If it's not hard, it's not worth doing.

Here are some screen shots of the opening of the Animated Short "Spartan the Martin". I especially like how the museum came out. I have no release date for StM as this will be a work in progress. I've been torn about animating this, as I really didn't think I had the chops. BUT, as the saying goes...if it's not hard, it's not worth doing.

I've been fortunate to have some fresh inspiration come from different area's of my life recently and I've finally decided to make this animation happen. I love the story even more as it developes and the character designs and backgrounds have really come along to where this deserves to be animated.

Over this past weekend I saw Kung Fu Panda...for the second time. I enjoyed this movie a lot the first time around. I found it even more amazing the second time as I could take in the animation and design of the film even more. This film is definitely one of those points of inspiration. for me., right down to the soundtrack. Which I now own.

3 minutes of pure Animation Goodness!

I've been following MukPuddy animation for sometime now. I've admired pretty much everything that these four guys from New Zealand have produced. It's stuff like this short below "The Pugh's" that gets my creative juices flowing. After watching this short I told myself that somehow, someway I will get Martin the Spartan animated! If only I can talk four amazingly talented kiwi animators into doing it for me...


It's the Pughs - Help Me Rudy! from Mukpuddy on Vimeo.

The "Forgotten Land" Tablet

The "Forgotten Land" tablet, located in the London Museum of Fine Arts and Antiquities. The tablet was discovered by legendary archaeologist Arthur Mitsbottom at an undisclosed location in 1836. Little is known of the tablet or the Spartan and Evil that the text on the tablet speak of. Unfortunately this is all that was discovered. Though rumor has it that Mitsbottom found additional pieces, but lost them during a cave in of the undisclosed archaeological dig. Escaping with only his life and the story locked within his memory, Mitsbottom before his death passed on the story to his only grandson, Miles Mitsbottom as a bedtime tale.

Or so the rumor goes...

In a Forgotten Land and Time...

The verdict isn't quite out on this background. I like the mountains and the clouds over the night sky. It's the city itself that I'm still trying to decide whether I should stick with it or not. I'm going to start working on the story more over the next week and start fleshing things out a bit more.

Yep, another Martin the Spartan Background

Still working on the style and design of the Martin the Spartan backgrounds. I'm not sure if the shadowing is correct, but I think it's got a great gloomy feel to it.

Another Background Study

I used the previous blogged background of Scott Wills as reference. Once again, I'm pleased with the results.

Background study

In an effort to create Martin the Spartan with original art, I've been working on digitally painting my own backgrounds. This is my first test. I think for a first try it didn't come out half bad.

Middle School Crushes

I can still remember the day when my "Adventures in Babysitting" picture book came in from my book fair order back in Middle School. It was just me and Elisabeth Shue on the walk home from school. Some crushes die hard. I obviously fell for her in Karate Kid, but it wasn't Love till Adventures in Babysitting.

I think what we're looking at here is a nice little jumping off point for the start of the new and improved Life On Pause. We will see.

Making Time for Martin

Poor Martin. This guys keeps being shoved of a cliff when it comes to me deciding on what projects to work on. So I gave Martin some love today and worked on "Martin the Spartan" I have a lot of excitement for this as the story starts to come together. I keep going back and forth on whether this should be animated, AKA ( A LOT OF WORK) or convert it into a story book style read. I'm leaning towards the story book. This is definitely a hobby project as I am using copyrighted material (Scott Wills Backgrounds from Samurai Jack). As shown here in this promo for Spartin the Martin. I love photoshop.