The latest edition of the Steve Ogden Braincast is up online with a little bit of Director’s Commentary! The driving BrainCast returns as I’m once again behind the wheel after a lengthy hiatus from Moon Town and the BrainCast. This is finally Part I of my long-promised Spoilerific Director’s Commentary about Moon Town Book #1, where I talk about what Moon Town might have been, and the Adventures of Ace Tripwire. Music by Tim Larkin.

The latest edition of the Steve Ogden Braincast is up online. In this episode, “Of Lost Robots and a Girl in London”, I talk about how Imogen Heap’s new album Ellipse and Amanita’s new game Machinarium strike a similar chord in me and why they are inspiring me right now. I also backtrack to the previous Braincast to add some thoughts about Motivation, and wax philosophical on the subject of How to be More Creative. Music by Tim Larkin.

ZERO is the perfect score. I got a 23 (a little better than average for my age range.) How did you do?

I get to sketching, and Moon Town is never far from my mind. This quick sketch of the complex and refinery has a lot of charm. I am so drawn to the vibrant energy of these quick, sloppy sketches. I could see a whole movie done in that quirky style.

And yet I am drawn to the careful, masterful rendering of someone like Nick Constantine at Massive Black. Part of a refinery he designed for Red Faction is reproduced below.

They really are two drastically different approaches and solutions to the same problem. I love the energy of my nutty sketch, and I love the virtuosity of Nick’s drawing. Yet if you built either of these structures for a game, or a movie, or what have you, they would say completely different things about the project, wouldn’t they?

How about you? What style do you prefer?

When it comes to making films, there is an approach I think works, and an approach I think yields less successful results. Basically, you can start from a story point, or you can start from a wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if point. THIS BLOG POST sums is all up.

Illustrator and character designer Stephen Silver is a wealth of encouragement and inspiration. You artists and aspiring character folks out there, book his site, because his advice is often relevant to whatever you’re going through. Today’s entry is “Do it for Yourself“. It’s advice I’m sure you’ve heard before, and already know. But it bears repeating.

The latest edition of the Steve Ogden Braincast is up online. In this episode, I talk about the release of my new comic short Cubicle Pigs and its first episode Commercial Art. I also talk about where the idea came from, the Super Bowl, Advertising, and EEEEvil Corporations.

Over the past three weeks, I have been writing a feature article for 3D World magazine. It is a compilation of interviews with various animation industry professionals, regarding one excellent animated short each. I was hoping to uncover issues with them like what they felt was notable about the film, why they personally were passionate about the film, and what exactly they felt 3D artists could learn from the film (this is 3D World after all…). I enjoyed trading emails with these pros.

One of them brought up a particularly interesting point. Regarding my questions discussing one of the traditionally animated films, he said, “I don’t wish to be rude, but I don’t really care what 3D artists can learn from this film.”

The 3D artist in me bristled at that comment, because I thought it part of a Real Art vs Commercial Art snobbiness I come across from time to time. I agree with Hugh McLeod that the argument over whether something is commercial or artistic is a complete waste of time. And I do caution those Artsier Than Thou goons who would throw stones at me that although I  am a life-long commercial artist and longtime 3D artist, I am also a one-time 2D cel animator, newspaper and magazine illustrator, and current comic book artist, not some mediocre polygon monkey without traditional skills. The phrase “book by its cover” comes to mind. Other phrases also come to mind, but one doesn’t say them when one is hoping to get a decent interview from animation industry luminaries.

Anyway, after his initial I-don’t-wish-to-be-rude response, I didn’t think I would hear back from him; I and my silly question had been dismissed. Yet, he surprised me by almost immediately sending me back a perfectly reasonable response about the film, and what was valuable about it. I don’t want to spoil the article here, so I’ll just say his comments had to do with the fact that the edges hadn’t been knocked off the film.

And then I understood where he was coming from a lot better. Knocking the edges off of art is what 3D software excels at, and it’s what many mediocre 3D artists inadvertently excel at too, for that matter. The 3D artists I admire are the ones who work very hard to avoid sterility, who work very hard to get and keep character in their work. The films that I respond to have those things in common, regardless of media. And so I think the interviewee and I actually wound up in agreement that there was plenty 3D artists could learn from the film in question, and from his comments. His interview was my favorite and the most illuminating. And the things he said needed to be said, and should be said more, especially in the pages of our CG magazines.

Look for that feature article in next month’s 3D World. Watch this space…

Kazu’s latest Copper cartoon shows what a gifted writer Kazu is. It’s an open-ended story, and I don’t expect Kazu to tell us what he meant by it. But it is obviously a metaphor, and knowing him like I do, I believe it is a metaphor for his work in comics. Many things I see him create, in fact, leave me with that impression. Kazu is very good at making comics, and you can tell he loves it.

But this latest, “Angler“, puts me in mind of what we’ve seen in the webcomics community lately. There has been a rash of sort of whininess that has to do with the fact that webcomickers haven’t quite figured out a way to make a living at making webcomics. It’s like everyone suddenly just realized they’ve been giving perfectly good stuff away for free, which they have been doing. But somewhere down the line, we also forgot we were doing it for the fun of it once upon a time.

If fishing in “Angler” is a metaphor for making comics, and catching fish then is the metaphor for making money and/or getting a big audience, then I think Copper’s dialog reflects the attitude Kazu has demonstrated again and again: that this is fun, even if we don’t catch anything.

Fred the dog plays the part of the angry, impatient artist who wants to Hurry Up and Make It, and as such, has two very revealing lines. He laments, “Maybe we’re in the wrong spot”, although we see the water is actually overflowing with fish. That’s the internet, to me. Webcomickers complain that they’re not getting enough, or even the right kinds of visitors to their sites. But the sea is FULL. We’re in the right spot, all right.

Fred goes on to say, “If we spend more on stuff, we’ll be so awesome.” Man, is that a loaded line. If the strip is indeed about comics, then the thought is that by using a better pen, or a better grade of paper, or a Cintiq, or maybe a book on how to be a successful webcomicker, or whatever, we’ll Make It. Copper suggests perhaps the duo simply needs to get better at fishing; or to interpret it the way I do, that webcomickers perhaps should just focus on our craft.

What makes this strip brilliant, and very Calvin-and-Hobbes-esque, is that it doesn’t HAVE to be about webcomics. I see it that way because that’s what is on my mind lately. But I’m sure other people interpret it in other ways. What did you see in the strip when you read it? Let’s discuss it!

Anyway, this strip is a nice little piece of writing with a broad appeal, and I just thought it was worthy of a mini-analysis. I now return you to your regularly scheduled schedule.

Bre Pettis has an intriguing idea at his site: The Cult of Done. So often perfectionism gets in the way of completion. Perhaps there is value to just getting something done even if it’s not perfect.

However, as I said in my podcast this week, “Any moron can throw together a piece of crap in a week. But what point is there?” Getting it done just to get it done? Hmm.

Obviously perfectionism is a double-edged sword. But what of those who are continually embarrassed by the work they rushed out the door before it was ready? Slow down, Chester. Production for the sake of production ain’t all it’s cracked up to be either. After all, I’m pretty sure you produce something in the toilet every day, and you might be proud of it, but I’m not sure the rest of us need to see it.

If you are chronically unable to finish your personal projects, try the Cult of Done on for size. It’s an interesting thought, and I think it could help you balance out that natural tendency toward perfectionism which just might be getting in your way. But if are chronically dissatisfied with your own work… you might want to watch out for this little bit of advice.

Thanks to Tom Dell’Aringa for the tip.