Tonight's the Big Night!

If you're in the States, that is - if you're in the UK or Canada or Australia, it's already aired, I think -but here in the US of A, tonight at 7:30, Cartoon Network will be airing "Mayhem of the Music Meister!", a.k.a the musical episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, directed by me (I posted about it in my last post, which was... wow, over 3 months ago). You can get some previews here, but really, I'm posting this so late, just wait a few hours and you can watch the whole thing on TV. Even if you miss it, it's on again Saturday at 10 AM. I guess I should have been plugging it sooner, but the episode's already getting plenty of attention, like this and this and this, not to mention a soundtrack release already (buy it here!).



Anyways, check it out. I've been wanting to do a musical episode for like 5 years now, since we did Bunny Raven on Teen Titans. We were going to follow that up the following season with a full-on musical episode, but we ran out of money and time, so we made Mother Mae-Eye instead (which I still like, but I know it's not on a lot of fans' lists of favorite episodes).



As always, Batman and Teen Titans characters and images are ™ and © DC Comics.

This, that, and the other thing

Okay, NOW you can buy Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo. Here's a link. I've been boycotting my own blog until it got released, so now I can post again (it's really not because I've been too lazy to post - how dare you even suggest such a thing?)

In other news, Kid's WB is running new episodes of Legion of Super-Heroes again, all through February. Finally, a reason to wake up on Saturday mornings! And speaking of Saturday mornings-

I painted another painting! It's for this show! How 'bout that? That brings my lifetime painting total up to 3. Here it is, in case you can't make it out to Alhambra this Saturday (after you watch Legion and buy Titans: Tokyo, of course)-

It's called "GNAP!". If you don't know why, watch this little video clip here.

November at last!

You know what that means - Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo is available on the 7th! Wouldn't it make a great Christmas present for all your Titan-loving friends and family? Sure would! And look at that temptingly low SRP!



Or not - apparently, they moved the release date again, this time to February 6th. Grinched again! Oh well. In the meantime, here's a page of sketches I did for the DVD cover.



The actual finished box art was done by some guy named Glen Murakami. All Teen Titans characters ™ and © DC Comics.

Hey, American Titans fans, since you can't buy the Titans DVD this Tuesday, make sure to go out and vote! I know you have 70 minutes suddenly freed up, so no excuses!

Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo airs tonight

At 7:30 on Cartoon Network. We made it a long time ago, and it's been sitting on a shelf for a while now. They dusted it off for San Diego, but if you didn't get a chance to catch it there, it finally airs tonight at 7:30. If you miss that, don't worry, it airs again at the same time tomorrow (Saturday). And if you miss that, apparently you can buy it November 7th. Really, after that, you're on your own.

Here's a little script doodle - including a little section of the script! So watch out for spoilers.

I think I was inspired to put big feet on Cyborg by Irineo Maramba. Cyborg, big feet and all, ™ and © DC Comics.

DOOM

Here's something weird about blogspot - if you start a post in, say, February, and don't publish it until July, it'll still post as a February post. Just sayin', is all.

Any ways, here's an old page of scribbles from the days of the second Doom Patrol episode of Teen Titans. Glen had designed a bulky Robotman, and I was messing around, trying to get a feel for it.



At the time, someone had suggested Mr. T as a potential voice actor for Robotman. But then, that same someone suggests Mr. T for just about every voice being cast, so I don't think there was ever any serious consideration of the idea.



This drawing is just for fun.



Robotman, Negative Man, Robin, Elasti-Girl, Raven, Slade, Cyborg and Robin ™ and © DC Comics.
Mr. T ™ and © Mr. T.

So how's everyone been?

I've been extremely busy lately. But now I'm finally just really busy again, so I can post infrequently on my blog.

Not "often" or "occasionally", mind you, but "infrequently". Which is more than every two months or so. I'll try to get back onto a weekly schedule.

But in the meantime, please check out the many awesome (and much more frequently updated) blogs on my sidebar at the right. Michael Chang has a swell new post with storyboard images from "Things Change", which is an idea I'm absolutely stealing.

You know what, I almost forgot the copyright stuff. So Beast Boy, Cyborg, Robin, Slade and Starfire are ™ and © DC Comics. The gorilla might be Monsieur Mallah (I can't remember whether I meant it to be or not), and if he is, then he's ™ and © DC Comics. Otherwise, he's ™ and © me. Also, I guess the donuthead guy is ™ and © me, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to draw a guy with a donut for a head.

