Kickstarter Interview With DOUG TENNAPEL

I was recently asked to attend an animation/video game festival in Canada and one of the subjects they wanted me to speak on was "Crowd Funding your creation", since I had finished a successful Kickstarter project for my Opposite Forces GN.  I had some information and opinions from going through the process, but I really wanted other opinions.  More experienced ones too.  I quickly turned to friend, Doug TenNapel.  He is one of the most successful Kickstarter creatives I know.  His sketchbook project went through the roof (details below) and he is now working with some partners on a video game Kickstarter project- that ends in TWO DAYS!  (Back it NOW- http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1949537745/armikrog).  Doug has great insights into how to run a successful Kickstarter, below is the transcripts from a phone interview I conducted with him.  Any mistakes made are my own, this is unedited and fairly raw since I was trying to type as he spoke.  And- no- he wasn't shouting at me the entire time, I just made his responses ALL CAPS for clarity.  ENJOY!  

Kickstarter Thoughts with Doug TenNapel

Doug Tenapel has a long background that includes successfully creating video game concepts/characters as well as many well-loved graphic novels that he writes and draws.  He has animated, done comic strips, character design, art direction- basically all forms of media you can think of.  He has done one very successful Kickstarter for a huge sketchbook that he asked for $18k but exceeded his goal by receiving over $100k.  He and two partners are now running a Kickstarter for a video game called Armikrog.  They are the creators of Neverhood and Earth Worm Jim.  After a huge start, the Kickstarter is about midway through with a goal of reaching a goal of $900k.  They are about half funded as of this writing, with 20 days to go.

His first big break in video games came when Steven Spielberg funded Neverhood and just said, “What do you want to do?”   They were starting a video game company and just gave him a million- 2 million and said go make a game.  He made a stop motion video game that was a worldwide hit.  #1 pirated game worldwide- especially in Japan and Iran.  That overseas black market has given Doug a strong following worldwide which is helping his current Kickstarter projects, ironically.  Most popular game in Iran so he is getting a ton of backers for Armikrog- in Iran. 

Q and A:

What was the one thing you learned/discovered that you didn’t know about Kickstarter when you started this- even with all your research beforehand?

IN A GOOD WAY, THE GENEROCITY AND KINDNESS OF THE FANS, I DIDN’T EXPECT.  KICKSTARTER DONORS ARE DIFFERENT FROM CON FANS.  THEY ARE VERY GENEROUS AND SELFLESS, USED TO GIVING TO PROJECTS WITH THEIR MONEY.  THEY ARE THE MOST HEART-FELT MEMBERS OF MY FANBASE.  LOTS OF PLEASE AND THANK YOUS. 

Can someone with very little to no social networking following run a successful Kickstarter/Indiegogo program?

IT’S VERY HARD.  ITS HARD ENOUGH EVEN WITH A HUGE FOLLOWING/FAN BASE.  I HAVE A DECENT SIZED FOLLOWING CAN’T COMPARE.  BUT ONLY A PORTION OF THAT FOLLOWING INVESTS IN MY KICKSTARTER PROJECTS.  SO IT CUTS DOWN QUITE A BIT.  IF IT IS A LOW PRICE POINT, THE NEWBIES WILL HAVE A MUCH BETTER CHANCE AT SUCCESS. 

I EVEN DECIDED ON THE VOICE CASTING BASED ON THEIR TWITTER FOLLOWINGS A BIT TOO.  NOT COMPLETELY BUT YOU DO WANT TO CONSIDER HAVING PEOPLE INVOLVED/EXCITED IN YOUR PROJECT THAT HAVE HUGE ONLINE FOLLOWINGS. 

HOW DO YOU BUILD AN AUDIENCE?  YOU GIVE THEM STUFF FOR FREE.  YOU HAVE TO PROVE TO THEM YOUR CREATION IS WORTH FOLLOWING FIRST.  YOU CAN’T MONETIZE THEM BEFORE THEY ARE A FAN.  YOU HAVE TO CREATE A PROJECT AND GET IT OUT THERE.  LATER, YOU CAN START ASKING THEM TO HELP YOU ON YOUR NEXT PROJECTS.  BUILD YOUR AUDIENCE FIRST, THEN ASK FOR MONEY FROM THEM. 

Do you think the crowd-funding craze will go away/die soon? 

