Threadless Debut!

Hey folks,

This is just a quick post to boomerate (read: publicly announce) my public art-whoring.

I recently submitted "The Muses #2" (AKA "The Muse 2") for consideration on threadless.com, the famous tee-shirt art-atorium. It got approved by the gods of Mt. Threadlympus, which means that from now up through the next 7 days, it will be available for voting. SO GO VOTE!!!

Please check out "The Muse 2" on Threadless and cast your vote in support of yours truly. Let's get this shit on fabric, kids!

If you don't already have a threadless account, it literally takes like 10 seconds to sign up, it's completely free, and they never spam you or do anything annoying once you're signed up. You can pretty much sign up, vote, and forget the site even exists if you want (but don't do that, because it's actually a pretty dope site. I promise.).

Check out "The Muse 2" on Threadless by following the link below! Here's hoping your votes make some magic happen!

Love, peace, and funnel cakes.

- Fred



p.s. -- when you're done, come on back here and then cast a vote for Ramon Rodriguez's piece too (below)! Voting for this one ends just 5 days from now! Click below to view and cast your vote!

Ready. Set. Create.

Hallo wunderbare Kinder,

In case you missed the headlines -- Heretik Studios is back in New York City... and only New York City. I'm about to embark on the next chapter of my life here, beginning graduate school at NYU. Life shall be chaotic, intense, and harrowing... but at least it won't be boring.

As I've been preparing for the next stage, I've produced some funky updates for Gun the Animated Series. Yes, yes, I know... Episode 2, it's still not out. Although, admittedly, some of the updates are indeed the flesh and blood of Episode 2.

I'm trying to get a steady pace going in this masochistic race I'm running. In just two weeks time, I'll be setting foot through the doors of graduate study and setting my social life and free time sail in the ocean on a dinky, tattered, makeshift raft to be rescued at some point. God only knows when that will be. I'm planning to push myself to even greater heights, make even bigger sacrifices, all in the pursuit of something higher than I've ever touched before. Included among these efforts will be the steady push to improve and complete the one bit of personal work that I've treated with any seriousness in recent times. You all know what that is (yes, of course I mean my art, and more specifically Gun).

I should also mention that my friend, frequent victim of my insults, and fellow artist Ramon Rodriguez has been working at producing a new t-shirt piece at Threadless. Click here to check it out, and be sure to cast your votes!

In waiting, I'm currently contemplating the release of some crazy, ancient, hilarious, interesting goodies from way, way behind the scenes of Gun. By contemplating, of course I mean planning.

Stay tuned for that and much, much more. Auf Wiedersehen.

- Fred

A sip of the latest visuals are below, amigos.

Mile Markers

Greetings from the Front lines,

It's been an interesting week. Or maybe an uninteresting week, depending on how you look at it. I've been slowly disseminating the news that my life is going to change drastically in the next few months. Different people are taking it in different ways. I won't bother spreading the news here, because this is all about my work, not about my daily goings-on. At any rate, I've decided to step back and take some perspective. I've been finding it exceedingly difficult to achieve the things I want to achieve lately. I'm not sure where the root of this problem lies, but I know that if I stop running at 150mph and slow down for awhile, I'm more likely to spot it and find a solution.

In keeping with such a motive, I've sequestered myself again, in a manner of speaking. Limiting my contact with the outside world to necessities only, slavishly hewing away at this monstrously ambitious project of mine, trying to make my dreams come alive.

All I can do in the meantime is continue to report on my baby steps until they lead me tiptoeing across the finish line, and occasionally publish little tidbits worth staring at. More on that later.

Oh and the reason I call this post "Mile Markers"....

Today marks three years since the official release of Gun to the public. Here's to milking the successes of one episode for far too long.

... and here's to getting through what lies ahead. Drink up.

VIEW GUN EPISODE 1 ON NEWGROUNDS HERE (part 1)

- Fred

I won't explain anything here. It's incomplete, but it's just more of what you're not getting yet. Just look and enjoy.
NOTE: shot features art by Ramon Rodriguez. Click here to visit his website.

(click to view at full size)

Guessing Games.

Hey! Hey! Yeah You! Comm'ere... I got some candy for ya.

OK if you took the candy, you're parents didn't raise you right. You never take candy from strangers, despite the fact that strangers do in fact always have the best candy. But this candy is of the digital and visual variety.

This time around I've got yet another new screenshot from Gun episode 2 for you. It's one of the new characters that appears in this episode. The character's name is Odin. I was pretty blasé about the shot itself, since it isn't a terribly important one. It isn't terribly impressive either, truth be told... but it is probably the best clean look at the character's face that you will get. So here it is.

Click the image to see a larger version.

OK now here's the deal... to make it more interesting for whoever is reading this... I decided to come up with a little teaser kind of thing. So here's the deal...