Pufnsmudge

I know I haven't posted in a while - I've been working on a nice little post that is turning out to be extraordinarily large. In the meantime, here's this -



I drew this during the Bunny Raven recording. Or was it Mother Mae-Eye? No, it was Mother Mae-Eye. Those were probably the two most enjoyable records I sat in on - Bunny Raven because Tom Kenny kept ad-libbing hilarious stuff (some of which we kept - the "You're great, I love you" bit from the Stagehand was ad-libbed) and the Mother Mae-Eye one because of Billie Hayes. Now, I didn't grow up on Sid & Marty Krofft stuff like some people, so for me there wasn't the nostalgic resonance when Ms. Hayes was recording, but when she did the evil Mother Mae-Eye laugh, I got chills up my spine. Seriously.

Anyways, this was drawn with a black Sharpie, then coloured with highlighter pens (yellow, orange, pink and green). I really like the way the highlighter pens smudged the Sharpie, making the costume look old and filthy. I don't really care for the drawing on the back of the page bleeding through, but what can you do.

I don't remember why I drew Derrick Wyatt in the costume, or why he is so unhappy. HR Pufnstuf is probably ™ and © Sid & Marty Krofft. Derrick Wyatt of East Gotham City ™ and © DC Comics.

In search of a gag

Some time ago I promised to post an example of an idiot-style drawing that had a practical application. Of course, I also promised a moratorium on the Super-D - but I'll still keep the first promise. Here's a page of idiotic scribbles in search of a gag for "X".



Sometimes it helps to feel your way through a scene like this before you storyboard it. Most of this was in the script (probably not the multiple SD Starfires), but I can't find a copy of the script around, so take my word for it for now. I still wonder if the gag would have played better with a full-sized Starfire standing on Robin's head. Also, it looks like I forgot to include the drawing of Robin with an X in place of his eyes. Oh well. Another X gag lost to the pressures of deadlines. Remember kids, haste makes waste. I think we hid enough Xs in the show as it is. In any case, that becomes this -
















And then we make this (this is my only character design for Titans)-



Then Derrick takes a pass to make it actually look like the rest of the show, Chris Hooten colours it, and we get this-



And then Tom McLaughlin adds the timing, and it gets sent overseas, where Lotto subjects it to their mysterious and wonderful processes. Then they send this back to us-



Then Joe Gall plugs that into his avid and turns it into this (I don't know why this is the only version I have in widescreen)-



The next step is very mysterious to me, since I'm not involved in any way. Someone writes some music, someone else adds some sound effects, Scott redubs a line or two of dialogue, and they all get mixed together to make this -



I guess I kind of lost track of the point in there somewhere.

"No, Wobin, I won't stop."

Not now, not evew. I am the evow that haunts evewy dawk cowa-nah of yowa mind. I wiww nevah west - and neither wiww you.

Slade ™ and © DC Comics.

Boo Hoo Hoo

Hey, look, Cyborg's sad about something.



Is it because of all of the messed-up Cyborg heads in last Sunday's post? No, it's because he just found out that he's my girlfriend's least favourite Titan. At least, that's what she told me a year or so ago, so I drew this. It didn't do anything to change her mind. Better luck next time, Cy. For the record, you're not my least favourite Titan (that would be Jericho). Here's Cyborg in colour.


Coloured by Glen Murakami, but I'm sure the colours are all messed up, what with being copied, scanned and adjusted. Oh well. As always, Cyborg © and ™ DC Comics.

So much for Plan A

I was planning to update this weekly at first, and then gradually drop off to semi-annual posts, but I forgot that Brianne Drouhard's magic internet ninja skills would alert her to my blog the instant I made it (her blog is linked in my sidebar). I also neglected to anticipate that she would then set up a link, drawing people here when all there is to see is one page of messed-up Cyborg heads. So here's another post, and I'll post, say, every other day for a while, dropping to twice a week, then weekly, and eventually forgetting my password and drifting away, as originally planned.

This one is a drawing I did with a red Sharpie during the recording of Haunted.


As you can see, it totally encapsulates the somber atmosphere of the episode. Here's another version of the same idea, this time going over the rough red layer with a black Sharpie, while still failing utterly to achieve a finished look.


Robin and Slade ™ and © DC Comics.

New blog, first post

I'll admit to totally hopping the bandwagon here - everyone at work is starting up a blog, so I am too. To give mine something a little different, I'm going to use it primarily to post "idiot style" drawings. That is to say, unpolished drawings, crude but amusing, that are more about exploring some weird idea than being a good finished drawing. Sketches and scribbles and so forth. I do a lot of these, mostly because I am lazy and easily amused.

Most of the drawings I'll be posting were done during meetings or recordings or generally any time I should be paying attention to something else. As an example, my first post is a page of messed-up Cyborg heads I drew during the story break meeting for Wavelength. Teen Titans being the show it is, a surprising number of these actually turn out to be useful.


This was drawn with a fine black Sharpie on animation paper. Cyborg is ™ and © DC Comics.

I'll try to post something new every week.