NO, IF YOU LOOK AT WHERE ENTERTAINMENT HAS COME FROM, IT WAS GEARED TOWARD A UNITED VIEWERSHIP.  NOW WE HAVE CABLE AND ONLINE VIDEOS WHERE THE AUDIENCE IS “INDIVIDUALISTIC” AND MORE NITCH.  THE INCOME OF THE NETWORKS HAS GONE DOWN.  IT ALSO GIVES US THE CHANCE TO SEE STUFF WE NEVER WOULD HAVE BEFORE.  KICKSTARTER IS FEEDING INTO THE INDEPENDENT MOVEMENT AND NITCH MARKET SELLER/CREATORS.  WE DON’T NEED TO GO TO PUBLISHERS, WE CAN HAVE OUR FANS FUND THE PROJECTS THEY WANT.  THIS GENERATION IS USED TO/WANT TO DO THIS STUFF.  NO PUBLISHER WOULD LET ME DO A PROJECT THAT ONLY SELLS TO ABOUT 1000 PEOPLE.  BUT I CAN CROWD FUND IT AND ACTUALLY MAKE A PROFIT OFF OF A SMALL PROJECT.  PEOPLE ARE MAKING THEIR OWN DECISIONS ON WHAT THEY WANT AND THEY ARE PUTTING THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTH IS. 

Besides funding your dream project, do you set out to make a profit with your projects?

THERE’S NO ROOM FOR ASKING FOR PROFIT.  I PUT ABOUT TWO MONTHS OF FULL TIME WORK INTO ALL THE INCENTIVE FULLFILMENTS AFTER THE SKETCHBOOK WAS FINISHED.  THAT WAS UNPAID TIME.  YOU HAVE TO PUT A TON OF TIME INTO A PROJECT (WORKING FOR FREE) BEFORE YOU CAN LAUNCH A KICKSTARTER ALSO.  WHAT IS YOUR WALK AWAY AMOUNT?  YOU SHOULDN’T EXPECT KICKSTARTER TO FUND YOU WHOLE PROJECT.  I THINK, WHAT IS THE MINIMUM AMOUNT I NEED TO DO THIS PROJECT THAT I WOULD DO ANYWAY?  DON’T HAVE KICKSTARTER LIFT THE WHOLE THING AND YOU HAVE A LOT BETTER CHANCE TO HIT YOUR FUNDING.  IF PRINTING COSTS ARE $10K THEN ASK FOR $9K AND GET SOME HELP ON THE BACK END FROM FAMILY OR FRIENDS TO RAISE THE REST IF NEED BE.  OR YOU MAY GET OVER YOUR AMOUNT ASKED FOR.  FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU THINK YOU CAN GET ON KICKSTARTER AND NOT WHAT YOU NEED. 

Stretch-goals?

I REALLY BENT OVER BACKWARDS TO DO MORE MANUAL LABOR (EARTH WORM JIM COMMISIONS,ETC.) TO GET PEOPLE EXCITED ABOUT THE KICKSTARTER TO MAKE THE KICKSTARTER MORE EXCITING.  I THOUGHT THEY MAY NOT BE AS EXCITED ABOUT THE ACTUAL SKETCHBOOK, BUT I KNEW THEY WANTED THE COMMISSIONS AND WOULD GET THE SKETCHBOOK WITH IT.  IN THE END, I THOUGHT THEY WOULD WANT THE SKETCHBOOK, BUT THEY DIDN’T KNOW IT.  I MADE SURE I HAD STRETCHGOALS THAT WOULD MAKE THE SKETCHBOOK BETTER AND BETTER BUT DID IT BY DOING MORE AND MORE COMMISSIONS OF EARTHWORM JIM AND NEVERHOOD, ETC.  THEY WANTED THE CHARACTERS MORE THAN THEY WANTED MY WORK EVEN.  THE VALUE TO MY FAN BASE IS IN THE WORLDWIDE POPULARITY OF THE CHARACTERS, SO I SOLD THAT. 

Is there an incentive you would NOT do again?    One you wish you had?

NO REGRETS ON THE SKETCHBOOK PROJECT BECAUSE IT WENT SO WELL.  NOW THAT I’VE BUILT THAT AUDIENCE AND GAVE SO MANY SPECIALTY COMMISSIONS, I MAY COMBINE A FEW TIERS.   NOW THAT PEOPLE KNOW I AM GOOD FOR IT (FULLFILING COMMISIONS AND PROJECTS) I CAN ASK FOR MORE MONEY AT THE STARTING POINT OF THE KICKSTARTER.

