THE ANIMATIONS HAVE ACHIEVED CRITICAL MASS

As you might have heard from the endless torrent of whining going on in the comic, Empire of Sock has reached maximum density and is actively collapsing into some kind of black hole that only obliterates time. I thought this would be a good time to go back and explain just how ridiculous things have become through demonstrating exactly how much these animations have mutated over the last five years. After all, excuses are the currency that fuels the.. printing presses, so let's.. end this sentence. I'm under the impression that this entry will be really, really boring, but everyone's always on my case to tell them about how I animate, SO YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELVES!

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Way back in 2007 when BarfQuestion Films began, animations were stupid little things that took maybe 10 - 15 hours max to pump out. Black and white, with little to no shading, and sketchy, ass style that I was able to whip out on the fly because I hadn't discovered quality standards or the existence of light tables (as I was tracing all my frames in midair over a hand powered flashlight that died every two to three minutes.

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After awhile of this I decided I'd be really hardcore and spend more than a week on these things. Thus production time bumped up to 30-40 hours and I started doing really fancy stuff, like shading! This black and white stuff got really old though, and I decided to finally start applying myself.

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Having finally acquired a light table, I began saving a lot of time because I wasn't stopping every three minutes to wind the flashlight back up and didn't have to break my wrists attempting to trace frames in midair. I could also work past 10 p.m. without pissing off my roommate by making hideous whirring sounds from the aforementioned flashlight winding. Having finally discovered the time-saving magic of self induced insomnia, BarfQuestion Films achieved a new level. And so I made the transition into low quality, extra scribbly, and low saturation color. At this point, things started to get more out of control, and I slowly moved into production time involving hours in the triple digits.

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The fourth stage revolved mostly around learning to not suck so much. As in, making the colors more vivid, and the animation more swooshy and fancy-like. Now animations were solidly out of the "took me dozens of hours to animate" region and fully into "took me hundreds of hours to animate" territory. And here is where I hit a wall. Having achieved critical mass, I could no longer effectively increase the amount of detail in these films without exponentially increasing production time. I knew I had to do something if the madness were to further escalate.


With 2010's "The Faster the Treadmill" music video, certain shots required that I 'composite' several frame elements on top of each other, instead of drawing every detail of every frame for every frame like I usually do. Suddenly it occurred to me that I could use this process for my normal animations too. A huge amount of time is wasted on shots where the background is simply three repeating frames, but the subject is moving all over. So why draw the background dozens of times? Why not just make the three background frames separately and then composite the action on top of it? I then researched this and learned that this is basically how all animation is done, since forever, and I was just being an idiot this whole time. Just another 'self taught animator' moment.


For the "you wouldn't have these problems if you used computers 100% of the time" faction of fans, I ALREADY TRIED THAT. I'm not very good with computers but this program called KidPix sounded pretty legit, but not even that lived up to my expectations. And no one's going to convince me that there's a better computer drawing program than KidPix. It has an ice cream stamp.

I was under the impression that this new method would magically hurl me through animations at the speed of light, and became severely depressed after spending over half a year on "Empire of Sock." WHY WASN'T THE MAGIC WORKING? WHY IS IT STILL TAKING SO LONG?? I did a quick, rough estimate today and realized that "Empire" is going to be like 7-10 minutes of non-stop action sequences (and insanely detailed ones at that). Suddenly everything makes sense. The upside to this is that this episode should be the best yet, besides possibly breaking the record for my longest animation. The bad news is that it seems I will have to drop production on this at the beginning of November in order to get "Valentine's Day 2012" out on time. Production on "Empire" will then resume in February, hopefully seeing a release by April. Even worse, I realized recently that the "SuperVillain 6" trailer said it would be out in 2011, and I'll be lucky to get that thing out before 2013 at this rate as it is just as enormous and hectic as "Empire" will be (if not more). Fortunately, several of the series are nearing their ends, and the ever escalating production times will finally cease (hopefully).

