback off of. Also the three other animation directors(Kimson Jen and Nick) who I split this job with.

Also this is the second time I've mentioned this but you should check out Shivers DeStephano's blog to see what the full boards look like if you haven't already.

It's been a fun half-season. If I have the time I'll def try to do this for the back eight.

THE VENTURE BROS: The Better Man

Okay so we're back after a lil hiatus. LET'S GO!


First up, some Orpheus. He's been scarce this season but finally we get to draw him! Here he is, putting one of those tall candles in the ground. Also Triana.


Publick acted out those top three drawings for me, it was hilarious. I tried to make the facial expressions wide-eyed instead of seductive. The Master is just having fun. And teaching O a valuable lesson.


Teleportation effects! Yeah!! They look badass!!


Until they fall on their face!


Misc. bits and pieces.

Hope you enjoyed the episode!!! Storyboard artists and revisionists pulled thru bigtime as always, there's some really good effects and monsters and all that fun stuff.

THE VENTURE BROS: The Revenge Society

Let's go! Yeah! Let's do it! Phantom Limb's getting his revenge this week! Revenge!

Best thing about council of 13 scenes: they're silhouettes! all you gotta do is "head tilt left" and "head nods" and stuff. Until the lights turn on and the dudes get clotheslined. Ouch!

FIGHT SCENE! This part went by quick but this move was cool right? I hope so! I drew these poses for it!

We usually shy away from those corny too-much-anticipation-animationy-Don Bluthesque-"acting" poses but Sgt. Hatred's personality calls for them. Jennifer Batinich Martinez-Joffre (one of the other animation directors, and newly married!!) animated the best Hatred stuff in the past so I look to her scenes for reference.

Some Hanks! Trying my hardest to make him angsty and rebellious.

MISC! Two heads ARE better than one!

as always, super props to the board artists and revisionists. on the shoulders of giants.

Hope you liked the ep! YEAH! VENTURE BROS!

THE VENTURE BROS: Return To Malice

New episode! YEAH!!!! Let's do it!!!


ABOVE: 21's new look! He's still as goony as he used to be but in a big hulking way. I'm all for it!
Dinner conversation at home with the Monarchs.
Hatred's angry about something. Dude's got some real issues. Also there's some bored Doc Venture drawings.
Oh man this scene. It looks kind of weird on air because the underwear that we drew on the boards ended up being very different than the final colored version, so Digital eMation probably had a tough time matching our drawings to the design. Well I just dedicated a lot of thought to a cartoon woman's underwear, thank you i'll be here all week.
FACES!! Faces. Doin' what they want to, accenting dialogue or punctuating a scene. Do you like any of these faces?

Hope you liked the episode. As always big props to the board artists and revisionists. More next week.

THE VENTURE BROS: Perchance to Dean

Yeah! Let's make this concise!

A few Docs!


Hank hocks a loogie
Strippers!
D-19 is creepy. look at his face
Dermott expressions
D-19 is pretty cute sometimes though. You really grow to like hi
Uh oh!

THE VENTURE BROS: Handsome Ransom

Boy howdy, seems like jest last week I was a-watchin da venture bruvvurs sayin "whoa mama i should blog some a' my post-it notes and drawings from dat" so's i waddled over to my computer and jammed my fat fingers into my keyboard, splintering it betwixt my calloused paws. Hm. I'm not sure where I was going with that. Well here we are, episode 40 (first produced this season)

Okay so I was excited to be back to directing but man I was rusty(and I don't mean Venture)... dig it:

Monarch going on some epic rant. These were my first Monarch drawings in a few months and woof look at the beak i gave him. Motherfucker looks like Doug Funnie.

Dr. Mrs. The Monarch!

Captain Sunshine is a new character, I had a lot of fun trying to give him some nice poses! I wanted to make him a little manic in this scene.

BILLY OVERLOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!!!!... I was really into drawing the cute Billys for some reason. I think I was on a real Quizboy kick. As I mentioned in an old post, the dancing scene is based off of poses by Stephen DeStefano... as soon as I saw his drawings I wanted to be the one to direct them, they were hilarious. I directed the dance in a really weird jerky way. hope it was funny!

This episode was a good one to start on. It has one of my favorite lines this season:

"Shit! It's Chuck Scarsdale! Hide or we're gonna be on the news!"

As always, big ups to the board artists and revisionists who give me the gaps to fill in. One love.

VB UPDATE: Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel

Oh hey. Venture Bros is back on the air and I am back with some direction updates! Here's a bunch of stuff from the season 4 premiere(which was actually the 7th episode to be produced for this season, go figure):



LIGHTNING EFFECTS!!!! After last season's craziness with lasers and explosions all over the place, the overseas studio laid down the law and said "Only fire and smoke!" All other effects we do had to be pre-designed by our team, no adlibs on their part. I'm gonna guess and say the final lightning effects were designed by Liz Artinian

EDIT: Correction!! the original effects were drawn on the boards (thanks Siobahn!!) and then the final prop was designed by Carly!



