The Story Behind #1 - Stein in ‘Here’s Something’
Check out the companion video for this on my youtube channel:
https://youtu.be/Ttd04y1p6eA
First of all, If I am going to talk about how I started animating Stein, I need to take a quick trip to the past to talk about ‘Buck Moon’.
Around 2005 when I was heavily trying to promote the feature length project for Buck Moon, which later led to a brief fundraiser which funded a short that had a very limited release both online and offline. It all comes down to something my Mom kept telling me I should do, and turn it into a cartoon.
Around 2012 I began an attempt to do just that. Using frames taken with me in the Buck Moon costume, I had begun my first attempt using technical pen on vellum. This animation can be seen in several videos on my YouTube channel and my original YouTube channel, now labeled DCR-Chives. However, the process was proving to be too costly for me to produce. Later I would get my drawing tablet, and things would change.
In 2013, after having gone through some drastic changes in my life, I began working on ‘Buck Moon: Greatest Hits’, a three part cartoon series which would’ve shown Buck Moon before “The Event”. But this blog is about Stein, we will discuss this more in the next blog. So to make a long story short, ‘Greatest Hits’ would not be completed. In fact, I had suffered a computer issue which had destroyed months of work, finished videos, scripts, voice work and more. Aside from the original 2012 animation and some of the animation pieces created from the series, it was like it never existed.
I had to rebuild. I did not want to fail again. And again... and again.
Beginning in the Winter of 2013, I began drawing a test “puppet” (This is what I call the characters I animate as I feel it’s the best way to describe them, on account of how I design and animate them versus traditional animation. For example: the eyes, eyebrows, mouth, arms, head, moustache and legs of Stein have all individual animations for each segment to minimise the amount of time it takes to animate.), and had decided to use the character Stein.
Now Stein began as a comic strip I was working on while I was in college in the hope of maybe finding a syndicate that would pick it up (Which is a very small window of opportunity, I sure don’t pursue easy career choices now that I think about it. Moving on. So Stein became a big hit within my family and friends, and so when I had finally stopped making the comics, both he and Fogelburg would be featured every year on my Christmas cards, for those few who received them. This became a tradition for me for quite a few years until recently.
The puppet looked good. I made my test animation with a generic voice I had recorded (this video no longer exists, sorry), and I had noticed the character was too light and needed darker and thicker outlines. This whole initial process is what brought the design of Stein to what it is now. The bodies of the characters are colored in with digital chalk and outlined with a digital calligraphy pen. I then use a variety of digital mediums (paint, marker, colored pencil, pencil, technical pen, ink and pen and more), which ultimately depends on the situation scripted.
Having found a design method I liked for the characters I started designing the world around him, which at the time was a backyard with a fence and some trees.
Time for me to admit something here. Though ‘Here’s Something’ was the first cartoon to be released, it was actually the last to be finished of the original 3 cartoons:
‘Here’s Something’ (https://youtu.be/ww-MR4fiA6A)
‘Stein - Number One’ https://youtu.be/2JtX7L_TVZM)
‘Stein - Number Two’ (https://youtu.be/iKeyL-5ynxI)
These three cartoons were my starting point and had later led into the fundraisers I had held through 2014, which funded the next three cartoons in part.
The writing process was tough to start. Mostly because the original comics were aimed at a more mature sense of humor. I was wanting to make something that could appeal to everyone. 22 scripts were originally written, with two planned “shorts”, one of which was ‘Here’s Something’. The decision to use the scripts was based on the difficulty I had finding talent during this time. Actually, come to think of it, I still have difficulty in this area. Anyway, my friend Andrew had agreed to lend his voice to the project. The short was intended to be a sort of pilot. Two stories were supposed to be featured in ‘Here’s Something’. The first was the finished cartoon that exists now. The original second half was an attempt at trying the mature humor in an animated setting. Andrew recorded dialogue, I recorded dialogue and the characters were 80% designed. So what happened?
I wanted to try to keep it clean in the hopes of appealing to a broader audience.
I plastered the link everywhere and anywhere I could. Facebook, Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, reddit, LinkedIn and instagram were the ones to get it the most.
Needless to say, the numbers spoke for themselves. I try not to get down about it. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was me or the material? Even later when I would pay to promote the videos, the numbers increased slightly but ultimately returned no feedback or criticism. I’ll admit, I felt rejected.
I thought to myself, “Maybe it’s too long?”.
So I made a shorter version which I dubbed the DOUBLE ESPRESSO CUT, which was actually what I did to make it happen, pulled an all nighter editing and re editing, adding new sfx and other things.
This version had performed about just as well.
The material had come from the very first strips I had written and drawn with Stein which introduced the then unnamed alien (Which is why naming him Alien was funny to me.), and had taken Stein on a trip to outer space which didn’t include the space bear, but did feature Stein crashing the ship. Later I would publish these strips on my tumblr. (link)
As I had mentioned though, this was the last one to be finished. If you look between Number One and Here’s Something, you can see the difference in how it’s animated, designed and overall looks.
‘Here’s Something’ was intended to be bigger and more cinematic, it boasted 9 separate backgrounds between Steins yard, Outer Space (later redesigned for Number Twelve), the Alien Planet and inside the Spaceship. Since I had a bunch of practice with the first two cartoons, I was able to play around more with the characters and how I animate them. In the end I am very happy with how it all came out. The voice acting, the artwork, the process. For the first time in years I was not only able to slap my name on something, but something I taught myself to do. Something I pushed myself to do. Something to be proud of.
The road I have chosen hasn’t been an easy one, but every once in a while it produces a jewel.
Follow me on Twitter @jackunchained
Subscribe to my channel on Youtube youtube.com/c/jackmatych
Check out my older films and the work of my friends at youtube.com/DCR-Chives
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