Gamera Dreaming

Ah, Wastelnd...

I've been off, adventuring!

Tonight, I'm listening to Mac Demarco's Five Easy Hot Dogs. Reminds me of the future. I just rewatched the cinematic classic Gamera Vs Guiron, and, most likely, will be doing a bit of drawing before I slug off to bed. After a step outside.

Peaceful, y'know? 

Film wise, I've just about finished an additional tiny piece for a sequence that, really, should've been done months ago... but, who's counting? I've also officially started work on an entirely new scene; a real trip-out. It'll be somewhat comprised of animations for a previously planned sequence, but, by and large, it's an exercise in loose, off-the-cuff... ish visual creativity. 

Let's just say, it's began with a resurrection.

Mer-Man Dimensional Coast

Hi, Wastelnd. Just scored a 5-Up in Super Mario Bros. 3 for GBA - the best version. It's been a quiet, lazy time of the year - things are getting colder, leaves are falling... but, you can always count on that ever-present beaming Florida deathheat during the day. 

I recently rewatched the instant classic Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, for roughly the... 4th? time...? followed by the mid-90s italo-horror gorefest, Casper. What a weird one. Other than that, I've been watching a ton of RedLetterMedia, with the occasional peppering of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I think I'm spiritually somewhere between Mike Stoklasa and Larry David.

The other night, I caught the great Thomas Bangalter's first DJ set since 2010ish - insanely wicked show. Sort of my first "Daft" concert, y'know! Best believe I blasted the entire set at work the following shift. I'm absolutely obsessed with Two Months Off by Underworld, and Thomas' remix of Signatune by DJ Mehdi, both from the set. Y'know, The Robots have been suspiciously active lately. I got a feeling some kind of reunion isn't too far fetched...

T-Bang witnesses a disturbing atrocity in chat...

Bus stop denizens

In the wacky world of MidLife, I've been working on a new sequence in which our lovely lead, Vienna, is smashed into the sky by a gigantic Big Lots semi; landing before an eerie bus stop, naturally populated by a smattering of zombie-types and demonoids. 

The original animated sequence basically had Vienna very directly encounter the bus stop - no real character to it, sort of awkward, stilted. I'd get into specifics, but the summary is, it was... unnoticeable. Didn't feel like a natural progression of the scene. So, I brainstormed something a little more exciting, cartoony. Fun!

A shot from the original sequence

WIP screenshotty...

Right now, I'm working on a horizontal shot of the truck barreling down a highway; specifically, editing generic little cars meant to bolt past the truck - one of many not very exciting side-quests necessary for animation. Oh well. Editing the truck was fun, at least - I hate drawing vehicles, so it's mostly traced off of a 3D model off Sketchfab, something-or-other. I think it sticks out against my usual janky art style, but then, there's a lot of semi-traced environments and characters in the surrounding sequence... so, yeah. Here's a different angle I've been editing - the gnarled truck driver is a deep-cut Godzilla Vs Megalon reference... if ya know, ya know. See any other references?

Here's another one (below) - this shot I animated a while ago, but in order to fit the new footage bookending it, I've had to go back and change the whole background... normally, I might not care about the inconsistency, but luckily I still had the year-old project file ready to go. It was originally this vague, pink-and-blue distortion of liminal signs, and windows, but now, it's the eternally blinking stoplights hanging over the crossroads just outside the studio. In fact, a lot of this sequence has been shot semi-locally. Spooky. Here's (nearly) the same frame, the original on the left, "final" on the right.

Beyond that, I'm still adding stuff to Neon Pools, storyboarding little ideas for the ever-elusive Arcade sequence (one which I've stopped, paused, and started multiple times), and, occasionally, doodling the rare totally unrelated art thingie here and there. Here's a poster I recently did for my buddy Super Jack's upcoming Halloween shows!

Happy Halloween o Digital Ghosts. Oh yeah - I also just ordered the new Godzilla 1989 + Super X2 MMS! Big hype.

