Why Not

My Demo Reel

2008-12-01T13:33:00.001-05:00

Hey everybody. Dan here.

As some of you know, for the past couple of years I've been studying Computer Animation at Full Sail University in Orlando, FL. The last bit of time at school was spent working on my first Demo Reel. Essentially a demo reel is an animation portfolio containing a few short scenes that demonstrate what kind of stuff I am capable of for prospective employers. It's what I'll use to get a job - hopefully. Otherwise I'll just continue pitching in on Ross's soon-to-be award winning series of books.

I recently submitted my reel to the 2008 aniBoom Awards Animation Festival. Essentially this is an annual competition put on by the YouTube of the animation world, aniBoom.

So if you have a minute (1 minute and 20 seconds to be precise), and want to watch my efforts, I've included my reel in this very post. After watching it if you have another 10 seconds or so to kill, and want to help your friend Wheezy out, go give my video a ranking over at it's aniBoom page.

Hope you like it! Thanks for taking the time to watch it.

The competition goes through December 14th, so I imagine I'll be mentioning this again sometime within the next couple of weeks. Indulge a poor unemployed animator.

TF2 Sniper and Sandvich - Valve

2008-09-12T07:26:00.004-04:00

Today I've got some more video game animations for you. Why so heavy on the video game stuff lately? I dunno. Let's call it a theme month or something.

The guys over at Valve have released a few more videos to promote their game Team Fortress 2. For those of you that have been following my Twitter, you know that lately I've been on a bit of a podcast kick, and one of the podcasts I listen to is the ReAnimators. These are a group of video game animators that talk about various aspects of their industry. One interesting point they brought up was that in a field where photorealism is so strived for and desired, something stylized like Team Fortress 2 really stands out.

And I couldn't agree more. These promotional animations are the icing on that cake. For me, something unique and well designed like the Team Fortress 2 crew are so much more appealing to me than a Marcus Fenix or Master Chief (although I do like Master Chief's design in general). Just like movie animation, it seems like the more you try to make things look super realistic (Beowulf) the further you get from something appealing that I'm actually going to enjoy (Ratatouille).

Anyway enough chat from me. Here's the first video introducing "The Sniper."

That character has been around from the beginning, but the next "character" is something new that was only recently introduced to the game. There really isn't a lot of actual animation in this one, as in character movement, but the animation that is used is perfect for what needs to be accomplished.

Haven't had enough videos? Wander of to Immediate Regret and vote for who you think has the best picks in our "Best Will Ferrell Character" Draft. If I lose I have to go see Disaster Movie, which I believe is still rocking a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. So go vote! (Preferably for me, but you should really watch the videos and decide for yourself).

Warhammer Online Cinematic - Blur Studio

2008-09-01T07:00:00.001-04:00

Remember that short I shared a while back called "A Gentleman's Duel"? Well if not, go watch it because it's good stuff. That was a short by Blur Studio, which I found out recently also was the force behind that Marvel short I showed a few months back.

Well turns out that Blur Studio does a lot of game cinematics as well. Their most recently released one is for the upcoming World of Warcraft challenger, Warhammer Online. Yes, I know Blizzard stole all their ideas from Warhammer, so don't bother getting into that. This blog isn't for that.

What this blog is for (these days anyway) is showing some awesome animations, so moving right along, this is Blur Studio's Warhammer Online cinematic.

Oktapodi - Gobelins l'école de l'image

2008-08-18T07:00:00.005-04:00

Hey there everybody. I've been away from the internets a bit this week on account of my attendance as a student volunteer at this year's SIGGRAPH conference. SIGGRAPH is a computer animation conference held every year where studios and tech companies show off their latest and greatest achievements in the arena of computer graphics. All of the major animation studios are in attendance, and as such it's a great time.

There is an Animation Film Festival as well, which shows some great shorts throughout the week. This year's film festival was pretty spectacular in my opinion, and there were a lot of great shorts, including a few I've posted here on this very blog in the past.

The winner of this year's Best of Show and Audience Prize was a short called Oktapodi. This is another student work from the French Animation school Gobelins l'école de l'image. You may remember that crazy french name from another short I posted a while back - Pyrats.

Enjoy!

Oh yeah. Check out my new website!

http://www.DanAnimation.com

Lots of animation goodness on there, and more to come!
Thanks to Mr. Wirick for the design and implementation.

Changes - Daniel Martinez Lara

2008-08-01T10:36:00.007-04:00

Woah! Look at that. I'm still posting over here too. Crazy eh?

Here's an animation we were shown during class the other day, and it made me chuckle. It's by Daniel Martinez Lara and company. Lara has a tendency to mix character animation with more realistic palettes, which generally turns out a pretty cool result. He seems to put a lot of thought into the camera for his animations, something that a lot of people take for granted.

The animation I'm sharing today isn't trying to be realistic, but the camera action is still fantastic. Hope you enjoy!

One of those camera shots might look familiar. It made me laugh this time too.

"Changes" - Daniel Martinez Lara

"For the Birds" - Pixar Animation Studios

Looney Tunes - Chuck Jones

2008-07-10T12:22:00.003-04:00

Hey there everybody. How ya doin'. Good? Good.

We just started our first class in a 5 month span in which I'll be making my demo reel, and our professor asked to to take a few minutes and remember why it was we wanted to get into animation to begin with (because, according to him, the next five months are going to test our desires a bit in terms of work load).

Well after thinking about it, there were a lot of factors in my life that got me started, but one of the earliest animations I can remember truly loving was pretty much any Looney Tunes short. The Disney shorts weren't being shown in front of movies anymore when I was a kid, and the Looney Tunes were playing pretty much in non-stop syndication, so I watched every minute, every episode, over and over.

Well, I managed to find a couple of them up on YouTube, and these ones in particular were favorites of mine. They also happen to be directed by Chuck Jones, one of the best known from Warner, at least by my age group.

Hopefully they'll bring back some fond memories for you too.

If you want more, Warner has been releasing them on DVD for quite a while now. Check 'em out here.

Mandalorian Dance

2008-07-03T22:28:00.003-04:00

Did you see Wall-E yet? Go see it. Best Reviewed movie of 2008 according to me. And Rotten Tomatoes apparently. I'm going to have to get a Blu-Ray (read: PS3) for that movie alone.

This week's featured animation was something I just found floating around the internets. I don't know much about it's back story but I do know that it is impressive in its own way. Not every animation has to be high brow artsy stuff.

Mandalorian Dance

Have a great 4th of July weekend everybody.

Wall-E by Pixar Animation Studios

2008-06-27T11:30:00.004-04:00

Ok ok ok... I'm kinda geekin' out right now. Admittedly, I'm extremely biased when it comes to Pixar in general. But I am downright exploding with ... I dunno... SOMETHING about Wall-E. And I haven't even seen it yet.

In fact, emily tried to talk down my excitement a tad the other day, just on the off chance that I'm disappointed by the movie. What can I say, she's looking out for me :).

"Dan, I come here on the off chance that you posted a comic, and occasionally for videos. Not movie reviews for movies you haven't seen yet. Honestly. This blog jumped the shark back when you posted 'Rejected'."

Fine, fine. You want videos? I'll give ya videos. MORE WALL-E VIDEOS. These are more in the "Wall-E Meets" series of vignettes. Don't worry, not a spoiler in sight.

This last one has caused me to contemplate thievery on multiple occasions. I hear these things are wandering around the Disney theme parks, which happen to by right down the road from where I live. I could probably fit one in my car, right?

Lastly, check out Disney's website and wait for the intro to load up. Careful though, after the intro a trailer plays, so be prepared to hit the pause button if you're trying to save the movie for when you actually go see it.

GO SEE WALL-E.

More - Mark Osborne

2008-06-19T11:24:00.004-04:00

Today's featured animation is "More" by Mark Osborne. This was released in 1998, and was the first short to be filmed in the IMAX format. As with most things I throw up here, it won a ton of awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award the year it was released.

Animation wise, we're looking at another Stop-Motion, or Claymation piece, with a little 2D thrown in for good measure. There's a good interview with Osborne about his process overe at AnimWatch.

Check out Mark Osborne's official site here. Enjoy!

More - Free videos are just a click away

Wall-E Vignettes

2008-06-12T11:22:00.005-04:00

So emily and I just saw Kung Fu Panda last night, and I must say it was absolutely awesome. It was a good story, combined with great action sequences (although perhaps a bit of over use in the "slow motion to full speed to slow motion" department) and hilarious dialog from Mr. Jack Black. Not to mention the animation itself was superb. All around fantastic, and without question Dreamworks' best animated film to date.

That being said, my enthusiasm for Pixar's next offering can not be satiated that easily. June 27th I will assuredly be seated in a movie theater, waiting to watch a movie that has little to no dialog. A stark contradiction to the Dreamworks approach of throwing as many Hollywood stars as possible at everything they make. I think Jackie Chan had maybe two lines in Kung Fu Panda, and between Lucy Lui and Angelina Jolie there might have been a page of script.

Hopefully you've seen at least one or two articles / commercials about Wall-E. In the "viral" marketing department, Pixar has been releasing some vignettes of the cute little guy coming across objects from our world that he might not understand at first glance. For today's featured animation, I bring to you some brilliant animation by none other than Pixar Animation Studios.

Fun Fact: The sound designer that created the robot "voices" for Wall-E is Ben Burtt, the same guy who designed Chewbacca's voice, R2D2's blips, and that lightsaber noise, among other things. Enjoy!

Marvel on the Small Screen

2008-06-05T09:03:00.003-04:00

Today's video has been around the nets for a while now, but once again I have to give credit to Mr. Calendine for reminding me that it exists. Thanks Ben.

I really don't know much about the origins of this video, other than Marvel Comics had it put together to try and sell some more comics with their three current movie franchise characters. And I must say, it's pretty fantastic. So sit back, relax, and enjoy some super hero CG that wasn't ruined by any Hollywood interference.

Andy Continues to Get Old

2008-05-29T10:04:00.007-04:00

Hello Wheezy's blog readership! Today is my birthday and for that you get another Fenley original comic. Dan gave me "contributor" status so when I get an idea for a comic I will be posting it myself from now on.

Anyway about the comic. I recently got engaged and I think it may be normal female instinct to go into super-planner mode. While the situation below hasn't happened yet (well not exactly), it seems like it is only a matter of time. This is far more drawing that I did for the last comic, but I think it turned out well. Enjoy!

The Cat Came Back - Cordell Barker

2008-05-22T09:24:00.003-04:00

Today's animation is an oldie but a goody. "The Cat Came Back" is an animation by Cordell Barker from 1988. Based on an old folk song by Harry S. Miller (originally titled "The Cat Came Back: A Comic Negro Absurdity"), the Barker's version leaves out most of the lyrics, using the animation to tell the story.

I remember this cartoon from my childhood - although I'm not sure where I saw it. Maybe Sesame Street? Anyway. Let me know if this brings back memories for any of you. Enjoy!

Pop Culture Psychosis

2008-05-18T23:00:00.004-04:00

Look at that. A real, actual, Wheezy original comic. Huh.

Thanks for sticking in there with me. With the end of my schooling coming up here in November, I'm going to be busy working on my demo reel pretty much non-stop for the next five months or so. I can't guarantee comics every week, but I'll certainly keep posting videos and some of my own work, and I'll do my best to get a comic up when I can.

Enough of that. Today's comic is actually part of a collaboration from a ways back with Enliv. Each one of us wrote the script for the other's comic... this way we had to do some writing with other people's characters and stretch our comedic horizons a little bit.

The idea for today's comic came from Mr. Johnny Nguyen. Enjoy!

You can see the rest of the collaborations here and here.

Guest Comic - Andy Fenley

2008-05-08T09:39:00.004-04:00

Hey look at that! A COMIC!

Ok, granted, it's not a comic by Wheezy, but it IS a comic, and a good one too, something which this site sorely needs. Mr. Andy Fenley was nice enough to make a guest comic during my period of creative laziness, and for that I think we all owe him a debt of gratitude.

And now I'll hand it over to Mr. Fenley.

"Enjoy my first attempt at a comic. Shows you can do a lot with no talent and funny friends."

Thanks again to Mr. Fenley.