Well after all that boring animation technique jargon/whining/excuse-making, I should probably drop some new info on the third episode. Talks have been underway, and the Hamster Alliance will be producing the score for this episode. And the music I've heard so far is some really incredible stuff that matches the tonal shift and atmosphere of the piece perfectly. Secondly, I did a ton of planning and writing for this project. Because of this, the visuals and narrative are both complex and at their most surreal in this one, although I guarantee there will be loads of cretins writing it off as "totally random" or "you sure must do a lot of drugs" because I'm not dumbing it down to make sure the imagination-deficits will understand it. I've also been sure to include multiple scenes of nearly every creature and character in the series thus far (as well as several new ones), as to make sure everyone gets in on the action. The only people that will be disappointed will be fans of the propane tank from "Dawn of Sock," and big heart catfish thing from "Advent." But that's okay, because most people thought the propane tank was a jar of exploding mayonnaise.

Okay, my self-esteem meter is bottoming out as the voices telling me that this information is really inane and boring are getting really loud and exasperated. I'm trying to update the comic whenever possible, time's just in short supply lately. But there are like a million stupid easter eggs that I'm sure no one's found yet, so I'll just leave you all with that in an attempt to frustrate and keep you all entertained a little (actually a long) while longer.

Messy, Poorly Drawn Keyframes Sure Make Great Teasers

Penciling on Empire of Sock is, as always, taking forever for a variety of reasons. While you wait, please enjoy the complementary peanuts (both invisible and intangible) and these teasers consisting of malfunctioning rough sketches/keyframes (that I've since turned into much prettier actual frames).






At one point I was having serious difficulties animating how Ceriazibus' heads split open and ended up drawing it like a tiny bird.
Final product guaranteed to be 500% less cute. Anyway, I'll get back to you in five years when all the animating is finished.

Valentine's Day Double Feature!

Happy Extra Special Early Valentine's Day! As you should have watched by now, Valentine's Day 2011 has been completed and is online! As previously mentioned, this one is a bit shorter than normal because someone complained that it was really hard to match a gift that took several hundred hours to make, but someone doesn't realize that someone is so special that she totally deserves such a time consuming gift.

Speaking of Valentine's Day gifts, this year Danielle gave me a super awesome present in the form of an adorable flash game! I made some artwork for it and we added some extras and the result is a game by the title of Cardiac Snowdrift! (Click the link to play, or alternatively play it with medals on NewGrounds here)

There are a couple of neat features we're really proud of in this. Firstly, thirteen different characters from the Valentine's Day series periodically pop up and comment on your progress!

Next, in the past years I've gotten several commission requests to make Valentines for other people's significant others, which I absolutely refuse to do (paying other people to express affection for you is not expressing affection)! But this game contains a kind of compromise! By rapidly picking up hearts quickly enough, you'll unlock one of thirteen, downloadable Valentine's Day cards (although two are unlocked under special conditions)!

These were inspired by those stupid elementary school era, slip of cardboard style Valentines you glue candy to. You can download, print, email, send and/or creepily palm them to whoever you want!

There is also an easter egg for anyone who earns 99,999 points (we estimate this would require playing the game without dying for about 70-100 hours straight).

This is only a small beginning for BarfQuestion Games. As previous posts have shown, we're still in the middle of a much larger game called "Hitting Stuff at a Building." I can't give any estimates at all about when our other games will be coming out (they are really slow and unpredictable), but this is our tentative queue for game projects:

1. Hitting Stuff at a Building

Destroy a gargantuan skyscraper with a badminton racket, and of course, stuff.

2. The Adventures of Puddlenaut

The (hand drawn) 8-bit game featured in "The Faster the Treadmill" music video, including an open ended free will mode starring Fetusaur.

3. Orb of Sock

Burning victims and summoning giant monsters as Sock.. in a pinball machine.

4. SuperVillain Simulator (working title)

Could quite possibly be the most open ended game ever designed. Do everything you've always wanted to as our cardboard clad antagonist.

5. Barfnarök (working title)

A massively indulgent game. Not going to say anything else about this right now.

Anyways, that's more than enough of getting your hopes all up (just so I can dash them against the pavement later WAHAHAH). Next up is "Empire of Sock!" I'm going to be doing some animation experimentation on this one, so there is a good chance I'll be posting about it again well before it is released.