You might find yourself looking at this character and saying to yourself, "I think I've seen this somewhere before." Well you're kind of right. Truth is, it's not an entirely original design. So before I get a whole slew of idiots sending me hate mail (again!), blasting me for ripping off the idea for this character, I am telling you this now - The mask design and general aura for this character was not only heavily influenced by another character from a different work, it is an intentional nod of homage to that character. Why? Well, this is a character that I always found so badass and mysterious when I was younger. So in coming up with a design concept for this character, I was thinking "Damn, Odin reminds me alot of 'you know who'. It'd be cool if Odin had that same kind of badassery and a similar mask like the one in that movie." I originally conceived Odin with a mask and a mysterious persona. So, since I needed a mask and it was just such a good fit, and I was such a big fan of this character, I said fuck it, and kind of reincarnated that character's haunting look in my own character. So there you have it.

Now here's where YOU come in - You may have noticed that I totally neglected to specifically mention what character I keep referring to. This is because I want you to figure that out. If you are a longtime cartoon and animation fan, this will probably be easier for you. I won't drop any hints here, because frankly I already dropped a couple in the previous paragraph. Now if you think you know the character that Odin's mask design is paying homage to, you can shoot me the answer. You only get one guess so make it count!

If you're right, I might hook you up with a really super sweet prize, like perhaps... maybe, say, a secret link to an advance screening of the first part of the upcoming episode 2 of Gun... maybe. perhaps. ^__^

Hit me with the answer by sending a message with the subject line "Odin's Mask" through one of two ways...

1. I would prefer that you send the answer to the Official Gun MySpace page inbox.

2. If you don't have a MySpace account, you can email it to me, but I don't check the inbox very often! haha. OK, I'll keep my eyes more open in coming days. I promise.

If you're a hot chick, feel free to send that guess along with a hi-res photo of you and your boobies. It would be appreciated. Thanks. Haha.

I made such a big fuss about a new update and this is all there is to it. Ha! Sorry to disappoint you. Truth is, I got tired of seeing that angry/depressed last post being the first one on the blog. I'm over that whole thing now. Well sort of. Anyways, this is the new update, and it's nowhere near as exciting as I made it sound in my promotions! Hahaha.

But hey, if you play along and don't be a lazy shit, you might get something good. Like an advance screening to a crappy overrated cartoon that's soon to come out... It's called "A Plate of Butter". Haha sorry Ramon, I had to do it. By the way, Ramon is NOT allowed to guess, because I'm almost certain that he will know the answer to this guessing game. No unfair advantages allowed.

Everyone else, have at it! Peace.

- Fred

Coffee and Naked Ladies.

Yo whatup...

I'm drinking cup after cup of the hot stuff. Not trying to stay awake, though. Truth is it just tastes pretty good, and I was having crazy fits of anxiety today after my eating habits yesterday (don't ask). Suffice it to say, I have problems. But that has nothing to do with why I'm posting here tonight so...

ANYWAAAAYYYY...

Nothing can make a man feel better than spending several hours crafting a sequence involving a naked woman (unless he's gay like Ramon Rodriguez, haha). So, tonight I finished up a short sequence of just such a sort... ooh tingly. Funny part is, I'm thinking of scrapping it. Well not entirely scrapping it, but changing it quite a bit. Maybe... I dunno, usually when I work so hard at a shot, I can't just junk it like that. Takes too much effort and time to produce for me to just toss it out the window.

So here's a little screen of the first shot in the sequence...



This is actually the biggest graphic symbol in the episode so far. If you don't know what graphic objects are, then I'm not gonna explain it. It's a flash animation thing and you probably won't wanna know anyway if you're not into animation or care about it. Suffice it to say that these "symbols" are a driving force behind animation in flash. I use them plenty. This particular one is about 4 times bigger than the stage itself, and contains 4 layers of animation, all of which are moving at different rates (except one). Yikes. That was a mouthful... it was also a "mouseful" (waiting for corny ass drum for the joke.... eh, fuck it). This screenshot is actually only the top of the shot, so you're not seeing about a good two-thirds of it.
Yeah it took awhile. But I made some great use of transparencies and was dicking around with some new water effects, including making very clever use of steam in this shot to conceal her goods. Hey, no complaining dammit. My intention isn't to just stick in shots of tits and ass, OK? I want viewers to see this and understand that yes, she has a sexual quality to her and can be that seductive leading lady, but that's not what she's about.

Tonight I'm wrapping up the second shot in the sequence. Fun stuff.. oh and if you didn't know already, the girl in the shot is Alexandra, or Alex, from episode 1. Seriously, if you didn't know that, why the hell are you reading this? Do you even know what "Gun" is? Follow the links on the right and go see it already, you lazy prick.

No, seriously, I loves you alls.

Gotta go. Got things to see, and people to do.... ummm... wait.

Currently listening to: Common - Finding Forever (its hot sheezy!)

Peripherals.

Hey,

Quick update here - My good buddy Ramon Rodriguez has just released the 4th episodic installment of his Plate of Butter Series. He told me that this one was rushed and the actual planned episode is much more elaborate. Hopefully we'll see that extended content before too long. But don't count on it! LOL.

Anyway, check out the fourth episode of Plate of Butter here.

Also, it dropped on Newgrounds today, and you can view it here as well and be sure to cast your votes, children.

Ain't support fun?

Appeasement Please

Yeah....

So I've received some complaints regarding the updating of my blog. Mostly from that pretentious asshole Ramon Rodriguez (who by the way makes some dandy art stuff). Saying that I should update more often and let people in on the more detailed parts of the creative process from day to day, or other day-to-other day.

Truth is, whilst I toil away at this episode, I don't feel like there's anything of substance to put out there for you people to read about. Unless I make some major stride, I keep my effing mouth shut. This is pretty much my practice in life as well.

So what's there to say? Well ok I can tell you a little more about whats happening at the moment...

I'm basically working on the fifth shot of the last scene... A very simple one, that most people will forget before they even realize they saw it. However, try to grasp the scope of just how painstaking it is to single-handedly animate something, let alone something the length and magnitude of episode 2 of "Gun", which will essentially be the length of a fully animated half-hour anime (I'm including time for advertisements), which roughly comes in somewhere between 20 and 24 minutes.

I estimated that this final scene would be about 6-8 minutes, roughly. Lets see... this is the fifth shot and I'm already about a good minute in. and here's the part that will simultaneously excite you and piss you off if you're a fan of this series - This last scene has WELL over 50 different shots in it. and I do mean WELL over. try closer to 100. Exciting because you can expect alot of content in this climax (ewww, that sounded oddly sexual.) Pisses you off because you realize soon after getting excited that this means that it will take a lot of work to get to the very end.

I'm not gonna upload a screen shot tonight. I thought about it, and honestly I have nothing of value to offer that's worth staring at. I might have uploaded some storyboards, but my fucking scanner is working about as well as Britney Spears' career these days.

Also, I'm not gonna keep working on this anymore tonight. It's 2AM and I am bizarrely exhausted, despite having slept a little later than expected. May be the fact that I have about a solid pound of cheeseburger in my gut right now, but I am sleepy as all hell. I've been laboring on this shit since I got home this evening and groovin' to some old Isley Brothers jams, which are fuckin dynamite shit. If you ain't up on soul, you're missing out on some great music.

But I digress... I know that there are like a handful of you who are still waiting on tenterhooks for this new episode. It will happen one way or another. If I didn't honestly plan on continuing this series, I wouldn't have bothered doing all this work over the past 21 months (OMFG has it been almost 2 years already??!!!??). Fear not. Just stick to my side, and I'll reward your patience with a shiny new episode coated in ooey gooey goodness (again, vaguely sexual and disgusting).

Just stay tuned, you know what I mean. I'm going to bed. My eyelids aren't listening to me anymore when I tell them to stay up.

Bon Nuit.

New Year, New Stuff.

Firstly, a belated happy 2008 to all.

OK. So it's early in the new year and things are already off to a fairly decent start. I had a job interview yesterday, which I thought actually went better than I had anticipated. Hopefully it works out well. I'll know in a few weeks.

What does this have to do with "Gun" or any of my other creative projects, you ask? Well, simple - new job = more money = better production resources = better shit. Simple as that, amigos.

Another recent development - Ramon Rodriguez is at it again with another illustrated piece, this time though it's a real gem for any of you lovable Gun fans out there. He's working on a piece featuring Kai from Gun, for which I personally provided some super-sexy modeling services. lol.

He's been detailing the progress on the artboycat.com blog, so please check that shit and comment comment comment, there, here and everyplace else in between. It's making my trigger finger itch so good.

and while you're at it, be sure to add the official Gun myspace page to your friends list if you're on myspace. Show the world that you too have an itchy trigger finger.

Also... all this talk about Gun, and no info on the actual episode itself... well... the final scene of this episode is about to begin its final production phase this week, so there is definitely a bright shiny light at the end of this tunnel. Now I'm gonna go sleep off the "cold-weather has returned" blues.

Toodles.

Contradictions for Sale

So here's a wee bit of a "huh?" moment.

I'm editing firearms. Weapons. Instruments of mankind's worst intentions. Bringers of chaos, fear, and suffering.

As I'm doing this, I'm listening to some of the absolute calmest music I own.

Not terribly profound, I know, but it was a weird little contradiction I noticed tonight. Work continues. I'd like to post something substantial here, maybe a new screenshot or two, but I don't know which one(s) to choose. Plus I don't really think many people are reading this anyway so why bother. People will probably be checking this out more often once the episode actually comes out. and by then who the hell cares about a screenshot?

Blegh.

I should go read. Go visit my buddy Ramon's website. He's redesigned his logo and layout (I think) and is working on a "Gun" inspired piece now.

Clickety Clack.