Team Fortress 2 Character Trailers- Valve

2008-05-01T04:26:00.002-04:00

I've been in a lab all night watching a little bar scroll slowly across the screen, rendering out this month's school project one pixel at a time. There's a comic in the works, I promise. Just not for today. I think by Monday I'll owe you three.

Valve is one of the leaders in the gaming industry. If you haven't heard of Half-Life, I would wager that you haven't played a video game in the last five years or so. But don't worry, I'm not sharing video game screen shots today.

Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer first person shooter that was recently released as part of Valve's "The Orange Box" (which is a great deal, by the way). Prior to release Valve put out a series of animations introducing some of the character classes in the game. Taking heavily from the style of "The Incredibles", these things are pure gold. Great animation with hilarious, well defined personalities, this stuff just goes to show that film companies aren't the only ones capable of high quality character animation.

Meet The Heavy (Team Fortress 2)
by nofrag

Team Fortress 2 engineer
by minutemed

Team Fortress 2 soldier
by minutemed

team fortress 2 demoman
by ElectronicArts

Meet The Scout (TF2)
by nofrag

Fallen Art - Baginski

2008-04-28T09:52:00.002-04:00

Stay with me folks. My class this months end Wednesday. We're almost back into sanity and with it, new comics. Just a few more days.

Today's Featured Animation is "Fallen Art" by Baginski. You can find the official website here.
In today's feature animaton world, it's rare that you get anything that's not kid friendly. "Fallen Art" is certainly not that - I'd say it falls in the realm of 'dark comedy'. Hope you enjoy!

Rejected - Don Hertzfeldt

2008-04-24T07:26:00.005-04:00

I'm really sorry. I truly am. I WANT to make a comic, but this month is just killing me with school work. I know when I say "Don't worry - comics will come back as soon as possible" you may be skeptical. After all, I don't have the best track record with this sort of thing. However, I really do plan on coming back with more comics. Just... after this hectic class thing is over with.

In the meantime, I'll share another hand picked Featured Animation. Many of you may have seen this before, but I doubt that those who have seen it will mind seeing it again. But since you don't come here for looking for just the same old stuff, here's some information that you might not know. Rejected, by Don Hertzfeldt, was released in 2000. Although it has the feel of something made for the internet masses, it actually won quite a few film festival awards, and was nominated for a 2001 Academy Award for Best Animated Short.

No joke. It's an Oscar nominated film. It's also been described by some as the "A Hard Day's Night" of our generation.

It's a little risque, as far as things I post on this blog goes, so be careful as the audio in particular isn't necessarily safe for work (ANSFW - the "A" is for Audio). You can find Hertzfeldt's website here. And now, "Rejected".

Since you did come here for a comic there is a bit of new Wheezy comic work floating around the internet today. In another collaboration with Enliv, today's comic by Kevin Chibar was a concept written by yours truly. Go check it out.

Animusic

2008-04-21T02:09:00.003-04:00

So I'm a little off my game this month. Kinda hectic classes going on. So this week we're pulling another switcher-oo. Featured Animation today, comic on Thursday. Thanks for understanding.

Today's featured animation is more of a featured animation company, Animusic. This company, started by Wayne Lytle, is unique in that they don't animate their zany computer generated instruments by hand. Instead, they create fanciful and original instruments that are then animated by music they write themselves. In essence, the music drives the animation automatically, without the need for a person to hand animate to a music track. Pretty innovative and cool.

Today I've embedded "Resonance Chamber", but if you just type "Animusic" into YouTube you'll find a ton of these things. They also have quite a few DVD's available at your nearest Best Buy. Enjoy!

Vincent - Tim Burton and Rick Heinrichs

2008-04-17T08:59:00.011-04:00

Last week I shared "9" by Shane Acker, a short film that is being turned into a full length feature film by Tim Burton. This week I'm sharing some of Tim's (that's right, we're close) early work.

This short stop motion film "Vincent" was made by Tim Burton in 1982 with the animating talents of Rick Heinrichs. Even that early in Burton's career, he had a very distinctive style. "Tim Burton-y", I think would be the best way to describe it.

Here's a little Tim Burton trivia for ya. Burton used to be a Disney Animator. Not surprisingly, he didn't get much of his character design stuff in until after he left Disney to work on his own projects. I dunno how well a Jack Skellington type would have fit in with Bambi's mom.

And now - Vincent.

Coco the Dog - Explained

2008-04-14T00:14:00.006-04:00

I imagine that most of you have heard of the long standing comic strip "Marmaduke." Somewhat dated, but certainly one of the most popular comic strips of all time, Marmaduke has developed something of a cult following at a blog called "Marmaduke Explained". That site provides the extremely useful and hilarious service of explaining exactly what is happening in a given Marmaduke strip in layman's terms, in case you didn't understand the, typically obvious, premise of the gag.

Check it out. It's good for a few (not always family friendly) laughs.

My boy Ross pointed out that blog to me a few months back, and in tribute to Ross and his dog Coco, I am proud to present "Coco The Dog."

If you'd like, please leave your own custom "explanation" in the comments. Fan mail for "Coco the Dog" can be sent to:

cocothedog@gmail.com

AD isn't coming back, is it?

2008-04-10T02:44:00.005-04:00

Have any of you ever been involved in some sort of Nielsen Media Research? This is the company that decides what shows get made, and as far as I know they're in charge of figuring out ratings once a show has been put on the air.

I've been involved in some form of their data collection twice. The first experience I had was with Ross, Maggie, and emily while we were in Vegas. We saw a sign for "Free Starbucks to Watch TV!", which, of course, I immediately decided was a good idea.

Turns out I was wrong. The girls didn't fit the demographic they were looking for, so they we subjected to a rerun of "The Biggest Loser" while Ross and I were subjected to the pilot for "Blade: The Series."

I think the emily and Maggie got the better end of that deal.

Not only that, but the "Free Starbucks" was a coupon for $2 off any single purchase - which means that we might have been able to get a cup of water.

Well recently while I was at the mall getting my laptop taken care of, I was pulled aside and offered $20 to do the same thing. Apparently I rarely learn from my mistakes because I immediately accepted the offer, and bore witness to yet another pilot. The following comic is based on those events.

No joke. Jurassic Fight Club. To make a long story short, I gave it a thumbs down. If it manages to get on the air, remember today's post.

Did I mention that "Blade: The Series" was canceled?

My boy Mueller has a post with his opinions on the WNBA. You could go check it out.

9 - Shane Acker

2008-04-07T03:01:00.000-04:00

Facebook readers, click here to be able to see today's Featured Animation

Ok, I know I promised you a comic today, but unfortunately my laptop is still in the shop. I won't go into the details, but I am having something bothersome fixed with regards to the screen, and Apple hasn't given it back to me yet. So blame them.

Anyway, this week we're going to pretend Monday is Thursday and Thursday is Monday. This, of course, means today you get another featured animation! (And if your boss is on board with the whole switch-a-roo concept you'll have Wednesday off.)

"9" is a short film by Shane Acker that was released in 2005. It won a boat load of awards (see the full list on Acker's website), and was nominated for an Oscar for best animated short. Acker worked on the film part time for approximately 4 and a half years. During a portion of that time he was also working at WETA on a little movie called Return of the King, animating Mumakils, among other things.

From an interview in 2005:

"Technically I think the biggest hurdle I encountered, as silly as it may sound, was trying to get 9's zipper teeth to behave! In the end I had to do a lot of hand animation tweaks to wrangle it back in order. Its funny how you can obsess over the smallest of details. That's why I think animators are all insane!"

It's about 10 minutes long, but if you don't have the time right now make sure and come back later to check it out. Although the story itself is rather simplistic, the style and sound effects are fantastic. "9" has been picked up by Focus Features and is being made into a full length film by none other than Tim Burton (not to mention quite a bit of voice talent from the likes of Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, and Elijah Wood). It's currently scheduled to be released in December of this year.

Again, sorry for the comic delay. Come back Thursday for a nice short 10 second chunk of visual entertainment. Or if you didn't catch last week's featured animation, make sure and see it. It's about 20 seconds, and, in my humble opinion, worth your time.

A Tennis Game - Jose Estrella and Dan Weiland

2008-04-03T04:01:00.000-04:00

Facebook readers, click here to be able to see today's Featured Animation.

It's Thursday, and of course that means that you get another featured animation from around the world. And since I just finished up my Animation Production class, today's featured animation is from none other than yours truly.

For our class this month, we worked in teams of two to create a short (extremely short) tennis match. Each person was to animate two shots, the first animating the serve and one return, and the other person animating two returns. All of the models, rigs and textures were provided for us, we were to concentrate on just the animations.

"Two tennis shots? That's like... 4 seconds Dan. Tops. Sounds pretty easy."

Well it's not exactly Toy Story, but we were to try and make these animations look as close to "production quality" as possible. We weren't going for absolute realism, just something that's believable and entertaining to watch. Also, if we wanted to be an "Animator" for our demo reel, we needed to score a 90% or better in this class. So the pressure's on.

"Ok enough yammering. Let's see some animation!"

Woah there bud. Not so fast. First, we start with some real life reference. This will be used as a starting point for our animation. Here are the references for my two shots.

APR Forehand Reference - The best video clips are here

APR Backhand Reference - The top video clips of the week are here

After we do some rough thumb nails (hand sketched storyboard type things) of what we think the action will be like, we go into our first animation pass. This early on, we basically block in the important poses, just enough to "tell the story."

At this point we're trying to match poses between the real life reference and our scene.
Here's a few screen grabs for comparison.

Continuing on from there, we'll block in some of the "in betweens" - basically filling in the gaps and hammering out the details of what's going to happen.

Keep in mind, at this point the animation is just skipping from pose to pose. Even though it might look somewhat "fluid" it's just a slide show. Your mind is filling in the gaps. Between that pass and the final animation the computer will fill in some of those gaps, although I'll have to make a lot of adjustments to the way it does things to make it look better than just moving from point A to point B.

At this point in my animation career, it's very much trial and error. If something doesn't look right, you tweak it a little bit, try to find a better pose, and create another quick "playblast" (real time video to see the animation as it will look full speed), and assess if the changes you made are working or not. After any series of changes I'd make another video like this one, then watch to see if what I had done made things better or worse.

As the animation progresses, you start to move away from the reference a little bit, exaggerating certain areas and completely overhauling others. For example, in the Andy Roddick reference he kind of shorts the shot - he was in too close to the ball - so when he swings his arm is kind of crammed up against his body. In my animation, I chose to pull his arm out further away from his body so that it would look like a more powerful swing. That's just one example of the many eventually differences between the reference and my final scenes.

Also for this final pass, I have to go in and tweak all of the different animation curves. For this particular model, there were approximately 20 different controls (elbows, hands, feet, hips, etc), each with anywhere from 6 to 20 different variables that could be adjusted for any moment in time (translate x, y, z, rotate x, y, z, etc.) In the Graph Editor, you go into each curve and smooth out things, adjust the timing, add or remove keyframes, and so on. Here's a picture of all of the curves for each of the two shots.

You can isolate the different curves of course, and zoom in and out to concentrate on particular areas. I'm not working with that mess as is!

All of that leads to the final animation. There's certainly more to be done here, (there's no facial animation for example), but with the time constraints of the class this was where I had to leave it.

Once the animation was finalized, I rendered out the final image. This is when all the textures are applied and and motion blur is added (to make things FEEL faster). Each frame (at 24 frames per second) took about 5 minutes to render. To give you an idea of how simple this is, one frame of Transformers, if rendered on a single machine, would take 38 hours.

That's why they use more than just a single Macbook Pro for rendering over at ILM.

Once my partner and I had rendered out our separate scenes, we combined them to form "A Tennis Game." Enjoy!!

(Jose animated the blue tennis player, while I animated the red clad guy).

So that's it. A combined two months of work for 18 seconds, most of which was credits or titles. Still, I really enjoyed working on it, and hopefully you found the breakdown of the process at least a little interesting.

If you just came here just wanting a comic, come back Monday. I'll have one for ya. But in the meantime, the boys over at Enliv have switched to a Monday / Thursday schedule. What's today again...?

Where's Pat Morita When You Need Him?