Inconsequential Swarm of the Tiniest News

Suddenly, there are lots of trivial updates to be sharing with you! I've been doing my annual site tinkering and thought I'd first run over a list of little stupid things I added for you completionists.
* There are 17 new animated gifs on the animated gif page.
* I finally fixed some minor site bugs, including upgrading the films page so that it's not tediously infuriating to navigate.
* There's fourteen new entries (in two directories) on the poorly hidden database section for those who have found/care about it.

Next up, the comic! My new year resolution was to do more of this. I realized that on my YouTube page I've been advertising that I update the comic five times a week (see below image). I then realized I either needed to edit that image or start updating five times a week again. And for some reason updating more frequently seems less inconvenient than modifying an image but I don't know how that works. So be sure to start checking the comic out five days a week again starting Monday, January 24th!

In other news, Sulek is getting close to releasing their third album, "Birds in the Attic!" I'm not doing the artwork for this one, so I hope no one got their hopes up that I would. I actually was pretty involved in the creation process this time, but none of my material worked out. The album title was initially "There's No Bottom," and so I made this concept art/pitch for the band when they asked for artwork:

The idea was that the album artwork, as in "Believer's Lane," would convey a story. This time the band traveled to a city of giants and stole a giant's butt, leaving him with no bottom. They then ran away and fell off the city and fell forever because there was no bottom (again). However that idea wasn't serious enough, so it got dropped and then the title underwent lots of changes. The band decided they wanted to do a bird themed album and asked me for a title suggestion and so I pitched the title "Lookout, Windshield!" but that didn't take either. They finally decided on "Birds in the Attic," and I decided I didn't want to draw birds in an attic, and so I didn't.

In the next episode of "Grey's Excuses," I'll try to justify why I haven't released a new game in over a year!

Anyways, speaking of Sulek- for a limited time they've got a couple of new tracks up for download and some new show dates so check that out at their site!

Up next - Valentine's Day!

The Ol' End of the Year Post

Every year I've been posting previews for the next year's worth of material, however I've noticed I never have time to finish them all. So starting this year, I'm doing previews for the next three projects on my queue (followed by three more when those are done, etc). Anyway, I've noticed every year has kind of been taking on a 'theme' of sorts. 2009 was almost entirely dark/horrory stuff and 2010 involved a lot of water. 2011 is going to be MORE EXPLODEY THAN AN OCULAR DYNAMITE ENEMA.

Valentine's Day 2011
As usual, I can't really talk about this here! The only thing I'll say about it is that I think this one is probably the strangest one I've done so far. It's also probably going to be a bit simpler/shorter than last years (by request).
As of right now I've finished the keyframes and have gotten maybe a fourth to a third of it penciled? Not really sure, HENCE THE QUESTION MARK.


Empire of Sock
I already previewed this last year, but it's really happening this time! "Dawn" was largely a standalone piece that introduced everything, "Advent" was Sock's plan being set into motion, but finally, "Empire" is going to be where the exploding colons really collide with the various blowing apparatuses. If you read "Genesis of Sock," you may have a fair idea of what's coming.
This one is going to contain some of the most entertaining action sequences that I've ever done. It's going to be difficult to animate, but I'm really looking forward to drawing loads of reality defying madness.


SuperVillain 6
Throughout its makeshift career, SuperVillain has encountered resistance from various, incompetent forces attempting to stamp out such a unique calling in life. However the biggest threat to SV's livelihood is about to arrive in the form of another BarfQuestion, and a rather psychotic one too. To worsen matters, a returning enemy has been thoroughly upgraded and is back in town in response to recent events. In order to survive, SuperVillain will have to take on two powers that are far in excess of its own.
I've been sitting on this idea since I was making SuperVillain IV and I am extremely excited to get started on it, although it is going to be murderously difficult to produce.

"Hitting Stuff at a Building" might crop up at any time too. But there are no predictions being issued on account of my estimates always being horrifically wrong. A cat passing through on my keyboard had this to say: "p0---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------loooooooooooooooooooooooooooo vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv"

The Return of SuperVillain

It's been over two years, but SuperVillain has finally returned! I apologize that this is coming out a month and a half later than expected. Some very unfortunate things happened during the time I was working on this which delayed production considerably.