What proportionately “paid off” better?   The lower priced tiers or the higher priced tiers? 

IN MY CASE, THE HIGHER PRICED TIERS.  IN AMRIKROG, IT’S THE LOWER PRICED TIERS.  FOR THE SKETCHBOOK, I WAS KNOWN FOR MAKING THE VIDEO GAMES (Earth Worm Jim, The Neverhood), SO THEY WERE INTERESTED IN GETTING THE BOOKS.  THEY KNEW EARTHWORRM JIM BUT DIDN’T CARE I DID THE COMICS.  THEY DIDN’T CARE ABOUT THE SKETCHBOOK PROJECT ITSELF, BUT THEY REALLY WANTED THE HIGHER PRICED ORIGINAL ART OF EARTHWORM JIM AND NEVERHOOD.  I SOLD IT AS “THIS BOOK IS HOW I DID IT”- ITS WHERE THOSE IDEAS- AND OTHERS STARTED.  WE HAVE 10K BACKERS ON ARMIKROG AND THE AVERAGE PER PERSON DONATION IS $44.   THAT TELLS ME THAT I NEED TO HIT A LOT OF PEOPLE SO THEY CAN GIVE SMALL AMOUNTS FOR US TO HIT OUR GOAL.  A LOT OF MY TIER STAGERING WAS ME FIGURING OUT HOW I COULD MAKE THE NEXT TEIR UP LOOK IRISITABLE.  IF ITS $5 MORE, HOW CAN I GET THEM TO JUMP UP TO THAT TIER AND WHAT DO I NEED TO GIVE THEM TO MAKE  IT EASY TO JUMP UP TO IT?  SOMETHING THAT THEY WANT. 

Is 30 days a good amount of time to do a Kickstarter project? 

YOU DON’T NEED MORE THAN 30 DAYS.  IF YOU GO LONGER THAN THAT YOU JUST INCREASE THE “LULL PERIOD “ IN THE MIDDLE.  MOST GIVE AT THE BEGINNING AND AT THE END.  THE LATE GIVERS ARE IMPULSE BUYERS.  NO ONE IS BRAVE ENOUGH TO DO A 20-DAY CAMPAIGN BUT I THINK YOU’D MAKE THE SAME AS THE 30 DAY.  THE BEGINNING AND THE END ARE THE WHOLE DEAL!

"If you 20% in your first week, you have an 80% chance of being successful in your Project funding."  –Brian Fargo 

Character Mentor is now in JAPANESE!

To those of you that speak/read Japanese, I just found out that my second book, "Character Mentor" is now being printed in Japanese by the publisher, Born Digital.  Thank you to Born Digital for sending me a couple copies of the book (shown below).  It looks beautiful!  Please check it out at the link below!  They have had it out for a few months now, I am just hearing about it now.  Thanks, Tom B.

http://www.borndigital.co.jp/book/2920.html

Character Mentor- IN SPANISH!

My publisher, Focal Press, just sent me a small box of copies for the new SPANISH language version of Character Mentor!  Its very cool, even though I can't understand most of it.  The spanish publisher, Anaya Multimedia (www.anayamultimedia.es) decided, for whatever reason, to make it smaller in size. I gotta say, I kind of like it.  Its backpack friendly now.  The color and paper is actually slightly better quality also.  So, if you are a spanish speaking artist, go to their website and order one!

Some new INTERVIEWS (with me)

Hey everyone.  I've done a few interviews for folks over the last few months, and strangely, two of them came out within a day of each other.

One is a VIDEO interview with myself and the great Bobby Chiu of Schoolism.com and Imaginism Studios.

You can see it here:  http://schoolism.com/interview.php?id=106

NEXT, is a AUDIO interview with someone from England that contacted me about doing an interview.  You can HEAR that one here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdNv0DcGM80

Let me know what you think!

New OUTNUMBERED Strip is up!

It's Monday, so a new OUTNUMBERED comic strip is up!  Check it out!  www.outnumberedcomic.com

Announcing: OUTNUMBERED, the comic strip!

I've been developing a comic strip for awhile now and I have decided that this is the (new) year to launch it!  It's called "OUTNUMBERED" and it is a semi-autobiographical strip about a man living in a woman's world.  I have the first two strips up now (hit the "first" button to see the first one and hit the "about Outnumbered" button to read the character bios.  The plan is to post a new one every week, on Monday mornings.  If you like it, tell people about it, I would appreciate it.  Leave a comment and bookmark it too!  

www.outnumberedcomic.com

NCS artists invade Nashville! Free!