2008-03-31T04:01:00.000-04:00

et·i·quette
noun
The practices and forms prescribed by social convention or by authority.

I realize that this comic didn't have any words, but I swear I'm trying to break out of the "sight vs. write" mindset. Next week I'll depict the third act of Mel Gibson's Macbeth to make up for it.

Come back Thursday for another Featured Animation!

Animation Mentor Fall 2007 Showcase

2008-03-26T22:29:00.004-04:00

Howdy everybody. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but I graduate in November. If my calculations are correct that means I'm going to have a Bachelor's in Computer Animation in approximately... 8 months. That's less than a year! Yowza.

In the last three months of my tenure at Full Sail I'll be creating a Demo Reel to send out to prospective employers. Basically this is a compilation of short 8 to 10 seconds scenes that showcases the abilities I would like to do at a job somewhere. I've decided to specialize in animation. Hopefully this means that I'll get a job imbuing a character with life throuh movement (as opposed to a "modeller" who would create the character or a texture artist who would color to the character).

Now that I've made this decision, I've become interested in what other recent animation graduates have been putting out in the way of demo reels. Animation Mentor is an online animation school that gives certificates in "Advanced Studies in Character Animation". It was started by three fellas who worked on "Toy Story 2”, “Monster's Inc.”, “Finding Nemo”, “Star Wars” episodes I, II, and III, “Hulk”, The Incredibles”, and their students have been pumping out some really amazing animations.

Today I'm going to share with you their Fall 2007 Showcase - I assume the best of the best from their crop of students last year. An individual student's character animation demo reel will have about a minute and a half of short clips like these, and the ones shown here are at a high level of quality - definitely something for my to aspire to meet or exceed. Enjoy!

You can find an interview with the guys from Animation Mentor over at CGSociety.

Also - The guys over at Enliv have started posting on Monday AND Thursday. Which is awesome. So go check it out.

And then I pull out my GUN....!

2008-03-24T01:46:00.004-04:00

I know that technically last week was supposed to be the end of the "Sight vs. Write" thing, but I had one more idea that I felt needed to be committed to digital ink before I moved on to comics with art in every cell. In a way this is a fitting conclusion, for it harnesses both the power of the written word as well as an artistic rendering, thus bringing me to the conclusion that I probably won't start painting miniature 800 pixel watercolors nor penning minuscule novels formatted into 3 to 4 individual panels. When it comes to webcomics, team work seems to be the key.

If you're not sure where the punchline is, it's entirely possible that you were watching a rerun of "Saved By the Bell" during 1991, so you might find these enlightening.

Or maybe you just thought it wasn't funny, in which case I will refer you to my comedic safety net. Be warned - following that link might lead to what those in "the biz" call an infinite loop.

Canadian Cavemen Milk Ads - Ruairi Robinson

2008-03-19T21:24:00.006-04:00

Remember that kinda-depressing-kind-of-funny-in-a-dark-way video from last week, 50 Percent Grey? Well, it turns out that fella (Ruairi Robinson) also directed a series of commercials for the Milk Board of Canada. For these ads he took some inspiration from Gary Larson's "Far Side" comic strips. If you're interested in reading more about the process behind this particular project, feel free to check out an article about Robinson and these commercials over at the CGSociety.

Otherwise, enjoy these short Cavemen Milk Ads, comfortable in the fact that not only are these remarkably better than the Geico atrocities of the same vague idea that we're exposed to here in the states, but also that the likely-hood of us being subjected to a TV series spun off from the same idea is rather minuscule.

See ya on Monday.

**Update: Mueller posted an insane music video over on his blog today, also about milk. Uncoordinated, I promise. So drink up.

May the Ring Be With You

2008-03-16T23:36:00.009-04:00

Today ends the Sight vs. Write event that was conducted by myself and the fellas over at Enliv Comics. This week we tackled the "Write" portion of things by creating a comic that depended solely on the writing for the punch line.

Like many of my comics the idea for today's strip stemmed from real life. I'll leave it up to you to connect the dots as to which parties might be represented, but suffice it to say that the next time emily and I have 28 uninterrupted hours with no plans, we'll be watching a few trilogies to make sure everybody has their o' so nerdy ducks in a row*.

And thus concludes Sight vs. Write. Which was more difficult for Wheezy?

Although the write side had its difficulties, mainly in thinking of a decent idea that translated directly into word bubbles and still made sense, the art end of the deal presented a greater challenge. In part because it was a forced limitation - but doing the setup, follow through, and punch line for a gag with no words at all was difficult. I was constantly battling the urge to throw a clarifying label on different areas of the art (like "Testing Facilities" or "Urinal Cake Holders Inc."), just to make sure that the audience understood what I was going for.

Did I mention that I've done something similar to this before? That idea lent itself to a "no-word" strip (unless you count the webbed "BFF"). Last week's was a little forced.

With the writing, the biggest challenge was due in part to an oversight when we thought up this whole sight vs. write thing. By limiting the art to "eyes in a dark room", it really pigeon-holed the comic into something involving two people in a dark space. In retrospect, I think that a rule of just "two people talking" using simplistic characters would have opened up the playing field a bit. That being said - this week was awesome for me because it took like, ten minutes to "draw."

And now I'll leave you with an ADDITIONAL comic. Two Wheezy originals in one week? What is this, 2004?

This was an alternate idea I had for this week's strip, and since this is really the only time I'll be able to get away with the lack of art without it being considered a lazy complete cop out, I figured that I'd just double your comic pleasure for the week.

Last week there was some good discussion in the comments with regards to the Sight vs. Write concept - what do you guys think of the results for myself and Enliv? Was one method preferred over the other?

See ya on Thursday for another Featured Animation.

*In the interest of full disclosure, emily didn't confuse "Star Wars" with "Lord of the Rings", but rather mixed up a few plot elements of "Star Wars" and "Space Balls", referencing the "schwartz ring" when discussing the "force". I thought she was talking about the One Ring to Rule them all, and thus the muse of cartooning struck.

Fifty Percent Grey - Ruairi Robinson

2008-03-12T23:15:00.003-04:00

This week we've got an award winning short from 2002, "Fifty Percent Grey". The guy who created it, Ruairi Robinson, did all the work for this piece (with the exception of sound) over the course of 6 months for a grand total of 10,000 Euros (that's about $15,000 folks).

According to Robinson's website, the film was shown at 70 international film festivals, including Sundance, and garnered awards for Best Short at London Effects and Animation Festival, The Empire State Film Festival, and the Dresden FilmFest, just to name a few. "Fifty Percent Grey" also nabbed an Oscar nomination that year, but was beat out by Pixar's "For the Birds". (Shocking that Pixar won an award, I know. Did I mention they won several awards for those commercials I shared with you last week?)

Look for more of Robinson's work in 2009 when the live action remake of "Akira" is released. But for now, enjoy "Fifty Percent Grey."

Upstream Engineering

2008-03-10T02:36:00.007-04:00

This week marks the first of two comics for a little thing me and the boys over at Enliv are doing called "Sight vs. Write." For anybody who didn't catch last Monday's post, the idea is to challenge ourselves to make a comic without words, depending solely on the art to convey the gag, and then the following week depend completely on the writing itself, with minimal art to back it up.

I have to apologize in advance, as I'm not sure that the females in my avid readership are necessarily going understand today's comic. I doubt many of you ladies have had this particular type of experience, but hopefully the guys can relate to the sinister underpinnings of America's public sanitation industry.

Also weighing in on the "Sight vs. Write" debate, we have a submission from Mr. Andy Fenley, a co-writer on last week's comic. I'm inclined to like this one better than the original.

Certainly better than Mr. Brandon "Rick-Roll" Vasquez's similar attempt from sometime last year ;).

Don't forget to check back on Thursday for another animation from around the internet, and Monday for the completion of our "Sight vs. Write" challenge.

And if you're still looking for good entertainment - go see my utter thrashing in MM's first Skeet Thrower Fantasy Draft. Don't worry. It's safe for work. Although I guess my parents don't really have to worry about that anymore.

1990's Commercials - Pixar Animation Studio

2008-03-05T23:06:00.003-05:00

Did you know that originally, Pixar sold computers? For reals yo.
Back in '86, Pixar's main business was selling their Pixar Image Computer to the "high end visualization market", like the medical industry. Their hardware sold for $135,000, by no means an impulse buy. Well, in order to sell these bohemith they had to be able to show off its capabilities, so they hired on a Disney animator by the name of John Lasseter (whom I've discussed briefly in previous posts). And so he made some short computer animations using this technology - the humble beginnings of what would later become Pixar Animation Studios. You might have heard of them.

Well they didn't go from selling computers to making Wall E overnight. Along the way they had some major financial troubles, most likely stemming from the fact that not a lot of companies wanted to buy a $135,000 computer (did I mention the $35,000 workstation they had to purchase along with it to make it useful?). So to make some money in between total financial ruin and Toy Story, Pixar made commercials. 71 to be exact. (Check out more on the history of Pixar here - it's an interesting read).

I would be surprised if most of you hadn't seen at least some of these before, but I doubt that it's common knowledge that they were made by Pixar. The most popular and well known of their commercials were a series of Listerine and Life Savers ads. These were also the only ones I could find on the internet (with the help of my boy MM - 300 posts strong!). Looking back at these it's pretty amazing ... I never really thought about how much innovation went into simple things like selling me jelly lifesavers, and then selling me the hygienic product to remove their remnants from my mouth.

This last one is a little ways into the video - at approximately 48 seconds. You should be able to just click about halfway in and see it.

No Man Left Behind

2008-03-03T21:47:00.006-05:00

While I've been attending Full Sail I've found myself completely immersed in video game culture. Almost everybody at this school is obsessed with video games, and since most of these folk want to work in the video game industry after graduation, I suppose that it makes sense.

I enjoy video games as well. However as I meander through more and more games it's become apparent to me that I rarely ever actually finish a game. I can only think of maybe five off hand where I've seen the final credits roll by.

Most of the games I play I enjoy - it's not a matter of them being good or bad. It's just that sometimes I have to put away the games of childhood to embrace my other more important... responsibilities.

Yesterday on the blog I mentioned an "upcoming web-comic related project" that I was excited about. Recently a forum over at HalfPixel.com prompted me and the guys of Enliv Comics to discuss the importance of comic writing versus comic art. With sites such as XKCD and Dinosaur comics (literally the same clip art every single week) enjoying incredible popularity, one starts to wonder if the art is even a major factor when it comes to comic strips.

If I only spent an hour throwing together some panels instead of my fairly standard four, resulting in lessened artistic quality but containing the same gags, would my comics be as effective?

Well we decided to challenge ourselves over the next couple of weeks by participating in something we're calling Sight vs. Write (Clever, I know. Thanks Lance!).

On March 10th the Enliv crew and I are going to post comics that contain absolutely no words whatsoever. On March 17th, we're going to be posting comics in which the visual element of each panel is nothing more than two pairs of eyes in a completely dark place (Scooby-Doo style), but with as many words as we'd like.

The point? Just to see which is more difficult. To challenge ourselves a little. Is it harder to make a comic funny without words? Or without pictures.

Anyway, stay tuned to find out. What do y'all think? Is the textual writing more important to conveying the joke? Or the art? Drop a comment and let me know what your mind is a cookin'.

Thanks to Andy and Megan for helping shore up this week's comic idea.

Oh, and look at that. Still Monday. Looks like my banner doesn't lie after all.

Wheezy Original Artwork

2008-03-03T03:39:00.010-05:00

Well, it's late and I'm not going to be able to finish the comic tonight without sacrificing any sleep that I'll be getting before the first day of March's class, so I'm going to once again offer you a one sided compromise that you have no choice but to accept. I guess you could just stop reading my blog, but why would you do that when you know there's a comic coming tomorrow?

Anyway, one of my classes last month was "History of Archetypes and Mythologies." We studied a variety of mythologies from around the world, relating them to the gaming and movie industry where applicable. Turns out this stuff is applicable for just about everything. Every heard of a book called "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"? Turns out that's Star Wars before Lucas thought of it. And Lord of the Rings. And Harry Potter. And so on, and so on...

