Ben Reynold's Blog

new and improved

2011-08-15T23:31:00.000-07:00

Just in case you guys missed the memo, you should know that all activity on this blog has ceased and will be continued on my new and improved website, http://ben-reynolds.com

Detour

2011-05-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

ben-reynolds.com

New and improved!

New Hotness

2011-05-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

Check it:
benolds.tumblr.com

Paige Abridged

2011-01-29T19:06:00.000-08:00

A million sand dollars to the person that can tell me what that is on Paige's shirt...

Every once in a while, I have to produce something Kerslash related to remind myself it still exists. I also did this sprite thing, (you can see the animated version HERE)

just to dust off the old animation hat. I've been working on animation stuff all day today and my computer has been STRUGGLING to keep up. I think it might be time to take this old horse out behind the barn and put it out of it's misery. What I don't get is that it handles high resolution 3d in Maya like a champ, but slows down to a crawl in Flash? That's just BASS ACKWARDS!

Paint Tool Sai!!!

2010-12-31T10:32:00.000-08:00

So I finally managed to bust out a 100% digital drawing without my computer crashing. I drew Cammy because I was in a Street Fighter kind of mood last night. In the end I decided that I didn't like it enough to finish it. But I am very happy with the results. I used the paint brush on this one were as on the batgirl drawing I was using the marker tool.

One problem I've always had drawing on the computer, and with digital inking in particular, was not being able to spin the "paper" around to match the natural curve of my hand. Well Sai let's you spin the canvas while you draw so I can do some reasonably adequate inks:

This is the first digital inking job I've been satisfied enough to post (I've had a lot of failed attempts). Here are the "pencils":

So yeah, Paint tool sai for the win.

black bat

2010-12-29T14:00:00.000-08:00

The other morning, I woke up and was inspired to draw this afro'd batgirl. My scanner is in the trunk of my car, so I went guerrilla style and just took a picture of the drawing with my phone and then colored it with Paint Tool Sai. That's my first time ever using Sai, I like it a lot; runs a lot smoother than photoshop. And I like how you can simulate dipping your paint brush into water and stuff.

Here's the original photo from my phone after I touched up the threshold in Photoshop:

Also, I had some sad news over the Christmas break. I received word that a friend of mine from college passed away over the holiday. His name was Courtney Johnson and he was a phenomenal artist and a really great person. You may have noticed I had his blog linked on my side bar. I encourage you guys to check out his art on his deviantart gallery and his blog.

that ninja girl comic I draw

2010-12-17T12:22:00.000-08:00

I've been asked many times by many people if I am ever going to finish Kerslash. The answer is yes...sometime...eventually...in the future. I know it's been over a year since I've posted the last page, but I still consider Kerslash "ongoing". It's going to be a little while before I can start updating it again, but Kerslash will definately be finished when I have the time for it.

In the meantime, people are still posting reviews for it over on Drunkduck. The latest review is from a fellow on the forums called Air Raid Robertson:

“Kerslash” is, as you may have guessed from the onomatopoetic title, primarily an action comic. Its main protagonist is a teenaged ninja girl named Paige. In the opening of the story she’s a star pupil at a boarding school for ninja assassins. (The school even has a dean’s list and everything) However, she’s expelled when she won’t cross certain moral boundaries and is forced to restart her life at a small arts college. Naturally, it doesn’t take long for her to make new enemies and also have some of her old problems follow her to the new campus.

I’ll begin by discussing “Kerslash’s” key virtue, which I believe is the art. The stylistic leanings of the comic are definitely rooted in manga. However, it isn’t done in a way that is shamelessly derivative or woefully tacked-on. The artist has clearly studied the manga artists that they love and applied certain characteristics of it to the artwork they were doing already. This is good to run into since I am very, very sick of seeing webcomics where someone just traces panels out of “Bleach” or “Naruto”.

Another key component of this comic’s look is definitely wyldestyle. One wouldn’t think that the characteristics of spray-paint graffiti would transfer to comics all that smoothly, but in the past decade or so artists like Jim Mahfood and Damian Scott have pulled it off. There’s definitely an undercurrent of this in “Kerslash”. Limb movement is exaggerated and poses are rendered in a manner reflective of a bombed out subway car. It’s a nice touch.

These artistic stances give the book a high octane, razzle-dazzle feel that more than lives up to the energetic title of the series. As I said in the opening sentence, “Kerslash” is very much a fight comic and it feels the most alive during its elaborate sword fighting sequences. I really can’t compliment the action scenes enough. They’re dashing, cinematic, and very impressively rendered.

