HOLY FUCK IT'S BEEN A WHILE!

gave up on previous flash
I suck

But here's what I've been working on now. Shouldn't be too long before it's fully complete. Gotta get this done before Monday. HAS to be done before Monday.

Accomplishing feelings

It is currently 6:22 and I am still staying strong on my journey of not sleeping. It's like the complete opposite of Waking Life. Instead of getting really cool images and manipulations of sounds to correspond with though and awesome animation, I'm getting migraines and wandering shadows pissing me off.

I needed to just make a quick update: I finally got my scanner software to work so now I can work directly from my house and NOT deal with any of this nonsense of giving other people my stuff to scan. With that being said, Ketan can I get my drawings back? I'd like them very much thank you kindly.
:)

Ah, I'm glad I get to use my scanner again.

I should never sleep

I end up with the most fucked up dreams that I can never solve.

It was freakish as hell in that it all started with me visiting some hotel place that's supposed to be far away yet it's in Rockaway (One town away from Dover) and I was talking to my friend Mike on the phone; the hotel was set up to be like 5 floors big but where I was, it was on a front porch kind of look for each floor yet when I lied down, it turned into an old bed I had back when I first moved to Dover in which it's just a bed suspended in the air and there's a piece of wood across from where you'd get up from the bed to prevent you from falling. When I got off the phone with Mike, I tried to get up from this bed, and go underneath the bed (which means climbing the sides and praying I didn't fall 5 floors) to reach a window to get back inside the hotel. Needless to say I didn't make it to the window and fell but everytime I did, I'd grab onto the other floors that also had that same piece of wood to prevent you from falling. B/c this was a hotel, I had to figure out some way to pay off this damage so I ended up hiring some stripper/ex-porn star to do a ridiculous dance number from the bottom of the hotel (which was by a pool on the ground) to climb UP these same flights of floors I fell from before except they were no longer beds but actual balcony areas. It ended with her magically reaching the top, lying back with her legs sprawled out and bent and her pissing over the balcony to reach the floor for a good minute straight. After all of this, I decided to leave the hotel. During that time, I ran into an old friend of mine; Robyn.

Somehow she had a license or just that she had a car and we were driving around, making small talk as usual. On the drive on Route 46 we saw our old friend Laura which she went through her natural reaction of "EW!!!" b/c Laura is a dyke in denial and Robyn is not okay with this. Frankly neither am I but I'm still friends with Laura just fine. Anyhoo, we entered in some dilapetated area of NJ as if it was a war zone so we had to stop driving and travel by some other means. By that time, we had some friends joining us. I can't remember who but their company is welcomed. Everyone had bicycles except for me which was fine b/c the terrain was so rough we couldn't ride the bikes and had to walk. Lots of broken buildings and giant rocks everywhere. During this journey, we come across this crack headed fellow with a red truck (Kind of like a Ford F-150) and he starts talking to Robyn b/c she's always managed to get the attention of guys. He tries to insult her but she tries to show off her knowledge of cars and trucks, which she has none. The guy falls for it and mistakes her for some well known celebrity in the car world. When he goes in for a kiss, she teases him and slips away. He becomes enraged at this little game and starts to become angry. We start to leave but during the time that she was talking to him, I was holding onto her bike and then I proceeded to ride her bike away. When we all start to leave (She somehow also has another bike to ride since I'm using hers) he begins to curse PROFUSELY and rant and yell and scream, and that's when everything in this dream becomes violent.