But I won't delve too deeply into that, I'll leave that to you. One of the things we did for this class was digital artwork depicting figures we studied. So hopefully you'll enjoy some Wheezy originals, even if they don't have a punch line at the end.

Odin from Norse Mythology

Sacrificing himself to himself on the Yggdrasil

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Throwing his eye into Mimir's Spring to gain the Wisdom of Ages

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Balor of the Evil Eye from Celtic Mythology

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Kappa from Japanese Mythology

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My particular take on Kappas from Japanese Mythology.
It was said that Kappa's power came from the water stored in a basin-like depression in their head. They had an overwhelming sense of honor that could be used to trick them into emptying the basin by simply bowing to them.

(Click to Enlarge)

Well, that's it for now. Check back on Tuesday for a new comic as well as an upcoming web-comic related project that I'm pretty excited about.

Creature Comforts - Aardman Animation

2008-02-28T11:40:00.006-05:00

Did anybody watch the Academy Awards on Sunday?

Well, despite being what some would call a movie enthusiast, I almost never watch the Academy Awards. I find most of it to be pretty boring, with the occasional exception of a Will Farrel / Jack Black moment, so I typically just check the winners the following day and wait for any funny bits to be filtered through the internet comedy colander that is MM.

This year, I thought that I would post the Academy Winning short here on the blog. "Peter and the Wolf" by Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman won this year, and it's definitely worth a watch. However, since it's 30 minutes in length, I'll let you catch that some other time. You can find it here.

What's intriguing about this years winner is that it taps into another form of animation I haven't show on the ol' blog yet - claymation. Essentially this is what most people call "stop motion animation". You place a character, snap a shot, move it a little bit, snap another shot, move it a little bit.. etc. Difficult and time consuming stuff (like most animation I suppose).

One animation studio that has specialized in this type of animation for quite some time is Aardman Animation Ltd. You've probably seen some of their stuff. Examples of their feature films include Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, and Flushed Away, just to name a few. In 1989, they won an Oscar in the Best Animated Short Film category for their claymation, "Creature Comforts." The animation appears to be a series of interviews with animals at a zoo, however in actuality these responses were taken from people living in low incoming housing and retirement homes, as well as one family residing in a local store somewhere in Britain. So as always with anything Academy Award related, there's a bit of social commentary in there too. Enjoy!

Mustachioed Machismo

2008-02-25T03:00:00.004-05:00

After the initial unveiling of the "Dan" character, I had a pretty good response from my readership. I started incorporating him in my comics more often, eventually phasing out the "Chad" character altogether.

Turns out there was a reason that I used Chad instead of trying to draw myself when this all started. He was easy to draw. "Dan" on the otherhand, was/is not. Initially I tried to redraw Dan every week so I would eventually become proficient, but as you can see by exhibits "A", "B", and especially "C", I wasn't getting the best results.

So I started cutting and pasting the "Dan" from previous comics instead of drawing him every week. I have to imagine this is frowned upon in the cartooning world, (it definitely is if you want to improve as an artist) but I'm certainly not the only one who occasionally falls into this bad habit.

At any rate, after my laptop died last week, I realized that I had lost all of my previous comic work - and thus, I didn't have my "cut and paste" crutch to lean on.

Relearning to draw myself was ... troublesome.

Thanks again to Mr. Mueller for helping me hash out the details of the comic this week.

Also, for those interested in Apple's customer support, I took my busted laptop into the Apple store on Saturday, and by Thursday morning I had a package containing my fixed laptop in my hands. Not too shabby.

Pyrats - Gobelins l'école de l'image Students

2008-02-21T03:00:00.004-05:00

It's Thursday, and time for an animation from the wide world of ... well, animation.

Today's is another student film,"Pyrats", by a group of five from the Gobelins l'école de l'image school in Paris, France. "Pyrats" was made as an opening short for the Annecy 2006 International Animation Festival. According to the students' website, it was completed in 7 months, including the screenplay, storyboard and designs.

This is a 2D animation for the most part, although apparently some Flash as well as Maya was used to help out with certain elements. And we all know how much I love Flash.

The fluidity of the animation just astounds me, and the camera cuts which follow the action from person to person are just, well... cool. From the technical side of animation everything is really well done, and not only that, it's entertaining to boot. Enjoy!

"Pyrats" - By: Yves Bigerel , Bruno Dequier, Ben Fiquet, Nicolas Gueroux, and Julien Le Rolland

Facebook users and feed readers - click here to see today's video.

Of Macs and Men

2008-02-18T03:44:00.009-05:00

My laptop died on Saturday. The fella at the Apple "Genius Bar" tells me it's my hard drive, I can't recover anything, and I'll be without laptop for about a week. It kinda felt like he was punching me in the stomach when I heard the news.

As far as gut checks go though, he was pretty cordial about the whole thing.

Fortunately, I only lost a few files that were "mission critical" for classes on Monday, and they were something that could be redone in a day. In that respect, I consider myself extremely lucky. I did lose quite a few files I would have rather held on to (like the original Photoshop files these comics y'all enjoy and my school work from the last year) - but all in all, things could have been worse.

On the bright side, I get a free upgrade to Leopard, whose features might come in handy. And from this tragedy I feel like a decent comic has been born, if I do say so myself.

Have a good week everybody. May your data stay undamaged and accessible to you in the coming months.

Thanks to Mr. Curry for letting me borrow his laptop in the interim.

A Gentleman's Duel - Blur Studio

2008-02-14T08:51:00.008-05:00

Today's animation is from a studio that is somewhat beneath mainstream radar when it comes to computer animation. California based Blur Studio does work mostly for television, so unless you're one of those people, you've seen at least some of their work whether you know it or not.

Recognize this guy?

He's the dancing robot near the front of the screen on the FOX NFL broadcasts. Blur Studio was responsible for that.

But I'm not going to link you to a commercial, Blur also does animation shorts such as the one I'm sharing today, "A Gentleman's Duel." Thanks to Mr. Fenley for pointing this out to me a while back.

See what I did there? romance AND robots in the video. Neatly tying together that dancing FOX thing and Valentine's Day.

Man I'm good.

A Job Really Well Done

2008-02-11T02:27:00.001-05:00

Friday marked a fairly significant day in the life of the Weilands. While I have been documenting my journey learning a craft and finding a career on this very blog, my parents have been closing out their own careers and moving on to a life without alarm clocks.

On February 8th, 2008, my Dad retired from his management position at JCPenney. For my entire life and longer both Mom and Dad have been working at JCPenney, going along my idiotic Christmas wish lists as well as my life changing decisions with love and support, and I couldn't have asked for better parents. Now they can just kick back and relax.

I guess some other things happened in the news on Friday too, but I haven't really been keeping up. Doubt it was anything important.

Happy Retirement Dad. Love you.

Doll Face by Andrew Huang

2008-02-07T03:00:00.000-05:00

So far in the Why Not Animation Thursday, we've done big studio funny 3D stuff (The ChubbChubbs! by Sony Animation) and some independent funny 2D stuff (Cat Man Do by Simon Tofield).

Today I'm going to share an animation that focused more on social commentary than straight comedy. "Doll Face" is a student made animation that garnered quite a bit of acclaim when Andrew Huang released the short in 2006. Andrew had this to say about his inspiration:

"My concept for 'Doll Face' stemmed from a series of drawings and paintings I did in high school that focused on robotic yet organic tree-like bodies. Some of my early artistic influences include musicians Björk and Radiohead, as well as artists and directors Chris Cunningham, Eiko Ishioka and Jan Svankmajer. I loved watching music videos and films that seamlessly fused actors with CG makeup/effects (for instance Björk’s 'Hunter' video or the makeup effects in The Cell) and I knew I wanted to direct a short film that incorporated that same kind of CG interaction."

In this short, Andrew fused real life acting with his mechanical CG elements through hand done compositing. This is essentially the equivalent of Photoshopping somebody's face onto somebody else's body, but over and over again for each frame in the video, at 24 frames per second, for about 3 minutes. Painstaking work - but I feel like the final product justifies the effort. Enjoy!

For more on the "making of", check out the rest of the interview with Andrew at AnimWatch.

Facebook readers, click here to see the embedded video.

The New Chivalry

2008-02-04T07:36:00.000-05:00

gen·tle·man
–noun, plural -men.
1. a man of good family, breeding, or social position.
2. a civilized, educated, sensitive, or well-mannered man: He behaved like a true gentleman.
3. a man of good social standing, as a noble or an armigerous commoner.

Hey - make sure you check out my friends Johnny and Kevin's joint web comic and comic art site here. That's thrice the home grown web comic goodness every Monday!

Cat Man Do by Simon Tofield

2008-01-31T03:00:00.001-05:00

I tend to focus on 3D animation on this blog as it is my main area of study, but of course 2D is where it all started. In fact, Disney is finding a renewed interest in 2D animation of late, as can be seen with their recent animated / live action release, Enchanted. Other 2D feature films coming out in the next couple of years include The Princess and the Frog as well as the Pixar / Disney's Up.
From what I've heard and read around the internet, a lot of the 2D push is a direct result of Pixar's John Lasseter, who, after Disney bought Pixar in 2006, has become the chief creative officer over at the house the mouse built. Interesting, considering Lasseter is the guy who basically drove the entire 3D animation industry to where it is today.

Anyway, today's video is a 2D Animation by Simon Tofield, an animator at London based Tandem Films. I don't think this is anything that was made officially for Tandem, but rather just a side project by Tofield, who I would guess owns a cat.

Nefarious Scheming

2008-01-28T04:47:00.000-05:00

I don't know how many people actually check out my "Interesting Internets" links in the sidebar, but I suspect the number is rather low. Which is understandable considering the infrequent nature in which I shuffle things over there.

But once in a while I link to something I feel is note worthy. One such tidbit was a video with regards to a movie in the works called "Choke". This is a movie based on a novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, who also happens to be the author of Fight Club.

Palahniuk has many other novels as well, one of which (Survivor) was on its way to becoming a movie around 2001. It never made it because the subject matter of the novel involved the hijacking of an airplane... sensitive material around that time. Donnie Darko suffered a similar fate, being limited in the number of theaters it was released to for the same reason (Darko would later enjoy brisk DVD sales that elevated it to a somewhat cult status).

Sometimes I think that perhaps the terrorist threat isn't as straight forward as we had originally imagined, and that a mastermind had schemes of a more sinister and unpredictable nature.

Don't forget to check back on Thursday for another animation video.

Things they are a Changin'...

2008-01-25T14:26:00.002-05:00

You may have notice that things look a little different around here at the ol' blogspot. Good eye friend. Nothing takes you by surprise.

I could tell you the change was an attempt to get away from the "Blogger" look, but that'd be a lie. This is just a modified blogger template. So you can still see many other blogs that look almost identical.

The real reason is because I posted that video on Monday and it was overlappying the sidebar on my screen - which really annoyed me. Sometimes I think I have a little OCD in me... but then I glance quickly around my room and realize that certainly isn't the case.

Dad you can verify that.

Also, now I should be able to post comics in their full size right on the blog page itself. No more "Clicking to Enlarge". Bonus!

Anyway, as a special treat to bring in the new blog design, I have another Stage 6 hosted video to share with you. The following short film is a movie called "The ChubbChubbs!". Some of you may have seen it before as it was released in theaters along side Stuart Little 2 and Men in Black II.

It won an Academy Award for best Animated Short that year (2002), and it was kind of a testing ground for Sony's animation studio before they took on full length feature films like Open Season and Surf's Up.

So without further ado, The ChubbChubbs!.

I'm planning on posting a video from the world of animation every Thursday from here on out, so make sure to check back often. Also, if you come across any good animations in your own searches, feel free to drop them in the comments.

The Best Laid Plans

2008-01-21T21:58:00.000-05:00

Over this last weekend a group of my good friends from Texas and Nebraska came down to the Orlando area to visit little old me, which was awesome.

I love it when people come to visit me, but the one apprehension I have about such gatherings is figuring out how best to entertain my guests. Should we go to Disney? Universal? What other Orlando attractions might pique their interest? It's always hard for me to decide.

Luckily, this particular crew didn't have any qualms about lounging about the house for a few days, eating out and playing video games. These are friends of the highest calibre.

