Reloading Transmission...
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/chronon-event-link Successfully re-established
Episode 02
'Rock'N'Roll In A Low-Poly Spaceship'
Yes. I was 100% sober when I made this. So this is an interesting one, because it's a clear view into how the aesthetics of my mind had changed from 2015 to 2018. I had recently gotten crazy into the first Terminator movie, and collecting cassettes and retro computer hardware was my favourite thing at the time. This certainly is reflected in this second episode. Also, my first (terrible) attempt at a CGI space battle. How did I achieve this PS1-era look? Well...
For the models, I used a program called AC3D by Inivis. A software that is NOT capable of animation. So how did I animate it?
...
I took Hypercam 2 footage of me rotating the ship from several different angles, then superimposed them onto a 2D space image I'd made. Yeah.
Oh by the way, yes, it was the first live action segment in the show, and it was me in a spaceship, fighting "cyborg Nazis"! It was popular with my friends, ok...
I made layered images like these on Photoshop and imported the PSD to Premier Pro and animated them with the motion tools.
Of course, the end result looks below B-movie quality, but honestly, I knew that at the time. My aim was to be creative, learn stuff and have fun! To be honest, that's still what I do now.
I truly started to express my meta-humour a lot more, and to genuinely portray myself as not-so-serious about myself. The phone call with my friend was a real call that she wasn't expecting! There's a bit halfway through that I cut out, making one line make little sense as a result (it was the bit where I explained I was doing a video).
I deliberately left in the goofy laughing and less enthusiastic line deliveries to show that I really was just a buffoon doing this for fun, but also to imply that the space battle wasn't really happening at all, and that Joey in the Orbiverse is like Polokus in Rayman's world. The creator inside the creation, having fun!
The second segment though...
I felt it was time to stray from comedy a little. I put in an casual rundown of a future comic (and possibly animated) series that will come from Orbus Studios one day: RAMpunk Reality. My own establishing story of my own original genre of sci-fi, RAMpunk. Apocalyptic futurism of the 80s and 90s, cassettes, skaeboard, ruined buildings hosting raves, dirty electronic music, everyone looks like Kurt Cobain and Sonic Youth, military robots and the dangers of A.I.
The character of EYE.ris has its first Orbiverse canon appearance in The RAD Show! - Episode 2 in 2018. Watch out for it.
While professionally lacking, the second episode of my variety show depicted my progress into digital effects and first attempts at 3D. The first episode focused on handdrawn character movement, whereas Episode 2 had almost none of that. In fact the most we see a character move is just stylised footage of me "smoking"! Make Poster Edges, dupe layer above, Multiply, Edge Detect, Threshold = easy cartoon effect.
Episode 03
'Death-Shart Visits'
Now we're getting better! The creative efforts of 2019 all packed into 11 minutes. Now here's a funny story about a cancelled feature film...
Experiment 9 - The Movie That Got Cancelled Within 2 Months
Towards the end of 2018, it had been brought to my attention that I kept drawing the same art style over and over again and never made any particular effort to improve my skills in life drawing and, well, other styles. So like the maverick renegade guy I am who don't play by the rules but gets results (kidding), I decided to plan the whole of 2019 as one long production of the first Orbus Studios feature length movie, Experiment 9. Hell I was so up for this. The plan for the movie was to be an hour-and-bit long variety show, like The RAD Show! but every skit would be in a different style and mood. I actually planned to work on one skit every 2 weeks, similar to the 11 Second Club, and by the end of the year would, in theory have an hour's worth of material to show as a film. Even had plans to screen it in my town at a local tattoo parlour, and to make it viewable on Vimeo for £1. I'm a bit weird!
But then of course, real life happened, and I quit the project after the second skit. But the two skits were... pretty much some of the best stuff I'd ever made. Well, at least CleanBOT was, there's not much to say about The Fragments Show. But I thought, "Y'know what, I can't make a whole movie in one year, but I've got another 10 months to make a third episode of The RAD Show!".
...I will say, that making my own version of The Mighty Boosh with my friends was incredibly fun. Harrison, who played himself AND Death-Shart (Satan's nephew) is an amazing actor, considering he had no prior experience. This live action skit was filmed in his house which he shared with the late Andrew Orlock, and the amazing house was nicknamed Crust Central. Unfortunately, after Orlock's premature death - a very sad event for all of us - the house was completely un-decorated and sold. Most people in its community went their seperate ways, but I am still very good friends with Harrison.
Orlock can be seen in the outtake reel of Death-Shart's improvised lustful grunts and groans at the cartoons we were supposedly watching!
CleanBOT and The Fragments Show were the two animated skits I completed for Experiment 9. Both drawn on Photoshop and animated on After Effects with motion graphics. The Puppet Pin tool is an animator's best friend!
Not much to say, honestly, because it's clearly a deviation and improvement from the first two episodes, and just that!
But still not quite there, professionally... There was little to no ease-in/ease-out principle in either of them. That is certainly something I've since learned to correct.
Then I had a LOT of fun making the segways...
The first animated appearance of the stars of My Junkie Friend, featured in the Acrylic Vent comic books (and soon to have their own standalone anthology book, once I've made 7 short stories with them!). That first second of BitchTed running away, falling over slightly and rushing out of the screen, took a whole day of animating. Combined frame-by-frame animation on the legs, arms and face, and motion tweens on his body and head. Oh! And it's my first publicly released piece I made on Toon Boom Harmony! Oh yeah, I was stepping up my game now.
Oh and the segway, Party In Latin Tonight is one of my favourite things I've ever done. Could use a polish if I decide to go back to it one day. I was so inspired by the DVD menu of Pixar's Ratatouille and its extras to make something 2D and Latin/French looking! I have yet to achieve it properly but I loved the idea of recreating the incredibly arthousey aesthetic.
So What IS It Actually All About?
You haven't told us, Joey... Please, don't do this to us...
Short version: Creative dustbin / long term WIPs.
Similar to how the Tomb Raider were used by Eidos as a showcase of the capablities of the PS1 and the state of the art advances in computer graphics, The RAD Show! is my own visual diary, to show my progress. Every year I improve my skills, and at the same time I have little ideas that can only exist as shorts; and this weird little variety show is my way of scooping my brains out and rubbing the juices all over the Internet, until the creative alien eggs hatch and... This is getting a little much.
But basically yeah! I have my own identity as an artist, and each new episode of this show is a visual showase of how my art identity has evolved. A delicious animation journal sandwich.
Bone apple teet.
Thanks for making it to the end! Unless you just skipped and scrolled down. For shame.
-Joey!