Tom Ray's Weblog

I heard a sound outside my window one morning. I thought it was a cricket. Turns out it was a chipmunk. It actually worked with a story I'm doing involving the 2 characters I've been posting lately, so I did a short video using the sound I recorded. The story is going to be a comic, but I'd like to do an animated version too.

When we last left Xylus and Dexter they had eliminated what they thought was the ghost of Phineas Handala... Or did they? I just realized it's been a while since I posted one of these. So by the time I was making this one I had been watching a lot of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Ren and Stimpy DVD's and wanted to take a different direction with the backgrounds and character drawings that I had been using up until now. I first started out doing more charcol and sponge styled backgrounds like this one of the outside of the castle door. Castle exterior in photoshop with sponge and charcol textures But when I was making these cartoons I still needed to export them as swf files and using these image files as the background made the file sizes huge! So I took the art I already made, imported them into flash to re-draw them. Then I vectorized one of the sponge brushes I was using for highlights on the background art. Outside the castle Xylus and Dexter inside the cas...

When we last left Xylus and Dexter they were being shot at with a giant lazer by what they think is the ghost of Phineas Handala. This episode had little dialog and was more or less just a site gag. My kids just really wanted me to find a way to work a fart joke into the story. It involved a lot of timing and sound effects and more of a way to learn to time them on my end. But at the  end of the episode it was a means to propel the story into the next act. By this time I had purchased a Wacom tablet and was "roughly" experimenting with drawing the story boards directly on the computer. Wacom drawn storyboard I was still reusing inked elements I had created before using the tablet in the show. In the next episode I foray into the realm of going all digital with the creation and drawing.

As I've said before this cartoon was made between 2004 - 2005 and youTube wasn't around yet so the age of angry comments on peoples posts were not something you just expected as it is today. I was posting these episodes on a website called Newgrounds which is a site dedicated to flash animation and games. Members were able to vote rate and comment on your flash animations. Well around the 5th episode I got a message from a kid (I'm assuming it was a kid as 12 to 16 year olds were 90% of the sites members). He didn't just tell me he disliked the cartoon, he started insulting me. And I'm under the impression he thought my boys made the cartoon. So in response I did a behind the scenes "Special" where the boys read the letter and I showed the words above them to show the many grammatical errors in-between the angry insults. For fun I had dexter react like a spoiled child actor complete with censored audio. My version of the CBS Special Presentatio...

Overview Episode 5 of the internet cartoon series I made at the end of 2003 called Xylus and Dexter in Space! It starred my kids Xylus and Dexter. At this time the shows were continuing through 2004. Cartoon Concept In this Episode: The boys search the castle and meet the "The Ghost". Art If you've been watching the episodes I've been posting on the site you'll recognise the raygun being used from my first cartoon - A look back at my second cartoon - part 3 -The Finale Raygun from the first cartoon Raygun from this cartoon I also started trying out drawing the backgrounds in flash instead of inking them, scanning them and coloring them in flash. I had not really captured the grit of a drawn background and learned from this episode that I needed to work on how to translate the detail from the drawn backgrounds to computer only drawings. The characters themselves were still being drawn and scanned from ink on paper at this point. Animation There...

Overview Episode 4 of the internet cartoon series I made at the end of 2003 called Xylus and Dexter in Space! It starred my kids Xylus and Dexter. Cartoon Concept In this episode: The boys explore what they think is an abandoned castle. Art I decided after I colored the alien when he covered himself with powder that he looked like Jack Nicholson as The Joker from Tim Burton's Batman . Phineas "wooping So I gave a little reference to the scene where he says. "Wait'll they get a load'a me." and then for some reason he says "woop. woop." and looks around. Animation For the flying of the alien I went the way of the Great Gazoo from the Flintstones and made stars and other shapes appear in is wake. Flying with shapes behind him Audio Started digging into the sound effect archive a lot for this one. Jetpack sounds, shaker, and bottles jiggling when Phineas hits the ground in this scene. Bottles clanking Next time. Episode 5

Overview Episode 3 of the internet cartoon series I started at the end of 2003 Called Xylus and Dexter in Space! It starred my kids Xylus and Dexter. Cartoon Concept In this Episode: The boys are still stranded on Mars. When they make an interesting discovery. Art I was still re-using a lot of the character art and backgrounds from the last 2 episodes. But in this one I had to create some new new expressions and poses for the boys and the castle interior background. Dexter with his arms crossed I used some picture I had found as a reference for the castle interior but I don't remember what it was. Castle interior I also had to create the new character  Phineas Handela . I only started the character sketches for him and hadn't decided exactly how he would look yet. Luckily he was only a silhouette this time so I used the basic outline I had so far. Alien in the shadows Animation I was still really restrained in my squash and stretch abi...