Throughout the weekend a few ideas for unique Floridian entertainment did crop up, but it seemed like every time something kinda threw a wrench into our impromptu activity brainstorms.

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Thanks again to Ross, Maggie, Blair, Andria, Matt and Andrea. I had a blast and I hope you did too. If you guys decide to make a couple of purchases at Best Buy maybe we can get the band back together before too long.

Use It or Lose It

2008-01-21T11:25:00.001-05:00

Apparently I forgot how to draw, so the comic is going to be a little bit late. Look for it probably later this evening (still on Monday - my banner does not lie).

In the meantime, enjoy the following animation with my apologies for the delay..

Back in the Swing of Things

2008-01-13T23:03:00.000-05:00

-----------COMIC BOOK SPOILER ALERT-----------

I'm about to reveal something about the world of Spider-Man (comic book Spider-Man, not movie Spider-Man) that may ruin some plot points for anybody who is attempting to stay caught up on Spider-Man related things, specifically the series called One More Day.

The only person who I know of that reads my blog that this might apply to is Mr. Fenley. For the rest you who don't care about the Spider-Man plot lines, read on good people.

Recently in the world of Marvel, Spider-Man and Mary Jane broke up. Specifically, Peter and MJ made a deal with a character called Mephisto, a villain who essentially represents Satan in the Marvel Universe. This bargain was struck not to avoid a sticky settlement in divorce court, but rather in an attempt to save Aunt May's life.

Now that Spidey is unattached and on the prowl, I gotta wonder how a super hero goes about looking for love. The traditional means can be difficult even for the suavest of wall-crawlers. I imagine that technologically savvy guy like Peter Parker might try out the latest and greatest in social networking options out there.

Then again, those present their own unique challenges.

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Big thanks to Double M for helping me flesh out the comic this week.

The More Things Change...

2008-01-06T23:50:00.001-05:00

Hopefully everybody else had a wonderful break from the normal grind for a week or so around Christmas and New Years. I know I did.

As usual I went home to Nebraska for the holidays to spend some time with my family, which I always enjoy. Lots of great food, movie watching, and in particular quality time with Mom and Dad, which I wouldn't miss for the world.

Of course anytime I'm at home, my parents have inevitably come across some technical problem that they'd like for me to take care of, since after all, I grew up with technology and have been working with / studying it for going on 8 years now. Should be easy, right?

The weird thing is that my parents always manage to find the most ridiculous, impossible, never-been-heard-of-by-anybody-else kind of problems. And I'm not just talking about an extra hour or so of Googling to figure it out.

Their technical problems can become rather.... severe.

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Love you Mom and Dad. I'm always happy to help with anything - even if it involves calling in Sigourney Weaver.

Guest Comic to bring in the New Year

2007-12-30T14:38:00.000-05:00

I'll be on planes and my internet status is unknown to me for the next few days, so if you're sitting at your computer hitting refresh you're rewarded with a comic a day early!

Another year has come and gone, and another Johnny Nguyen comic original is laid before your comedy yearning eyes.

One thing that I've come to understand as the maker of a comic strip is that the majority of ideas spawn from some sort of real life events. It's pretty rare that an idea just pops into your mind from out of nowhere, with no prompting as you sit idly watching TV, (although many ideas do spawn while sitting on the toilet, at least in my case. (No "idea" is not a metaphor for "poop" Ben)). So with Johnny's latest offering I have to assume that this situation or something similar to it happened somewhere along the line.

You gotta find a new place to go dancing bud.

(Click to Enlarge)

Hope everybody had a merry Christmas, Kwanzaa, or Hanukkah, and has stupendous 2008.

Miracles Do Come True

2007-12-24T15:22:00.000-05:00

Well another holiday, another wonderful experience in the world of commercial airlines.

Really though. Not even being the least bit facetious.

Admittedly, my flight was delayed getting into my connecting city, about an hour or so - which meant we touched down the same time my connecting flight should have been taking off. Fortunately though, that flight was delayed as well, allowing me just the right amount of time to get on board before it took off.

On top of that, one of my buddies from Full Sail was on the same flight, in the seat next to me - so I had some company that wasn't crazy or odorous. Plus, he had been given two drink vouchers for moving seats on the previous flight, and since he didn't drink he gave them to me.

In conclusion - made it to Omaha without being stuck in another city, plus a free drink. Honestly the best outcome I could have hoped for.

Well, maybe not the absolute best I could have hoped for.

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Merry Christmas!

What Writer's Strike?

2007-12-20T14:34:00.000-05:00

I'm as surprised as you are that I haven't mentioned anything with regards to the whole writer's strike thing that is going on. I've kind of been avoiding it since the rest of the internet is completely ablaze with talk, but recently I was made aware of a movie trailer that had me thinking about the future of Hollywood. Ever hear of 10,000 BC? (The movie, not the year). Me neither, but check out this trailer.

I'm not sure what history books Warner Brothers is reading, but last I checked Dinosaurs, elephants, and Egyptians didn't really go together. I'll be the first one to admit that going to the movies requires a suspension of disbelief, but you gotta wonder how that movie was thought up and who was behind it.

(Click to Enlarge)

Don't forget to check out my latest animation if you haven't already. Thanks for all your comments (via messenger or official commenting methods)! It's encouraging to hear that you guys don't think my stuff is garbage.

Might not be Pixar quality yet, but I'm really enjoying it. Have a good weekend.

Steve Martin as ... Tobias Funke?

2007-12-19T11:58:00.000-05:00

I've wrapped up my animation class for the month and, as promised, I have a new animation for you.

For this final project we took the same character we've been working with and animated him to a sound clip. We had a handful of clips to choose from, and we were supposed to choose one that we didn't immediately recognize. I chose one that I thought was funny but didn't immediately recognize as any particular actor. After listening to it for about the 900th time (literally), I finally figure out that it was Steve Martin from "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles", but I didn't remember that particular scene, which is the whole idea so that Steve's performance didn't influence my "acting".

That's right. Steve.

We're tight.

So here it is. Hope you enjoy. Check back for a new comic sometime tomorrow.

Two Weiland Originals

2007-12-17T10:38:00.000-05:00

Hi everybody. I'm not going to bother making up excuses today, I have no Wheezy original ready for you, again on account of school (ok - I did make an excuse). It seems like this month all my deadlines are hitting early in the week, and so I've had to just push things off a little tiny bit.

But don't worry, this week is PACKED with goodness from the ol' blog. Look for a new 3D animation on Wednesday, as well as a new Wheezy comic on Thursday. Not only that, but as the title of this blog might suggestion, today you are getting 2 never before seen on the internet Weiland original comics, done my very own mother!

Back when my cousin Heather first began college, she wasn't enjoying things quite as much as she had expected (not all colleges give you homework involving watching cartoons and playing with juice boxes). My mom, being the wonderful person that she is, decided to create a series of comic strips that she then sent to Heather to lift her spirits a bit.

This was quite some time ago, but I remember when I saw my mom making these comics I thought it was awesome. So after she discovered my little comic endeavors online, I asked her if she still had the old "Heather" comics. She did.

So here you have it - 2 Gail Weiland original comics for your reading enjoyment.

(Click to Enlarge)

Keep checking back for more stuff later in the week.

3 comics and a 3d animation?
Show me a blog that gives you more original stuff than this one and I'll eat my hat.

Luckily for me my hat is made of fruit roll ups.

Did I mention that this is my 100th post?

Learning to Walk Again....

2007-12-14T10:17:00.000-05:00

Well I promised you new animation and that you shall have.

The last two projects involved an actual biped character, so I've had to move on from juice boxes.
The first involved making this character (The Blue Guy) get up from one chair and walk to another. He was also supposed to convey some sort of emotion - in my case I chose "fear"... but really this was all about getting the mechanics of a walk down.

In the second project we were supposed to show a change of emotion. We were given a certain selection of scenes to choose from, and I chose the one where the blue guy is on a blind date. In my scene, he's not excited about his blind date, as it was his mother who set him up on it. (Thank goodness for mother's who don't subject their sons to blind dates)

I took a little from some old Tex Avery cartoons for inspiration on that one.

One more project to go for the month. I'll be sure and post it up here for y'all once it's done.

Have a good weekend everybody.

Guest Web Comic

2007-12-09T18:25:00.000-05:00

Today I've got a special treat for y'all. Johnny Nguyen has been kind enough to make a guest comic for me to post today, as my current school schedule has kept me pretty busy of late.

I linked to Johnny's (mildly NSFW) digital comic book a few weeks back, and I asked him if he'd be interested in posting a guest comic sometime. He agreed. So without further ado, I give you the first ever Johnny Nguyen web comic original. Enjoy!

i guess what i was trying to accomplish here was perhaps give a little insight into a guy’s mind. i’d say, usually, a guy is overly optimistic about himself (how good looking he is, etc.) and girls the other way around. i find myself doing that sometimes and i catch myself, as it’s better to be humble than arrogant. but perhaps the only good thing is that it keeps guys from becoming depressive saps, who cry whenever they watch the Notebook. anyways, hope you enjoy the comic and thanks wheezy for inspiring me to get off my lazy butt.

thanks, johnny

(Click to Enlarge)

PS: Keep an eye out in the upcoming week for some more animations by yours truly.

Back to School

2007-12-04T02:28:00.000-05:00

During the process of deciding whether or not to quit my job and go back to school, I would frequently bounce my thoughts off a fellow alumni from college round 1, as well as one of the smartest guys I know, one Mr. Cody Ebberson.

I wanted to hear his opinions on my possible change in career direction because Cody was also considering returning to academia. Instead of going back to draw cartoons however, he decided to go the route of seven US Presidents and get his MBA at Harvard University.

I know I've been slightly delayed in my comic efforts of late, and I'd like to say it is solely because of the large work load I've been subjected to at Full Sail. Then I talk to Cody, and realize how ridiculous that excuse really is.

(Click to Enlarge)

Hopefully putting him in one of my comics will net me a cushy job animating a stock market ticker or something once he's a bajillionaire.

Don't forget to check out my latest animation in the previous post if you didn't yesterday.

This Message is Cody Ebberson approved...

2007-12-03T11:59:00.000-05:00

I don't have a comic for you today. Again.

I know what you're thinking. "This reminds me of dark times in days gone by when Wheezy's comics would have months... nay... years between publications. I feel the end of the world is near. All must repent!"

Please don't do anything drastic people, let me explain. This month I'm taking a class called Character Animation, and so far it has been more demanding than any classes I've had before it. It's also been the most enjoyable. I have a project that's due today, and instead of taking Sunday night to make a comic like I normally do, I continued toiling away on my animation in the hopes of getting it as finished as possible before the final turn in.

So I, once again, apologize for comedic delay. Your comic enjoyment will continue tomorrow - so please check back.

Unlike last week's delay however, you get BONUS comedy as sort of a stop gap to a new comic. I hope you enjoy, since, although I would have a hard time turning down a career in web comics (I'm looking at you Penny-Arcade), this is what I actually want to do somewhere down the road.

The goal of this project I've been working on was to take an inanimate object, in this case a juice box, and make it seem alive. I wrote out a scene, sketched some ideas out on paper, then started animating.

So here you go. I hope you like it.

YouTube is being a little finnicky today, so if that embedded video isn't working, you can download the file here.

Overcast with a Chance of Miserable

2007-11-27T10:26:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned yesterday, my trip home from a wonderful Thanksgiving was a bit of a mess.

Not surprisingly, the airline industry failed to deliver me to my destination in the same manner in which we had agreed upon when the ticket was purchased. It seems like any time I fly somewhere, my entire day is ruined by lots of horrible horrible things that stack up until all joy I had that day is crushed from my very being. In hindsight these terrible issues are usually just a bunch of tiny things that seem much much worse than they actually are because I'm stuck in an airport or a hotel.

On Sunday, however, I feel these grievances were legitimately catastrophic in nature.

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Slight Delays...

2007-11-26T02:35:00.000-05:00

So I'm blogging from Atlanta, where my connecting flight to Orlando from Omaha saw fit to leave without me. Who doesn't love the airline industry? Honestly.

Anyway partially because of my travel delays and more partially because I've been lazy over this holiday weekend, this week's comic will most likely be delayed until Tuesday.

