Showing posts with label Toon Platoon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toon Platoon. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Great, Now I'm a Podcaster...

Yep, it's true.

Chris Niosi, Chris Zito & myself have started a weekly podcast! Each week we're gonna talk about animation, cartoons, comics & such. Roundtable discussions, debates, news, opinions.... that kind of stuff.

The name of the podcast is.... wait for it.... TOON PLATOON! Yeah, I know, I've already used that name before on the art competition blog I used to run. But now that I shut it down, I thought that I shouldn't let the name go to waste. It's still fresh. & it fits well, too.

Anyway, here's the link: The Toon Platoon Podcast

We definitely will improve, I promise. 

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Oldie but Goodie...

Since this week's Toon Platoon focuses on automobiles, I chose to draw what I think is one of the coolest cars ever produced:

The Ford Model-T. Ain't she a 'beaut'? I'd love to drive an old Model-T... that or one of those fancy older motorcars like in Mr. Toad.

Come on.... a top speed of 45 mph?... 15-20 miles per gallon?.... roughly 800 bucks a pop (back in 1920 dollars)?...what an awesome car! Someday, if I ever have enough money & had a large amount of property upstate somewhere, I'd make small dirt roads all through the woods just to drive one of these babies through 'em every once in a while! Ain't nothin' like a scenic drive through the countryside. Hell, I'd even drive it out on the open road in everyday traffic... that is if I had the insurance to cover it.

Cars these days look like garbage. A lot of them look exactly the same year after year. Model after model. Sure, some cars like the MINI's, Mustangs & VW Beetles look retro, but most of the cars all look either extremely similar to eachother, or are just plain ugly. Just look at the PT Cruiser or the Nissan Cube & you'll see what I mean. The Model-T, & all cars made before the mid-1950's were sharp, classy autos that all looked totally different from one another. Auto-Individuality drives my interests.

& what advanced technology the Model-T had! Automatic start?.... BULL!... crank-starting a motor is the way of the future! 4-Wheel drive... who needs that crap? Power windows?... don't need 'em, 'cause there are no windows on most of them! & you don't need a fancy car alarm either, 'cause you can hear a car like that start from a mile away!

Sure, the car is a rolling metal death trap with no airbags, seat belts, shatter-proof glass, anti-lock brakes, fog lights or ANY real safety features whatsoever.... but it's got a bicycle horn. Come on...you can't beat that!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

A few new things...

Here's just a few little things I drew up recently:

For Toon Platoon last week, the topic was to draw a picture based on a scene from your favorite movie & if you wanted to, include your own characters. I was very happy to draw something related to my all-time favorite film, FANTASIA!

I drew out a few ideas, like Randy leading the mushrooms from the "Nutcracker Suite" sequence & Steve-O under the hippo from the "Dance of the Hours":

Then I realized that I've lately been focusing the spotlight mainly on Randy & Steve-O (especially Steve-O) & that Cannibal Chicken hasn't really been in much. I decided to give my "oldest son" the reins of this entry & had him be Chernabog from the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence, with the other two birds playing sidekick this time.


**Speakin' of Fantasia... after going through my old files & drawings I found a 10-year-old sketchbook filled with concept designs I made for a Fantasia-themed something. What that something is I'll let you in on when I get back from California next week.**

This week, we just finished a "Mother Nature/Father Time" spree & here's the color version of my entry:

I based the design a bit on the late, great George Carlin & "2007" from Chris Sanders' Kiskaloo. Unintentionally, he looks a bit more like a cross between Gandhi & Willie Nelson.

Hey, does anybody remember the caricature of myself I made for Toon Platoon a few months back?


Well, I took that drawing, made a few minor changes, inked it & colored it. Take a look:



Maybe I'll make into my new-new profile image. What do you think?

With Comic-Con right around the corner, some of my friends prepared for the occasion by having a bunch of business cards made to give out at the convention. Missing the boat a bit too late, I realized I should have a little something to give out & spread the word too! Since I didn't have enough time to get business cards made, I did the next best thing: designed a small 4.5'' x 3'' flyer in Photoshop, went to Staples & got a bunch of color copies printed. After spending about an hour & a half cutting out these little buggers with a kindergarten pair of scissors, I ended up with about 50+ mini business flyers to give away!

& guess which image I used...

It's a bit bland, bare (& brown), but it'll do just fine. I even left a little space in the middle just in case somebody would like a mini personal doodle! I think of everything, don't I?


At least I'm finally prepared!!!!
Stay tuned a little later today for one last message before I fly off!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

"When I See an Elephant Kill"

For last week's Toon Platoon, the topic was to design a poster for a movie that was a combination of two totally different films. Mine was what you'd get if you combined a movie about a cute little baby elephant with big ears with a movie about hardcore violence & guerrilla warfare in the jungles of Vietnam:

Check out Toon Platoon to see the original black & white draft.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

"Dōmo arigatō misutā Robotto"

To celebrate the release of Disney/PIXAR's new film Wall-E (which I still haven't seen yet), this week's Toon Platoon topic was focused on robots & their purpose(s).