Digital Bleeps

Been a slow season; drawing, working. Existing. Lately I've been working on a couple large, but small scenes for the MidLife: Fate project with lots of background zombie extras - always a fun creative challenge, especially when working within specific poses, or environments. When the zombies aren't one-off sporadic designs, they're weirdo references- you'll notice lots of sneaky little cameos in the WIP shot pictured to the left; JTHM, HatBox Ghost, the Queen of England... so on.

I've been going back to various earlier segments, sprucing things up, and sort of tieing things together - particularly sections a bit too meandering in their beta state; though, I try not to get too Richard Williamsy about it, endless perfectionism and whatever. It's all meant to look a bit jank, style-wise, so that's something I gotta hold on to - as tempting as it is to mull over every microscopic detail. Still, fun to chip away, expanding concepts and making things as narsty as possible.

It's especially hard not to go too hard with the animations themselves - an ongoing goal of mine is to do things a bit more limited, retro, maybe even Anime style, rather than the increasingly intricate stuff I've been experimenting with - awesome as it looks. Gotta find ways to cut back, without sacrificing my own interest. 

Well, what's on the tube, Smogmonster? ALF. Duh. But beyond that, I've been repeatedly passing out to Matt McMuscles' Wha Happun; a cool YouTube series covering the hellish development of games, movies, and... yeah, that's mostly it. Really zen, love the guy's way of speaking, and snappy research. Plus, he's a buff skeleton. What's not to love.

I've also been binging SpongeBob non-stop; people say there's some point in the series where things significantly fall off, but I dunno, it's all cozy fun. The first few seasons are stone-cold classics, sure, but I've yet to find any particular stretch of "ass content". Forgettable, maybe, but not nearly as abhorrent as Cartoon Tubers lead you to believe. Eugh. Odd Bunch. Just a comforting show, I like the goofball positivity. 

Speaking of which, my depression's been fading. I'm even considering dropping Zoloft; something I wouldn't have at all considered as recently as a year ago, but these days, I find my more manic anxiety has sloped away to... meh? Nothing? They say a guy's brain finishes maturing around 25, and yeah, I definitely feel it. Maybe it's one of those self fulfilling things. Either way, a storm has passed - a lot of things I feel spurred my mental issues as a younger 20-something have now long, long passed, and I don't find myself getting quite as Squidwardly quite as often. Wack. Here's hoping that all goes smooooovely. 

Hopefully I'll have more time to pick away at my Movie Monster Series reviews soon; I definitely wanna look at the Cybot Godzilla, one of my favorites as of late. Still, the 30 reviews I've cranked out thus far ain't bad. Here's to then, whenever then comes.

First Felt

It's been a while since I used this as a real, personal blog, yeah?

I use to vent, and ramble pretty often on this site, airing out my anxieties to noone in particular. High School drama, anxiety issues, life. It's therapy, like journaling. Just cooler. A lot of those posts are either deleted, or too drowned in depressive hysteria to make much sense, but hey - still makes me feel better to vomit up these odd, useless emotional diatribes.

storyboard art

rough ideas 

Needless to say, I'm in a rut. It's interesting to me that whole I'm going through such a difficult time, I'm also simultaneously working on a particularly dark scene for my MidLife: Fate project, where the recurring rat-demon character Skr'd is suddenly killed by an ominous, piggish shadow. 

I've actually felt quite a bit of artistic venting throughout the scene; the forgotten Egyptian diety Skr'd raging and complaining about his lot in the afterlife, all too eager to fly off the rails with the slightest nudge. Lotta angst, lotta mania, lotta issues beneath the hood - reminds me of me. Maybe we're seeing some kind of... rat-based ego-death. Hmm.

The scene's going great - MidLife is definitely one of those things that keeps me going, and grounded. Not to mention, happy. Over an hour of footage complete! Killer. The scene, which is an unnerving blend of storyboard footage and proper animation, will use a unique version of a song I released all the way back in 2019, Houses On The Land, a psychedelic dubby nightmare based around a loop from The Orb's Plum Island. It's real creepy, having always been one of my own narcissistic favorites, and I'm so excited to see it all come together. 