Sorry for the comedic inconvenience.

It's the Monday after a holiday. Don't you have work to do anyway?

Good for What Ales Ya

2007-11-19T00:36:00.000-05:00

Now that I've been living in Florida for a while, I've had the opportunity to meet quite a few people. As some of you know, emily works for NASA, and because of this, I've attended a few parties dominated by employees of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Now that I've dipped my toe into the realm of freelance work - it's got me thinking about where the next opportunity might come from. Perhaps some of these new contacts in the government can hook me up with something down the road.

Heck. Maybe I can even drum up some more traffic for the ol' blog along the way.

(Click to Enlarge)

Thanks to Stephen for helping spur the idea for this one.

An Apple a Day Keeps you Employed

2007-11-12T09:30:00.000-05:00

(Click to Enlarge)

Have a good week folks.

Chippin' away at the old salary

2007-11-08T09:55:00.000-05:00

Since I'm currently a student that is in class or lab for about 40 hours a week, I don't really have time for a job on the side. That means that I'm not making any money. In fact, that means that I'm basically just spending money every month.

Occasionally, however, I do get some free lance work thrown my way. One such example can now been seen at Software Tiger.

See that tiger fella slashing prices? In case you couldn't tell, I drew that. And made a sweet $45 dollars in the process.

I told my dad about that job and all he could say was "45 bucks. Nice, son. You're really chipping away at the old salary you had with National Instruments, aren't ya."

He's always got the big picture in mind.

Love ya Dad.

Thanks to Brian Spears for the extra work. Go buy something on his site, wouldya?

Hollywood Endings

2007-11-04T23:54:00.000-05:00

For those who don't know, I'm a Nebraska Cornhusker and Denver Bronco fan. Which means this past weekend was pretty rough on ol' Wheezy.

Both of these teams were thrashed handily. My boy Mueller has already dealt with the pain using some old fashioned music video therapy. I, on the other hand, went to some big budget Hollywood magic to sooth my sports fan woes.

(Click to Enlarge)

Have a good week folks. Good time to be from the New England area I guess.

Guitar Hero is First Class

2007-10-30T04:46:00.001-04:00

I think most people probably know what Guitar Hero is at this point, but just in case - basically it's a rhythm based video game where you pretend you're able to play guitar by clicking along with scrolling notes on a plastic guitar with only five buttons. It's really easier to just show you than it is to explain - so here is a video of a kid who is way better than I am.

Yeah. He's much better than me. And yes - everybody makes that silly face with their mouth hanging open pretty much the entire duration of a given song.

Well it's one thing to make that face in the privacy of your own home, but with the recent release of Guitar Hero III they've announced that it will also be available on PCs and Macs (not to mention the portable DS).

Well since a PC and Mac port means I can play Guitar Hero pretty much wherever and whenever I want, I think air plane trips are going to be a lot more enjoyable. Well, for me at least.

(Click to Enlarge)

I figure it's only a matter of time until the FAA steps in.

End of the month sleepy time...

2007-10-29T00:45:00.000-04:00

I have two final projects due at 6:00 AM today (Monday). Then I have my next month's class starting at 1:00 PM.

It should be obvious to anybody who has ever picked up an Encyclopedia Brown novel that this insight into my schedule is a precursor to me telling you that I'm not going to have a comic in on time. Sorry about that. This school stuff is a lot tougher than round 1 up at UNL. Mainly because a teacher can fail you by saying "No.. that doesn't look quite right... I'm not sure what it is... but something is off." Stupid subjectivity.

Anyway, I'll get a comic in tomorrow, don't you worry. And to make up for it, I have a couple of extra treats.

First of all, here is one of my projects from an animation class. We were given a Knight character and told to animate him either sneaking, or walking. I chose sneaking, cuz that seemed like more fun. So here's that

The final project for that class was animating the same knight going through an obstacle course. I've been meaning to get that up here as well - hopefully I can manage sometime this week.

The second "I'm making up for reneging on the promise in my banner" goody is similar to my normal Wacom / Photoshop comics, in that it is a comic BOOK, made with a Wacom tablet and Photoshop. Johnny Nguyen, one of my buddies down here in Florida, recently came out with his first comic book. You can find it here (mildy NSFW - sorry Kevin):

http://enliv.com/comic/

Good stuff. Also - check out the "Behind the Scenes: Extra" features at the end. You might recognize a couple of people in those photo references.

Again, sorry again for the lack of comic. Check back tomorrow.

Edward seems to have lost some weight

2007-10-22T03:50:00.001-04:00

I'm not going to lie to you. This week I was blindsided by a bit of information that is rather detrimental to my day to day life.

Florida does not sell 40 oz malt liquor.

I know what you're thinking. "Who cares Dan? It's not like you ever really have a strong need for malt liquor or anything. Get over it." But I don't think you understand. Ever heard of something called "Edward 40 Hands?" If you haven't, it's a drinking game that's based on the Tim Burton movie "Edward Scissor Hands." Not only that, but it makes for a great Halloween costume.

Unless, of course, you live in Florida.

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Nintendo causes Paresthesia

2007-10-17T01:04:00.001-04:00

Going to a school like Full Sail, you tend to encounter a lot of people who are into video games. Typically, I don't get drawn into too many virtual adventures... I dipped my hat in World of Warcraft for a couple of months back in college round 1, but somehow managed to evade it's deadly vise-like grip. I enjoy Guitar Hero type games quite a bit as well, but let's face it. Playing guitar, virtual or otherwise, is just cool.

One thing that has really managed to addict me is the Nintendo DS. That little portable system is simply amazing - from it's WiFi capabilities that let me throw down in some Mario Kart with Mueller and Ross from across the country to it's simple and handy design that lets me start and stop play with a simple flip of the lid. I find myself carrying it around just about everywhere, and playing it in places and situations when I probably shouldn't.

One of these days it's going to get me in a bad situation.

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Just call me Henry Clay...

2007-10-15T09:54:00.000-04:00

Ok ... here's the deal. I have a comic that's halfway done, and I have other things that I need to do this morning. I could finish the new comic quick and post a black and white version, OR....

I'll post a comic that some of you have already seen, and in exchange for your understanding, post the second comic later this week. Wednesday, let's say.

Sound good? Alright then. Glad we agree.

This comic was made for the JDE Alumni association newsletter. During college round one our dorm had an internet forum where we would occasionally hold surveys and the like. One such survey was the "Hot or Not" survey.

As I'm sure you already have surmised, considering my dashing good looks, I did pretty well in the competition. Some people, however, did a little better. Nowadays I'm finding that my success doesn't have quite the sparkle it once did.

(Click to Enlarge)

See ya Wednesday.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall...

2007-10-08T09:48:00.001-04:00

Another month has come and gone, and a new set of classes has begun. This month I'm taking another character modeling class (like when I made Tobias a couple months back), but with more emphasis on proper proportions with regards to human musculature. If that weren't going to be difficult enough, we don't get to choose somewhat obscure comedians to model this month. We have to create a 3d representation of ourselves.

It's going to be pretty challenging. Not only because creating something that looks like a particular person (especially one as dashing as myself) is fairly difficult, but also because temptation to take certain artistic licenses with this sort of thing is pretty much unavoidable.

(Click to Enlarge)

Hopefully I'll be able to get my project from last month posted sometime this week, so keep an eye out if that sort of thing interests you.

It's Tired in Here...

2007-10-01T05:00:00.002-04:00

It's October, Halloween time, and apparently that means one thing these days.

I truly and honestly hate those movies. Maybe I just have a weak stomach, but they don't seem to scare me as much as they make me want to vomit.

What did scare me ~~when I thought about it five minutes ago~~ when I was a little kid were the Urban legends about murderers outside my car with hooks for hands and mental patients that would escape their wards to write messages on walls in blood.

I always thought that it would take a lot of patience for those killers to hang around in the dark so that they could set the just right mood, you know, really scare the crap out of somebody. I can't imagine that I'd be able to pull something like that off with the same ambiance that the legends manage.

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The Internets has (have?) Spoken

2007-09-26T23:43:00.001-04:00

Aaaaand apparently my shirt isn't fit for print. 1.2 average score out of 5 after 24 hours of voting.

Not completely surprising, but there ya have it. I'm going to go ahead and assume that everybody was confused like Mueller and gave it a 1 when they meant to give it a 5.

Let me continue living in my own little fantasy world.

Thanks for voting everybody. I'll let you know if I try out any other t-shirt designs. Maybe I should slap a comic on a shirt and see what happens.

Immodest Alternating Current Connector

2007-09-25T21:16:00.000-04:00

Hey there everybody.

Recently I was tasked with designing a shirt for an upcoming JDEdwards Alumni event. JDE is the honors program which I was a part of during college round 1 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The idea behind the program is to give students the knowledge to become managers who understood not only the business requirements of a given task, but also what was going on with the technology side of things as well.

I created a couple of different shirt designs, and the one that wasn't chosen for the Alumni event I decided to submit to Threadless.com. Well the shirt has made it to the voting stage, so this is where I ask you to vote for my stuff, because if you read my comic you obviously care about everything else in my life, right?. Here's the design:

One of the things I see more often than I'd like is the overuse of Powerpoint in business. I really dislike Powerpoint, not because it's a bad product but because it's so easy pick up that people tend to use it in horrible, mind numbing ways.

The idea behind the shirt is that Management + Technology is more than just Powerpoint, which I thought tied in nicely with the goals of the JDEdwards Program. So if you have a moment, click on the thumbnail above (or on the sidebar for that matter) and give it a vote.

The reason it wasn't picked for the JDEdwards Alumni event is because it's a little obscure, and requires some explanation, which I kind of like in a shirt. From the comments on Threadless that people have posted so far, seems like others agree.

Thanks everybody.

Ages 3 - 25

2007-09-24T10:54:00.000-04:00

During last weekend, I attended a 2 year old's birthday party. No, I wasn't trying to meet Mariska Hargitay, from Law & Order: SVU, this was the child of one of emily's coworkers. Before the party, we had to get some sort of gift for the little guy. As we wandered through the toy aisle, scanning for something the the kid wouldn't choke on, I began thinking about toys from my own childhood.

My parents pretty much spoiled me rotten, so I typically didn't go wanting for toys (I had one of these, remember?) Probably my only disappointment was never actually owning a Power Wheel. Those things were awesome. I wanted one of the Jeep off-roading kinds so that I could cruise around the construction sites near my house, helping the workers with my sweet front end towing winch.

We ended up getting the birthday boy something along the lines of a Hot Wheels racing set, but the temptation to pick up something for myself was fierce to say the least.

(Click to Enlarge)

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen...

2007-09-17T03:48:00.001-04:00

This last weekend I once again found myself in Austin, TX for the one and only Austin City Limits Festival. Let me start off by saying that it was fantastic. I highly recommend if you can make it. Happens every year. With three days of music to listen to - in all honesty I wasn't even sure I'd be able to get a comic done. Luckily, I had the help of one Ross Mau.

And so without further ado, a guest comic to cover for my laziness. I believe Ross would like to say a few words of introduction.

I was very pleased that I had the opportunity not only to help out my buddy Wheezy, but I also got to experience something unique when two artistic minds collaborate to create something truly original and ground breaking.

(Click to Enlarge)

So I feel like my comic strip debut went well. I'll be answering questions in the comments section if anyone has any questions on some of the artistic liberties I took in recreating a true life story. For example, you may notice I included my dog Coco, but not Mario. If you were an illustrator you would already know that sometimes an illustrator is physically limited by his chosen medium, but one must strive to overcome those limitations. I have achieved that here by putting Coco's bark in black, which happens to be the color Mario is. The more astute readers may also realize that black was one of the predominant colors in the scheme I chose. Well, I'll leave the tips up to Dan, I don't want to start stepping on his toes in his blog.

Before somebody (I'm looking at you Ben) mentions it in the comments, I already asked Ross why he drew a sun in what I assume is our old living room. Apparently he felt that his artistic talents were best utilized when recreating large orbs of burning hydrogen.

Is A-Ha still hiring?

