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Hey, wow! The Wannabe Pirates gets a mention in an article on MTV.com!

Thanks, everyone! Rodney, I so wish I'd checked that out. All my attention was focused on not getting Nancy's name wrong... :-)

I don't think they'd mind me sharing the Animation:Master ad I put together for the inside front cover of the Curse of Greyhawk Island:

And the order is placed! The print version should be available some time next month! Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that it comes out great! I've read from some folks that they print a little dark, so I've slightly lightened the art. This is gonna' be a long month of waiting. :-)

Everything looks incredible! I'm going to have to save up my pennies. :-)

Just a note. The PDF versions of the graphic novel are going to be taken down from The Illustrated Section. I haven't sold a single one and now they want to charge me to have them listed on the site. Doesn't make sense for me to do that. Book is almost ready to be uploaded to the printer. Just checking with an old co-worker about the color in the files. Want them to print as well as possible.

It's really not very complicated. I've only used it for NTSC DVDs. DVDs store images at 720x480 pixels. This is neither a 4:3 or a 16:9 aspect ratio. Here's a quick graphic I put together. It's 720x480 pixels. The black bar is 16:9 and the red box is 4:3, as you can see, an adjustment is necessary for both types of video. In order to get your image to appear in the correct aspect ratio (i.e. not squished or stretched), you need to adjust the aspect ratio to account for the pixels. Widescreen has wider pixels (1.21 aspect ratio) and standard has thinner pixels (.91 aspect ratio.) If you are creating something for the web or a Blu-Ray, you don't have to bother with this, because they use square pixels.

Thanks, Homes!

Very impressive, Mark! Your sets have gone from great to fantastic!

Thanks, Nancy/Mark/David! I am very excited about this! To have a printed graphic novel with art created by me is a dream I've had for a looong time! For some reason, the cover was the big hold-up for me, but I think I'm finally satisfied and ready to go! I had to update the first page to add credits (There's a special thanks for your rigging expertise, Mark!) and I managed to find only one typo in the 206 pages of story. There's a few word balloons that need fixing and then all will be ready! I've got the inside front cover free for a full-page color ad (the printer takes the inside back cover.) Does anyone know who I should contact at Hash to see if they'd like to buy it? I can't think of a better company to have the ad space considering all of the art for the book was created in their software!

Anxiously awaiting this one, as always, Gene! Thom never complains about being sent into harm's way ...that may be because he doesn't have a mouth. :-)

Bee-yooo-tee-full, Nancy! It looks like a painting!

Holy moly! This is post #1000! I am very close to finishing everything for the print version of The Curse of Greyhawk Island. I'm going to be doing it print-on-demand, so it will be a bit pricey, but there's just too few readers at this point to justify plopping down $1K+ to do a print run. Here's a mockup of the cover (back cover, spine and front cover.) It's going to be comic book size (6.75" x10.25" and .47" thick.) I'll post again here when copies are available for sale!

Thanks, David and Gene!

Not that it's likely to generate any money, but to answer readers' requests, I've set up a Cafe Press store with Wannabe Pirates and Starbucklers designs for T-shirts, mugs, etc. You can check them out here! I'll admit that if I weren't broke, I might buy a couple of these for myself. :-)

I do miss the contests, but will admit that I hardly ever found the time to participate. I just loved seeing what everyone who did came up with. It was a nice showcase for the software, too. The group projects that have been popping up (Pass the Ball and the Bus Stop) I think are good replacements. They showcase the talent in the community, but remove the winning/losing stigma.

As someone who has used other people's music on videos I've made, my choice has been to post them to YouTube, where the copyright owners can control their content. For instance, the copyright owners block my demo reel in Germany. However, they don't block my Christmas Greeting. If, at anytime, they decided to block them in the USA or any other country, they can do that. Which, in my thinking, gives them control of their copyrighted content, which is what copyright is all about. In addition, YouTube's software recognizes the music used, identifies it and puts up links where the music can be purchased on Amazon and/or iTunes, offering a revenue stream to both the copyright owners and YouTube. I also consciously do not use the songs in their entirety, so nobody could get the full song by ripping it from my videos. To me, I've allowed the copyright owner to choose whether or not they want to allow me to use the content and therefore determine whether or not I am infringing on their rights. Of course, this isn't completely black and white, but I am completely comfortable with my choices. Now, were I to do something that I wanted to charge for, then of course, I wouldn't use materials that I wasn't given permission to use. That's common sense.

Holme's music choice will have no bearing in whether or not he gets a job.

That is GREAT, Holmes! Don't worry about the music. The worst case scenario is that it just so happens to be shown to someone who owns the music (which is highly unlikely) and they send you a cease and desist letter for you to remove it. No doubt this would be long after you had shown it to the local companies you wanted to show it to.

Hey, I dig the banners, Rodney! Very cool way to see a preview of the topic!

Great stuff, Holmes! I can offer some generic suggestions that I've read (and had lectured to me): 1) Always cut on Action. Stopping and starting slows down the pacing. When possible try to match the direction of action, that will help avoid jarring transitions. If the disparity can't be helped, consider a cross-fade or other transition rather than a hard cut. 2) Make a list of skills you want to show off (walk cycles, physical acting, face acting, lip synching, etc.) and then pick your best examples of each. Trim them down to just the essence of what you want the clip to show. 3) One guide I read suggested holding the full-length stuff until the end (after your credits.) That way they can watch your demo reel quickly (satisfying the time constraints), but then they can also continue watching if they are inclined to. 4) Using a single piece of music over the course of it, could also help with bringing it all together. Even in something like this, I think audio is half of the experience. You could always interrupt it for one of the musical sections (or dialogue sections) and then go back to the unifying music. 5) Make sure that your very first segment is the one you think is absolutely your best work. I wouldn't worry at all about continuity or chronology.

Thanks, Robert! I'm trying to break out of perfect square stuff, but it's still baby steps time... Here's a little bit of an update. The roof is just temporary. Not sure how I'm going to do that yet.

Well, it's a start! :-) Here's the exterior front wall. Loosely based on the version McCrary did in 2D. I'm going to start with the walls and use them to define the interior.

Waaaay back at the beginning of this project there was one set that I knew I'd have to build because it would be featured so much. I gathered up tons of reference materials from all sorts of image searches on Google ...and went years without ever modeling it! :-) But today, that changes! As much as I shake in my booties when faced with having to create a set, I am going to knuckle down today and do it! Finally, I'm going to create the Tavern set! I'll update here as I go!

That looks really great, Mark!