thebigladjake

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Oddyssey TV Show - Research - The Subconscious and why I think it has huge potential for storytelling.

My fixation of the Subconscious in my recent work stems from the fact that I think it’s a creative reflection of someone’s personality. Even if the person isn’t that particularly creative themselves, we get a view into how they see the world and maybe what they even want. And this fascination I have has come from several places in media. With the first place being an internet animated show known as The Big Lez Show.

The Big Lez Show

The Big Lez show is about Leslie Mackerel and what at first just appears to be a middle aged Australian guy just living his life. However, as the series goes on we learn more about Lez and the fact that he’s technically an alien who was banished from his home planet, has a bitter rivalry with his brother, Norton and eventually an epic hero who saves the world from the Choomahs.

A big part of the show is the stoner comedy aspect of Aussie culture and the friends tend to relax by getting high and talking about the kind of things high people like to talk about. All kinds of deep topics and in Choomah Island 2, several characters talk about the subconscious and Lez goes on a journey of self-discovery to realise what he truly wants in his life.

It’s a bit of a watch, but I thought I might as well include it since it’s free. Choomah Island 2 is the boys going on a mission to finally put this Choomah problem to rest. And in typical Big Lez fashion, once the boys are on the island. They don’t go about their mission, instead they choose to get high and talk about all the mad things in life and the talk of the subconscious begins as Mike Nolan and Big Lez are lying down looking up at the sky.

This is one of the first times Lez gets consensually high and has a trip, previously he was spiked by Sassy the Sasquatch, and here Mike Nolan explains to him how he realised that his dream was all in his head and the fact that all his friends were in the dream means that they all exist within his subconscious.

Mike then goes onto say how we’re all one as when we make others happy, we make ourselves happy and the opposite applies too. That in reality we are all one, Lez doesn’t buy it until he sees a hallucination of his face in the clouds that tells him to listen to him. Setting up a whole karmic retribution theme to this movie.

Lez’s adventure truly begins when he parts from the group to chase a fallen star. After an encounter with the Choomahs, Lez sits down and smokes a joint that Sassy gave to him in case he got lost, getting lost being more figurative than literal. Lez then goes on a journey through his subconscious where he learns the truth about his existence and the fact that it’s a show, however that isn’t the focus. 

Lez learns about the possibilities of Microsoft Paint from Sassy the Sasquatch as he meets him in a dimension of his own creation. Sassy goes onto say that it’s a dimension in his own head and going back to what Mike said, that we’re all connected and we are one, Lez can see it too. Lez doesn’t understand and asks Sassy why he brought him here, but Sassy says it was his decision to come.

Sassy goes onto explain that right now they are outside the box, yet still inside it. Eventually showing Lez the Microsoft Paint GUI and telling him to draw what he wants from life. Lez draws a picture of him shooting Norton, saying how much he hates him and how he can’t stand Norton being in the same world as him. With some guidance, Sassy helps Lez to realise that killing Norton isn’t what he wants and what he really wants is to be happy.

Lez wakes up, physically and spiritually as his trip ends and he realises exactly what he wants. With a little guidance from Sassy, he was able to come to the conclusion that he wants to be happy and viewing things from a more positive angle.

I personally find this kind of development really interesting because technically it’s all the character’s doing and they just needed to really look at themselves to figure out what they wanted. Not only that, we get to see what the characters really think about that other person and we see how important their friendship must be if they’re appearing in each other’s subconscious. Big Lez definitely planted the seed while my playthrough of Earthbound helped me to realise the potential in trippy subconscious settings.

Earthbound and Magicant

Upon many things, Earthbound is the main driving force behind Oddyssey as I believe it could be a really successful formula for a show for kids since it’s actually good and a show for adults to sort of remind them about the magic of being a child. And a really memorable part of the game is Magicant, a moment where Ness is alone once more and has to defeat the darkest part of his subconscious without the aid of the friends that he has made along the way.

Earthbound gives us a little more to chew on rather than Big Lez, since it’s a game that allows us to explore Ness’ subconscious at our own pace. The first thing I want to talk about is Ness’ resting place is viewed as his home. Throughout the game, you’ll need to rest to freshen up all of your psychic points and hit points and you can always go back home to Ness’ Mother and get a free rest, however that can be extremely inconvenient when there are hotels in your current town. You don’t see her often and can talk to her on the phone to cure Ness’ homesickness which effects him in battle.

However, Ness’ family appearing in his mind as his place of rest is really sweet because it shows us just how much they mean to him without Ness saying a word. His Mother gives him a chance to rest and eat his favourite food, Tracey will hold onto any items that may be clogging up your inventory and King the Dog is there for emotional support. 

Ness can also reflect on previous memories here, he can meet his past self, friends from his hometown and several snowmen that he once built. One snowman specifically says something I find could beautiful, “We had fun one snowy day, I melted away but I still exist in your memory.” and I can’t really explain why I love this saying as much as I do. But, there’s something about it that I relate to massively, I feel like it might have something to do with the characters and worlds I used to create using the resources I did have. 

Another character of interest is Pokey Minch, a character who was Ness’ cowardly and rude friend gone bad throughout the story of the game. You can find him in Ness’ Magicant and we see how Ness thinks that he is rude, but on some level wishes that they could still be friends and that he didn’t go down the path that he did.

Another part of Ness’ Magicant is the house of the Flying Men or Man. Half man, half bird figures that are the symbol of Ness’ courage, you can ask for them to accompany you to the Sea of Eden and they prove to be quite capable. Them being a symbol of Ness’ courage dwindles if the Flying Man falls in battle, with each Flying Man getting less and less hopeful. Unfortunately, none of the enemies in Magicant really seem to represent anything significant to Ness’ psyche which is a shame.

Nothing in the Sea of Eden really sticks out as a symbol of Ness’ personality and subconscious. But, the whole reason Ness had to journey here was to defeat a great evil within... Ness’ Nightmare, Ness’ embodiment of evil, he must be destroyed for Ness to succeed in defeating Giygas.

What’s so fascinating about Ness’ Nightmare is that it implies even a good kid like Ness has evil within, and I think we can all picture a version of ourselves that is all of our negative traits incarnate. As if this could happen to absolutely anyone, we all have the capacity to be evil I believe. It’s just some people don’t want to be evil while others may do.

I think making the audience think about these themes and consider their whole past and their whole view of their world is what Magicant is all about and I most certainly hope that this is something that Oddyssey would be able to capture.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Oddyssey TV Show - Incorporating 3D into my artwork

For the background of my book, I wanted an image of the Planet Dirt in space with the Singularity’s hand reaching down to claim the planet. Since I think that’s a really striking image, however, I absolutely hate drawing the Earth or planets that should look like the Earth. So, to make my life easier and to develop the Planet Earth a little better I thought making a map of the entire world would be a good idea.

Blender

I have been getting into 3D a little bit over the past few months and since the Earth is just a ball it wouldn’t take much effort to make it because the sphere is a default preset in Blender.

It looks a little rough with no shaders, I tried my best to smooth it out and this was the best I got.

World Map Template

When designing a planet similar to Earth, a good idea generally is to find a good picture to draw inspiration from. Get a feel of how the world looks and how you should draw it. I found this Earth map and thought it would work pretty well since it’s got this grid over it and everything should line up.

However, importing the map onto the sphere really didn’t look accurate. Just look at the UK right there. So, I went back on the Internet and found a much better alternative.

By googling, “World Map Texture” I found this quite easily and already it looks a lot better.

And on the model, it looks absolutely perfect! So, this was going to be the image I drew inspiration from to draw my own Planet Dirt.

Not entirely accurate to the Earth, but it’s not supposed to be. Some of the landmasses were just scribbles with some of them having bases. I think the most obvious is the arm shaped island in the very middle. This is where our plot takes place, beginning at the very bottom of the island and ending their journey at the top where the hand will be. I just thought that it was a nice reflection of the Singularity reaching out and an island like a hand almost reaching back to the oncoming threat.

A few other islands are based off body parts, mainly because I thought it was a pretty cool image and could maybe start some speculation amongst audiences that might wonder what happened to this place and why do these islands just happen to look like an arm or a foot or a chest. Maybe some apocalyptic event has occurred and this one island has broken up, I guess we’ll never know.

The island located where America would be is modelled after an Eagle because that’s a symbol of America and freedom and all that. I tried to make it not super on the nose, so i broke away some of the talons and stuff. 

Importing it into blender, I didn’t like how big the main island appeared on the sphere. So, I quickly reopened Krita to make a smaller version of the islands.

And boom, it’s a little better. You don’t see the other islands I worked on, but I know they’re there and that’s all the matters.

Using what little 3D knowledge I have, I used two sun lights (Mainly because they’re the only lights that seem to work for me in Blender) and thinking about how I’d incorporate it into my background. I wanted the sunlight to come from the left since I wanted the Singularity coming in from the right. And having the shadowy part of the Planet Dirt on the side of the Singularity, suggesting that the Singularity’s power is already spreading through the Planet Dirt.

The shadows cast onto the Planet Dirt weren’t super dark which can make 3D renders look really bad and even though it wasn’t really needed, I added a fill light that gave the shadowy part a purplish colour since I was going to make the space background have a purplish hue too and it turned out quite nice. 

The final render, a little jagged around the edges, but I was much more bothered about the textures and lighting looking smooth. It was time to render my background completely and I am quite proud of how it turned out. The Planet Dirt doesn’t clash with the 2D elements of the picture.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Chappies Graphic Novel Idea #1 - Research - Thomas the Tank Engine and writing friendships

There is some overlap between my research, but that’s simply because I have more to say about certain things than others. Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends may be titled that way, but if you’ve seen the classic series or the Reverend’s books, you’d know that sometimes it’s simply not the case. Thomas and his friends are prone to bickering, childish antics and friendly competition and that’s what made the Thomas series so great!

Here I will analyse some of my personal favourite character interactions as examples and why they work so well. Firstly, we will look at the episode, “Ghost Train”.

Ghost Train

This story centres around Percy, telling Thomas and Toby a ghost story to which Thomas shrugs off and claiming he’s not scared. Percy tells his driver that Thomas didn’t believe in his ghost, to which he replies it was a pretend ghost on television, much to Percy’s disappointment. 

On his way home after a hard day of work, Percy crashes into a lime cart which makes his green body into a pale ghostly figure. Once he is told this, he pleads with his driver to keep him like this to scare Thomas, with Toby going ahead to tell Thomas the bad news.

Thomas is getting ready for his evening train until Toby steams in informing Thomas that Percy has had an accident. Thomas replies with “Poor Engine. Botheration, that means I’ll be late!” Toby then goes onto say that he believes he’s seen Percy’s ghost. Thomas comforts Toby that he’ll be alright, but at that moment, Percy rolls up to the sheds. Whistling ghostly and scaring Thomas, who immediately dashes off to his train!

The episode ends with the morning after, revealing Thomas had stayed in the goods shed because he knew that Toby would be sad about Percy and he didn’t want to intrude. However, the moment he hears Percy’s whistle he dashes off. Leaving both Percy and Toby very amused.

What’s great about this episode specifically is Thomas and Percy’s interactions. The introductory scene with Percy talking about the ghost train, Thomas shoots him down because friends do disagree on things they don’t believe in. Especially if things seem particularly unbelievable, I remember when I was a kid and another kid in my class did the whole my dad is the strongest man in the world thing and said his dad could pick up the world.

Kids are less likely to believe it if it comes from another kid and the smaller engines (minus Toby) are the representation of kids in Thomas. In Percy and the Signal, Percy immediately trusts Gordon and James because they are bigger and older engines so they must know what they are talking about! Just how a kid might believe an adult, I heard the word pompous in Mulan when I was in Year 4 and I thought that was a word I had never heard before, so I did the first thing that any kid would do. Ask a parent.

And of course, as a parent, it’s a biological rule to mess with your kids whenever you can. So, my Mum told me that pompous meant you have four bottoms and my child mind was like “Well... He does mean it in an insulting way...” So, I never questioned it and I went to school and told everyone that it meant having four bottoms. Luckily, no one was clever enough to actually know what pompous was, so I got off scot-free from all the teasing.

Another great moment is when Toby tells Thomas about Percy’s accident, Thomas tells him “Poor Engine... Botheration, that means I’ll be late!” Thomas has a brief moment of concern for Percy, before he realises it might effect his work. As a kid, this didn’t really resonate with me, but when I watched it as an adult I burst out laughing. I’m sure this was an intentional bit of comedy on Awdry’s behalf, but how quickly Thomas shrugs off Percy’s accident so quickly. It gets me every time.