I'm desperately hoping a few opportunities I have bookmarked will work out, and fast; keepin' it vague, but man, it could really save the day. I'm a religious guy, in my own funky way, and believe me, I'm praying like a... machine... that prays... a lot. For real!

The important thing in times like these is to cling to your own humanity. I've gotten very, very used to being isolated, and have been made to feel useless for a very long time - but there are people out there who, by some stroke of luck, care about me, and maybe even love me. If you're anything like me, the negativity drilled into your brain - be it caused by thoughts, people, whatever it may be - will try to convince you you're nothing forever. Its naturally hard for people to "change", and depression doesn't necessarily leave, even in the best of times. But if somewhere out there, somebody wants to be by your side, and lift you up; embrace that. Don't be afraid of it. You might not even realize you are. 

I've had a recurring dream lately. A half-abandoned, parallel dimension version of my apartment; one section totally normal, cluttered in Godzilla figures, blankets and junk food, as usual, but the rest completely empty and unused - as if I'd never noticed it there. Random, labyrinthine halls filled with softy lit bedrooms and untouched kitsh decor; odd, damaged interiors, forgotten drawers full of someone else's clothing; sometimes even glimpses into the always orange-on-purple sunset sky, peering through destroyed ceilings and thin white curtains. When I'm not showering in a newly discovered bath, or resting in some odd, often totally disheveled bit of bedding, I'm often frightened by intruders eerily leering in, watching. It's usually family. 

Take that as you will; I think I see a few meanings in there. Maybe there's a section of my life I've unknowingly ignored thats begging for engagement. I've always wondered if the weird, mirror planets we visit in dreams are, maybe, a world of their own - the ones we revisit, and really understand. I guess we'll all see, someday. Till then, goodnight, Wastelnd. Keep on truckin'.

Placebo

I wrote a post earlier this year about my fourth of July misadventures, but I accidentally forgot to actually post it anytime close to the holiday. Bit late now - it feels weird proofreading something written in present tense months ago - so here's the cute little banner I put together for the page. I really like it. It's all the cool fireworks I saw that night, bunched together in one image.

I put a lot of work this year - albeit over a super short amount of crunch time - into a little thing that'll see the light of day sooner or later. Probably of my own volition, though for the sake of the post, I'll mention it was an element of else's project. Why the uncertainty? Well, the project more or less stumbled directly into the doo-doo dumpster, after being specifically warned to avoid doo-doo dumpster stumbling. It's hard to find a better descriptor than that. 

I'm glad with what I and my fellow artists accomplished, but despite all this well wishing, we're done with this escapade. We made a whole lot (some of which I've already repurposed), even outside of the piece I'm specifically referencing, and I personally learned a fair bit in the process - for better, or for worse. Not that I'm exactly complaining, because I'll survive, but we didn't even get paid at the end of the day. You hate to step back, watch the dust settle and realize something like that. Unforch, we've all been there.

I don't especially want to get into the specifics, least not until the iron's cooled down, because you never know. No need to jump the gun, purely out of respect. Perhaps they'll bounce back from the self-inflicted backlash, perhaps it was all a bit better off forgotten. Either way, just another little jot in the turmoil that is being an eternally addicted artist. 

A Self Portrait 

I spent about six hours on a Cartoon Mouse Animation tonight. Isn't that sad!

What's compelled me to spew this vile vomit onto the holy scrolls of Wastelnd? Well, I figure it's worth documenting. It's been knocking at my skull, begging to be set out, for months - pretty much since I had the first inclination things were about to go sour. Probably will 'til I feel comfortable sharing the piece with it's audience. Maybe in a billion years, someone will connect two-and-two, make a little insight, and uncover the the terror and turmoil that was 71's early days.

Has anything changed?