I really enjoy animating big robots and explosions and all, but for this installment I wanted to get back to the series' roots of simply running around and generally ruining everything without some major threat to fight. I especially wanted to do this to break up the enormity of SuperVillain IV and the upcoming SuperVillain 6, which is going to be gargantuan (stick around after the credits for a teaser trailer).

I actually did my first ever pickup shots on this project (meaning I finished production and had to go back and animate new shots). The baby/shark fishing sequence wasn't initially planned, but as I neared completion I couldn't believe that I had forgotten to include a token infanticide scene. I MUST BE GOING SENILE IN MY OLD AGE OR SOMMFING.

I've really missed working on SuperVillain, and so I'm making a serious effort to do an episode in both 2011 and 2012. The large and tedious amounts of work that goes into every project gives me a lot of time to think about what to work on next, and so I have pretty solid ideas of what I'm doing with both the sixth and seventh installments.

Anyway since this year has been overflowing with delays, setbacks, and bitter disappointment, I'm going to get started on Valentine's Day 2011 now in order to get going on Empire of Sock early next year. I'll update this blog at least once more this year to give a preview of the next couple of projects I'll be undertaking.

This year is kind of a gravy train, but only in the sense that it's really slow and keeps clogging your arteries.

This year has had this irritating release schedule pattern where I finish a project and then its release is delayed until I finish the next project (whose release is then delayed until the completion of the next project and so on). HENCE THE TRAIN MADE FROM GRAVY.

Remember at the start of the year when I said 'SuperVillain V' was going to be this fun, short, little project that I could speed through before starting on 'Empire of Sock?' Between the tears and frustration sometimes I can too. It's going to be (probably) of average length (3-4 minutes), but it has got an obscene frame count that dwarfs all other SuperVillain projects to date.
The project is about half way through inking after two weeks of delays due to lots of stuff going on in my life. I'm plowing through it again and hopefully will finish in November. "Well butts," you say, "doesn't that only leave a month for production on Empire of S-," to which I would reply "MOTHER OF BALLS I AM COMPLETELY AWARE OF THIS." But I've got a plan, which I will detail in a paragraph or so.

The other question you might have is why 'Hitting Stuff at a Building' has been at 95% completion for a couple months now. Basically, I've completely finished with all of my work on this game, so it isn't something I'm having to put time into any more. However I have no idea how to estimate the amount of work necessary for programming so I just stuck the progress bar at some arbitrary number.

"ENOUGH ABOUT THAT BUILDING GAME," you cry hysterically, "WHAT ABOUT EMPIRE OF SOCK?!" to which I reply with sedatives and deportation notice to the moon. And by that I mean either a notice to deport you to the moon or a notice to deport the moon which will flood you out of existence so I win either way.
With that all cleared up, basically all I can say is there is nowhere near enough time to undertake the monstrosity that is 'Empire of Sock' in a month and a half (or less). So I'm going to start 'Valentine's Day 2011' early once SuperVillain is done which will allow me to get an early start on 'Empire' in 2011. Valentine's Day will probably be a bit simpler this year as well because Danielle has complained that apparently it's really hard to match a gift that took several hundred hours to make.

The good news is that I hope to get a Sock project done this year. "HOW THE F-" you begin to scream, to which I ponder how you are communicating with me from either the moon or from under all this water. Unfortunately the only mystery I'm capable of solving today is what's going on with Sock this year.
The 600th Tales of BarfQuestion comic is coming up, for which I previously planned to make a second chapter of 'Syphilis Rice.' I wrote the script out for it, but I really don't feel like doing it at the moment. All was lost until awesomely, I remembered my long held ambition to make a prequel story to the Sock series. This was either going to be a movie or a game, but I realized it would work much better as a short graphic novel type thing. So there you go moon dwellers/drowning victims. There should hopefully be some new Sock material (laden with plenty of blatant hints about the plot of Empire) coming in the next month or whenever.