2007-09-12T20:34:00.000-04:00

Hey there folks. Just thought I'd give you another quick school update, since I know that's the real reason you come here. Sorry you have to suffer through so many comics to get to the good stuff.

In the event that both the movie industry and my gig with Dire Straights don't pan out, for the last month I've been working on some 2D animation skills during my aptly named "2D Animation" class.

This isn't Flash or anything like that. This is drawing on pieces of paper, lots of pieces of paper, then flipping them back and forth over and over again (like a flipbook), all the while erasing and fixing the horrible mistakes you made the first few times around. Once you've got to a point that you think looks good, you take digital images of all of your drawings, then make it into a video. The purpose of this class was to give us a good solid background in traditional "animation", that we can then carry over to the digital 3D world.

My teacher, Kathy Blackmore, was an animator for Disney for around 8 years, working on projects such as Brother Bear, Lilo and Stitch, and Mulan. Pretty amazing credentials in the 2D world. During the class, we did small projects that demonstrated various principles of animation.

So here's what I've been working on and although they look pretty simple, they took quite a bit of effort. I've looped all of the them because they're so short. Some are meant to be looped, others will have a bit of a jump when they go back to the beginning. Hope you enjoy!

Facebook viewers - click here to see the videos.

Now at least I've got A-Ha as a backup.

Money Well Spent

2007-09-10T12:45:00.000-04:00

As anybody who knows me can attest to, I'm rather adept at spending money. Especially when I'm actually collecting a paycheck. I mean come on. I own one of these for goodness sake.

Since starting college round two, however, I've had to take a closer look at my day to day habits and try to decide why I spend money on certain things. I think just analyzing the reasons behind a purchase before actually slapping the money down has helped my wallet quite a bit.

I'm not saying that I'm perfect by any means, but obvious financial pitfalls are starting to become painfully obvious.

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Say Everything

2007-09-03T03:52:00.001-04:00

I often find myself marveling at the amazing technology that's at my finger tips on a daily basis. I'll be sitting there - watching TV while chatting with a buddy halfway across the world, reading Mueller's blog while simultaneously working on a comic. All from one magical little machine.

It's mind boggling. And of course it's only becoming more incredible as time moves on. Back in the day, I remember sitting at my IBM 8086, turning on the ol' 1440 external modem, dialing up and listening to what sounded like a family of cats dying in order to connect to my local BBS. Now it's possible to do about a thousand times more than that on your way to work.

And as awesome as all of this is, there are moments when I yearn for a simpler time without all the advanced tech. I think things would be a little less complicated for your day to day life. At the very least it would be easier to plan grand romantic gestures without the possibility of complete and total disaster.

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TWSS

2007-08-27T14:12:00.001-04:00

I suppose it's only natural to become a bit more mature as we progress through life. One area which I've found this to be true is in the classroom. I tend to be more attentive than I was in college round 1, and I make a concerted effort to get as much as possible out of the lectures I'm attending.

That being said, there are times when I simply can't help myself. In this respect I think that my boy Mueller has me in the area of self control. Other friends of mine, however, I doubt could contain themselves.

(Touch to Enlarge - TWSS)

One of my professors actually said those words. Well, some of them anyway.

Who am I kidding. I'm not mature. I loved the movie Superbad (ANSFW) and I could watch this video all day long:

Phallic Status Symbol

2007-08-20T11:11:00.000-04:00

Now that I'm trying to get into the movie industry, I've started to think about all the different jobs that need to be filled in order to make a film. I've often said that I'd take just about any job in the business, because even as the coffee runner on the set of Half Past Dead, I would've at least had the opportunity to tell Don Michael Paul, "Seriously. Did Steven Seagal just say "a'ight" to Ja Rule? Really? That's how you're ending your movie?"

That being said, there are certain jobs that carry a little more clout than others. For example - anybody seen SuperBad yet? It's terrific - I highly recommend (as long as your aren't easily offended). Here's a clip from SuperBad:

(NSFW Embedded Video)

As I watched that scene, I found myself wondering how many people were required to film it, and more importantly... what was their job title?

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Dante had it all Wrong

2007-08-13T05:13:00.000-04:00

A couple of comics ago, the subject of hell was brought up in the comments area of the ol' blog. Interesting stuff in there, you should check it out from time to time.

At any rate, my dad, an avid golfer who plays at the very least twice a week, even in the coldest of Nebraska winters, made what I believe was his first ever comment on my blog. And of course, it referenced golf.

"Dear Old Dad said...

There's no golf in hell.....that's why it's hell....
August 4, 2007 11:01 PM"

Well Dad, you very well might be right. But after years of playing golf with you and hearing your thoughts on the game, I think there might be something you would consider to be even worse.

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Before you ask, that's not supposed to be my dad. It's just a generic dude who found his way to hell. Probably the guy who invented red arrows for left hand turns at traffic lights.

I just ... blue myself.

2007-08-08T16:34:00.000-04:00

School update for those that are interested.

Last month I was in a class called "Character Design and Creation." As the name would imply, we are just in charge of ... designing and creating a character. This character could be based on whatever we want, so long as it hadn't already been created in some 3d form. Like a video game, or movie or whatever.

So I chose one of my comedic heroes, Mr. David Cross. Known to many as Tobias Fünke. If you aren't familiar with him, let me introduce you.

Well, here's my attempt at creating him in 3d. Sorry for the poor quality of the video.

Have a good week folks.

Mogwai on your Face

2007-08-06T12:23:00.000-04:00

Today I offer a challenge to you, the users of the internet.

Some time ago, I was searching for an image on the internet. Usually when I go to find something on the internet, I have absolute confidence that I'll be able to find it. As my boy Mueller has proven time and time again, just about anything can be found out there on the world wide webs.

But on this fateful day, some time ago - I could not for the life of me find an image of the flying sun proof gremlin from Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

I tried searching for hours. "Bat Gremlin", "Gargoyle Gremlin", "Flying Gremlin".... to no avail. The closest thing I found was this image in Wikipedia:

Which isn't actually an image of the gremlin, but rather an image of the director holding up a cardboard standin for the actor to react to, since they would later add the flying gremlin in post processing.

Never mind why I was searching for the flying gremlin image online, but what I ask is this. Can any of my readers find it?

I guess maybe it's a good thing the gremlin I'm seeking has proven so evasive. After all, those little green monsters are notoriously difficult to get rid of.

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What Would Bob Barker Do?

2007-07-30T01:36:00.000-04:00

I dunno if you've heard. But Drew Carey is officially the new host of The Price is Right.

Oh come on. My boy Mueller was running a campaign for Chuck Woolery to replace my hero and yours, Bob Barker, earlier this year. Unfortunately, the internets don't appear to be as effective as previously suspected for this sort of grass roots campaign.

At any rate - we'll have to just wait and see what happens with Drew and TPIR. I'm hoping for continued good things. Who knows.

Maybe he'll finally put an end to all of the shady bidding tactics we've seen over the years.

If I had a Multi-Million Dollar Contract...

2007-07-23T03:00:00.000-04:00

So I don't know if you've heard, but Michael Vick is an idiot.

A little while back Michael was accused of trying to sneak weed onto in airplane in the secret compartment of a water bottle. This is post 9/11 people. A water bottle? The idiotic nature of what he was doing should be fairly obvious. But just to drive the point home, here's an SNL clip that sums it up pretty well.

Vick was acquitted of those charges, but recently he found himself in some more trouble with the law. Last week he was indicted for training and fighting pit bulls. Pretty horrendous stuff, especially for a self proclaimed dog lover.

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia was particularly displeased with this recent turn of events and made sure to announce this to the Senate, who apparently wasn't busy with anything else that day. I'm not sure if he was making arguments against dog fighting or for term limits, but Senator Byrd hates dog fighting just as much as he loves repeating things three or more times. I wouldn't recommend watching this entire thing, but check out when there's about 5:10 left in the video.

We already know what I'd do with a million dollars, but I guess Vick is having trouble finding ways to legally spend all that green.

I fear that dog fighting is just the tip of the iceberg.

Just Doing my Civic Duty

2007-07-16T03:00:00.000-04:00

Not often, but every once in a while I get a little burnt out on this whole "comic" thing. I'll have days of comedic writer's block, when even Carlos Mencia seems mildly humorous, or I'll spend 20 minutes trying to draw something really simple before I get anything that actually looks good, and even that is sometimes debatable.

There are a couple of things that really help me put my head down and power through those moments of doubt. One of which is my blog statistics. I have a couple of utilities that keep track of how many people read my blog on any given day, the majority of which are usually visitors from Mueller's blog, since he tends to link to this site more often than Arrested Development won critical acclaim.

The other thing that gives me motivation to keep at it is when people leave comments on my blog. I figure if somebody takes the time to actually type in a comment, then they must have enjoyed it a little bit more than the average item they find on the web.

Apparently, this motivation boost is a two way street. In case you don't read the comments people leave on my blog (and you should, Mueller usually leaves a smattering of hilarious links), last week yielded a fair share of good ones. There was one I found particularly interesting:

"Matthew Johnson said...

Your comics make my Tuesdays worth living :-)
July 10, 2007 10:56 PM"

Wow. With responsibility like that - I really have no choice but to keep saving people's lives.

(Click to Enlarge)

Thanks for reading everybody.

McDonald's Meets the Eye

2007-07-09T09:07:00.000-04:00

This is gonna be a fairly short post, as I'm currently sitting outside of a Motel 8 with free wifi somewhere along Interstate 40. I'm on my way back to Orlando after visiting friends and family in Austin and Arkansas, but since I made a promise in my blog banner, which as I understand it is legally binding in all United States and principalities, I had to make sure and get a comic up today.

Anyway, while in Austin we decided to celebrate the independence of our country by watching computer generated robots demolish a small portion of it, by which of course I mean I saw the Transformers movie.

Although I like the idea of driving a car that has a mind of its own, I think that its motivation may differ from my own occasionally, which could become problematic.

I suppose the only real requirement I would have for such a vehicle would be that it's easily duped.

Mild spoiler alert. The movie Transformers involves cars that turn into robots.

(Click Image to Enlarge)

Feel free to gimme a ring today if you get bored. I'll be driving for a while.

Family Values

2007-07-01T22:10:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to lie. I love television.

Just like my boy Mueller, I watch a lot of TV. I'll be flipping the channels, and all of a sudden BAM! - Wheezy gets sucked into a weekend marathon of Law and Order: SVU. These things happen.
And if it's in HD? Forget about it. I'll watch anything in HD. UFC, dolphins (the football team or the aquatic mammal), guys getting tagged in the family jewels, doesn't matter. If it's in High-Def I'm all about it.

Once in a while though, I'll accidentally hit something that churns the very soul. If I had some way of avoiding these shows without sacrificing TV altogether, I would.

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If you didn't catch my Show and Tell post from Saturday, check it out quick.

Show and Tell

2007-06-30T17:20:00.001-04:00

Well, as promised I have some school work to share with y'all, and as per usual with school work I managed to find a way to incorporate Flash into things.

Over the last month I've been in a "Shading and Lighting" class. Basically, we were to create a scene from scratch, doing all the texturing and lighting ourselves. We could borrow the 3D objects from a stockpile they had available at school, but usually some modification was required.

The recommendation was to pick a scene that you had images for, so as you would have a reference to try and match. For my project, I picked Andy Dufresne's cell from The Shawshank Redemption. Not only did it seem like a decent challenge, but it gave me a good excuse for watching Shawshank about 20 times in a row.

Here's the result:

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In order to make this, I applied a series of 2d textures, images in other words, to the geometry, as well computer generated patterns, or "procedurals." Just to give you a better idea of the work that was involved, I put together a little Flash presentation to show you the process from start to finish.

Feel free to click anywhere in the Flash app to advance the image, although it will move on automatically if you don't do anything (after pressing start of course). I recommend clicking the Full Size link below to really see what's going on.

(Click here for full size version. Flash Player required)

Have a good weekend everybody.

If I had a Million Dollars

2007-06-25T11:45:00.001-04:00

Well, it's the end of the month again, and since every month is basically like a semester, it's once again crunch time. A midterm every month, a final every month, and a final project every month. Pretty insane.