Even after that when Toby hints that Percy has potentially died, Thomas doesn’t connect the dots and comforts Toby that he’ll be okay. Thomas’ best friend is dead and Thomas just shrugs it off, I absolutely love this detail since it’s just too good. If Toby had said to Thomas straight up that Percy had died, I think he would have had a different reaction, but because Thomas is not as smart as he thinks he is, it just really doesn’t register to him the severity of the situation. 

And just the whole premise of the episode, a friend who claims he isn’t scared of ghosts and knows it isn’t real, falls for it in the end because he’s simply just as innocent and impressionable as Percy is, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. Plus, friends do scare friends and get enjoyment out of it because it’s fun! It’s something to laugh about and depending on the person, they might be able to have a laugh too.

Friends riff on each other, they laugh at each other whenever they can. Friends can be nice and know when things are going too far, but most of the time when you are around your friends you all just want to have a good time. You’ll insult each other playfully and you’ll know the other doesn’t really mean it. Friends can have tension and may need time apart, but they will resolve their problems eventually and that’s what’s great about Thomas and a great lesson to take away when writing friendships.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Oddyssey - TV Show Research and Development: Giygas and the Intrigue of having an unexplainable villain

When it came to making a TV Show, I always had an idea for an Earthbound spiritual successor since 2018 and over this last Summer when we were briefed to make three TV Shows. I had to really think about what ideas I wanted to do. However, during my downtime, I suddenly remembered one specific thing about my Earthbound experience...

Giygas

The Embodiment of Evil, the Universal Cosmic Destroyer or the Almighty Idiot according to who you ask, Giygas is the main antagonist of Earthbound and appropriately serves as the game’s final boss before your adventure comes to a close. Granted, him being the very last thing you fight leads to you leaving with that boss fresh on your mind. But, I hadn’t played Earthbound for a few years... And Giygas just suddenly popped into my head. And a lot of the questions were “Why is he like this? This cute and friendly game has a boss that looks like a nightmare?” I was absolutely fascinated by this boss and it led to my second playthrough of the game.

Onett, the start of the Adventure

This is the hometown of our main character, Ness and effectively our window into the world of this game. We see the town he lives in, it’s so bright and colourful with all the town essentials! A burger shop, a town hall, an arcade, hospital, police station and library, it’s familiar to us as our hometowns most likely have similar locations. The vibrant colours of all the buildings is eye-catching and welcoming! 

The music is also worth noting as it’s very peppy and upbeat, it feels like the theme of a small town with a nice community. Most of the music follows this formula.

Most of the towns in the game follow this design and it does feel like you’re exploring more and more of the world, like you’ve ventured further than you have ever gone before and you’re not going to stop because this world is so interesting and welcoming!

Some towns deviate from the formula, but the good people in the towns help to established the same welcoming energy that we’re used to.

Now, let’s take a look at the final map before Giygas’ lair...

The Cave of the Past, the end of the Adventure

Complete contrast to what has been established this entire game. There are absolutely no colours, there are no buildings, no operations of Giygas’ in the background. It’s just a path to the end of the journey and it’s so simple... But, it’s super effective! The lack of colour helps to make it feel otherworldly, makes it feel alien to the world that you’re used to and that’s exactly what Giygas is, he’s not from the world. 

Even our main cast of heroes could not be transported back in time without being transferred into robot bodies, all of their colour is gone too. All except Ness’ hat, showing a small bit of colour almost as if it’s that one bit of hope of beating Giygas.

At the end of games, usually going to the final boss’ lair will be some huge event where you see all of their plans, what they’ve built over time and will be accompanied by some epic score. Earthbound does things differently.

Just give that a listen, it’s a eerie, droning piece that doesn’t sound like a great confrontation theme. It sounds like ambience more than a score to me and I think that makes it scarier, like you are in the positions of the kids who are probably incredibly scared of what they are going to have to face once inside that cave. It’s so incredible and it’s a sample of the Beach Boys song, ‘Deirdre’.

It’s the opening note and I find it amazing how a single sample can do so much! There is another Earthbound track that I will link here which features a sample of the trumpet in the intro of the Beatles song, ‘All you need is Love’ and again, it sets up so much with just a tiny little sample.

This is used just before going to the Cave of the Past, instead being the Cave of the Present. It’s technically just two notes with a reverb, but the sample adds so much and it just feels uncomfortable. However, we don’t need to talk about this for long, let’s go right to Giygas’ lair!

Giygas Lair, the true contrast to Earthbound’s style!

I apologise for the size of the image, but it’s pretty much a straight path but LOOK AT THIS! A trail of organs and entrails twisting and turning through this dark void until you find this uncanny monstrosity of a machine made of the same organic material you were walking on. This. This is what made me come back, it’s such a disturbing idea. 

This is open to interpretation, but the way caves are represented in Earthbound is to only make sprites of the ground and walls. All the stuff you can’t see is black, just like how a cave should be. Giygas’ lair has this same motif, but there doesn’t really appear to be any walls around. So depending on your view, they’re either walking through a tunnel or entrails or walking through the void as previously stated. Personally, I think both are terrifically terrifying but I definitely see the void more.

The organs pulse as you walk up them, the only noise complimenting the atmosphere is the clanking of robo-feet and the breathing of Giygas which is what I feel gives it the whole void feeling. It’s so unnerving that this is the final confrontation, but the fact that it is actually puts us in Ness and his friends shoes.

Getting to the Machine causes everything to stop, the ambience vanishes. Giygas’ intro music plays as the Machine changes to show the robots a picture of Ness’ face. Ness was prophesied to be the one who brings down Giygas and the first thing we see from the Machine is Ness, already suggesting to us that Giygas knows that we’re here...

Pokey, Ness’ childhood friend and eventual enemy over the course of the game, descends in a Spider Mech and just like that the Final Battle is about to begin!

The Final Fight

Of course, the final boss begins with Pokey standing before you with Giygas’ number one thought right now... Ness is here and he’s come to defeat me. This is a pretty standard affair for a boss, only Pokey can be harmed and he is much more a threat in this Spider Mech than he was previously in battle. 

Giygas has a shield that is impervious to any kind of physical or psychic attacks and cannot be destroyed or disabled. He attacks using the special power that only Ness knows ‘PSI Rockin’’. His shield will always reflect your shots back at the character who attacks him and even when they have shield themselves, they will get hit regardless. The Machine is what keeps Giygas stable and alive, making him completely invincible...

However... He has one big idiot on his side...

Pokey can be damaged and the strategy of the fight is to focus on him and avoid any attacks that hit the both of them. Pokey, like the main cast, is a kid and he’s incredibly immature. So as soon as his mech is defeated, he taunts the main gang and turns off the Devil’s Machine... The one thing preventing Giygas’ defeat...

Giygas Released

Once released, Pokey explains that Giygas isn’t even himself anymore. He became so powerful that his body was destroyed and had to be contained into a machine in order to maintain some sort of grasp on his thoughts. Without that machine, the four heroes are taken into a dimension of Giygas’ thoughts and since we play as Ness we hear his thoughts directed towards us the player.

He reaches out with such thoughts as repeating Ness’ (The player’s) name, saying “I feel... Sad.” or “It feels good.” and added upon these thoughts Giygas’ attacks cannot be comprehended by our characters. It really helps to add a sense of hopelessness because we have no idea what is truly going on and we can’t fight what we don’t know. 

An Unconventional Resolution

Attacks don’t work, defending won’t work either, you can’t heal or save yourself. All hopes seem lost until you notice a certain act that Paula can do. Pray.

When Paula prays, she reaches out to the world she left behind and the folks that are waiting for their return get the feeling that something bad is happening. So, they too pray from the bottom of their hearts...

https://youtu.be/cptFVD3eTEs?start=320&end=374

If you watch the small clip above, once he feels the support from the Earth. The sound cue to signify that Giygas has been damaged and that Giygas is not okay.

Onward to his next form.

Now I would like you to take a close look at this image, I’ve asked a few people about this and sometimes they get it without me saying anything and others don’t. So, just take a moment to find an image amongst the Giygas’.

Got it or have you given up? In the realm of Giygas, here in the black void is a pretty damn distinct shape of a baby. And this is what fascinated me about Giygas, there is a theory that this is symbolism for abortion as you go back in time to kill Giygas but that theory has been disproven by Shigesato Itoi, the game’s creator. There’s evidence that goes against this theory anyway, but this fetus imagery always stuck out to me. 

It’s said to be a coincidence that the Super Nintendo generated these sprites and in this pattern. But, it’s such a definite shape of a baby and I find it absolutely mental that it’s just a coincidence. And that curiosity is what brought me back to Earthbound, just this happy go lucky game where you make friends with a little monkey that chews bubblegum, make friends with a man who converts himself into a huge dungeon man and at the very end, you’re faced with this. 

It’s not only impactful imagewise, but storywise it’s just as impactful for the opposite reasons. As Giygas can now be damaged by feeling the love and support coming from the friends Ness has made across the world. Each time Giygas is hit, it gets worse, but the moment he really breaks down is when Ness’ Mother wakes up in the middle of the night and rushes downstairs with Ness’ little sister and their dog. They all feel uneasy and begin to pray for the safety of Ness and his friends.

https://youtu.be/cptFVD3eTEs?start=702&end=738

This is the moment Giygas truly breaks down, feeling the support of a loving Mother looking out for her son is a feeling he had long since buried. It’s about time I talk about the backstory of Giygas, while it’s not touched upon in Earthbound/Mother 2, in Earthbound Beginnings/Mother we see Giygas as an alien and we learn about how he came to be.

Giygas and Trauma

Giygas was an alien that was raised by Maria and George, a couple that was abducted by the other members of Giygas’ race. Maria adopted Giygas and looked after him while George studied their powers without their approval and eventually escaped with this knowledge, never being seen again. Once Giygas grows up, he was instructed to ensure that no human is capable of using PSI powers and not wanting to betray the people who raised him, he forcefully detached himself from Maria to prepare for the invasion.

Maria was sent back to Earth, but with amnesia and once the Eight Melodies are obtained, she regains her memory and explains that it was a song she used to sing to Giygas when he was young. This is very important.

Giygas’ first attempt to take over the world. He comes down, looking upon the gang and the battle begins. Starting the trend of Mother/Earthbound games having a unusual way of defeating the final boss. This time, the group begins to sing the Eight Melodies which brings up emotions in Giygas that he thought he had long since repressed or even got over. Giygas has a complete mental breakdown and recalls his forces, swearing revenge on the planet and that he will return.

In Earthbound, Giygas has worked on himself and made sure that what brought him down before cannot bring him down again. However, he didn’t do enough since the feeling of a loving Mother reaching out to her son in his time of need still hurts him severely and it’s at this point where Giygas can hardly do anything. His sprite starts contorting, the colours shift and the audio turns into a droning whirring noise.

Ness’ Mothers love is one thing, but it’s not enough. Giygas is wounded, but he is still fighting. Paula keeps praying for one more person and with a few more attempts, that person is you. There’s a moment in the game where the fourth wall is broken and asks you to enter your name. It can even be your full name, my name is pretty long and my name fits into it perfectly. It’s emotionally engaging since it includes you and you feel like in a way you are defeating him rather than Giygas being defeated by the world of the game. 

https://youtu.be/cptFVD3eTEs?start=838&end=938

After this Giygas loses control, the whirring increases, his sprite distorts further to the point where he is unrecognisable, the visuals cutting in with static occassionally. Static that appears at the very beginning of the game, suggesting the approach of Giygas and showing pictures of the invasion, and at the end of the game it suggest that he’s retreating, he’s getting out of reach and eventually he is gone.

And after all of that craziness, the robots are outside of Giygas’ lair. Everything is quiet, “The War against Giygas is over.”

What was Shigesato Itoi thinking?

Shigesato Itoi drew inspiration from an event of his childhood, where he had walked into the wrong screen at the theatre. He walked in on a murder scene which as a kid he mistook for a rape scene which had such a potent effect on him. He drew inspiration from it for Giygas’ final battle and some of the things Giygas says. 

In an interview, Itoi claims that there was a scene where a guy grabbed a woman’s breast which distorted it into a ball shape. He said “It all hit me really hard. It was a direct attack on my brain.” despite the fact that this doesn’t actually happen in the movie, which Itoi admits that his memories are a little fuzzy. It’s probably because it all happened so fast and his child brain may have created false memories or just failed to understand it. Itoi also goes onto say, "this sense of terror having atrocity and eroticism side-by-side, and that’s what Giygas's lines at the end are. During the end, he says, “It hurts,” right? That's... her breast. It’s like, how do I put it, a “living-being” sensation." and the purpose of the scene is to get the player’s mind working.

Another interesting part of this interview is when Itoi talks about typical villains and says this, “Well, you know, having a villain there who simply goes, “Wahahaha!” and the like would clearly be bad. But, actually, when I think about it, having villains go, “Wahahaha!” is a really intriguing pattern. But there’s no point in wondering all by yourself for days on end what it means for a bad guy to go, “Wahahaha!” at the climax of a game, you know? I get the feeling that there aren’t many people in the game industry who would do that sort of thing, though.” Which is something important to consider, Earthbound is such a colourful game bursting with personality, so having it end with just a standard final boss affair probably wouldn’t feel satisfying.

What the Earthbound/Mother series taught me about final confrontations?

Giygas’ character and what it taught me that even “Universal Cosmic Destroyers” can have trauma that they are trying to avoid and bury. It humanises them in a way and it can make the final confrontation that more powerful as it’s a problem we can all relate to. They’re not all evil for the sake of being evil, sometimes they don’t have a choice. 

I think this is a good thing to take on board and I have already begun planning on my main antagonist’s motivations on Oddyssey. It might be changed since it’s a sensitive topic for me right now, but these motivations won’t be brought up in Season 1 anyway

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: CHAPPIES - Graphic Novel Research: The Big Lebowski

A suggestion that Mario had made for research was the film, The Big Lebowski. A film which doesn’t entirely revolve around bowling, but has scenes of the guys just hanging out at a bowling alley. Now, that may not sound like much, but it’s really the kind of vibe that I want to go for.

Story

First off, the plot is a perfect example of how far you can take an idea. Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski gets mistaken for a millionaire, leading to his rug getting ruined in the process. And just like that the entire plot begins because The Dude only wants a new rug. He gets swooped up in a caper far beyond anything he’s ever known as a sort of low life bum just scraping by. It builds and builds and builds and that is a core fundamental of my stories for CHAPPIES. 

The Bowling Aspect of The Big Lebowski

The main purpose of the bowling alley in the film is for The Dude to meet up with his friends, Walter and Donny, to talk about the events currently going on in his life. Of course, this isn’t the only place we see the boys hanging out together, but it’s the most common one. We get to see each of their personalities and what kind of friendship they have in the very first bowling scene.

Firstly, the scene begins with The Dude bringing up the fact that somebody ruined his rug by whizzing all over it. Something we can all relate to because when you meet up with friends, chances are you’re going to bring up the most interesting thing that has happened to you since they last met. Talking with a friend yesterday, we ask each other how’s it been and the first thing I thought of was the isolation period, how my family all seemed to be getting along when we were all trapped here and how it almost immediately fell apart once one of us was allowed back out.

The scene begins, before the YouTube clip actually, with Donny landing a strike and heading back to Walter and the Dude commenting on his successful bowl, only to be ignored and awkwardly shrug it off. Giving us the impression that Donny is a little more timid than the other guys, kind of knows he isn’t cool and doesn’t really stand up for himself, a fact reinforced at the climax of the movie. 

He joins mid-conversation and only hears “Yeah man, it really tied the room together”, Donny obviously has no idea what they are talking about and asks about what the Dude’s talking about which the Dude answers because it was a simple question. However, Walter asks whether Donny was listening to his story. Dude mutters to himself, “Walter” as he gets out his bowling ball as in saying “Oh come on don’t do this”, it’s so quiet as a general watcher you might miss it since you’re focused on Donny and Walter’s interaction. But, it sets up Walter being short-tempered before we get the chance to see it for ourselves.

Donny answers with “I was bowling” with Walter immediately firing back with “You have no frame of reference, here Donny. You’re like a child who wanders in-”, with Dude saying his name again in the same tone this time louder than before and when he’s ignored, he chirps up even louder and asks Walter, “What’s the point man?” Setting up that Walter snapping at people is a pretty common occurrence and Dude’s rather chilled and laid back nature clashes with that.

Walter is also the first character to swear in this scene in his next line, “There’s no f***ing reason--”. Typically swearing is used for angry situation when a person wants to drive home the point, so having the short-tempered one being the first to swear is an easy indicator of who the character is. 

As Walter tries to make his point, Donny actually turns around and asks, “Yeah Walter, what’s your point?” Showing us a little level of confidence, probably from Dude sort of being on his side in this argument.

Dude then asks again about Walter’s point and is also the second one out of the bunch to swear, showing us that it takes more to anger him then Walter who was getting upset over nothing. Using the same word as Walter did, we see that he isn’t above him.

Walter gets more aggressive before calming himself and says he’s talking about unchecked aggression before Donny chips in with “What the f*** is he talking about?” With Dude saying this is still about the rug and Walter tells Donny that he’s out of his element, going back to his point of frame of reference. Showing Walter’s more arrogant side and that he doesn’t forget the points he has previously made.

Dude stops Walter once again, telling him that he can’t give the guy who peed on his rug a bill so ”What the f*** are you talking about?” With Walter firing back with “What the f*** are you talking about?” Another pretty natural character interaction because sometimes you’re argue with a friend and you kind of forget or just say something so unrelated to the point all you want to say is “What are you talking about?”

Walter then rants about drawing a line in the sand and how the guy is not the issue here before he interrupts himself with telling Dude that “Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.” Again, I feel like this is a pretty natural interaction to change the topic to correct someone’s argument even if it isn’t integral to the actual point. It also shows a more considerate side to Walter and how he can flip his anger on and off. With Dude making the point that calling him the Chinaman is not the problem, he’s not a guy that deserves respect with Walter immediately jumping back to the “What the f*** are you talking about?!” this time being much more angry and like “I can’t believe we’re still doing this”

I think Donny’s silence for this brief period also shows a lot of his character too, he doesn’t have much to say and doesn’t want to interrupt the Dude’s and Walter’s conversation. He’s paying attention to the conversation, he’s waiting for a chance to possibly interject and he does right after Dude makes it clear that he’s still talking about the dude peeing on his rug! Donny echoes the Dude’s words with “He peed on the Dude’s rug.” Walter once again reaffirms that Donny IS out of his element and the Chinaman is not the issue here. Finally, Dude responds by asking who is to blame...

Walter finally completes his point by bringing up the millionaire, Jeff Lebowski. Sometimes in arguments I feel we can get so caught up in our points that we don’t let the other person finish and this scene really captures that well. Dude is then the first one to casually swear in a laidback sort of way by claiming “That’s f***ing interesting.” Which feels pretty in character and is pretty realistic because not all people swear only when they’re angry.

Walter brings up his wealth, his resources and goes back to his point that “There is no reason, there is no F***ING reason, why his wife should go out and owe money all over town, and then they come and they pee on your f***ing rug! Am I wrong?” And now we see the argument Walter was truly trying to make, sometimes it takes a little more thought before we can articulate our point enough so that people can understand it. And in a way, the swearing here to drive home the point definitely feels earned.

The use of Walter’s rhetorical questions such as “Am I wrong?” make him seem so much more knowledgeable and confident in his argument. Again, pretty natural reaction for someone who is as heated as he is to do once they realise they’ve made a good argument, challenging them to try and argue with him now. Finishing off his argument with “That rug really tied the room together, did it not?” Once more, using that reincorporation of the first line in the scene as the finishing point of the argument. Using what Dude had said against him... Beautiful.

Donny once more interjects, “And this guy peed on it.” Thinking that he’s helping drive home the point which was pretty much made clear by Walter. In contrast to before and having got his points out of his system, Walter simply says “Donny. Please.” Just a simple, ‘He gets it man’ rather than ‘YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT’, showing that Walter can be calm once he has been heard.

Dude talks about finding this Lebowski guy and making him pay for his peed on rug, with Donny chiming in once more with “His name is Lebowski? That’s your name, Dude!” Showing us that Donny isn’t as aware as Walter is since he didn’t know that before they were talking about a different person, it’s also a rather dumb moment on Donny’s behalf which I think we can all relate to.

The scene comes to an end with Dude deciding on getting compensation from Jeff Lebowski, since his wife galivants around town and owes everyone money and “they pee on my rug?” Again we get some nice repetition from Walter who asks, “They peed on your f***ing rug?” Making it more of a passionate statement which causes Dude to repeat after him, “They peed on my f***ing rug...” 

It’s just a real nice character interaction on the whole that makes you realise what these guys are all about. Dude is the relaxed one who just knows how to get by, Walter is the aggressive one who knows what he’s talking about and Donny is a bit of the outsider who mainly takes a backseat when Dude and Walter are out meaning business. You know their dynamic immediately.

Another nice thing about the scene is that it’s an argument between friends, you can tell they are a bunch of guys that can get on each other’s nerves and test their patience. You try and try to talk over your opponent sometimes and when they start making sense, you sit down and listen and acknowledge that they’re right. Friends argue, but it brings them together in an odd kind of way.

Searching around the internet for various clips, I found out that several people had believed this scene and several others in the film to have some sort of improvisation, however this is all scripted dialogue. It feels so natural and the actors just had to act it out which of course only enhanced the great writing. The film was a wonderful combination of good writing and good performances.

Jesus Quintana: The Bowling Rival

Watching the film I didn’t expect this kind of character to appear, since the Bowling Alley was more of a side aspect to the story for the Dude to recoup with his boys and talk about recent events. A cocky, confident and flamboyant rival to our main trio was something I was thinking of going for in Chappies.

Jesus Quintana appears in a scene which we see him prepare himself before going for a bowl, doing such things like licking the ball which gives the audience the impression that he is intimately involved with the sport of bowling and that he takes this hobby very seriously. We see him land a strike, immediately turning around to look at the viewer and dance almost as if he is taunting the audience. Putting us in a position to dislike this character.

We then get reaction shots of all our main guys, the Dude nods like “Yeah, not bad.” 

Donny just happens to look back as we pass him with Jesus giving him a kiss gesture causing Donny to look rather confused. 

Walter stares at him, unflinching and just staring. Dude admits that he’s a creep, but “he can roll, man.” giving him a little bit of credibility before Walter immediately tears it away by claiming he’s a pervert. We get to see what this character does to our main characters and in Walter’s case, we can tell that he despises him.

When Jesus comes around taunting the guys, Walter shuts up and gives him the same stern expression as before. Again, we get to see a quiet side to Walter’s anger. He doesn’t exchange with Jesus in anyway in this scene suggesting that he doesn’t want to give Jesus a reaction since that’s what he wants. Something interesting Mario discussed was having a character who doesn’t say much, ironically says so much and in an odd way, this interaction is a pretty good example of that. 

We also get Dude’s laidback attitude when being confronted by Jesus’ shtick, he doesn’t get mad or feels the need to defend himself. But, his counter argument being “That’s just your opinion man.” suggests to me that he’s not particularly good at arguing and isn’t quick on his feet to think of a rebuttal. And this is pretty much all Jesus does in the whole film.

I thought he was going to play into the plot somehow, but he doesn’t. He’s just an aspect of the gang’s bowling life and we get to experience it just how our characters do. And I think that’s kind of perfect, since this is Dude’s downtime it makes sense. All of the things going on in Dude’s life right now are out of his place of relaxation, all the craziness he’s wrapped up in doesn’t matter now. It’s just the conflict between two competing bowling teams.

Reflection

In conclusion, I really didn’t expect to gain much from The Big Lebowski in relating to bowling and I feel like I’ve got plenty from such small scenes in the grander story. Just how the guys interact to having their own cocky rival, it’s what I planned on having and was extremely useful to watch.

Plus it’s a really good and entertaining film so that’s always a plus.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Chappies Graphic Novel Project - Reflection #1

After a conversation with Mario, we discussed my rough draft and synopsis of the Chappies project. Mario suggested that I should check out “The Big Lebowski”, which is a film that features a group of guys that go bowling. A post will come about it shortly.

We also talked about what has inspired me and where I’ve looked for my visual design and how I should take that into consideration with how that may effect my visuals.

And lastly, I need to really refine my script, see what character interactions I can get out there and how the pacing will be. Because it needs to be rather snappy and less of a slog to get through, we’ve got to keep the audience entertained and so they keep on reading. I think it’s got a good pace so far, but I need to see how this plays out once I have all of the scenes done or at least most of the scenes.

This feedback has given me an idea on what to do next and what to consider when I’m doing these things.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: TV Show - Cognitivation: Main Characters and Roles in the Story

Alex, the PSI Prodigy

Alex is a young and adventurous boy in his small hometown, a self proclaimed protector, he roams the town with his trusty stick and keeps all evil do-er’s in order! He loves his home, his family and his friends. But, is suddenly forced to put on his big boy shorts and face the world outside of his hometown. The world is a big and scary place, Alex will be tested and his own emotions will come into question as he wonders. Why me? Why am I the ‘PSI Prodigy’.

Alex was the first character designed and is the heart of the whole series. His journey will be one full of self-discovery and self-doubt, I want to capture the pressure of expectations of children and how they can effect kids. The whole prodigy thing may be toned down, since I'm not the biggest fan of prophecy stories. I'm undecided, but right now, I think this will give him the added depth he needs and could be relatable to kids that may have the pressures of expectations, I know I certainly did.

Alex's name was originally Andy because he was actually inspired by a character called Alex, that Alex being from the Indie JRPG game known as YIIK (Y Two K, not Yiik). A game that suffers from several problems such as severe tonal shifts, terrible endings that make the entire game redundant and a character who is insufferable that doesn’t learn to change his ways and is rewarded at the end of the game. Alex is simply an awful character from an awful game and I was going to call my lead Andy, but that name wasn’t really vibing with me. So, I kept Alex since it was more gender neutral too, so boys and girls can reflect their own feelings onto him. It may still be subject to change, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Of course, as our lead character, I gave him a pinkish red and a gold colour combination. The red not being a strong red since red is a very strong colour and I didn’t think that level of passion would be embodied into Alex so soon. So, he’s simply a pinky red. The gold elements are there to reassure his good boy status, with the badges on his bag being a reference to the badges on Hambone’s hat from my first year film. Just a little Easter Egg that puts a smile on my face, like how Pixar or Disney may just throw something in there as a nod.

I chose the shorts as I’ve not drawn a lot of characters that wear shorts and a young kid that likes to run around would probably want the best clothing for the job. So, shorts it was. The cap too was to give him a unique silhouette compared to the rest as he’s the only one with the hat and very rarely will we see him without it. He also carries a gold coloured backpack that he keeps all of his helpful items inside.

Alex’s primary attacks are the most potent PSI abilities that Frank has ever seen and he teaches him how to activate them. Alex’s PSI abilities are both helpful for the team’s defence and offence. While physically, he wields a powerful stick that his Dad found and gave to him to use on his adventures.

For a main character, Alex gets the job done and I’m looking forward to where his character will go over the course of a season and over the course of this project.

Frank, the Frantic Freak

An aimless twenty something year old still living at his parent’s house, Frank is unemployed, never goes outside nor does many people know of his existence and since he doesn’t bother anyone, his parents just kind of let him exist. A member of the Orb.Net forum, he honed his PSI abilities purely from nonstop training with spoons. Bending them with his mind because he saw it in a movie once. Frank knows of the oncoming threat and for the first time in forever, leaves his room to embark on this epic quest with Alex. To save his world, a world he doesn’t even truly know.

Frank was always meant to be an outcast, original concepts were of him to be occupying a house where the kids would prank his house and get him to come out and shout at them. Until he finally catches Alex one day and recognises his psychic powers, taking him inside and telling him everything he knows about the oncoming invasion. Alex would then understand that, even though he’s a crackpot, he means well and is just misunderstood. While I loved this concept, I wanted to make Frank just a little stranger, so I went with the unemployed aimless twenty something who just practises psychic abilities in the comfort of his room.

Design-wise, Hector came first and then Frank was modelled after him. Since the brotherly resemblance was an important part of their design, it was important to nail what a younger brother of a family would look like first. And once I had the traits off of Hector, I used and tweaked a few things to make Frank older and also give him a few new design quirks. The main ‘quirk’ being his hairstyle as hair is always important to my character designs. I took Hector’s hair and instead of having the hair be styled up into a point, it was like an explosion. Symbolising his psychic powers being more volatile and dangerous with his hair all messy where his powers come from.  

His facial expressions were important to show that he was a bit nutty, Ghiaccio from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure served as inspiration for that. Just the way his face angrily distorts just gives him a different feel compared to the regular characters.

His outfit was just simple loungewear because since he doesn’t care about who sees him, he’s not going to dress up too nicely and definitely not going to wear clothes that are restrictive and make him uncomfortable like jeans. Compared to the rest of the colourful cast and even his brother, Frank’s colours are incredibly limited and a way to counteract this a little was to give him mismatching socks. Just a little asymmetry to make him stand out more.

Frank’s weapon of choice is spoons, not really as an attack, but a way of calculating how powerful his PSI attack is going to be. He also bends them regularly and spent most of his savings on spoons so he can always stay on top of his psychic abilities.

Frank was a part of the original four, he’s an idea I’ve liked for a long time and is now a character that I will really enjoy working on and writing for.

Hector, the Apathetic Assistant.

Hector is just a kid that’s kind of done with it, just everything that’s going on in the world. What he thought would be a regular friendship, unfortunately turns into a big adventure and he’d just rather have the life of a kid. But, it’s too late for that now as Alex needs him by his side. Hector knows too much and if he’s only going to see his friend if he comes on this epic quest, then so be it. Hector doesn’t have many friends, but those he does have understand his extreme loyalty.

Hector was created as a contrast to his crazy brother, being much more relaxed and apathetic to this whole world ending thing. In the initial concepts, there were going to be four main characters much like Earthbound has, but I decided to increase it when I thought about Alex’s and Frank’s roles and how it might be a little strange if some stranger suddenly shows interest in this young boy. So, I figured a good catalyst would be a little brother to the crazy stranger! Alex has someone to be friend with and gets the plot started too.

I also thought it was quite amusing that it was the little kid that was the cynic and the big brother has much more enthusiasm about the world. Like the strangeness of his brother has no effect on him to the point where Hector is like, “Oh god here we go again.”

Hector and Frank have near identical colour schemes, their primary colours being green and greenish hues. It was all in contrast to Alex’s bright red, white and gold elements that make him look like an adventurous youth. Hector has dirty blonde hair and pale skin, sort of to hint at the fact that he and his brother are a little odd.

His hairstyle was created to be similar to Frank’s, but being styled and maintained because Hector does care about his appearance since he is the one who will be seen by others. It was made to contrast against Frank’s hair explosion, with Hector spiking up his hair to meet all at one point. I also like to think Frank also had hair like this at one point.

Hector and Frank also have weird shapes ears compared to what I usually do because some people do have weird shaped ears or other body parts and it will never be brought up in the show that they look weird. It’s purely visual to normalise these little oddities, that people shouldn’t judge someone for the most trivial things.

Hector’s weapon of choice is his backpack full of spoons, I chose this as I was drawing his pose and thinking about the relationship between him and Frank. Frank’s obsession with spoons to keep his PSI abilities in check requires a lot of spoons and I just had this sudden image of Hector with this great big bag full of spoons on his back. Hunched over a little as he looks annoyed like “I’ve got to carry this around all day...” And since it’s such a heavy bag, I imagined him using it as a weapon whenever in combat because Hector doesn’t have any powers and Frank only taught himself PSI. However, the less spoons he has, the weaker it becomes, effectively making Hector weaponless at certain points.

Hector is a great character in my opinion who I feel turned out really well as he was everything I wanted him to be. He filled a gap in the story nicely and I got a nice character out of it. An absolute win in my book.

Benjamin [Benji], the Anti-Social Armourer

A renowned child genius, famous in the orphanage for his Tools of Destruction. The other kids never interact with him if he doesn’t want you to, having a strange attachment to his box. Hiding under it when he feels threatened or if he just wants you to go away. His only friend is aware of his skills and is a member on the same forums as Frank... Which sets a mission to get him adopted into motion...

Benji was created as representation of shy kids and how hard it can really be to come out of your shell and make friends. Wanting to stay in somewhere that makes you feel safe and secure. Also, as a representation of kids that others may consider weird and outcasts, so we could get a closer look at him and show kids not to judge a book by it’s cover, maybe even give a kid they consider weird in their own life a chance of friendship.

Benji does have one major source of inspiration and may just have to go a few more designs before I’m truly happy with this design. Near from the manga, Death Note. Near was the replacement of the main sort of rival character, L, and is a child genius himself that displays some cases of social awkwardness. While Benji does have a lot of these similarities, the main aspect of Near that attracted me was that whenever he had a scene, he’d often have toys surrounding him and he’d play with them while deducing the whole mystery of the series. I feel one of the reasons that this aspect is my favourite thing about him is because I’m still quite fond of toys and sometimes fiddle about with them.

A specific scene (I can’t find a better screenshot I am sorry) where Near was surrounded by model train tracks with the trains going around him resonated with me, I saw him placed in a safe space where he’s protected by his toys and that imagery immediately gave me an idea of a boy that hides to be protected, but uses his toys to fight rather than help him think.

His weapon being model cars and toy trains with motors in them, creating ticking time bombs, I felt was a nice way of weaponizing Benji for the conflicts they will run into. Carrying a toolbox within his box, never getting to see his operations, only the results of when he converts a plane into a homing missile.

Benji needs a little more work, in my opinion, but so far, I am happy with this character.

Lottie Sweet, the Tough Nut.

The younger sister of Dentist Gloria Sweet, Lottie is a no-nonsense thirteen year old and always has a serious pouty face as she’s out and about. Using a Skipping Rope as a weapon, she has mastered the art and uses it to keep people away from her at a distance. While she remains unfriendly, deep down she has a good heart and a strong sense of justice.

Lottie came to be as a younger sister for Gloria Sweet, she was created to add a little bit of conflict between the main crew. With her not having very high opinions of any of them and then she has to work with them, causing her to try and take the lead. However, things don’t go as she planned with Gloria and Frank often getting her out of trouble.

Since Frank and Hector turned out so nicely, I thought to make the group an even six by giving Gloria a sister. While Frank and Hector were purposely designed to have very similar colour schemes to hint at the fact that they are brothers. The only shared colours between the sisters is the skin tone and hair colour. I chose the orange and purple for Lottie because I felt it was striking and that matched her personality, plus nobody else had those colours on them.

The Skipping Rope as a weapon came to me because I imagined a girl using her imagination to see one as a whip and just like that, it stuck. One of the charming things about Earthbound was that characters had specific weapons, Ness had baseball bats, Lucas had sticks, Jeff had guns and Paula had... A frying pan. Not stereotypical at all... With Lottie not being that kind of girl, I felt a more sporty weapon could work and the Skipping Rope was appropriate as both a sporty weapon and a girly weapon, depending on how you look at it.

I have also never designed a younger girl character, so this was a nice exercise to do. As well as just a nice design, I really enjoy drawing her pout and her wider eyes. Usually I go with the round eyes, so it’s nice to change up the eye shape. Her hair was definitely fun, as it’s usually my favourite part to design on a character, I remember the girls in my school tying their hair back whenever they did activities. Obviously, it’s so their hair doesn’t swish around in their face while they do things and I added the little hair strands on the front of her head to sort of hint to how intense her movements may have been. Since two strands have come loose.

I wanted to create a sporty girl and I feel like I did. Lottie was a successful design that I am really proud of.

Dentist Gloria Sweet, the Healer.

Gloria is a sweet and passionate dentist, that understands not everyone likes her line of work. So, she takes their feelings into consideration and tries to make everyone’s experience comfortable. Born with these PSI abilities, she was just able to do them rather than training to enhance them.

Gloria was one of the characters first characters I thought up back when I had created this series. Inspired by Earthbound, my initial group was made up of four people with three people being PSI users with Gloria filling the healer role that the Earthbound series typically has, the one character that learns the healing moves. Although, more characters have an array of offensive moves to go along with their healing abilities, Gloria was created much more as a support ally rather than an offensive fighter.

Gloria’s PSI abilities had to play a role in her field of work and the first job that jumped to mind was a doctor. A doctor that healed their patients using their PSI abilities, that then evolved into a dentist as a lot of people don’t like the dentist and are scared of going to them. Luckily, the mad dentist I had was long gone at the time and my dentist helped to inspire this idea, since she’s nice and it’s always an easy time for me (Though that’s probably because I care about my dental hygiene.)

Since people viewed it as an unpleasant experience, I thought it’d be nice if she was a really sweet character that makes her business by ensuring her customers shall be fine if they have anything done to their teeth. This also played into her design, I didn’t want to give her blue eyes like Lottie and I didn’t think brown eyes looked all that great. Then, I tried red.

Again, it was a play on the whole scary dentist cliché. People find her incredibly unsettling as she’s staring at their teeth with those red eyes, but are quite comfortable with her personality and painless operations. I really liked how this turned out and I just love how it contrasts with how she is as a person. Very happy with how Gloria turned out from an initial concept.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: TV Shows Research - Dreamcatching - Dream Log #1

Since it’s related to my whole project on dreams, I think it might be a little useful to at least log some of the dreams I have before I finally decide on either this project or Cognitivation. A few days ago I had a rather bizarre dream, for the first time in a while, and it was a dream that felt like a few days, so when I woke up I was like “Whoa... What does that mean?” So, I thought it’d be interesting to document it. Now, don’t laugh at the title, in the dreams this was actually really spooky.