Hey everyone.  Especially those of you that are in driving distance of Nashville, TN.  This Saturday, Nov. 3rd at 11am, There is a FREE series of lectures THIS SATURDAY here in Nashville, TN at Watkins College of Art by members of the National Cartoonist Society. I will speak at 11am, then others like Mad Magazine artistsTom Richmond and more too! You gotta go. Spread the word and see the flyer below for more info.

Mini Character Design Interview

Someone getting a Master's degree in Character design recently asked me to answer some questions about my career and thoughts on character design.  Here's the mini interview:

When did you start with character design and what motivated you?

WHEN I WENT TO CALARTS, ONE OF THE CLASSES I HAD WAS A "CHARACTER DESIGN" CLASS.  MIKE GIAMO, WHO IS A GREAT TALENT, TAUGHT IT.  I HAD ALWAYS LOVED DRAWING CHARACTERS AND MAKING UP MY OWN, BUT SOME OF THE PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN HE TAUGHT US REALLY OPENED MY EYES TO HOW MUCH MORE I NEEDED TO LEARN.  I GOT HOOKED IN THAT CLASS, BUT IT WASN'T UNTIL YEARS LATER, WHILE AT DISNEY ANIMATION, THAT I STARTED TO ACTUALLY DO CHARACTER DESIGN PROFESSIONALLY. 

What are your main resources for inspiration?

ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING.  I LOVE GREAT ANIMATION STYLE ARTWORK SO I HAVE A LARGE COLLECTION OF OTHER ARTISTS' SKETCHBOOKS AS WELL AS MOST ALL OF THE "ART OF" DISNEY, SONY, DREAMWORKS, AND PIXAR BOOKS.  THEN THERE IS THE INTERNET AND ALL THE GREAT ARTISTS BLOGS.  MOST OF THAT IS FOR STYLE INSPIRATION THOUGH, FOR POSING, EXPRESSION, CLOTHING, PROPS, ETC INSPIRATION, I DO GOOGLE SEARCHES FROM LIVE PHOTOS OF PEOPLE.  THE INTERNET IS A HUGE PART OF WHAT I DO.   I RARELY START A DRAWING/DESIGN WITHOUT GETTING SOME KIND OF PHOTO RESEARCH FIRST. 

How do you recognize that a design idea is „final“ at its sketch state?

THAT USED TO BE A HARDER QUESTION FOR ME.  AS I'VE GROWN IN EXPERIENCE AS AN ARTIST, I HAVE A CLEARER IDEA OF WHAT I WANT TO DO BEFORE I START DRAWING.  BECAUSE OF THAT, I HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF WHERE I'M GOING WITH A SKETCH; SO THEREFORE, I KNOW WHEN IT’S DONE. 

What to do if there is no matching anatomy in nature?

I RAN INTO THIS PROBLEM WHEN I WAS DESIGNING "MUSHU" IN THE DISNEY FILM, MULAN.  AT FIRST, I WAS LOST.  I COULD DO ANYTHING, SO THEREFORE I COULDN'T DECIDE WHICH WAY TO GO WITH THE DESIGN.  THE POSSIBILITIES WERE TOO ENDLESS.  FOR SOME, THAT'S A BLESSING, BUT FOR ME I LIKE SOME MINOR RESTRAINTS TO WORK WITHIN.  IT HELPS ME HAVE A DIRECTION EVEN IF IT’S A LOOSE ONE.  I DID FIND THAT YOU ARE NEVER TRULY WITHOUT SOME REFERENCE THOUGH.  MOST MONSTERS, CREATURES, ALIENS, ETC. HAVE SOME KIND OF ANATOMICAL REFERENCE THAT RELATES TO EITHER HUMANS OR ANIMALS.  THEY REALLY NEED TO, ALSO, SO THAT THERE IS SOME REFERENCE FOR THE VIEWER TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING AT. 

Do you use vector art in your character designs?