Of course, there’s also the writing. I’m afraid that it isn’t really my cup of tea. The pages so far are laced with minor spelling and grammatical errors, but those can be easily fixed and they’re only the tip of the iceberg. My main problem with ‘Kerslash” is how it retains a steadfast devotion to the clichés of its genre.

In the very beginning Paige is giving a first person narrative about her tenure at a boarding school for ninjas. She’s the head of her class and has logged over a thousand hours fighting holograms. The reader knows from page one that her headmaster is going to have Paige fight and kill some real people in order to see if she has the stones to take a life. And, the reader also immediately knows that she’ll ultimately shun the notion of killing in cold blood. (Which makes me wonder why she enrolled in a school for hired assassins in the first place)

The storyline in “Kerslash” has absolutely no surprises in it. Every single plot point is signaled to the reader miles before it arrives. If you have any familiarity with martial arts movies, TV shows, video games, or comics you have already witnessed the events of “Kerslash” dozens of times before. So far it hasn’t brought any new variations on the genre to its pages.

I wouldn’t say that ‘Kerslash” is a bad webcomic. It’s visually arresting, and it has a good knowledge of the well-worn narrative ground it treads upon. It’s also a fairly new comic, so it definitely has the potential to transcend its roots. For now, however, it’s just another ninja fight comic in an ocean of similar ones.

That's a very thorough review. I encourage everybody to give me an honest review, because it results in better comics for you.

Next blog post will have some new art in it, I promise.

Digital Fail Again

2010-12-08T10:56:00.000-08:00

Soooo, PS crashed again while I was drawing this last night. I was able to salvage this from the screen cap I took. I think maybe my computer just can't keep up with me when I'm doing these quick sketches.

Back to the drawing board.

Digital Win!

2010-12-06T00:45:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Sinistar I figured out that my problem was the custom brushes I was using. He recommended an alternate set of custom brushes that are more compatible for the version of photoshop that I'm using. So now everything's working fine and photoshop isn't crashing...so far.

Digital Fail!

2010-12-05T02:49:00.000-08:00

Very frustrating. I decided to dust off my wacom tablet and do some sketching in photoshop. I got these ill photoshop brushes from this guy and went to town sketching straight into photoshop. Lot's of fun until I went to save and photoshop crashed. After muttering a series of explicatives, I decided that maybe I was using up too much ram and decided to reboot my computer and draw my sketch again. Not only did I redraw my sketch, but I also made it look better than the first one. I figured there was no reason for photoshop to crash a second time, but as a precaution I took a screen cap of my finished drawing. I hit save. Photoshop crashed again.

So the drawing you see up top is the screen capture of the second sketch. I remember thinking, "why don't I just draw straight into the computer anymore?", and now I remember why:

Paper doesn't crash.

Animated Coco

2010-09-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

Coco Gun Bun Promo from Ben Reynolds on Vimeo.

Influence Map

2010-08-23T00:58:00.000-07:00

So, this thing is actually a meme that started over on Deviantart, but I thought I'd post it on here too since people seem to be interested in what I'm into:

I bet you're surprised to see so many american artists, huh?

There are a lot of film directors I'm into as well, but I thought maybe I should keep this thing specific to artists that are directly influencing the way I draw right now. I know there's a bunch I'm forgetting, but these guys are pretty much my main influences.

So if you think you might have similar tastes, and are in need of an artistic aphrodisiac, google some of those names and the results should jump start those creative juices.

Almost there...

2010-07-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

The home stretch has never been closer.

Also, here's this thing I did a while ago:

Girlfriends in particular hate Cammy's Delta Red costume.

That's all for now, back to the grind--

A Kerslash Review

2009-11-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

I found a new Kerslash review on Drunk Duck yesterday:

First things first...I don't read any manga. I have friends who are all about the stuff, but I haven't got into it at all.

Having said that. I am pleasantly surprised at how much I like KERSLASH. I really like the look of the comic. I suppose this is a comment on manga in general, but I enjoy the 'high energy' framing of the panels. Often I find the panel format adds very much to the energy and feel of the comic and this comic has got it right.

Art:
The art is fun and eye catching. I feel that the artist definitely has a good handle on artistic form. The main character has a "North American" look to me (if that is a look). She looks like a tween girl you might know at your highschool. Maybe the odd placement of her as a top ninja surrounded (at first) by all things Japanese is what caught my eye in the beginning, something new and different.