We turn around a few corner buildings and everything starts to look like "Children of Men" where all the fighting was going on EXCEPT I turn around to one corner and see MASSIVE machines with huge arms swinging up and down to break down buildings and using these arms to move themselves forward to keep smashing. The way they were organized though, it was as if there was one row set on the left and another set on the right, so the middle was still clear. I told everyone to ride fast enough in the middle to avoid being smashed and to avoid the debris. Eventually at the end of this chaotic road of destruction, I make it into a house and Robyn is very very sick. A real-life detail I kind of left out is that me and her are very close friends and not at the same time. We used to be best friends until her heroin addiction changed some priorities in her life. Now if I see her, it's only for a small increment of time. I feel like an asshole for avoiding her so much but I get hurt everytime I do. EVERYTIME! Anyhoo, back to the story, she's sick (withdrawl) and somehow inside of this house is like a crazy acid trip (literally) and if I find a character, that can help cure her illness (heroin). I know that if I find this one dude, he'll take me to this magical character and her addiction will stop. Things begin to look like a weird "Pans Labyrinth" feel mixed in with Super Mario Bros cuz all the characters are 3d life sized but they all appear cartoony. Anyhoo, I find the guy and I have to go look for two things; he needed a key and ice cream. The key was right to the left of me so that part was easy. However, the ice cream part was weird and tricky. I took Robyn to roam around this giant house (which was really just a long series of stairs and hallways) and I somehow run into my friend Omar. Apparently, I had this dream before. Cuz when I saw him, he goes
"What you guys up to?"
"Hey Omar, remember that time we had to go through that CRAZY adventure to find that dude?"
"Yeah"
"It's happening again."
"OH SWEET! Let's go!"
And so he follows us which was really me, Robyn, Omar, and one other dude who wasn't important to be someone I know. We get to this one weird room that has a table set up of letters that are shaped like ice. From these ice shapes, I have to spell out the word "cream" and that would be the other part of what the guy wanted. Because this means Omar was in my dream, he starts making fun of me b/c we were trying to grab as many of the ice shapes that would spell 'cream' but he'd go "Why are you handing in a Q?" Me: "That's an E, see?" Omar: "No, that's a Q. You fail!" and it'd go back and forth. Stupid Omar arguments but time was a factor and Robyn was getting sicker, so we had to grab everything and dash. Towards the end of these many hallways, we end up in a place that turns out looks like an actual house so we had to run to the kitchen cuz that's where it'll take us back to the guy. Me and Omar just hand ALL of the letters to Robyn and literally push her through the door that'll take her to the kitchen and the whole doorway shines of light when she passes through it. When Omar and me and the other guy walk in, the place looks like a Willy Wonka imitation "Super-Jail" look of magical trees and grass that are curved round spheres of different colors and I read a note that says "Welcome to ______'s Kitchen. I am busy right now with Robyn so please wait and I'll get to you as soon as possible." From all of this, me and Omar look around and I never see Robyn again. And then I woke up to my little girl calling me cuz I tutor her on Saturdays.

I just got up, it's now 2:51 and I knew I had to type up all of this before I forget my dreams. I always wake up disturbed and unhappy if I remember dreams. That's an example of why. And the fact that in the middle of my dream I remember that I had this dream before makes me frightened as to what the fuck else am I thinking? Also, with Robyn and I not talking too much, she's always roaming NJ for different homes but she usually updates her MySpace blog with her latest info. I just checked it and her last blog update was Nov. 12th; last time she logged into MySpace was Nov. 14th; last comment she left me was Nov. 11th. I hope she's alright. Maybe she's living with her Grandma in Parsippany. Maybe.

3 seconds

Right before it goes to the giant tower and the view is just passing by trees




OH GOD IT LOOKS TERRIBLE IN THIS LITTLE THINGY!

I hate being sick

I've been sick this entire week! I've been trying to get some animations done for the first scene when the trees pass by really fast into a large shot of the tower, but I keep knocking out in the process. Haha, too much Robitussin, I guess. I already took a nap today so I'm going to work on the tower tonight if I don't fall asleep again. I swear, sleep shall be the death of me.

Oh right, I'm tired

Too tired to think. Ketan scanned MORE stuff. Basically from when I was first creating this, I didn't reread the story at first b/c I was relying on what my past memory of the story which I hadn't read in about 5 years. After rereading it, it was pretty close to the original but I forgot about the house of people that freaked out which is why he turned around to see the disgusting figure behind him. I drew up some storyboard like images but I'm stuck on the last one.

















Okay, that took forever. Now as for the last part I said I was having problems with, I don't know how to make it so that when he's facing the window, there's going to be a lightening striking in front of him, and he'll somehow fall backwards and see a 'shadow' behind him or something from seeing that burst of light. I'm too tired to think. On Thanksgiving I'll get started on the actual animation and put something up before it turns official into December or something close to that day.

Thanks Ketan

After failing to figure out how to get the stupid scanner to work (which it does not), I asked Ketan to scan some of my sketches up for me.

At first I asked Andy to help me create a sick and disgusting figure for the main character and he made this nice sketch
After this abomination (in a GOOD way!) I tried to make my own character which I now hate. It reminded me initially of the "Peek-A-Boo!" monster from Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth". Other people said that it looks a lot like when Gollum from LOTR was changing from Smigel into Gollum:

So the other night I made another attempt at the creature and I think this one is a definite improvement but not finished yet. If anything from the previous one to this one, this one looks more like Gollum but with jowls. Kind of like what Richard Nixon looks like naked after massive liposuction: