Hey there. I just made it possible for anyone to continue to back Beast of Black Lake - this time thru paypal! Check it out: Be a Backer (cont'd)!
Its not quite as slick as Kickstarter (of course!) but it should hopefully be a good way for new people to back the film and get in on the fun. Let your indie-film/animation-loving friends know all about it!

Thanks!

I wrote up a new entry on the production blog thats about the role a system or production plan can have in making an animated short by yourself.

Read A System vs Creative Flexibility.

There is a new post over at the production blog where I talk about my thoughts on camerawork in the film and in animation in general. Also, the blog now displays tweets from my Twitter feed that have to do with the film, plus it has a fresh new look.
Check it out!

Hey guys, just a quick note to link you over to my new production blog: Check it out!

Why the new site? Mainly because Tumblr is so much easier to use as a blogging tool. I'm not going to stop updating things here, but the updates on Kickstarter will be ancillary to this new blog. I will mainly be linking to the major posts from here. So if you want, you can get more frequent (hopefully!) updates over on the new Tumblr, or get only the major updates in your email inbox from Kickstarter like you have been up until now. Its up to you!

Thanks!

Storyboards redrawn & edited, check. Concept art & character designs finished, check. Story & themes finalized and flowing, check. Final title chosen, check.

I think I'm ready to start animating! To kick things off, I thought I would post some recent design work I did for the film. The first one is the young inventor. The second is a concept for how the dream and/or vision sequences will look. I think I want them to feel kind of like animated screen prints (I may write more in depth on this idea later). And lastly, I made a quick design for (what I'm pretty sure is) the final title of the film, “Beast of Black Lake.” Enjoy!

So... yeah... what now, right? OK, Here's my plan: I won't be able to start full-force on the Lake Beast animation until the money clears - which may take a couple weeks or so I think. So until that time I may pick away at the storyboards a bit here and there, but mostly I will be trying to earn money with the usual freelance gigs to fill in this current gap.

(I feel like I should mention that I have recently entered a motion comic contest over at Aniboom, and that if I am a finalist for that I will be splitting my time between Lake Beast and the comic for a while. You can see my entry here if you want.)

Once I get started on Lake Beast I will all but stop my usual freelancing work and focus as much as I can on it. It will likely take about 4 months to finish. I know, that seems like a long time, but I will be updating my progress a lot as I go so you wont be left completely in the dark. It may take more time than that or less, its really hard to know, but thats my best estimate. There are always lulls and low-points in these kinds of projects, but ultimately its satisfying and I hope its a fun ride for everyone.

I hope that helps you sort out your expectations. Let me know if you have any questions!

I wanted to say a quick thanks to everybody who helped make this fundraiser a success. You guys are the best and I really really appreciate it. I will write more about where the project will go from here after the timer runs down Saturday, and give more of an idea of when I will be able to start production and how I see things happening in the next few months...

But for now, I simply wanted to say thanks! Feel free to keep spreading the word, the more we raise here at the very end the more time I will have to spend polishing the film! Plus, you can still get your name in the drawing to win a Foot Wobbler.

We're so close! Thanks again you guys.

Ok, listen up... Here's the final incentive: From right now until the end of the funding period (Sat 12:35pm), everybody that gives $20 to the project will have their name placed in a hat for a special drawing. The winner of which will receive a Bobblehead/DVD box set for one of my previous films, Foot: Phantom of the Forest! Plus you get to pick which color Funko Wacky Wobbler (aka bobblehead) you want- Brown, Black, or White. (psst, its the film I gave a behind the scenes look at in an earlier update. I designed/painted the box, painted the DVD cover art and sort of helped Funko design the toy.) I will sign and write a short note on the box too. Check out the video for a look at the whole package!
To Win: • Choose any (or none) of the Benefits. Just make sure you give at least $20.
• You get one copy of your name in the hat per $20! ($100 = 5 copies in the hat, etc)
• Already a Backer? (first, you rule) No problem, you can get in on the fun too by adding an addional $20 (or more) to your pledge! Just log-in and click the big “Manage Your Pledge” button.

Its been a heckuva ride so far - lets finish this thing with a bang!

We're getting close everybody! Thanks again for all your support. Keep facebooking and emailing and tweeting about the project so we can meet the goal and then some!

Today's update is a video I made a while ago to show how I put together a scene of animation. I've never showed it to anybody before - so, this is the World Premiere I guess, heh. The scene in question comes from one of my previous films, Foot: Phantom of the Forest. It has narration and timelapse video of me working. Enjoy!

As I've been digging around, looking for inspiration for the project, a lot of things from my life experiences have worked their way into the story. One of those things comes from a strange in-between period in my life when I was living with my parents while they themselves were kind of in an in-between place.

I had just left a pseudo-job I had at a camp in Texas where they paid me to do various media stuff for them 2 weeks a month. They fed me and gave me a place to sleep and do whatever I wanted the rest of the time. It was kind of sweet but I didn't really gel with the camp lifestyle. Anyway, I moved in with my parents who were in the middle of building a new (their current) house for themselves in Missouri and were renting a house in Springfield, IL in the meantime. They let me stay in the basement.

It was one of the weirdest places I've ever lived. My parents don't really believe in spending money to use a clothes dryer, so there was always wet laundry hanging down there. The air in the basement, generally speaking, was rich with mildew-y stench. There was also a non-functioning toilet out in the open on a cement pedestal in the middle of the room. We called it the Throne (natch). The biggest and loudest quirk down there was definitely the giant furnace however. Did I say giant? It was gigantic. My parents told me it used to be a coal furnace from like the '20s, and it had been converted into this weird, terribly inefficient central heating system somewhere down the line. It would rumble and clank around inside of itself everytime the heat kicked in. I wish I had taken more pictures of it, but you can kind of gauge just how massive it was in these photos. There were probably 7 or 8 large pipes potruding out in any given direction, all well within reach of my head. I nailed my skull on each of them at least 5 times I bet.

During those few months with my folks I spent my days working on my animation surrounded by this rumbling beast and its metal tentacles, and with Lake Beast I finally have an outlet to try to capture some of the feel of working in that basement during a strange, kind of lost period in my life.

Ah, the glamorous life of an indie animator... Seriously though, I'm glad to be through that phase of my life!

The 24 hour children's book giveaway is over (see previous post) and now you can watch me pull the name of the winning backer out of a hat live on ustream at 4pm today. Check it out!
What did you guys think? Should I do another one of these? What kind of items would be more interesting for a giveaway?
UPDATE: And the winner is...

Today, starting at 2pm CST (convert to your time here) you can get a copy of my childrens book by pledging $10! Here's how it works: from 2pm today (Wed Sept 16th) to 2pm tomorrow, everyone who gives $10 will have their name added to a list. Then sometime tomorrow I will draw one name out of a hat (on a live video feed) and that person gets a signed copy of my childrens book Edward the Invincible and a copy of the coloring book version! I will mail it out soon too, so you wont have to wait nearly as long for this as you will the other benefits.

Details: - From 2pm today to 2pm tomorrow (CST) pledge $10 for a chance to get my book(s)
- If you have already pledged any amount, you can still participate by adding an additional $10 to your pledge
- Choose any or none of the existing benefits when you pledge during this 24hr period, it doesnt matter
- The more you give, the better your chances! For EVERY $10 you pledge during this time, I will place one copy of your name in the hat. So, $100 = 10 copies of your name in the hat, $50 = 5 etc. You get the idea!
- Leave a comment with any and all questions or contact me here
(This special deal is not facilitated by Kickstarter, but directly from me, just to be clear)

Keep watching this space for more special deals like this as we go along! Also, follow me on Twitter for quick and easy updates.

As I bang away on storyboards for the film in what free time I have, I thought it might be fun to go through my sources of visual inspiration on this project. I have been collecting things for a good while now, and have a accumulated a pretty decent pile. Heres a small taste!

Graphic novels and comics contribute a great deal to how I think about presenting a story and how to communicate visually. I'm particularly drawn to Jordan Crane's Keeping Two and UPTIGHT series of (mini?) comics, especially the cover art. His screenprinting is so great. Check out more of his stuff on his site. I am going to try to force myself as much as I can to emulate his simplicity of color and design, but it goes against my maximalistic habits. Should be a good stretch for me.

Another big inspiration for me is Hans Bacher. He worked for Disney in the 90s as a production designer, which is sort of like concept design, but usually more for background art style. I'm personally not inspired by or drawn towards that classic Disney look and feel, but the work he did for them rarely transferred to what ended up on the screen anyway. It gave the art dept guides and visual cues and began the visual process for the films. What a weird job! I understand that it takes a ton of messing around and thinking up-front to get the look of a movie just right, but to know going into it that your stuff will likely be ignored on a fundamental level in the end? Damn. I imagine it affected the other artists and producers in some subconscious ways and made for good inspiration, but in my opinion his production design crackles with far more life than the end result in many of the Disney movies he worked on. But, to quote him, “I knew that too much art would destroy the acceptance by the audience. An audience wants to be entertained, not educated.”

Check it out his awesome book, “Dream Worlds”. Hans' blog is an ongoing inspiration for me too.