NO I DON'T.   I DON'T HAVE A VERY GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF VECTOR ART CREATION VIA FLASH OR ILLUSTRATOR LIKE SOME DO.  I WISH I DID.  THERE HAVE BEEN SOME CLIENTS THAT NEED A DESIGN I'VE CREATED TO BE VECTORIZED SO THEY CAN USE IT IN A VARIETY OF WAYS FOR MARKETING.  WHEN THAT HAPPENS, I HAVE A FEW FRIENDS THAT I CAN HIRE TO CREATE THAT.   I KEEP MY FOCUS ON THE ROUGH/TIGHT DESIGN WORK AND ART DIRECT THE FINAL VECTOR PIECE IN THOSE CASES. 

What do you believe will change over the next few years in the field of character design?

I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING, REALLY.  I THINK WE WILL STILL NEED TO CREATE CHARACTERS (OR AT LEAST IT WILL BE FASTER) WITH PENCIL AND PAPER (OR CINTIQ) AS WE DO TODAY- BEFORE THOSE CHARACTERS GET MODELED FOR A COMPUTER ANIMATED SHOW, FOR EXAMPLE.  THE RESULTS OF TRYING TO DESIGN YOUR CHARACTER IN 3D, ON THE COMPUTER, WITHOUT PRE PLANNING IT TRADITIONALLY SHOULD MAKE THAT METHOD NOT VIABLE IN THE FUTURE JUST AS IT IS TODAY.

What do you think about 3D speed modeling? Is there already a competition in the industry between 2D and 3D concept art?

I THINK I JUST ANSWERED THAT QUESTION ABOVE.  MY BELIEF IS THAT YOU WILL EXPLORE MORE OPTIONS (SHAPES, SIZE RELATIONSHIPS, RADICALLY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS) WHEN YOU HAVE THE FREEDOM OF PENCIL AND PAPER.  WORKING WITH THE "CLAY" OF 3D MODELING TO "FIND" YOUR CHARACTER INHIBITS THE POSSIBILITIES, IN MY OPINION.  

NEXT Live WORKSHOP is AUG. 23rd, 8PM Central!

I just wanted to post a quick blog note to let you guys know that my THIRD LIVE character/drawing workshop is AUG. 23rd, 8PM Central! If you subscribe to the www.charactermentorstudio.com website emails, you won't ever miss out on any news regarding the workshops. Go now! I will be emailing out the assignment shortly. Also, I looked up how my two art instruction books (Creating Characters with Personality and Character Mentor) were doing in the AMAZON.COM ranking for the 100 top books in CARTOONING and below is their ranks! They seem to be staying within the top 10 or 20 depending on the day and that makes me proud. What I love about this image is that they just happen to be sandwiched between two of my ALL TIME favorite books too! If you don't have those, get them! (and mine too, if you don't have them also....)

Bunches of stuff

I've been doing lots of commissions and 'gift drawings' over the last month or two so I thought I'd post a few. Enjoy and let me know what you think! _Tom

Barbarian Woman sketch

I wanted to do a warm up sketch then remembered the awesome PoseBook App from Stephen Silver, so here's one from that awesome artistic tool! Tried to "improve" the pose but lost some of the richness. Dang it.

Come Meet ME and TONY in CALIFORNIA

I will be appearing with my twin brother, Tony Bancroft, in California on Sat., June 9, 2012 from 3:00 to 6:00 P.M. at a "Wine Tasting and Meet and Greet the Local Artist/Writers". This is an ADULT ONLY event held at St. Isidore Historical Plaza, 1096l Reagan St., Los Alamitos, California 90720 (562-596 9918 Office #) This is a fund raiser to save the Plaza as a historical site in my home town of Los Alamitos, California. The price of admission is $30.00 a person/$50.00 per couple. At the door it will be $35.00 a person/$60.00 a couple. You can mail in your check in advance to the Plaza, Atten: Cori Crismon. Make check payable to Comite' del Amor, a non profit organization formed to save the Plaza. Check out their web site: St. Isidore Historical Plaza.org Tony and I will be doing drawings and they will be auctioning them off. In addition, I will have my new "CHARACTER MENTOR" book with me and I will sign them with purchase. Come on down to our hometown!

Pirate Mermaid and Zantanna sketches

I've recently gotten some requests for commission sketches. These are fun to do because the people making the request ask for a certain character and its usually one I wouldn't pick and have not drawn before. That challenge often makes for a fun experience. Apparently there is a subculture out there that loves mixing mermaids with pirates, because that was my first request: Pirate Mermaid. So, here she is protecting her booty (pun intended).

The next one was for a sketch of Zantanna the magician superhero from DC comics. I had never drawn her before so that was fun to research and draw. I had to stick a talking bunny in there. Just had to.