The Haunted Thomas VHS

For my research for several projects and just general nostalgia, I have recently been watching a lot of Thomas content. Mostly relating to the classic episodes as they are what I grew up with and have the most attachment to, specifically the VHS episodes which typically had episodes from both the 80′s and 90′s. 

In the dream, I was doing something. I’m not entirely sure, but I went through the VHS’ I have and the one I ultimately ended up going with was a compilation of the haunted/spooky episodes of the classic series, which is an actual VHS they released. I think I put it on as background noise and usually you can work along to background noise, but if it’s suddenly different, you may take a moment to notice it. Which is what happened to me, no narration, no music, no engine sound effects. However, there was some ambience that was very un-Thomas-like.

The character, Donald, was stood in the middle of a misty void with a few trees in the background. He had his worried facemask on and was looking around in silence. The video then distorts his face, creating a jumpscare that did get me, and it cuts to black. Then, I’m sat there in the dark thinking, “What was that?” 

Another video starts of this weird machine that I may have to draw because I can’t really describe it. But, it suddenly activates with a metallic sounding roar as it slowly opens a segment of it. Opening and closing it several times, roaring the whole time. The camera then cuts to Percy, wearing his sad face, looking up at the machine sadly. With the camera cutting back to the machine, but this time at an angle that shows Donald behind the machine.

That is the most I remember about the dream, there was a part afterward where my friend “Nathan” kicked a ball directly in some guy’s face, but that’s all I remember after the Thomas thing and that I tried explaining it to people and they didn’t believe me.

When I was describing this dream to my sister after I had it, I used a screenshot from the episode, “Haunted Henry”, to describe what I saw. However, as I was scrolling through the images I found this image.

And oddly enough, this episode also features Donald. Granted, he doesn’t corner Percy with some big scary machine in a misty abyss, but I find this very odd. As this isn’t an episode I revisit, nor one that I consider really nostalgic. The episode is about gnomes or something and I honestly have no idea if this is linked to my dream or what. But, I found this quite interesting and that it was interesting enough to write about.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Power Play - Graphic Novel Idea #2 - Research: Bionicle and Worldbuilding

“You are the only one that’s travelling into this place, so you have to actually mentally be willing in there for a long time... You have to have some really good ground rules and then you have to have this creative soul to wonder what’s going to happen around the next corner? What if he does this? What if this tower is there? You aren’t sitting there in a tower writing a report, thinking about it in a 2D way, you are standing in the middle like a live reporter. I’m not the actual character, but I’m sort of like patrolling behind.”

“Maybe I find some small details that are not important to the big story, but it gives so much texture to the whole universe if you have this feeling of actually being there and what do you eat? All those small details you need they can become so important for the fact this feels real.“

“This willingness to be in what you’ve created and to prove to people that it is a cool place to be, you can only improve it yourself and when people come in they need to see the same opportunities and revelations...“ Christian Faber on his creative process.

This was Christian Faber’s approach to worldbuilding in the BIONICLE toyline by LEGO. Bionicle was created to save the buildable action figure line that LEGO made several attempts at in the past with Throwbots and Roboriders which both had a year each until they were cancelled and they tried again to make something successful. They lasted a single year while Bionicle was planned to last three... And ended up with ten.

The Draw of Bionicle and the Mysterious Marketing

While I wasn’t around to experience these specific promos when BIONICLE was released in 2001, I had found them through the BIONICLE website and discovered this whole world after my Dad had bought me one of the toys.

The advertisements and media created all emphasised a greater sense of scale to these worlds when compared to other action themes and even LEGO’s previous lines. What’s so effective in this advertisement is the fact that they don’t use music when talking about the main characters and instead go for narration to describe who they are and what they’re all about in only a few words.

On the island of Mata Nui, six Mighty Heroes rise against evil.

Immediately we know that these are our protagonists and they are fighters of evil, but what the evil is, the ad doesn’t say. Causing mystery and the curiosity in children to start taking effect.

To succeed they must find the Masks of Power.

A goal to attain before they are truly ready to face the evil, giving kids a reason or a goal too when they will be playing with the toys.

Join their quest against evil.

Join is the important word here, basically inviting the children to come along and experience what these epic heroes have to offer.

The environments in these advertisements seem so bleak and barren, so empty that it makes our heroes stand out more. Kids might ask who are they, why are they there, what is this evil that they are fighting? Hence, once they see the word, BIONICLE at the end of the ad, they will know how to start looking to find out more.

Here are the elders stood on top of a BIONICLE head piece, made to look like an ancient sculpture that is slowly being taken over by nature. Again, firing up the imaginations, why are they up there, if they haven’t seen the Turaga before they might think “new characters!”

This image is great because it’s pure visual storytelling, Onua the Toa of Earth is popping up to the surface from tunnelling underground and meeting Pohatu, Toa of Stone, in his native region of Po-Wahi.

You can see the motion in Onua’s claw with dirt fragments scattering around, signalling that he’s just appeared and Pohatu’s stature with his bent knees and his one hand forward almost like a point makes him seem surprised at this other individual’s sudden appearance.

Lewa’s posture here is hunched over, keeping his axe handy and hand out, ready to catch any potential threats coming his way. All great artworks to inspire the imagination of young children and give the viewer a sense of personality of these characters.

These open ended advertisements left enough room for an actual story to be put into place while still giving children the chance to make up their own stories and make what they can of this world.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Summer Brief: Dreamcatching TV Pitch 2 Research: The Memories in Inside Out

Now, here is research for a film that I haven’t seen, but I’ve heard and seen enough to know about the memories and how wonderful of an idea I think that is.

Going hand-in-hand with my last post about Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids and making The Dreamcatcher an archivist. The memories in Inside Out is literally portrayed as an archive, with shelves upon shelves of orbs with many different memories and emotions associated to them.

Something me and Bee has talked about is associating people’s personality with colour in conversations about spirituality, but of course it is a big part of character design and with Inside Out we basically see it at it’s most basic, not that that’s a bad thing.

From left to right, green as disgust. Jealousy has always been associated with green, the phrase green with envy comes to mind.

Purple is one that I wouldn’t normally expect at a glance, but often purple is in the palettes of villains and bad guys. Characters you’re most likely expected to be feared, so in that sense it makes sense I’d say.

Joy as yellow because it’s a bright colours and brighter vibrant colours tend to look more lively and optimistic.

Sadness as blue because it’s quite a calm and cold colour, to go along with a feeling that makes you a lot more quiet and distant from others.

And lastly, anger as red because it’s a very strong colour and some of the strongest emotions have been tied to red such as love, lust and anger.

The Memories in Inside Out and how they are represented.

Memories are represented in these colour co-ordinated orbs that has the memories inside. The colour of the orb represents whether the memory is a happy one, a scary one, a sad one, an angry one or a disgusting one. There are core memories which define a person the most or are the most treasured. Though many shelves exist with memories from the main character’s past, showing how many things can happen in one’s lifetime.

As my Dreamcatcher character is a sort of archivist, I really liked the idea of the dreams being a part of these orbs and maybe he could crack them open and scatter the essence in a fire or a lake or a portal to the Dreamscape where he takes you to watch the dream. Or maybe there’s a slot in the ground or in some kind of machine that opens the dream up and allows him to watch them.

^ The emotions watching over an old memory.

The colours of the orbs can connote the potential themes of the episode, red might mean a particularly heavy subject as the episode theme and the Dreamcatcher could react in a way like “Oh-ho-ho, this will be a doozy” or something like that. Or if they get a blue orb and it’s a sad dream, he could wipe a tear away and be like “Oh dear, this one always gets to me.” Just little titbits to give him that little dash of character. 

Or it hints at the personality of the person who had the dream, like if a violent person was the main character, they’d have a red or purple orb and the Dreamcatcher could be like “Now, this was a real nasty piece of work. With fantasies like this I wonder where he is now.” Or if they have a yellow or bright coloured orb, he could be like “This person is a little ball of energy, perhaps one of the more fun ones I’ve seen in a while.” Again, I wanna give the Dreamcatcher all the character he can have while he’s on screen.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Cognitivation - TV Pitch #1: Research - Thomas the Tank Engine and writing for children.

"You got to remember who you’re writing for. You’re not really merely writing for children, you’re writing for the unfortunate people, who've got to read the stories over and over, and over again".

Ever since I’ve heard that quote, it’s always stuck in my mind. Children are not dumb and children can handle content that does not talk down to them. That very reason was why I remained a fan of the classic Thomas the Tank Engine episodes even when I was past the target audience.

The world felt real, the visuals certainly helped to draw me in, but as I got older I learned to appreciate the tales told much more. It wasn’t a nicey nice world, characters were assholes and they were all assholes to each other. Of course, there are nice characters in these stories, but most of the stories is focused on either one or two characters with one of them making an ass of themselves. And that’s exactly what made these stories so good!

Thomas

Thomas starts the whole series as a dick, he’s inexperienced and cheeky. In the first episode, he wakes up Gordon and is a constant nuisance. He brings up some of James’ accidents simply just to annoy him and he even calls Henry fat for having troubles with his build. Thomas isn’t completely rude, he’s only rude to them because they are rude to him. Most of them looked down upon him when he was the only tank engine on the railway. It was only when Edward showed him basic kindness that we see the nicer side of Thomas and that he isn’t just rude and inconsiderate.

Which is accurate to how people are, if someone is unpleasant to you, and especially as a kid, you aren’t exactly going to treat them kindly or want to keep interacting with those people. And again, we see Thomas’ kinder side when he first meets Percy and they have to team up to teach the Big Engines a lesson.

On James’ first day, he suffers a crash and Thomas immediately goes to help an engine that he’s known for only a short time. He’s kind to James when his arc comes around, but he’s not entirely above being cheeky as he brings up one of James’ accidents which immediately sours James’ mood. He never makes fun of his first day because James wasn’t in control and I think that says a lot about Thomas’ character.

Terence the Tractor wasn’t even rude to Thomas, in fact, Thomas actually initiated the rudeness by calling Terence’s wheels ugly. Which Terence responds, “I can go anywhere, I don’t need rails.” Giving Thomas the same rudeness, again, this is relatable because Thomas isn’t really a role model, in that very episode he’s extremely immature and bad which lands him in a whole lot of trouble! Thomas gets punished for his bad behaviour and that’s a good lesson to take away.

Once more, the first time Toby arrives onto the island, he scares a Policeman who was rude to Thomas, so immediately Thomas is accepting of Toby as a friend. He’s a flawed character with a streak of kindness to those who deserve it and that’s what made him a compelling protagonist in Series 1.

Of course, he lightens up over the series and goes through somewhat of a growing up arc. Where he’s selfish in Season 1, in Season 5 he tells James that if he, for once, thought of somebody but himself he’d probably be a much happier engine. 

James

The only splendid red engine on Sodor could definitely give you an ego and that is what James’ biggest flaw may just be. He has a superiority complex and prefers to hang around the Big Engines, Gordon and Henry.

We’re going to look into James’ character in his three/four episode arc as Thomas is rewarded with a branchline and isn’t around the other characters for a few episodes. James is our replacement main character and here we get to see what really makes up James’ character.

James’ very first day on Sodor did not go well, he came off the rails and Thomas had to come to his aid. When James was fixed up and returned to Sodor, he realised he had a lot to learn and is immediately put to the test. This is never explicitly stated, but I feel like such an accident on James’ first day probably really affected his confidence and so he became extremely anxious about messing up in case the Fat Controller would send him away. More on this at the end of James’ segment.

In an attempt to teach James how to handle coaches, he doubleheaders a train with Edward and confidently lets off steam at the station which ends up ruining the Fat Controller’s new top hat. The moment he realises this, he pressures Edward to hurry up so he can get away from this situation and avoid his problem. And he does so without the Fat Controller stopping to tell him off.

Already anxious from making one mistake, James makes another when they arrive at the next station and they both overshoot the platform. Even making this mistake is at the back of his mind because he’s so worried on what the Fat Controller is going to say. The rest of the journey goes well, but when he returns to the shed, he indeed gets what was coming to him. The Fat Controller tells him off and threatens to paint him blue, which James really is not a fan of.

