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

whoa hey Minicomic at SDCC!

So I'm gonna have lots of copies of my new comic TENT SALE at San Diego Comic-con this weekend! I don't have a table or anything though. I'm just now realizing that I don't know how anyone reading this will find me if they want it. Welp! I'll probably be at the Adventure Time and Venture Bros panels. And you know, maybe you happen to see me and we can trade! I'll be around. Or not. Whatever! I'll put it up online soon anyway.

The comic is a expanded version of a three-pager I did last year. It's not the same as that. I went back and redid stuff and there are a lot of new pages. I'm proud of it but it's my first stab at comics in like 5 years. And this is my first Comic-con in 5 years. So I'm nervous and I feel rusty.

Anyway work on Adventure Time has been all-consuming and I've been pretty silent online for a lil bit. I'm tweetin from time to time at @ianjq

Posted via email from ianjq

JACKFACES

Rebecca and I watched all of LOST in like five weeks so we wouldnt miss out on the ending!! Here is my tribute to LOST. Or mainly my tribute to the main character's weird face:

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.

please understand me

GastroPhobia

Today I did a guest strip for the webcomic GastroPhobia. Go look!

Here are some sketches I did to warm up

snow sketchy

snow!

sketchy sketchy

(slightly) new reel

It's got clips of the Moby video and a new project for the BBC4. Everything else is pretty much the same but I trimmed the fat here and there. Music's the same too.

Welp! That's all I have to show!

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

can't stop watching this

i have a need to cut loose!!!

okay let's animate something straight ahead with no planning!!



YEAH! Have a good new year see you in 2010

post-it green geek

"uguu!"
/

The Midriffs

EDIT: OMG THIS IS THE ONE HUNDREDTH POST ON THIS BLOG! 100!!!!! Yeah



sassy and pink!

theyre 5 cool teens looking for fun!

and they've got a passionable for all things fashionable!

-------------------

here's their original appearance in this goofy video i animated almost 2 years ago:



(in the original they had no lower bodies.)

SPEAKING OF FACEBOOK:
i know that keeping up with a blog is like so 2006. so you can now follow this blog on facebook!! so you dont have to keep checking back! Click the "Networked Blogs" widget over on the right hand column of this blog. (can I possibly say "blog" any more times in this paragraph? blog blog blog)

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.

Idaho Gajendra

this is an old character i'm takin another crack at




also, here's some of tonight's brush warm-ups:

mr foonble

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.

Monsterrrrrrs

the puffball bros.

THE VENTURE BROS: Self-Medication NO-POST?!

No pictures this week! Sorry I just don't have the material. This is not a bad thing. The job of "animation director" is all about adapting a storyboard to the inflexibility of time. The storyboard needs tweaking because of this(tho I am not in the business of "fixing" boards, the board revisionists do that). In addition to timing out all of the action, I "plus" boards so the acting and emoting reads better onscreen.

The latest episode of Venture Bros, "Self-Medication", needed pretty much no plus-ing. It's probably one of the most amazing boards from this season, rife with specific character acting and well-composed shots. I added some stuff but it's nothing compared to the rest of the board. Yes it's that good, so I have nothing to show!!

While you're here though you should go to Siobahn DeStefano's blog, she's posted up some boards from this season and you should check em out! theyre awesome!!

Museum Weekend

on a completely unrelated and much less classy note I found some weird moby drawings, they were planning for that music video.