Timing Charts for Traditional Animation

I was digging through one of my boxes from my traditional animation days at Disney Feature animation and found tons of notes I either took or gave out depending on the class. Disney was a great time of learning for us all. They really put a lot into training us- especially during breaks between films. Sometimes I would be attending a great lunchtime talk by a visiting artist and other times, I was the one giving the talk on a certain subject of animation. The notes I post today are from the latter, a talk I gave on the subject of "TIMING for Animation". Remember, these were the traditional (hand drawn) days of animation. These are dinosaur notes about the way we worked back then. I'm not saying that some of this isn't still interesting and maybe even a little useful for the CG animators out there. BUT, what has made me want to post this is because I've gotten asked about charts so many times through the years. Yes, its a smaller, traditional-animation-hungry crowd with a fair amount of knowledge about how animation is done, but nonetheless, there is interest. These notes are on small, yellow, lined paper so I hope they are clear enough to read. I may have even photocopied these and handed them out, I'm not sure. At any rate, they do help describe what the charts were for and what they were describing. Now that I look at these notes, I think page 4 should be the FIRST page. It helps to give a visual of what a chart is if you haven't seen them before. Look at that one first. To be honest, charting is more of a "feeling" you are trying to express in a technical way. Every animator hated handing off their scene for someone else to inbetween because as the animator, you really felt like you knew how each drawing should be drawn, felt, and move. You were then giving the half completed (though 100% thought out) stack of drawings to an assistant to finish up. This was a necessity because of the sheer volume of drawings that needed to be completed for each scene, for each character, for each special effect, in each sequence in each film. You had to go onto the next scene while that one was being finished up. That usually meant you had the rough inbetweener or clean up assistant bring the scene back to you when it was completed so you could "roll through it" (that's like flipping it, but on the pegs)and check all the arcs, timing, drawings, etc. Corrections could be made by you are by made into a "teaching moment" for your assistant if there was time in the production. I held the job of rough inbetweener for Mark Henn and learned most everything I know about animation- and especially how he organized an animation scene- from that experience. How I charted a scene is very close to how Mark charted. Except for the exception of the animation behind the charting. He could place the drawings (spacing-wise) so that most of the crisp timing was already in his keys and breakdowns. This made most of his charts, even "halves"- since he just needed a drawing there to evenly keep the pace of the animation. I never mastered that ability. I relied on throwing drawings onto "1s" (one frame of film shot per drawing, rather than 2s which is exposing a drawing for 2 frames of film) or getting very creative and complex in my charting so that I could get more time out of a pose and a crispness as the character was leaving that pose. Most of us animators relied on those "tricks". To be honest, had I not worked with Mark Henn, I would never have thought of charting as anything but where the "real" animation timing comes from. But, through working with him, I discovered that the timing isn't in the inbetweens, its in the breakdowns. Eric Goldberg is a good example of that. His most important "animation drawings" (not poses- those are the key drawings) are his breakdowns. His inbetweens (that he charts) then become mini-breakdown drawings also. He is making keys and sub-keys (to make up a new term) rather than breakdowns. Those are in his charts. Sorry, this is way too complex to explain without having visuals. To be honest, the notes below may do the same thing: raise more questions than answers. I hope you get something out of them. All you really need to know is that every horizontal line on the chart (or "graph" for math people) represents a drawing. The numbering system that correlates with each drawing helps you know weather or not the drawing is on 1s or 2s. If they are all odd numbers (like in the first example) then they are on 2s. (Mark always had a way of getting his animation that was on 2s on odd numbers- no matter how many times he would switch to 1s inbetween animation sections. I think it was just a pet peeve of his,there was really no reason they had to be odd numbers.) On page 3 you will see the more complex charting examples. Believe it or not, as a rough inbetweener, you could get a scene on your desk that had 2,3, or even 5 charts per drawing on it! Ruben Aquino was a master at the multiple chart keys. What this meant was that if it was (for example) a human character turning from right to left, he would have a seperate chart for the head, one for the right arm, one for the left arm, and another for the hair overlap. ESPECIALLY for the hair! (Ruben is excellent at overlap animation and ALWAYS has the hair moving at a different timing than the body that is leading it.) In doing this, he could make (in one drawing/inbetween) the head move out of the key faster, the left arm evenly, the right arm favor the key, and the hair REALLY favor the key. In the end, I think I charted more like Ruben Aquino than like Mark Henn. Of course, it doesn't really matter how you do it, just the result you get when you shoot it. Or as we would say when we were tired of a scene and just wanted it done- "IF ITS MOVIN' ITS GROOVIN'!"