Dudes gettin electrocuted



Cardholder eats the new Giant Boy Detective. In the face



Hank is such a sass machine. Lately he is my favorite character. Maybe because he is easy to draw.



The best Brock.



A heartwarming father-son exchange. This episode (hopefully you've gotten to see it by now) has a really well done unconventional shifting narrative. Hank's hair length is the key to figuring out the order of the scenes. Peedee (the production manager) had a hell of a time figuring out which hair goes where but I think it all makes sense. Right?

Big props to the storyboard artists and revisionists who provide the original material for me to time and plus.

Hope you enjoyed it!! I'll try to keep up with the episode airings.

Venture Bros Trailer!!!

Venture Bros Season Four!!!!

I'll try to keep up with the episodes once they air and do updates with all of my sketches but for now I give you this cause it was in the trailer:



These were riffing off the original storyboard poses by Stephen!!! They were awesome!!!! He's my hero!!!!

Okay I'm done now

The Family That Slays Together Stays Together

Okay, I been slackin on these Venture Bros updates so here's a massive one for the two-part finale. I'll do a roundup post with all the other episodes of the season soon

/!\ Beware! The post below contains SPOILERS /!\
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These episodes were really important because they were the last episodes! The schedule was frought with delays, holdovers and some days where we weren't sure how things would work at all. But hell we made it! and we did an alright job if I don't say so myself.



Molotov and her Blackhearts land. I can't find the drawing of them falling through the air but do you really need it? In the now immortal words of Jackson Publick, "You masturbate enough."



Hank! He's cool and he doesnt take any crap even when there's bullets flying at his head. The chase sequence was fun to direct because Hank's scared and a total smartass at the same time.



Go Fish casting and an explosion! I like explosions very much and drawing them is incredibly fun. More on that later.



This is a mechanical frog tying up Brock. These drawings are crazy off-model but I love drawing that dude's face. There was a criminally short amount of time to show that Brock was being restrained by this frog dealio. When I saw it on TV it came across okay. I wish I could have done more though.



FUN FACT: In scenes I direct where Dr. Venture is onscreen but not talking, I draw him getting bored. He's usually in the background somewhere looking at his watch and rolling his eyes.



SMACK! Dr. Venture and Brock's interrogation was hilarious.



BROCKFACES. Brock's got the best face to draw. It's a complicated, manly face that gives you a lot of options. Most of his acting consists of extreme emotions and broad gestures so he's a lot of fun to draw and direct.



This is Collar, one of the LAPD that interrogates our heroes. Drawings C-2, C-5, C-7 and C-9 were done by Danny Hynes, one of my good friends in the Revisions dept. We went to college together and we're very used to eachother's drawings, so it was a real treat to have him working on the part of production directly preceding mine.



DING DING DING! "Dr. Venture is bored as hell" alert!



Venture Bros. is: a bald madman about to put his knife to Mr. Clean's throat.



Molotov being her normally alluring self in street clothes. The effect isn't quite the same without her normal uniform.



Hank's big speech was a great moment. A lot of the drawings for the boards were done by Stephen DeStefano, a name I seriously can't credit enough. This guy was a hero to guys like me who watched his work on Ren & Stimpy for ages. Getting the chance to work on the same project as him was really enriching. Those Hanks above are just me trying to ape the dude's sense of movement.



Rusty and Hatred swap war stories. A WHOLE LABRADOR RETRIEVER.



Venture Bros is: the excitement that can only be doused by seeing a lifeless clone version of your body fall to the ground in a gory mess.



Here it is: the money shot(at least for me). I love drawing explosions and my direction from Jackson Publick on this one was to "not make it crappy". Explosions are traditionally very difficult to do. Sometimes you draw an explosion and it just looks like a puff of smoke when you get it back from Korea. So I made sure to draw a very detailed explosion that would leave no room for crap. It actually came out a lot different than I expected it to, but Digital Emation did a very good job. The colors came out vibrant and there was constant movement on the dust and flames.



If you look into 21's eyes as he's screaming "24! NOOOOOOOOOO!!", you can see the reflection of the flaming skull of 24 flying closer and closer until BOINK! it hits him in the face. If that isn't the best "super-dramatic moment gets punctuated by cartoonish failure" joke I've ever seen on this show, I dunno what is.

Also: That skull looks an awful lot like The Venture Bros logo... I'm glad they didnt draw that in the real episode.

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To wrap things up I just wanna say a thanks to Jackson and Doc for making a great show, and a thanks to World Leaders for having the cajones to employ an inexperienced, second-time director for their flagship series. GO TEAM VENTURE!