Overview This is Episode 2 of the internet cartoon series I made back in 2003 starring my kids Xylus and Dexter. The original story was 17 pages but I broke it up into 2 minute episodes. I was on a Rocky & Bullwinkle kick at the time and I liked how they would tell a story over a series of episodes. Plus, since I was still learning, I could try out different things as I went along part to part. Kind of like the Rocky cartoons where one segment would look very different from another in the separate stories. Cartoon Xylus & Dexter in Space! Ep.2 - What's That? Concept The boys have crash landed on Mars in front of a creepy castle. Art For speed, I had stopped using a brush for inking and changed to Pigma Micron size 08 marker. It doesn't have the pressure sensitivity of the brush but gives a good solid black line. Inked castle background Inked Mars background Animation I was able to use a lot of the body elements I made for the last episode. So all I...

Xylus & Dexter in Space! (2003) Overview Later on in 2003, I began to work on my own animated internet series for the Xylus and Dexter characters. I had been watching a lot of internet cartoons by this time and had learned how I could view them frame by frame so I could study how they were made. A few that were the most useful were, Elmo Aardvark which was made by Renegade Animation and Weekend Pussy Hunt by John Kricfalusi . Concept Xylus and Dexter are traveling through space, flying above the planet Mars when a slight mishap causes them to land earlier than expected. Xylus & Dexter flying above Mars Art I spent more time on the layout of the storyboards for this series. I wanted to make sure I knew what everything was going to look like from the very beginning. Storyboard: Rocket ext. Pan in Storyboard: Dexter turns to touch window Storyboard: Xylus pushes button Storyboard: Rocket ext. Mars surface Here is the audio file I...

Here is the final episode to the 3-part cartoon I made in 2003 to teach myself to animate in Flash. Overview One of the things I was beginning to learn from studying other cartoons while I was making this series, was how to edit scenes to imply something was happening without having to actually animate them. Next time you watch at a cartoon, think about that while you're watching it. You'll see it happens more than you would think. And let's face it I'm on zero budget and it's a great way to save time and effort. Almost like slight of hand, if the viewer doesn't know it's happening their brain fills in the blanks. I don't consider it cheating. It's kind of a great skill if it's done right and I wanted to learn how to do this. Concept Dexter goes back to his secret lab "to think of a plan" to defeat the giant action figure. But the giant decides to come to him instead. Now what does he do? Action figure has dexter in his clutch...

This is a continuation of the cartoon I posted earlier " A look back at my second cartoon - part 1 ". It was a cartoon/learning experience to teach myself how to animate in Flash back in 2003. Overview I broke up the cartoon into 3 parts because I have a short attention span I think and it seemed long as 1 episode. I had planned on having the kids do live segments in-between them and putting it together as their own show on a DVD. Concept The action figure is now a giant and is rampaging through the town (or as Dexter says in this episode "ramp-a-jing"). The President, who at the time was George W., called Dexter from his ranch to ask him to stop this menace from taking over the world. Art So as I had said, I was inking all of this by hand with a brush and ink. But now when I look at it, I wasn't consistent with the line thickness when I was drawing closeups or larger items, like the giant's foot. Thin outlined foot I inked the lines thinner for s...

By this time, (Still in 2003) I had messed around with the program Flash a bit more. I bought a few animation books, as well as ones that were geared specifically for creating cartoons in Flash. Mind you, YouTube wasn't around yet so there weren't all the instructional videos available you can watch to learn how to do it these days. Overview Dexter and I were watching Huckleberry Hound re-runs on DVD and thought we would try something like that for the next cartoon. So we wrote this story and chopped it up in 3 parts. Concept The cartoon starts with Dexter in his "Secret Lab of Justice" below the local playground. Is he working on his new potion in the lab? Dexter working in his secret lab Nope. Just mixing some strawberry milk. Strawberry milk. Mmm. Mmm. Now that you, the viewer, have joined him, he tells you the story of his latest adventure. It's about a disgruntled toy action figure that came to life and tried to take over the world. The now...