Story:
It's interesting how manga can add maybe 5 panels each update and still feel like you are reading a book. Imagine of you read a novel at that pace...it would be excruciatingly slow! At any rate, my only problem is that I sometimes found my self "falling out" of the story. I couldn't get into it deeply. I started off wanted to engross myself in the story but sometimes an odd twist, or an obvious plot event knocks me back to reality (sitting at my computer, reading a comic on Drunk Duck). The best stories engage you in a way that you forget your day to day activities. You can't help but read on and continue the story as though it is part of your world. Although this story has promise, I still haven't reached that 'lost myself int he comic' feel.

All in all an enjoyable first venture in to manga like comics. Thanks for the great strip!

Frank

I'm always surprised to find positive reviews for Kerslash. I'm still waiting for that one damning review that knocks me down a couple pegs.

Kerslash: Behind the Scenes

2009-10-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

People seem to be interested in the process I use for producing comic pages. So using page 43 of Kerslash as an example, I thought I'd provide some insight into my process:

kerslash is strange in the sense that it's kind of unscripted. I know what's going to happen in my head, but before I start drawing anything, I take a second to organize what exactly's going to be happening from panel to panel. I do a really quick "bare bones" outline of all the action and dialog that's going to happen. This page won't have any dialog so it's all just action. Nothing is written in stone, and at this stage anything can change depending on how I feel about it. Next I number the panel breaks and doodle little thumbnails of the panels. I also add any additional notes that are relevant to the layout of the page. The final step is to do a thumbnail of my layout, with corresponding numbered panels.

Once I've come to a decision of how to do my layout, I grab a ruler and start drawing my panels. I use 2 kinds of paper when drawing Kerslash. More often than not I use a sheet of 11x17 printer paper that I got from Office Depot a while back. I like this paper because it's cheap(500 sheets for $10) and it works great for spotting blacks with a sharpie.
If I'm in a big rush, or trying to make up for missing updates, then I'll use a sheet of 8.5x11(I cut it to size) Borden & Riley "Bleedproof paper for pens". This helps because it fits in my scanner without me having to scan it in peices and stitch it back together, and allows me to ink with a brush which I can do faster than using a sharpie. Even though it's a cheap bristol board alternative, it's still kind of expensive and they only give you 40 sheets in a book/bundel.

Next, I go through and ink over all my lines using an "S" Faber-Castell PITT pen. I like to ink my panels first because they tend to get smudged while I'm drawing inside them. Also, I highly recommend using a big clear plastic ruler with the guidelines printed in them. It's much faster than using a T-square and triangle, and having it be see-through is a big help for when you are drawing speed lines.

After that, I'll use a sharpie to make my gutters black. Honestly, it's faster to just add the black later in photoshop, but their is something very satisfying about doing it by hand.

The next step is to start roughing in the pencils. I use a red cole-erase pencil because I have a hard time seeing the non-photo blue ones. One thing that's nice about penciling in color is that you can just remove it digitally later without having to worry about going back over your inked lines with an eraser. Even though it's probably a better idea to rough out all the pencils first and then go back and ink the entire page, I prefer to ink each panel as I go, just because I like for the page to be finished in one pass.

Remember when I said that nothing is written in stone? It's at this stage that most of my major changes are made. For instance, you'll notice that my outline called for a close up of Paige stabbing her sword into the ground. Midway through the page I decided that that panel was unneccessary, so instead, I added a close up of Reggie reacting to loosing his sword.

The last things I do to finish up a page before scanning include adding speedlines(the least fun thing to do) and thickening up some outlines around characters and sound fx. At this point I either find a copy machine and shrink my page down to fit my scanner or just scan it in peices and stitch it back together. After that it's on to tones and lettering...

Maybe I'll go into scanning and cleaning up the pencils and all that good stuff next time. Until then, here's a final shot of the stuff I used to draw this page (and most of my artwork)

Guardiangel Setsuna

2009-10-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

Haven't updated in a while. Here's something I did last night:

This is the first colored piece I've done in a while. The characters are from an old PS1 game called Evil Zone. It was drawn and inked by hand and then vectorized and colored in flash. Flatting in flash is so much less stressful. Also experimenting with using more detailed levels of cel-shading.