Scrapping his positive mindset, he bangs the coaches into place and ,unlike before, none of the passengers came near him to admire his paintwork. He mumbles about how Gordon doesn’t have to shunt his coaches and he angrily gets to work. He pulls the coaches way too fast and rough for comfort which results in a leak in the brakepipes of the coaches.

Embarrassed about having another accident, James continues with his work and in the next episode, it’s stated that he was left in the shed for a few days for being naughty. The Fat Controller comes to him after sometime and tells James that he has caused several problems for the railway, which James apologises for and as a result, is allowed to come out and pull a goods train. James desperate to come out, accepts it in a heartbeat and is ready to work!

Thomas shunts the train together with James smiling all the while until Thomas brings up the bootlace incident, immediately ruining James mood and he bangs back down onto the trucks angrily. The trucks claim they want a proper engine and not a red monster, to which James simply ignores and gets on with his work. The trucks try their hardest to make him give up, slipping on their breaks and bringing the train to a halt. But, James was determined not to let the trucks beat him.

James carries on until they reach Gordon’s Hill where they struggle to try and pull the heavy trucks up the steep hill. James tells himself the whole time that he can do it, but halfway up the hill a coupling comes loose and the tailend of the train rolls down the hill. Edward comes to the rescue and offers his help to James, which he refuses and continues on alone much to Edward’s support.

James pulls the trucks up the hill and arrives at the station happily, proud of his efforts. However, James is immediately worried when he sees the Fat Controller approaching, thinking he will bring up the accident on the hill. But, no! The Fat Controller was smiling, praising James for his work and how he deserves to keep his red coat.

This last scene is really interesting as James assuming the worst makes me think that there is some insecurity about his character. He wants to make an impression, he’s the only red engine on the railway and stands out the most with his splendid red coat. He wants to show there is more to him than they might have heard and when the other engines bring up his accidents, he gets defensive and would rather forget the weaker aspects of his personality.

Though, the insecurity thing isn’t stated, if I’m able to look at James’ character and get this from it, I think this just goes to show how powerful children’s media can be and how kids may look at this character and feel the struggles he had gone through. Of course, James isn’t without redemption, he like Thomas has a streak of rudeness within him.

When Gordon jams the turntable and has to pull his trains backwards, James laughs at him and after Gordon warns him about turntables remarks that “I’m not as fat as you.” James is then revealed to be too light for the turntable and the wind easily spins him around.

He is unsympathetic towards Henry, claiming that he doesn’t work hard enough and not taking the time to understand his conditions.

When Gordon declares a strike, James joins both Gordon and Henry. Probably doing so as he believed it earned him a place with the Big Engines in the shed. And despite Edward being extremely kind and a mentor figure to James, he sides with Gordon and mocks Edward for wanting to shunt and do the work that the railway requires to function. This is probably where James became the most comfortable as he was among the Big Engines now. He wants to be at the top of the social hierarchy and being with Gordon assures him that he’s at the top of the top.

Toby is a tram engine and is very old fashioned, however the Fat Controller really took a shine to Toby and allowed him to live on his railway. James, however, was extremely rude to him due to him being old fashioned and unlike the rest of the modern (at the time) steam engines around him. Although, Toby didn’t put up with James’ nonsense and knew that bringing up bootlaces was enough to not only annoy James, but shut him up completely. Especially coming from an out of date tram engine.

Once James was fully settled into the island, I feel he became much more comfortable with himself and judgemental to those who didn’t work or try as hard as he did. Showing a gradual change of his character not only makes him more fleshed out, but believable because people do change. We’ve seen both James at his best and James at his worst and I think that’s something we shouldn’t shy away from.

Henry

Henry is one of my favourite examples of the complexities of these characters. He can be paired up with any of the other engines and work well together. He’s shown to be kind, helpful, but has an arrogant streak inside him and also has numerous technical flaws that prevented him from performing optimally at his jobs.

In contrast to James, Henry’s introductory stories actually have him at fault and we are immediately shown his arrogance as he stays inside of the tunnel to avoid the rain, refusing to move since the rain would spoil his lovely green coat. 

After several attempts to get Henry to move, the Fat Controller declared that they shall take away his rails and that he shall remain here forever. He then proceeds to brick up the end on the tunnel which Henry was in and Henry was left there. A bit overkill, don’t you think? I mean I’m sure certain trains had to be re-routed or some just straight up cancelled because of some rude engine blocking the line.

Gordon and Edward would both go past Henry in the tunnel, with Edward always whistling hello while Gordon made fun of Henry’s foolishness. One day, however, Gordon was planning to make fun of Henry once more, but a broken safety valve leaves the train stranded and when Edward comes to move the train, he is too weak to do it alone. Gordon suggests for Henry to try and the Fat Controller agrees. Henry was no longer worried about the rain, he was simply happy to get back to work! However, Henry would soon have problems regarding his health and his work would struggle because of it. 

It’s also worth mentioning that the strike by Gordon which Henry took a part of happened between the events of the previously discussed episode and the episode I’m discussing after this. In which Henry was arrogant due to Gordon’s influence and was equally disrespectful to Edward for just doing his job.

Anyway, after the strike and Henry was able to work again, Henry struggled to do his work. Leaving him to thought of as weak and discarded by the others, specifically James who was especially harsh to him. Most likely due to James having to do Henry’s work as well as his own. Even Thomas is unsympathetic as Henry arrives late due to his own faults, shrugging it off and calling him “fat”. Not even giving Henry an apology. 

Fun Fact: Henry’s problems was based upon the Reverend’s own Henry model that was a troublesome runner that never did run all that well. 

As opposed to Thomas, who reacts by being rude to those who are rude to him, or James, who gets angry at the mention of his bootlace incident, Henry reacts sadly to his faults as it’s something he genuinely can’t control. James tried to make fun of Henry’s tunnel incident, but it doesn’t bother him because that was him being stupid. Henry doesn’t fight back because he can’t. There’s nothing he can say to change their mind, so instead he says nothing.

The drivers and the Fat Controller discuss what to do with Henry, even considering to replace him if he isn’t able to work. The driver suggests Welsh coal and the Fat Controller agrees to order some as Henry must have a fair chance. This turned out to be what Henry needs, with him feeling quite energised and capable to do his work. Showing the Fat Controller and everybody that Henry can indeed do his work and even arriving early to give Thomas a run for his money! Showing kids that you can be flawed and still do well.

Henry has an accident in the next episode which was not his fault, the Fat Controller sends him away to be rebuilt. Upon his return, Gordon was very rude to him and immediately tore down Henry’s happiness. Percy supportively chirps up and telling him that he’s glad Henry is home again.

Henry soon meets up with Edward, happily greeting him, showing us that like Thomas, under certain circumstances Henry can be a really nice engine and is only really influenced when the biggest kid in the playground is on his side. Henry has both his arrogant side and soft side. He can play for multiple teams and still remains true to his character. His changes never seem really out of place, he just needs to surround himself with more positive influences.

Sometimes I’ve heard the dynamics of Thomas described as a playground where the bigger kids are in charge and all hang around together. I think that aspect is really defining of Henry’s character, much how it might affect a real child who may be in a friend group like that.

Percy

Classic series Percy was an amazing character and unfortunately in the later years became more and more flanderised, when Percy was introduced, all the big engines were pushing Edward around and calling him names because he would do the work of what they deemed “Little Engines”. Percy shows up on the scene and immediately puts them to shame, when Henry decides to come out of the shed, before he gets the chance to hiss steam at Edward, Percy wheeshes steam into his face!

Percy was a mischievous character, sometimes a little too much for his own good! He caused his fair share of troubles and was perhaps the most naive of all of the engines since he was bought straight from the workshop. All of the other five engines were bought from separate British railways, so they had some prior experience to working. 

We see this in “Percy Runs Away”, when Percy forgets to whistle for the signalman to change the points for him and it results in bringing Gordon to a stop and Percy jolting backwards in fright! In the second series episode, “Percy and the Signal” he plays off that he knows what a backing signal is to appear smart in front of Gordon and James, who had both made the idea up to get back at Percy. This, of course, comes back to bite him in the ass and he looks like an idiot in front of Gordon. 

Even Thomas and Percy have their faults, in “Thomas, Percy and the Coal” Percy causes an accident that buries Thomas in coal, which makes him laugh uncontrollably much to Thomas’ annoyance. This arc actually spanned several stories in the Railway Series where Thomas and Percy were not friends. These were not actually written by the Reverend himself, but his son, Christopher, the very boy who these stories were made for. 

Of course, Thomas and Percy become friends once more in the end with a rather nice moment of Percy choosing to help Thomas after he suffers a drip from his tank. I wish this would have been adapted, but as it stands Thomas and Percy have their fallings out and is resolved in one episode. Showing the children that it’s normal for best friends to fight and as long as you’re both sorry and recognise your mistakes, you can move on. It’s a good lesson to learn and a relatable one at that because kids do bicker over the most trivial things. Me and my friend Joe had several arguments because I thought Sonic was better than Mario and vice versa for Joe.

Characters must have flaws, no world is perfect and the sooner kids realise it, the better off they’ll be. As a kid, I grew up with Thomas and while other kids moved on, I stuck around because I saw the goodness inside it. It had compelling stories and characters, moments were the good guys aren’t always good guys and the absolutely stunning visuals. It was clear that the makers of the show had passion and they wanted it to be believable. Of course, the kids my age moved on since at the time we were kids, the show airing on TV was not the Thomas I grew up with.

In 2003, the formula changed dramatically. Thomas became very simpler, the visuals were flatter, the personalities became drawn down to a single trait, the dialogue was a lot more plain and the stories where much much simpler. Instead of doing actual jobs and making the railway look like a railway, you’d occasionally get an engine making their way in the opposite direction with no train behind them. Thomas runs around getting ice cream ingredients to make ice cream, Percy shunts around a single flatbed with a carpet tied over the top of it. Instead of writing original stories, just copy Tortoise and the Hare and nobody will notice. And what certainly doesn’t help is Michael Angelis’ narration because he just sounds tired.

Instead of Thomas being a cheeky, little tank engine, he’s obsessed with doing the most important jobs and gets upset when an engine aside from him is chosen to do it.

Instead of being a kind and reliable mentor figure for engines like Thomas and Percy, Edward is old and rickety and useless. His only important roles in these years was being a back engine to push engines up Gordon’s Hill when they got stuck and that’s it. Insulting as this was Awdry’s first character and the one that started it all.

Henry was an arrogant engine with a softer side to those he was willing to show it too, no let’s make him ill again and him having problems becomes his character trait.

I can see why this didn’t leave an impact on kids my age because the stories packed no punch, there are a few nuggets of goodness in this era, but they are few and far between. And this is what infuriates me about children’s media like no other. The whole nicey-nice worlds and I’m so sick of stuff like this, we need grit again, kids want something they can relate too. Give kids something more substantial than this friendly PC nonsense. And at it’s most PC, Thomas is failing and after 24 seasons, Thomas is finally on hiatus because the series is failing. Just including female leads doesn’t make a show better and flawless characters makes shows worse, you shouldn’t go in with the source design to be “girl” or a token something. You should just make characters and that’s why I look at Thomas as a great example of what to do and also what not to do. Because they’ve nailed it before and they can nail it again.

Now, it’s time for me to nail it with my own.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Summer Brief: Dreamcatching - TV Pitch 2: Ideas and Format

A show I was very fond of as a kid was Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids and each episode began with this creepy fellow introducing the episode and preparing a movie to be played in his theatre. I hadn’t remembered this upon the initial development, but I recently realised that this show is exactly the format I want. With a character that introduces the episode and is effectively our guide into the subconscious.

The Dreamcatcher

The Dreamcatcher is a mysterious entity who, as previously stated, will be our guide into the subconscious. It will be the only living Dreamcatcher we see and the only resident of the subconscious. They won’t do much to interfere with the main story, but giving them background roles and occasional lines will add to their personality.

In this example, the guy looking down is our main character of the episode. Having dreams about dealing with his inadequacies and trying to be better, having to hit his lowest low before crawling back to the top.

With the Dreamcatcher, in this scene I imagine them as the one whispering the guy’s inner thoughts to him. Or just being silent and simply observing the dream, sort of a reminder to the audience that they are doing the same thing. The dream characters never interact with the Dreamcatcher.

It’s not intentionally designed to be mean or evil, but I think having some kind of moral ambiguity could be the kind of uncomfortable that draws you in more, like the old guy above. 

And here we have him simply in a background role of an adventure dream, he could be a bard, merchant and even have roles in the dreams, but people don’t see a Dreamcatcher man, they’d just treat them a person. This scenario was based off a friend who says they tend to have dreams where they travel to fictional worlds and could have an adventure in worlds like Mario or Pokemon.