Little Panda sketches

These are some sketches I did the other day inbetween real work. Often times, while working on one project, I have the urge to draw the "side project" that is on my mind. This is one of those. I'm thinking about a graphic novel with a version of this panda in it. It's tentatively titled "The Panda and the Pea". (You'll see some peas in the sketches too.) I won't give away the story, but it started as a children's book idea but became more serious with lots of symbolism about a persons decisions they make in life- and what drives them to make those decisions. Its a story I want to tell for myself too. I hope I actually do it. By the way, I'm not sold on this design just yet. Still working on it.

Welcome Back (to me)!

After almost SIX YEARS, I'm back to the Tom Bancroft Blog! Its not because I haven't been blogging, its just been that I've been doing it elsewhere. I know have a DeviantArt page that is very active. Check that out also. And there's the Facebook "fan page" I share with my brother Tony called "The Bancroft Brothers". Like that too. But now I ALSO have this blog that will go to Facebook (I hope) and to my new website: CHARACTER MENTOR STUDIO! My hope is that this will be the place for me to communicate with all of you about all things related to what I'm up to, character design instruction, the animation industry, updates about my books, appearances- you name it. Oh, and post whatever new drawing or sketch I have to post. That's the main point, really. Here's some color marker illustrations I've done for people recently.

This one is of the golden age character "The Spirit"

And this one was a development drawing for a guy's animated short film. He gave me the script and a description of his "QUEEN" character and this is what I came up with. I did it in markers on a textured paper I got recently. It was fun to do. Below is the sketch I did first, then he asked for some changes that I changed in the final piece.

That's all for now. Be back soon with more! Send me a note, I always like to hear from everyone!

And NOW for something completely different.....

These are just a couple spot illos of preteen kids "being active". Rob had done some preliminary poses, and I created the final sketches and inks. It was a fun job because it felt like I was designing characters for fun in my sketchbook- but for a client. Weird. Anyway, here's the lack of process that went into it: Colerase blue sketch and Pitt brush pen inks. Done.

More posts coming for our secret project as well as another BIG announcement or two! Oh, and art to go along with it. Stay tooned! (Corney, I know....)

Chris Sanders-ish

I just got the Chris Sanders Sketchbook that he was selling at the San Diego Comic con. It's nice to have sitting around for a week or so as I'm snowed under with work. I pick it up from time to time and get a inspired. The other day, I did what I wish I did more often, I did a little 'warm up' sketch. A lot of these great comic artists seem to have time for 'warm up' sketches before they start their busy day. I do that and I feel guilty somehow. I guess that's the difference between being the business owner and working for a big company with deep pockets. :) Anyway, Chris is very talented and an interesting person. In my opinion, he's a genius when it comes to story. I'm not always sure they are stories that the average person will want, but they are always well crafted and slightly skewed. I don't mean that in a a mean way, it's just his viewpoint is different from most because of what he likes and doesn't like. 'Course, that's all of us isn't it?

I enjoy analyzing peoples styles and drawing techniques. That's what this sheet is. Just fun.

Testing, testing...

I've been trying to upload some new stuff and Blogger keeps shutting off or just plain not uploading the images. It may just be these perticular images are corrupt or something. This blog is just a test using some image I've posted in the past that I know worked. If this goes up, then I know it's just these images and not a Blogger issue. Sorry, I'm just testing here...

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: Shhhhhh!

We at Funnypages Productions have been working on a few projects that we can't talk about for quite awhile now. A few of them are starting to get to a point where we can start "mentioning" them. Probably the biggest one, an anime influenced (note, I did NOT say it was anime) animation series for worldwide distribution, is not quite ready to name, but we have permission to show some images. For this project, Rob and I are co- directing and co-art directing. We have a team of people all over the country contributing to various pieces of the project from Character designs, storyboarding, layouts, and backgrounds. Again, I am not allowed to say what it is just yet, but I'd love to hear what you all think of the characters and backgrounds. I know this isn't much, but maybe I'll post some more soon.

BTW, I'd love to say Rob or I painted those backgrounds, but we didn't. And no, Miah and Heath, they weren't created in Illustrator! Old school or no school!