Quick Draw

2009-09-20T07:52:00.000-07:00

It's wonderful to be Robin redux

2009-08-13T21:52:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I've sat down at my desk and drawn anything on actual paper. I noticed that the so-so drawing of starfire I did in flash has been getting a lot of hits lately, so I thought I'd treat you guys to an updated version. I couldn't scan it though because of photoshop was being stupid, but here's a preview:

The Backdrop: BTS

2009-07-14T21:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a little video I made just showing some pictures I took while working on that backdrop.

TMP!

2009-05-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

So it's 12:41 in the am, I thought it might be the perfect time to update:

A rough sketch of epic proportions...um literally. Once this sketch get's approved, the real fun starts.

other than that, there's no real news yet.

::Con season approaches::
1st up // Anime Mid Atlantic

THEY'RE HERE!!!

2009-05-14T20:19:00.000-07:00

Kerslash mini's have arrived!

I know I've been off the grid for a while, but I just wanted to announce that I finally got my shipment of kerslash mini-comics! 28 pages of smarty art, ninja, action! Shoot me an email if you want to buy one: benolds01@yahoo.com. Just put "Kerslash mini" or something in the subject line and I'll let you know how you can get one.

Also, shoutout to BURST ANTHOLOGY. I missed this issue, but I will definitely be in future installments.

Also, also I think I'll be going to Anime Mid Atlantic in June, doing it up big at the Angry Viking Press table. I'll probably be doing a couple panels with them too, so be sure to attend so you can ask me why it's taking me so long to update kerslash in person.

Kerslash on Temporary Hiatus!

2009-04-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

I am officially declaring Kerslash on temporary hiatus to catch up on some things. I just have a lot of work on my plate right now and I need to devote some undivided attention to some other comic/animation projects that I have been trying to work on. I've been trying to juggle updating kerslash in conjunction with everything else, and it's resulting in everything being late.

So just give me some time to catch up on the paying side jobs and check back around this time next month. Thanks for your patience guys.

P.S. My first shipment of Kerslash mini's should be coming in next week, so if you want to order one from me, hit me up: benolds01@yahoo.com

Another Kerslash review!

2009-02-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

Today I stumbled upon a new review of Kerslash on Webcomic Z from last week:

http://www.webcomicz.com/articles/31/impressions-kerslash.html

"The art-style has become more refined over the years. Exciting line-art combined with halftone black-and-white and some greyscale coloring gives Kerslash a unique style that many could quickly label as a rip-off of manga; and be very wrong. While I'm sure Ben was influenced by manga, it feel very much like a stylistic choice for the comic rather than many manga-styled webcomics copying the style simply because they don't know any better. Kerslash wouldn't work as any other style."

It's a fairly positive review. I usually get flack for being slow and missing updates, but usually nobody rips my poor web-design. Yeah, I'm self aware, I know that site sucks. I'm going to give the entire site a make over before the month is over. I just wanted to get some updates on time before having to go on 1 week hiatus to update the site design.

About the Kerslash mini's: the printer has recieved my revised pages, just waiting for them to get back to me to let me know when I can start placing orders.

Dueces.

Kerslash Mini's!

2009-02-09T18:07:00.001-08:00

My Kerslash mini prototype was waiting for me when I got back from Ohio. All I have to do is fix some spelling errors and they'll be good to go!

It looks really good!
sorry if you bought a crappy photocopy version.

You can't wait to buy one can you!??!?

Ohayo-con Report

2009-02-02T15:26:00.001-08:00

So I'm back from Ohayo-con. This has been the most profitable con I've ever been to. I think I sold 4 Kerslash mini's and did like 6 or 7 commissions. Next time I'll have some better looking versions of kerslash that aren't photocopied; and prints, I'll also have some prints to sell. Even though I missed my chance to play Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, I'd say that this has been my best con experience. Thanks again to everybody that stopped by our table and attended our panels.

Next con I'll be at is Katsucon, but only as a spectator this time(and possibly helping out with some panels)

And now for some Kerslash related news:

-I got a really good review on artpatient.com

-On episode 69 of Seqa Lab, they read my email on air and plugged Kerslash, which was pretty cool.

2008-12-30T09:50:00.000-08:00

Here it is!
My interview on TGT webcomics podcast:

[LINK]

Go and listen to it now!

Comics are a Religion

2008-10-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

Just finishing off the last few touches of Brown Sugar Chronicles, the 7 page short I've been working on. Those 7 pages were brutal to complete, I can't even imagine doing all that for 200+ pages.