An example of how he may interact with the background environment of a shot in a comedic way, here swimming in a sea of coins and riches. This was based upon dreams I tend to have of feeling successful and living a life you are comfortable with. These episodes would probably end with the person waking up and being sad that it wasn’t real.

Again, another example of him being a background character. This time a whimsical truck driver that can drive on rainbows. Shows him in another outfit and allows for many fun appearances for the guy. It could add to his personality too, that he’d be willing to dress up to sell a role.

This was a favourite of mine because the concept behind it was that the Dreamcatcher has seen a lot of dreams, but even some dreams he’ll be like “Oh god, dude what’s wrong with you?” Showing his reactions is a way to humanise him, I want an uncanny valley of personality. Where you can relate to him some moments and find him offputting in the next. This was inspired by my sister who says that she has violent dreams and some of the ones she’s described to me have been really concerning. (Luckily none of them were aimed at me.)

All of these dreams would be either animated by other studios with other visionaries at the helm, in entirely different styles, visually and story-wise. Another would be keeping it in house, but let an artist have an episode each. If they have ideas, they can suggest them before the writing process and if they don’t know what to do we can always write something with their style being their contribution to the episodes.

I got this idea from how different dreams can be and how different a human’s personality is and since the personality exists within your subconscious, I think it was a perfect fit.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Graphic Novel #1 - Chappies: Research - Chappie Origins

Today I showed my work so far to Pete and one point of interest to Pete was our little mascot on top of “Chappies Inc”, I told him about the origins and he said whack it on the blog so here we are.

But, we’re going to start at the beginning with Chappie and basically how all of this came to be.

How Chappie and the Chappies came to be:

The Chappies brand is all because of one single chappie.

Nathan first used the term, “Chappie” when he was playing Apex Legends, an online multiplayer battle royale game which the player can select from a range of characters. Nathan was already in a game until Keanu picked a character called Pathfinder.

Nathan’s first thought when he saw Pathfinder was “Look, it’s Chappie!” Referring to a robot from a film called Chappie which the main character is a lawenforcement robot who is taken by gangsters who make him a gangster too.

This began a trend where Nathan would refer to Pathfinder as Chappie and if he’d lose to Chappie, he was “Chappied.” Soon, he’d start referring to more and more things as Chappie and eventually evolving into a word like “Homie” or “Bros” for our friend group and it’s use as a verb, “I’m not feeling very chappie.” “I need a chappie”, “Chappie’s tired.” 

Our Chappie as the Mascot

Since Chappie became a common term, we all use it regularly and especially when it comes to robotic characters. And this special guy...

This little robot guy is made out of car parts and stuff and sits on a sigh of an MOT Centre on the way into Wigan. Me and my friends really like this little model and we decided to adopt him as a Chappie too because he’s clearly some kind of robot and he’s in our hometown, so he’s the official Chappie of Wigan. Greeting people on their way into town.

Deciding that Chappies should be the title:

This idea has been in development since I was in High School, originally titled “Jake Vs. The World” it was a lot more story focused and dramatic with more than just six of my friends in major roles.

This was something I grew to not like as it's important that my friends have just as much of a role as I do in the stories. That is when the idea immediately flew into my mind on the way to the gym one day... Call it Chappies.

With Chappies, it's a general term, there's no importance relaid onto me and it's a term based in reality, so as soon as I came up with the idea. I knew this was the ideal title, since it's the perfect summation of our group and what we stand for.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Summer Brief - TV Pitch 2: Dreamcatching Research - Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

This was a show I particularly enjoyed as a kid, though I don’t remember the stories, I really do remember enjoying the opening stop motion sequences before the actual story of the episode. It was really dark and atmospheric with the kid walking to the theatre in the rain, the clever use of the old man’s puppet where they use his hands to great effect and as a child I had a feeling it was him but I was never certain. 

These moments always stood out to me, probably because he was one of few consistent characters in the show and the 2D animations were a lot cheaper looking. So, when I thought about creating a show about different stories each episode I knew I wanted some kind of shifty and creepy figure to be the host.

The Host and why he works

I think what really works with this character is the combination of his design and his voice. He is definitely creepy, what with his long spindly arms and fingers, hunched back, bloodshot eyes and hooked nose, but his mouth definitely draws you in as it’s much bigger and noticeable that the other details. He’s big goofy smile and rather proud voice helps a lot to make this character inviting in a strange sort of way. 

And under the right circumstances, he can look quite cute too.

As a child, I always thought these were coins, but now I know better and that these are film reels. It really should have been more obvious to me since he works at a theatre, but upon revisiting this kind of gave me a better idea.

From what the intro shows us, the man is the only worker at the theatre. He hands the boy the ticket, he hands the boy the treats and he loads up the reels. Rather than feeling like an actual worker, it kinda felt more like his hobby to me. So, that gave me the idea that he’s more of an archivist and that’s why he has stacks of reels! He’s a collector of all things gruesome and that gave me the idea that my character for Dreamcatching should be an archivist. Showing us their most favourite or just dreams that they find interesting.

 For Dreamcatching, I needed to think about how I will go about conveying that what the audience will see are dreams. That’s when I remembered this show and the character, so I had a little revisit and this stack of film reels helped me to piece this together.

What about the actual stories?

As the show puts it, these are a collection of cautionary tales. The story segments are narrated by the old man, similar to the classic episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine, just more scary. There are sometimes a lesson at the end, mainly just don’t be an asshole or don’t do a certain thing too much or else something bad will end up happening to you. A meaning isn’t necessary, but it’s nice to have something to take away from the whole experience.

The dreams I will explore in my series won’t necessarily be cautionary tales, it’ll mainly dependent on the character created for this dream. The character’s personality should be created first and then we create a possible dream for them. Because a dream is made up in our subconscious, it only makes sense if the character comes first and then their perception of the world is built around them.

The New Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

Though this wasn’t necessary, since I had the old series to go off of, I saw on YouTube that there were various episodes with styles I didn’t recognise and 3D animated visuals for the introductory segments, it had made the unfortunate jump to CGI, much like how Thomas did, much like how Bob the Builder did. Watching the intro sequence immediately shows how ineffective this is, it’s not the CGI that makes it bad. Let’s take a look at what makes the original intro so good.

The intro begins with a kid walking through the rain to go to the theatre, judging from the collar beneath his coat, he may have just finished school and wants to go to watch a movie. Since the theatre’s name is “Squeam Screen”, it sets it up like maybe this boy likes these kinds of movies and potentially knows what he’s getting into.

The doors open with the man beckoning the boy in with his finger, maybe he comes there regularly or he’s just getting his attention. He gets his ticket with spiders on it and the whole floor has bugs crawling all over. Making the theatre a little more disgusting and uncomfortable. 

The boy takes his seat with the man handing him a box of “treats”, usually a different bug each episode. Cackling as he slinks away, the boy turns back to the screen. His nonchalant reactions to the glass smashing, the bats, the ghost, the screaming gives you the impression that he is used to this. Like he’s been here before or knows what this is about.

The man introduces himself by blowing out his torch and taking a reel from the stack. With the boy blindly eating one of the bugs in his box. The man then loads up the reel and begins the episode. It all works well, it doesn’t feel weird or exaggerated. Again, he’s a weird character, but he’s not entirely off-putting. 

Now look at this.

This is not the same character, as I just found out that the old man’s name is Uncle Grizzly, but in this CGI reboot, the Night-Night Porter replaces his role. He’s the manager of the Hot Hell Darkness. Let’s just analyse the intro and discuss why I don’t think it’s that effective. Watch to the one minute mark or one minute fifty seconds.

The intro begins with a misty night and the boy is walking through a graveyard of all places. The cheap animation also doesn’t really help as it’s pretty stiff and I think they had a vision in their head which they couldn’t really achieve. The textures are rather grubby and grimey. This time the boy runs off in the direction of the hotel. Instead of going there by his own volition.

The boy hides behind a tombstone after running away by the bat, and then the silhouette of what we can assume to be the manager of the hotel can be seen pulling a lever which opens a pit that takes the boy to the Hot Hell Darkness. 

The manager greets the boy, declaring that his room is ready and wrapping his arm around the boy’s shoulder and taking them to their room. Locking them in their cell, revealing a huge selection of doors where the manager has presumably done the same. Making him much more creepy than Uncle Grizzly who was just a weirdo with reels upon reels of cautionary tales. Although, the reason given is that these are all the kids from the stories the manager can tell. While I do accept the reason, I personally think the cinematic aspect of the original is much more inviting because I’d definitely prefer to go to the Squeam Screen. Also, why does the boy get locked into a room? What’s he done? In the original, the boy isn’t punished for what he does, he’s legitimately just there!

I think they tried to do the opposite of everything the original intro had, but they didn’t do it well. It’s mainly the introduction shot of the boy walking through a graveyard at night, you can at least see why he’d go to a theatre on a rainy evening after school. It’s the middle of the night in the CGI version, what’s he doing there? Why does he run deeper into the graveyard? I think they should have definitely used more of the manager to set up the boy going to the hotel since Uncle Grizzly played every single role in the theatre in the original. 

Also, Squeam Screen rhymes. It rolls off the tongue and tells you everything you need to know. Hot Hell Darkness sounds like an edgy attempt to make some spooky hotel. It really bothers me because I feel like there could have been a much better way to get the point across.

Even though my projects don’t stay in reality much, you’ve got to be grounded in a way that’s believable and if you already have a good intro, what’s the point in trying to fix it?

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Graphic Novel Idea #1: CHAPPIES - Research: South Park

South Park and it’s Creators:

A series I’ve got much more into these last few weeks is South Park by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I’ve always had a fondness for the series, but my exposure really was mainly South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.

I originally saw this film as a kid which allows me to really feel for the kids now because the whole plot of the film is basically symbolism of South Park in the real world, where parents will get offended and cause a fuss because of shows like South Park affecting their kids rather than taking responsibility and being good parents.

After re-watching the movie, finding out that it holds up remarkably well and makes way much more sense to my mind now as an adult, really gave me appreciation for this series and for the writers who both don’t seem to give a single toss with what people may think.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone

A series of interviews on YouTube gave me tons of little titbits of information on how the show is made, whether it goes from the basis of characters or locations or what to poke fun of. These two guys are geniuses and are able to stay relevant due to the speed of which they can produce work. One of these bits of information was the “But-therefore” story structure and it’s what they use to construct their episodes.

The basic principle of the structure is that there are beats in the story, you’ve got to get from point A to point B. But, these events should flow naturally into one another so that it all comes together nicely.

“And then“ is what you want to avoid because that doesn’t flow, what you should do instead is either include the words “But“ or “Therefore.“ For example, if I write the line.

Jake was heading to uni and then he was hit by a bus.

There’s not much to go off there. However, if we replace “and then” with “but”...

Jake was heading to uni, but he was hit by a bus.

It immediately tells you more, letting you know that getting hit by a bus was not on Jake’s agenda. And if we replaced it with “therefore” it’d make it sound intentional. So, we get a much clearer concept on what the actions are doing for the story. And we can add even more onto it.

Jake was heading to uni, but he was hit by a bus. Therefore, he was taken into hospital and couldn’t go to uni.

We get another location we can go to and another problem to add for the narrative. And they just keep adding on and on and on.

To see this story structure in practise, I will be taking a look at the Season 4 episode “Fingerbang” as not only is it a good example of this story structure. But, as an example of the antics I would like to write in Chappies.

Fingerbang Story Structure:

The episode begins with the four boys in a boyband called “Fingerbang” and they are in a crowded stadium with millions of girls screaming in adoration. But, Cartman wakes up, revealing it to be a dream. Therefore, he finds his friends and pitches them the idea to be a boyband.

But, Kyle brings up the fact that they need five members to be a proper boyband. Therefore, they arrange auditions the next day for the fifth member.

Onto the B Plot, Stan brings up that him and the boys were going to start a boyband at the dinner table. But, Randy (Stan’s dad) says that he’s not going to have a part in the boyband. Therefore causing Stan to bring up that all of his friends are doing it and that they can make ten million dollars, making Randy tell him that he is not going to be in the boyband and that’s final before leaving the dinner table.

The next day, the boys hold the auditions with only a few people turning up to audition. One of them being Wendy, a character which Cartman doesn’t like and also a girl. And girls can’t be in a boyband! 

But, Wendy turns out to be the best audition they get. Therefore, getting the place and having to disguise herself as a boy.

After rehearsing their dance routine and songs, they need a venue to play at and Cartman suggests the mall. But, the mall security let them know that they can’t speak with the manager unless they have an appointment. 