I drew up this whole page of concepts. While I finally chose the one in the middle with the tank treads & tassels, I really liked the garbage can one on the top left as well as the big vacuum thingy on the bottom right. Still, I think the one I finally chose has a real nice design. It looks like something you would find in EPCOT sweeping up the street.

(Click to Enlarge)

Make sure to check out the other entries on Toon Platoon by using the link on the right.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Anubis: Egyptain God Turned Dog Food Spokesman

This week on Toon Platoon, my friend Jose (aka OmegaEye) decided that this week's topic will be to do your own interpretation of the Egyptian god, Anubis (below).

I decided that if I'm going to draw this bland-looking & seemingly morbid character, I might as well have a little fun with it. & I did.

Say hello to "Nubie", the spokesjackal for Anubis Brand Dog Food!

Here's the inked drawing above...

& the colored version I put up as my entry on Toon Platoon. Like I've said numerous times before, I hate coloring! But, I decided to go ahead & do a nice coloring of the picture in Photoshop especially for the viewers here on 'For the Birds'. So here it is:



Oh, & whaddaya know, it's my 150th Post!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Imaginary yet Plausible Denizens of the Hudson River

For last week's Toon Platoon topic, I chose to design a fish that could survive in the Hudson River. I ended up posting THIS.

I went through numerous possible designs for my entry. Of course, I carried a bunch of quirks from the rejected designs over to the final fish, most noticeably the smokestacks on their backs & the wrinkled, shredded look of the fins. Here's 2 of the better ones I came up with:



Saturday, April 26, 2008

A DELAY + SOME NOTICES + A REQUEST...

THE DELAY

Hey everybody, I've got some good news & some bad news...

Let me start off with the bad news: because of the final end-of-the-year school workload I have here at SVA over the next week or so, the Ollie Johnston tribute is going to be temporarily delayed until at least the middle of May. With all the final exams, 8-page reports & the short film I need to complete, I just don't have the time or energy to work on it at this moment. Same goes with the FortheBirds Masterpiece Collection paintings as well as the Disney Reuse & Bastardization videos. Until I'm out of school, those things will be temporarily put on hold.

Now for some good news: Once I'm out of school, I've got a seemingly infinite amount of free time & space to do those things and more. That means more videos, more drawings and more posts, possibly with some added goodies thrown in for good measure. Just imagine: 4 straight months of free time to draw, paint, compose & post on this blog.

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THE NOTICES
Here are a few notices on news & things around here:

- NIN10Doh!, the little film I had a small part in making, has won three awards (the daily, weekly & monthly award) on Newgrounds.com! Congratulations to the rest of the NIN10Doh! crew & staff! I had a lot of fun animating and voicing for it, & thanks to that little gig, I'm starting to do some of my own Flash animations. I'll post some of them here for you to see over the summer!

- Remember Toon Platoon, that old art contest site I had running a while back that mysteriously stopped running for no apparant reason whatsoever? Well it's back & better than ever! We've got new topics, new artwork & even some new members! Check back every once in a while to see some of the great artwork the members are putting up, & while you're at it, help out by voting in the weekly polls. The link to the site is on the right, so make sure to stop by from time to time, as well as checking out the other member's blogs!

- Some of you may be wondering/asking after seeing the first paragraph on this post: "Wait, you're doing a short film? I wanna see it!". Well, I am doing a short film , & I'll try to post it sometime in May when I'm done. I'll also put up some behind-the-scenes drawings/concept sketches/thumbnails as a bonus along with it.

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& THE REQUEST

I'm letting this out there once again: I REALLY need you're help with the Ollie Johnston tribute! I've got plenty of Ollie's scenes set up in my database ready to be compiled into the video, but it's not enough. If any of you know any SPECIFIC scenes Ollie animated (besides the ones I listed below) please let me know. & don't send me a link to his IMDB page, 'cause that doesn't help me much. Thanks to the Frank & Ollie DVD, John Canemaker's Nine Old Men book, the books written by Frank & Ollie (Illusion of Life, Too Funny For Words, etc.), Hans Perk's animators drafts, Mike Barrier's ''Song of the South-Running Away'' draft & the Disney Family Album episode put up on Youtube, here's a list of the scenes I have so far:

- Thumper's "Eating Greens" speech from Bambi
- Brer' Rabbit struggling with the Tar Baby + various bits in the "Running Away sequence" of Song of the South
- The Bare Necessities sequence, Bagheera & Baloo's conversation & the ending scenes in Jungle Book
- nearly ALL of the Prince John & Sir Hiss scenes from Robin Hood
- some animation from Reason & Emotion, Chicken Little & Brave Little Tailor cartoons
- Pongo comforting Perdita under the stove + miscellaneous scenes from 101 Dalmatians
- various scenes from Alice in Wonderland, Three Caballeros & Pinocchio
- Archimedes laughing in Sword in the Stone
- Rufus comforting Penny & some Orville animation in The Rescuers
- Drunken Smee in Peter Pan
- Mickey Mouse's Monday & Tuesday introductions of the Mickey Mouse Club

So far, these are the only scenes I know Ollie did, but I know he did a lot more. What other scenes did he do in films like Robin Hood, Jungle Book, Sword in the Stone, Bambi, Song of the South & Peter Pan? What about the films I didn't mention...like AristoCats, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Lady & the Tramp, Snow White, Winnie the Pooh, the shorts & the package films? What about the TV shows & specials? This information is essential to making this tribute a complete one!