In other comics related news, I've started working on a new graphic novel written by my girlfriend, Chelsea. If you check out the above image, you can see that she was also the brain child behind BSC. The comic we're working on now is a romantic comedy called Boy/Girl, and will be the first 'real' comic I've ever drawn that doesn't have swords and fight scenes. The script is damned funny, and I'm not just saying that! Here's a preview, it's missing some word balloons and stuff:

It will debut as a webcomic, so you can check that out sometime in the near future.

Oh, and also I'm going to be a guest on the TGT Webcomics podcast on December 28th! Apparently, some crazy people somewhere have been reading Kerslash. It's going to be fucking live too, which makes me a bit nervous. But you get to listen to me talk about making comics and shit, and I'm sure they'll ask me why the hell it takes me so long to update... but yeah, I'll post a link to that later.

Speaking of Kerslash, I'm working on making some print issues of the first 16 pages, as like a sampler so I have some actual, tactile comics to peddle at conventions. It will be "digitally remastered" with extra artwork and notes, maybe even some fanart if anybody sends me some. Yeah, do some Kerslash fanart and I will totally put it in that book.

Hopefully, I will be able to update Kerslash next week, but you know how it is, life and shit...

three deez nuts

2008-09-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

In between making comics, I've been secretly practicing 3d animation in maya for a while. I was on a big stop-motion kick last week after deciding that making an actual puppet would be a lot less stressful, but after much consideration I decided that I should try out 3DS MAX before washing my hands of it entirely(plus, making good stop motion puppets is expensive). I've also started using zbrush which is a pretty cool program:

very easy to make ugly old faces with lots of weird wrinkles, but very hard to make pretty, soft things. I still don't like texturing yet:

We'll see how how this 3d thing goes...

more comic stuff soon--

Let's Go!

2008-06-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

I've been experimenting a lot recently with the wacom tablet. Here's a few new flash things:

and some sick blockshading, flash/toonboom combination:

Comics are kicking my ass right now; Brandon Graham says that "comics will break your heart...", I didn't realize how profound that statement was until I experienced it.

Okay, that's all for today. Gonna try and crank out a kerslash page before the night's end.

Change in plan

2008-05-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

COMICS, COMICS, COMICS!!!

1) I'm not coloring my Angry Viking comic, Brown Suga Chronicles anymore because Photoshop CS2 runs really slow on my computer and I don't have the time(and I hate coloring). I'll just have to patiently wait for my colorist.

2) Kerslash is still on weekly update status so far. If all goes well, I should have the new page up later tonight. It I can't finish it today, I won't be able to continue working on it until monday.

3) I'm doing a different short for Darkmarc's anthology because I'm having problems with Babylon Puppets. Babylon Puppets will still happen, there's just not enough time between now and June for me to do BP the way it I want it done. Instead I will be doing a comic called "Ion Trigger" staring the character featured up top. Her name is Sparkle and she kicks ass and takes names.

I am so determined to keep all my deadlines that it's driving me crazy. Any volunteers want to design an Ion Trigger logo for me???

Watch me draw!

2008-05-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

So I made a 2 part video showing how I go about completing a finished drawing. The first video covers the sketching and the second video covers the inking. Sorry you can't see what I'm doing towards the end of the first video, I didn't realize I was so close to the corner of the screen.
That's the finished drawing up top. It's my character Southpaw, from a comic I haven't made yet. I like to blast music when I draw, and sometimes I'll pick a song and just let it play on loop(such is the case with the second video); so sorry if you don't like it. If it bothers you that much, then just mute your speakers or something:

Southpaw Part 1: sketching
Uploaded by daiconv

Southpaw Part 2: inking
Uploaded by daiconv

That's pretty much it. Sometimes I'll go back and add a thick black outline around the entire character if I have to seperate them from the background. If you guys like this kind of stuff, let me know and I'll make more.

Maximum Comics Overload! EXCEED

2008-05-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

So, I showed some initiative and decided to color Brown Suga Chronicles myself, instead of waiting for a colorist to be assigned to me. This way I don't have to worry about who's coloring my work, and if it turns out bad I'll have no one to blame but myself.
In addition to coloring my Angry Viking comic, I also made the decision to start updating kerslash weekly. I came to this decision after looking over my archives and noticing that I'm working at about a page a month. At the rate I'm going, it'll take me another 2 years to finish the rest of kerslash. So to start off, I'm going to see if I can finish a page tonight and have it up by tomorrow. Wish me luck...

In addition addition to that, I'm also in the writing stages of a pre-apocalyptic comic for darkmarc's new anthology. It's going to be called "Babylon Puppets", and that's all you need to know. This one's full color too, and that deadline is approaching fast.