Therefore, they cause a distraction for the security guards, so that they can hit the mall manager with their pitch. But, the mall manager refuses to move a cheese and sausage cart due to them not being as good as cheese and sausage.

Back with Randy, he asks Sharon where Stan is, but unfortunately he’s at Cartman’s house. Therefore, making Randy angry and we get to see a little more reasoning behind Randy’s motivation, he is worried if they do succeed.

Cartman is feeling down from recently being turned down by the manager, therefore he visits Chef for advice. But, Chef tells him that boybands aren’t about the music, that they’re all about the money and teaches him about the “Garmlich Effect” where if one girl screams about something, they’ll all start screaming. 

Therefore, Cartman takes this advice to heart and creates videos with some of the girls from school, hoping that this video will be able to change the mall manager’s mind.

After finishing the video, we return to the B plot where Randy has arrived to know what Stan is doing, knowing fully well that he is disobeying him. Stan tries to defend his case, but Randy is persistent that there are better things which Stan could be doing on a Saturday. Therefore, the two go back and forth with Randy making suggestions such as doing marijuana instead of the boyband.

Cartman makes a return to the mall with a brand new video to woo the mall manager over. But, the recorded video turns out to be of very poor quality as the camera does not remain focused on them, with the manager calling the video dumb. Therefore, Cartman pleads for the manager to give them a chance with the manager saying that he could move the cheese and sausage cart off to the side for twenty minutes. Setting up that they have limited time.

The arrangement was made for 3 o’clock on the same day, but back at Stan’s house, Randy refuses to let Stan go. Therefore, Stan fights his case, but Randy lashes out! Putting his head through a glass cupboard and shocking Stan, therefore Randy decides to come clean and explain everything to Stan.

Randy was a singer in a men’s choir when he was eighteen, a record dealer was in the audience and offers him the chance of a lifetime, causing him to leave his old life behind. 

The band was successful, but Randy finds out one day that his manager has a new band that were replacing him and the other boys. Therefore, Randy lost everything with the only option being to return to South Park and face everyone that he had abandoned. 

He became a joke to everyone, showing us his true feelings and how he doesn’t want Stan to go through the same pain he did.

Back with the boys, they are short for time and Stan hasn’t arrived causing the manager to tell them they need to hurry up because he can’t keep the cheese and sausage kart off of there for much longer. Cartman says they’ll start right away and that they’ll have to do this without Stan. But, Kyle retorts, saying that he’s not going to be a part of a four boy boyband because they’ll look stupid. Therefore, they have to keep waiting.

Stan talks to his dad, telling him that he doesn’t think that he is a joke and that he’s the best dad he’s ever had. The two make up with Randy saying that Stan needs to make his own mistakes. Therefore, allowing Stan to get down to the mall just before it’s too late.

Cartman and the crew are about to be kicked off stage, but Stan and Randy arrive just in time to save the day! Therefore, the manager allows them to play and for them to be quick! But, an unfortunate accident occurs while Cartman is introducing the band, Kenny is squashed by an elevator! 

After getting so close too, the manager has had enough telling the kids to get out! Cartman says they have to perform, but Kyle asserts his point that they no longer have a fifth member before Stan tells him that they indeed have a fifth member. Therefore, they get to perform...

With Randy filling in for the role of Kenny... The performance goes on without a problem with only a few claps from the audience, but to Fingerbang it means everything. With two dollars, an autograph and the offer to perform at a club, Cartman decides that he can’t handle all of this fame and all of the boys decide to return to their lives.

Conclusion

And that it is the “But-Therefore” story structure that Trey Parker and Matt Stone go by. Everything plays into each other, nothing just happens and that’s what makes this structure much more entertaining. From Cartman’s dreams to the final product, to Randy’s embarrassment of his past and slight jealousy of Stan, the struggle for a fifth member being a theme throughout. It all plays into each other perfectly. 

These are the kind of stories that I would like in the Chappies project, just a group of friends who want to do something and they go and do it. Whether it be making a boyband, trying to outsmart an older kid and making his parents into chilli, a female classmate getting breasts or the boys playing with weapons. South Park can make it interesting and always find ways to surprise you. Wherever this goes, no one knows, but it can be as ridiculous as it needs to be. It’s a great example on storytelling, even if an idea is done, you can still make it fresh!

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: LinkedIn Learning - Gestures with Andrew Gordon

From Andrew Gordon’s tutorials, a gesture is a way of speaking visually. Talking with or without your hands, maybe talking with your eyes, saying something with your shoulders or a shake of your head. They’re signals for other people to understand how a character might be filming. Gestures are always changing because film is still maturing and won’t stop any time soon.

Andrew displayed a good range of knowledge of gestures, like cliches, illustrative gestures, hand gestures, facial gestures, how to reference your audio properly and create references for yourself, when gestures are going to far and when to cut them off, when and when not to use gestures and how gestures can be polished into a finer final product.

What I have learned from this course:

I have learned from a Professional on what poses to avoid, such as the W gesture (Confused), hands on hips (Annoyed) and the hand rubbing the back of the neck (Anxious) or at least to think about the feelings they convey and how to convey them in a better way. There was also a nice quote he said about unnecessary gestures being “When in doubt, take it out.”

Primary and Secondary Gestures

There are both primary and secondary gestures, which pretty much says what it means. A main gesture that has little flourishes throughout or at a specific point. Keeping it different was something I always tried to keep in mind anyway, if I made my character shrug doing a W pose a few scenes ago, I’d be more motivated to change it up and not relying on it. The gestures need intent, they need to be clear and I need to consider what the scene calls for and what part of the body is being used. We shouldn’t always go for the hands, we should consider our other options first and whatever we go with, we should make it interesting.

Illustrative Gestures

Illustrative gestures are something that I know I do, I just didn’t know the name of them. I’ve learned that they help to convey an idea and that you don’t want too many of these gestures to muddy the waters with close ups relying on more subtle gestures since there isn’t as much room to work with. 

Hand Gestures

Hand gestures specifically can move fluently into another hand gestures, again you don’t want to go overboard with these but moving between hand gestures can really help to continue the gesture.

Facial Gestures

Facial gestures are important since they need to be clear and understandable, even without the dialogue. When staging the face, I should always try to have the face at a 3/4 angle at the camera wherever I can. The shape of the eyelids can favour the look, a frown with half-lidded eyes can give the impression that someone is tired or bored, but with open eyes can suggest sadness or maybe anger. One of the main things I learned was to consider whether of not a character talks showing their top row of teeth, bottom row or both of them. That’s something I’ve never really considered and usually I know I default to the top row talker. Head movement usually occurs once the expression has changed too.

References

Audio referencing and acting out your audio requires several listens, getting a clear image in your head and then creating exactly what reference you want by splicing various attempts together to perfect it. We should also be open to any type of reference because you never know when you might be able to use it!

When not to use Gestures

Gestures do make our normal characters look natural, however for some kinds of characters it’s much more appropriate to keep still. Such as characters in higher power positions, it adds a layer of intimidation to them and makes them much more imposing. The contrast of having gestures on one character and hardly any on another creates a great dynamic whether it be for comedic purposes or dramatic.

Challenge: Gestures vs. No Gestures

A small challenge I thought I’d do would be to tell a story. Once without any kind of gesture, keeping your hands beneath you. No head movements, no gestures at all and another where you do the gestures! Here in my attempt, I try going as far as I can before I give up:

Link to video

Overall, this was a pretty fun course, I had a lot of fun watching it and learning new things to consider when thinking about gestures!

[thebigladjake]

Year 2: Summer Brief: Dreamcatching - TV Pitch 2: Research

My second TV pitch was an attempt to go out of my comfort zone, try a series that has no narrative, little to no consistent characters and a different story each time. However, one for adults that’s actually for adults. Just like how Cognitivation was inspired by a poor attempt at Earthbound. Dreamcatching was built upon a series known as “Love, Death and Robots”.

It didn’t begin as a straight up “Love, Death and Robots but done right”. The anthology idea came a little later. But, for a while, I was quite fascinated by dreams, one day I was thinking about it and said “What if this was a TV Show? An adult TV show about dreams.”

Initial Idea

What fascinates me about dreams is how everyone’s subconscious is different. I usually have dreams somewhat based in reality, everything is technically possible and very rarely does something that cannot happen appears in them. Whereas I’ve heard friends say they can have dreams in fictional worlds such as games and TV shows, or some that just have nightmares, or some that have much darker themes that you become kind of worried.

It’s interesting to see what the subconscious chooses to take in, what you think about when your body is off, but your mind is still on. What exists inside of your subconscious is what you choose to exist and I think that’s very cool. How we represent people or problems or even symbolism in dreams.

It was then I realised this could work as an anthology series and recalling the last anthology I watched, I began to think on how an adult animated anthology should really be handled.

Research and Development

Like I said earlier, the anthology idea came around when I remembered my experience watching the adult animated series “Love, Death and Robots.”

This series had potential and I really wanted to like it, but a lot of it annoyed me because some of the shorts simply were uncomfortable with being for adults without featuring some kind of nudity or swearing. The first example that jumps to my mind for this was the short, “Blindspot” which was a short I remember liking.

Blindspot was a short about a group of cyborgs that performs a robbery on an armoured convoy. I absolutely love the visual design, the concept and the various weapons and machinery, I think this has great potential as an actual show because it shows off a lot to this universe. What these characters are up to, what they are like and how their deaths don’t really matter as long as their data is backed up and can be restored. This is an awesome concept and I’d love it, if it wasn’t for one thing. Swearing.

In a scene where they are going over the plan, one of the more experienced members of the team makes fun of the character above (Rookie) for being a... Rookie. To which he replies “F*** you, Sui.” and that took me out of it a little.

It’s not that swearing offends me because I swear so much, it’s basically a part of my language. But, when a series has to go out of it’s way to swear it doesn’t feel natural. It felt a lot like “Ooh! Look he said a naughty word! This isn’t a kids show!! This is for aduuuults!” and it kind of kills my vibe with a show.

This isn’t just a problem with Blindshot, a few of the shorts had this problem. It was either swearing or characters having sex that took me out of it. This wouldn’t annoy me so much if it wasn’t for one episode, “Zima Blue”.

The part of this post where I absolutely love Zima Blue (Please go watch it if you can before reading)

This episode appears as the ninth episode I believe and at this point, I was annoyed at the try-hard adult-ness of all the other shorts. So, when I see a lady going to see a weird metal, blue, naked man, immediately I thought, “They’re definitely going to do the dirty deed.” Probably not exactly like that, but this is an academic blog, so I can’t really say what I thought.

However, what I was treated to was the most adult short on the entire anthology... And it had no nudity, sex or swearing.

The short is about Claire going away to Zima’s private island to interview them about their art pieces. Starting off doing portraits, before moving to murals and the next step in this direction was creating pieces with a specific type of blue in them. Zima Blue.

Example of Zima’s work.

When I saw this, immediately I was like “Oh shut up. How pretentious.” It reminded me of those hoity-toity artists that see “Oh there’s such a deep meaning to this art piece indeed!” and it’s like a dot on the canvas. So, I was about to think this was going to be a sexual and pretentious romp, but I carried on watching.

Zima is built up as a character who has it all, fame, fortune, immortality, everyone loves his work and believe him to be a man with robotic elements, but when Zima tells Claire about his past, explaining that a Zima Blue coloured tile was the first thing they ever saw and their whole purpose. We discover that Zima was originally created as a pool cleaning device, who’s job it was to clean the tiles as they move around the pool and replacing any damaged ones with the same Zima Blue tiles.

This was the one job that they felt they truly were good at, what gave their life meaning and this is why they become obsessed with the colour ‘Zima Blue’ and add it into everyone of their pieces. So, as an unhappy artist that feels like they no longer have a purpose. Zima organises one final artistic event for everyone to see.

A pool. A pool that when he falls into it, causes his body to malfunction and come apart. Giving you the impression that something has gone wrong before...

He transforms back into the simple machine that he once was. Automatically going up to the nearest side of the pool and starting his job all over again. Because it was the one piece of art that he was truly satisfied with.

And with that, is the most mature of all of these shorts. Because it doesn’t need to pander to adults, it doesn’t need to prove it’s not for kids. It’s an animation for adults and that’s one of the reasons I absolutely love this short. In fact, it’s a good thing the rest of Love, Death and Robots is so garbage because it just makes this short even better.

But, that’s not all of it’s merits, it’s a genuinely good short and captures how being an artist can feel with work your never happy with. Feeling like no matter what you do, your art will never be enough and you’ve got no purpose. Animations that make you think like this, is adult animation.