So that paragraph was all about excusing myself for a hand drawn, late Monday morning comic. I'll understand if you want to spend your internet time somewhere else from now on. (Seriously, click on the image in the middle of that link).

Anyway, I often find myself pondering what I would buy if I had a million dollars. Most people think of houses, cars ... that sort of thing. But I have grander plans.

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I've got a week off for summer vacation starting Friday - look for some posts with regards to what I've been up to at school.

I'm in ur browzer...

2007-06-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

A few weeks back I made a post with regards to a picture that had been wandering around the internet for over a year or so called "I has a bucket". Basically it's a picture of a walrus that, by itself, is pretty hideously ugly and disturbing. However, some pioneering internet user added words to it, and it instantly became hilarious instead.

This practice is pretty common place on the ol' internets and The Google, in particular with cat pictures. Probably due to a well known scientific fact with regards to cats.

(Courtesy of xkcd Comics)

Here's a montage of the kind of images I'm talking about.

At any rate, it just so happens that the house I'm living in at the moment has 6 cats, 4 of which are kittens. When these little miracles of mother nature came into our house, naturally my first thought was to exploit them for comedic purposes. Unfortunately this was more difficult than one would think.

(Click to enlarge)

Mario Part-ay

2007-06-11T03:46:00.000-04:00

Well, last weekend was my birthday. I turned 25, which, according to my brother, is the last truly "happy" one. I just hope my car insurance actually lowers a bit. Thanks to everybody who dropped me a line, whether it be via the internets or other means.

This year, I didn't do anything crazy in the way of celebration, just a nice relaxing weekend. I think that means I'm officially old. emily bought me Mario Party 8 for the Wii, so a good chunk of the day was spent playing that.

For those of you who aren't familiar, Mario Party is basically board game put into video form, and is quite fun as long as you don't take things too seriously. All the former grudges are forgotten, and the denizens of Mario universe get together and have a good time. I'm just glad that I got to share in the fun on my birthday.

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Webster ain't got nuthin' on This

2007-06-04T10:20:00.000-04:00

As many of you may have noticed, whenever I use a word in a comic or as part of my blog that has an obscure definition, I like to provide my readership with a credible source as to the meaning of that word.

One such credible source, is Urban Dictionary.

Now I know what you're thinking. "Just because it has 'dictionary' in title doesn't mean it's credible Dan." Well typically, I would agree with you. After all, Dictionary.com thinks that "inflammable" means the same thing as flammable.

in·flam·ma·ble – adjective

1.	capable of being set on fire; combustible; flammable.

2.	easily aroused or excited, as to passion or anger; irascible: an inflammable disposition.

–noun

3.	something inflammable.

"Something inflammable." Gee, thanks Dictionary.com.

Urban Dictionary, on the other hand, is community driven, like Wikipedia. Anytime somebody suggests a definition, users can vote it down or up, therefore validating it before the masses or shaming it to the realm of "inflammable." (NSFW Audio)

Want more proof? Look no further than the definition of "Wheezy" on Urban Dictionary.

I know, right? It's like God himself made those entries.

As a testament to UD's absolute truth - I've decided to illustrate all the definitions therein, beginning of course, with my own moniker. And if I see anything incorrect or missing, I'll just go ahead and add it as I go.

I has a Comic

2007-05-28T00:31:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been a pretty hectic couple of weeks for me, since the end of every month is basically like the end of a semester. This month has been dedicated to creating hard surface objects in 3d, basically anything produced in a manufacturing type setting (such as home appliances or video game controllers), as well as traditional art projects. You know, the kind with a pencil.

I plan on sharing a lot of last month's stuff soon, but this week in particular, we did some storyboarding. I've already shared my storyboard from last month when I made my first 3D animation, but this storyboard was just something to practice the art of storyboarding. I realize this is a bit of a cop out, but I'm submitting this as my comic for the week.

Oh yeah.... I busted out some Flash skills to make it a bit more interesting. Hope you enjoy! (It might take a little while to load on certain internet connections).

(Click Here if embedded movie does not load)

If you're not familiar with the image that inspired my storyboard, check out these sites.

Thanks to Ross for introducing me to this glorious image, and to Mueller for introducing me to the titular URL.

Hope everyone has a good Memorial Day.

Moore of the Same

2007-05-21T03:00:00.000-04:00

First of all, I want to preface this post by stating that this is NOT a political blog. I'm fairly out of the loop when it comes to politics, nor have I ever claimed to be a part of said loop.

Moving on, Michael Moore is coming out with a new ~~dramedy~~ documentary, "Sicko". If you don't want to click on that link, "Sicko investigate[s] health care with a focus on large American pharmaceutical companies and of corruption in the Food and Drug Administration."

From what I've read, Moore is up to the same old sensationalist tactics to entertain audiences while simultaneously presenting his view on a given subject. At one point Moore even takes soldiers injured in the Iraq war over to Cuba in an attempt to get them better health care than they've received in the United States.

I'm not going to try and argue the finer points of the United States approach to health care, nor Michael Moore's artistic license when it comes to presenting his case. All I'm calling into question is Moore's true motivation behind attacking the health care industry to begin with.

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While I was having my editor look over today's comic, we started discussing the topic at hand.

He put this question to me. If you were to rate the amount of Truth vs. Propaganda in Moore's documentaries, and compare that to the ratio of Truth vs. Propaganda that's come out of the Bush Administration's Press Office, how would they stack up next to each other?

Well, when it comes this stuff, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but what I do know is that this was the most interesting Michael Moore clip I could find on the internet.

Because "Plagiarencia" doesn't Have Quite the Same Ring to It...

2007-05-14T03:00:00.000-04:00

It seems like I've been hitting the topic of comedy plagiarism quite a bit over the last few months in my Interesting Internets feed, and not in small part because it's already happened to me once in my fledgling comedic career. In case you didn't see it or just plain ignore all the stuff on the right hand side of the blog page, here's an example of what I'm talking about.

Pretty blatant, if you ask me. ~~Ned Holness~~ ~~Carlos MenStealia~~ Carlos Mencia has been hit particularly hard by these various accusations of late, and I have to say that I can understand where he's coming from. I too know what it's like to have the constant pressure of creating comedy gold, and as quite a few people are aware, (in particular the proprietor of a little blog called Skeet Throwin' (SFW)), I often turn to friends for help with new ideas.

(Click to Enlarge)

Now Mr. Mencia certainly isn't the only famous comedian who has been caught using other guy's material, but I think the main reason that he is getting more flack than some is that when he isn't telling other people's jokes, he couldn't even make these people chuckle.

I wonder if Bea Arthur will go that way...

2007-05-07T03:00:00.000-04:00

Since I've move to Florida, there's been an interesting variety of wildlife in the residential areas that I've never had to deal with before. Of course when you think of Florida you think of alligators, and they do occasionally come near homes and golf courses around here. I luckily haven't had any encounters with the scary beasts.

What I have encountered, however, are plenty of anole lizards. (Not anal lizards. I'm looking at you Ben). Big ones, small ones, ones that climb on rocks... just tons of the buggers. When I walk from my front door to my car I literally see five to ten anole lizards dart for the bushes. For the prices they go for in pet stores ($5 usually), I should be able to pay for school with a little effort.

When my roommate Donny told me about a giant spider he'd found in his room, I thought maybe I could just dump a couple lizards in there to take care of the problem. It occurred to me that somebody may have taken this approach in the past, and I'm worried that course of action could escalate a little too quickly.

This should at least get me a job with Dire Straits

2007-05-04T18:23:00.000-04:00

For those of you keeping up, the beginning of May marks the end of my first 3D class, and thus ends my introduction to Maya. I believe y'all were promised an animation...

Well I thought I'd take you through the steps, from concept to final cut. This is the same pipeline major animation studios use, and since I'm now familiar, I'm expecting to start interviewing pretty much any time now.

For this particular project, each group was tasked with making a 6 second animation. Each member would contribute 2 props and 6 seconds of character animation for one character in the scene. My group, named Monkeys Out of Nowhere (Thanks Andy!) had five people, thus our animation has five characters.

The concept our group came up with was a western motif involving a gun fight between two poker players. My character was the bartender. To start with, we each made a storyboard that showed the timing, camera work, and overall action. Basically, it's a comic strip, so not surprisingly, this was the most straightforward part for yours truly.

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Once everybody had their storyboards finished, I created an "animatic". This is basically just a real rough animation using simple geometry and coffin-esque shapes for characters. Each group member would use this as a basic blueprint for animation, ensuring that nobody would walk their character through a wall or something. Just to give you the overall gist; two cowboys are playing poker. One gets up, shoots the other through a window. The sheriff busts in with a shotgun, and blasts the shooter over the bar. There's also a piano player, who runs away. Ready? Aaaaaand action!

Now that we had the basic blueprint, animation could begin. Everybody saved a personal copy of the animatic, brought in their rigged character (which I believe I shared with you in another post) and started animating. After each person was finished animating, everybody would share their animation for use by the rest of the group. Also, some environment detail was added (thanks JR) so that things didn't look quite so bland.

When creating the final scene, each group member was in control of their own camera work. The idea would be to "film" with an emphasis on your character, meaning that we would be producing 5 different videos. Here's my initial cut after animating and importing in the other characters.

Once that was finished, all that was left was texturing, lighting, and rendering (finalizing). We were limited to flat colors for our textures, so don't expect anything fancy. Of course if you have been expecting fancy - you've probably jumped ship to another blog by now. So now that you've suffered through the entire explanation of how I made it, here's my final animation.

Pretty nifty eh? Well, I think so anyway. In addition to that, we also had to do some individual work. For mine, I chose to do another 6 second animation. No lighting or coloring, this was just focusing on basic animation.

That's it for this month in Full Sail. Next month I'll be in a more advanced modeling course - so hopefully I'll be sharing some 3D models of ninjas, pirate monkeys, or maybe a T-Rex Who knows.

Oh in case you were wondering if this is how it's done in the real world, check out this and this. Admittedly, we skipped the voice talent part.

Spidey-Sense is Tingling

2007-04-30T03:00:00.000-04:00

Anybody else excited for Spider-Man 3? I know I am.

I've been a Spidey fan for as long as I can remember. I owned comic books, trading cards, and tons of posters. I definitely went as the costumed Peter Parker for Halloween on more than one occasion. I think between my TMNT post and that last statement I have officially convinced anybody who used to think I was even remotely cool that I am, in actuality, not. If that doesn't do it - I used to own one of these. Talk about absurd super hero paraphernalia.

Speaking of absurd super hero marketing, I was walking through the super market the other day when I saw this:

So... Spider-Man lactates from his wrists now.

Into my breakfast. Ew.

After a little further examination it appears as though Spider-Man is actually just webbing the bowl, not shooting anything into the cereal itself. So now he's just stealing my breakfast, which I suppose is a little better than webbing it. Still, it makes me wonder what other cross promotional ideas the geniuses over at Sony thought of lately.

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On a side note - whenever I make a post to my blog, I do a significant amount of internet research before dropping my many humorous insights on the avid "Why Not" readership. For today's post, I found an interesting variety of limited edition cereals created to help promote movies and TV over the years. I thought I'd share.

I fed Pac Man cereal to a turtle I found along side the road once when I was little. We eventually donated the little guy to the Great Bend, KS zoo. I guess turtles like Pac Man cereal.

Yeah I totally ate this cereal many many times. I recall it being extremely sugary.

Ok, that one probably isn't real.

Wobbly Wheezy

2007-04-24T17:31:00.001-04:00

This post marks two events. First of all, I have just cashed in my V card with YouTube. After taking oh so much from the internets, I've given back for the first time in video form. Now I don't feel so bad about being erroneously honored by Time Magazine.

The second event which needs to be marked, and was the reason for my YouTube contribution, was that I made an animation. Up until today, I had created things in 3D, and moved things around manually in some weird gray virtual world, but I had yet to make an actual movie file. Well here ya go. Wheezy's very first 3D animation. It really gets good near the end, so be patient.

Pixar here I come! It took probably a couple of hours of fiddling to get that far, so I can only imagine how long it took to make this:

A young fella named Dony made that animation for his Master's Thesis. Great job, if you ask me. Although I dunno if it can compete with all the intricacies and subtleties of "Dude stepping on Box".