I'll level with you... if you give me some credible, definite information about Ollie's scenes, I'll give you credit on the tribute in a "Special Thanks" section at the end of the video. How's that?

Thanks again everyone!

Saturday, December 8, 2007

My Toon Platoon Entries

Since I haven't posted much lately, I decided to put up my Toon Platoon entries for those who haven't checked the site out yet.

Some of these entries I spent time on, & some I quickly sketched out. You'll see as you scroll down:



Week #1 - The first topic on Toon Platoon focused on the HALO video games. I decided to put a comic spin on the somewhat serious nature of the game by putting poor ol' Master Chief on a blind date with Samus from the Metroid games. Personally, I think Samus is WAY cooler than the Chief.

I inked this with a Size 1 Pigma Graphic Pen & colored it with Prismacolor pencils. It has that hand-drawn quality look that I like, but the coloring was a pain. I tried something way different the next week:



Week #2 - Mascots was the second topic, & I thought I'd put a little more effort into my submission. I drew & inked the sketch on paper, scanned it into the computer & colored it completely in Photoshop. This was my second attempt at coloring using the program, but I think I got the hang of it by then. I even put a gradient & shadows in the picture.

Although the picture went over big, I had two problems:

1) The whole Photoshop process was WAY to time consuming. I spent nearly two days coloring.

2) I got complaints that using Photoshop was cheating, since I was the only member who owned the program, which made me a few steps ahead of the others. I agreed, so I stopped using Photoshop for Toon Platoon submissions. Until the majority of members get their hands on Photoshop, I'll be hand coloring my entries.



Week #3 - The third week was Prehistoric Animals. Since I'm in college now, I have to balance work with pleasure, so by the time the week was nearly up, I had no time to draw out something for the Platoon. This was the beginning of a long line of near-late entries.

I lightly scribbled some rough construction work in pencil, but mostly I drew it with a Sharpie marker. It shows, don't it?



Week #4 - This week was a bit more fun. Even though this was another near-deadline entry, I put a little more effort & time into the drawing. Usually, I draw the sketch in pencil & ink/clean it up later with a pen. This week was the reverse. I drew it in pen, then shaded it in in pencil.



Week #5 - I drew this in literally one minute. The whole drawing is basically a shade job, shading everything in using the side of my pencil. It looks sloppy up close, but it looks decent from a considerable distance.



Week #6 - I planned on doing a colossal epic drawing for this week. It was originally going to be various Mario baddies (Bowser, Wario, Donkey Kong, etc.) on a bowling team. Donkey Kong was gonna throw barrels, Bowser was gonna shoot fire, & I think Wart was somewhere in the background. It was gonna be a great piece... but once again, I lost complete track of time & the week was near the end.

I quickly drew this with a marker & shoved it on the site. It's not what I wanted, but at least I submitted something.


Week #7 - This last piece was part of our just-finished Political Cartoons week. I decided to draw what Santa really did with Thanksgiving.

This is my first color submission since the Photoshop debacle. But instead of using a computer & mouse, I used some old markers I had stored away in my art drawer. Some of them are nearly dry (you can tell near the base of Santa's coat), but I think it came out fine.


I'll make sure to post new submissions up here as well as over at Toon Platoon. For a better description of each week's entry, click on the Toon Platoon link on the sidebar & scroll down 'til you find my posts. You can also click "Michael J. Ruocco" near the bottom of one of my entries & it'll take you directly to every submission I posted up.

Go check out Toon Platoon once in a while & see the other member's submissions as well. & don't forget to leave comments!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Toon Pla-toon! Toon Pla-toon!

What's "Toon Platoon" you might ask? It's a second blog run by yours truly. But this new blog isn't all about me... it's all about a bunch of other artists, cartoonists & pencil fanciers who will participate in a weekly art contest!

Yes, it does sound very much like TOON CLUB. Well, it's a lot like TOON CLUB. As a matter of fact, it might as well be called TOON CLUB: Part Deux! Anyway, this blog is just somewhere where fellow artists, friends & cartoonists can interact & compare, contrast, study, suggest, comment, judge & critique each others artwork.

It's not quite ready as of this post, but it will be up & running before you know it. (Possibly even before I know it!) You can check it out HERE. I'll also put a direct link to it on my "LINKS TO CHECK OUT'' list.

& don't worry, For the Birds will still be here, & I'll update it just as I did before the new blog came along ( I hope).