So yeah, shit's getting real.

So you guy's know that saturday's free comicbook day, right? I'm going to have a table at my local comic shop, Twilight Zone Comics that same day. It's supposed to be a "book signing" for kerslash, but how the hell do you do a book signing for a web comic??? well anyway, I'll be there doing sketches and talking about comics and showing off artwork and stuff. My girlfriend was going to come and pimp her comic, but she can't make it, so I'll be pimping her stuff too. So if you're going to be in the Glen Burnie, Maryland area, come by and help support indy comics.

Coco Fanart

2008-04-11T07:24:00.001-07:00

I was scrolling through this thing and noticed that I haven't really been posting any artwork. Isn't that the point of having a blog? So how about some fanart...

My girlfriend writes for a book called CocoGunBun. Coco's pretty hard to draw, I have a hard time keeping her "on model".
Coco's design is actually pretty complex, which makes it hard to convert her to a more simplifyed style. I think this came out pretty ok, even though I think her boobies are supposed to be bigger.

Issatsu!

2008-03-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

Kerslash is back on rampage!

So twilight zone comics is a block away from my job, so I've been reading a lot interesting comics lately. I've noticed this recent upsurge of indy superhero books.

First there's Paul Dini's Madame Mirage:

If you don't know, Paul Dini was a writter on the original Batman Animated series and a whole bunch of other DC animated cartoons. Dini has this reputation for doing clever dialog and it's kinda cool to finally see him do some more adult oriented stuff, with blood and four letter words. I really like the art in this book even though they do that thing I hate where they just skip the inking process all together and just slap colors overtop the pencils.

The other book I picked up is Kick-Ass:

This is the best comic I've read in a long time! It's written by Mark Millar, the guy that wrote Marvel Civil War. Although, Madame Mirage is cool in a cartoony sort of way, Kick-Ass is fucking tight. Just go to a comic book store, open it up and read the first 2 pages and you'll see what I'm talking about. The layouts in this book are fucking genious!

So the thing these 2 books have in common is that they are making superheros cool again (at least to me). In a world where Jean Grey is dead and Spiderman unmasks himself, my fate in super heroe comics is being slowly restored. Batgirl is still the top spandex book imo though.

and now for no reason in particular, a clip from the greatest cartoon ever made:

The Future of Graphic Literature

2007-10-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a cool video of a panel discussion about the state of graphic novels and the comic book industry.

http://www.newrageorder.com/?p=434

the only person I recognize is Kazu Kibuishi from Bolt City

Old Crap!

2007-09-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

Way back while I was attending AIW, I was part of a group led by darkmarc that got together and made comics. We produced 2 issues of this insane anthology of individual one pagers called Juggs, and this is one of my comics from the "gamers never get any issue". Juggs was heavily influenced by the anime Colorful.

Jungle Book and John K

2007-09-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

So me, my girlfriend and her roommate all watched the new jungle book dvd that came out today and I couldn't stop thinking about what John K said about Disney animation in his blog. He said something along the lines of, "classical Disney animators have the technical skill required to reproduce real life, but their characters possess no soul, " or something to that effect. I couldn't really understand what he was saying without seeing it for myself though.

Now I was all pumped to see the jungle book again for the first time in maybe 10 years; to see the masters like Milt Kahl in action. So this scene comes up in the middle of the movie with mogley walking down this path, and then it hit me...John K was right! Not just that he was right, but for the first time, I understood why he was so unimpressed with disney animation. Mogley had this perfect walk cycle! At first I was very impressed at how fluid and natural the animation was, but then the more I studied it, the more I noticed that it was too perfect! It was like it was rotoscoped! It was too real! The idea of knowing for a fact that that animation wasn't rotoscoped blew my mind! I mean, I can watch an anime and tell immediately when a scenes been rotoed because it stands out among the rest of the animation; the lack of exaggeration makes it stand out, and that's what was happening during this walk cycle. But it wasn't rotoscoped, the animator was just so good at imitating real life to the point that the animation started to look too much like real life(if that makes sense?)

And that's what John K's been saying all along: Disney's goal was to imitate real life in animation, to make a animated film that could "stand up" to a live action film. Now don't get me wrong, I still think jungle book is an impressive piece of work, and I love how sketchy and old school some of the scenes are. But I'm in agreement when John K says that animation should do things that are only possible in animation(besides talking). Now like I said, the animation in that movie is amazing, I just wish they didn't play it so straight.