reliable leak

keep meaning to update but time i spend updating is time that sock needs so no time for this what i'm doing right now it's halloween though i am told i am not supposed to give out release dates but seriously halloween good sources been working 12 hour days the last two days to make this future a reality planning things for around release like making of video deleted scenes sweepstakes what have you no one told me typing while brushing teeth would be this hard

I-It'll b-b-be worth it... right?

Just finished compiling my shot list for the last "half" of episode three. I hope you've all invested in cryogenics.

The Final Phase of The Final Phase Begins

I've just completed the first half of Episode 3, editing and all. I've discovered that doing some post-production work early on and getting some (relatively) instant gratification at seeing some of the finished product has a pleasant, sanity restoring effect.

I was also animating some rope physics for this. Rope physics are fun! My animation tutorial for rope physics:

1) Waste loads of paper trying in vain to comprehend basic movements.

2) Under no circumstances are you to use reference material.

3) Get frustrated after many hours of this and begin taking your anger out on the individual index card frames that aren't working, pretending that they have little paper feelings and that ripping them up will convince them to let you draw on them better next time (there will be no next time, you have just ruined them forever).

4) Walk away, smolder, general sulking.

5) Stay up until two in the morning.

6) If the ritual is a success, the rope physics visualization centers of your brain will now be active.

7) Continue refraining from all reference materials, YOU ARE NO MERE MORTAL

8) Gaze in awe as your digits spew forth vaguely passable representations of the material world on autopilot.

I later discovered the the top and bottom of the object I was animating got switched around during all the swooshy flippery, but it's unnoticeable in the final product.

The last half was already penciled and inked (a couple of years ago now), but upon unearthing these frames, I discovered them to be rather cromagnon when compared to the level of work I'm doing now. Also the ending has changed a bit since the project's conception. So it looks like I'm remaking the entire last half of this episode from scratch. I will likely be releasing a 'making of' video after release, which will include the (incomplete) cut content. I probably should include the original versions of several modified scenes as well, since I've been heavily reworking a ton of it to keep the quality consistent with the newer stuff I'm making.

In addition to the making of video, I'd like to get some new shirts out in case anyone cares about clothes still. I've got plans for a new Sock design, as well as three designs for the other gods, and maybe one for Ceriazibus.

Once again, when Empire is completed, I will be completely rehauling the website, getting the Tales of BarfQuestion comic back on track with regular updates, and embarking on tons of new projects, as always. I'll be reworking a couple of old music videos that either have copyright conflicts (or that I'm just unhappy with) into Toons, getting Hitting Stuff at a Building out, and announcing a trio of huge projects to be aimed at film festival distribution.

I had a speedrun of Dark Souls playing in the corner of my screen while I was touching up my frames in Photoshop this week, and started to wonder what speedruns of real life would be like before realizing that they actually exist and are called miscarriages.

"Mighty Workload ... • Post" is what it says to the left of this box.

The second leg of this unwieldily tripod monstrosity is finally complete. There isn't much to say about it that wasn't covered in the last post. Although that may be because I'm just coming off of a fourteen hour work day and my brains don't feel so good.

The Making of Corporal Meatfountain

Your ears may have noticed that this episode has really awesome music, especially in the last half. This new track, "Exitium Aeternus", was made by the Hamster Alliance for this episode. Unfortunately I didn't get to use much of it, but the rest will be in the third and final episode.

If anyone commissions me to build a waterpark this is what I'll... I can't build waterparks.  But this could be one.

I won't make any promises about the final episode- it's definitely going to take awhile. About half of it is penciled and inked. I'm going to be reanimating the other half from scratch. ...Reanimating. That's what they're going to have to do to me if I don't stop working and get some sleep soon. Goopnigt

BEFOREHANDS

"I'm barely going to add any new content to Episode 2" was what I said last time. "Maybe. Can't control myself." And as it turned out, I couldn't. What started off as two simple new shots turned into enough new content to almost be its own separate episode. Good that, seeing as episode 2 was looking a little scrawny beforehand. BEFOREHANDS should be a replacement for "BC". I don't know the exact date at which hands evolved but it sounds punchier I think hands are really under-appreciated.

 I don't know when episode 2 will be out. I'm done coloring and scanning it. I've already composited and edited about half of it. I'm aiming for sometime in January, 2014 AD or sometime around January, 100,000,000 AH. But all of you should know how I am with predicting release dates by now.



Speaking of being a miserable failure, boy howdy the site done gone turned to cobwebs. I felt it was best to say that in southern because the website has become tumbleweeds. It just feels pointless updating when it takes time away from production. HOWEVER I have truck full of plans backed up to my house, ready to unload and put into action once Empire is done. Among these are schemes to force me into updating, such as "comic seasons" in which I allocate however long it takes to make about 50 comics, and then make about 50 comics, and then update regularly 2-3 times a week once I'm done. There's some other stuff too, but more on that later. I'M WASTING TOO MUCH TIME I COULD BE USING ON SOCK. MUST MAINTAIN 24/7 HAMSTER VIGIL.

Empire of Complainery

It's out it's out it's out it's out i'ts out it's out it's out it's out 'its out

Warning: I'm extremely sleep deprived. This post has got to be the most tedious thing I've ever written, but that's entirely the point. You see, the tedium of reading it is a metaphor about how insanifying the last almost two years of production has been. Have been. But you probably won't understand that parallel without an art degree. Good thing I dropped out so I have no idea what I'm saying.

I started 'Empire of Sock' a long, long time ago. Decided to try my new compositing technique idea on the entire project to speed things up. Felt invincible because of the potential speed boost this process offered and overextended myself by making 'Empire' really complicated. Oh, it's Halloween already and I'm only beginning to color this? Hmm. I'll quickly compile a two minute preview and then go do 'Valentine's Day 2012'.

Click to enlarge. My revolutionary idea that I found out has been around for like a hundred years or something.

 Used a rough version of the compositing process on 'Valentine's Day 2012'. Took forever, it came out two months late. Huh. Wasn't this technique supposed to make me faster? A few more months coloring Sock. This sure is taking an eternity. Eternity thief. I begin to scan and composite the frames digitally (post-production) just to break up the tedium. I then notice how bad the earlier frames that I made for the preview look. The outlines are all jaggedy and have all sorts of problems. Waste a month or so  trying to fix them manually, to little avail.



Despair. Go back to coloring for a few months, occasionally stopping to scan in more batches of frames and struggle desperately to make them look nice in post-production. Slowly improving as the months go by. Things are starting to look up and then I realize it's December. Missed Halloween again. Time for 'Valentine's Day' again.



 

Spent a month on 'Spacelope', during which I finally figured out how to (relatively) quickly scan/composite/finish my frames. Go back to 'Empire'. Now that I've seen how good my work can look with this method, I see my old frames and how awful they look.




Despair. Spend several months going back over the entire project and using my now complete grasp on the compositing technique to make all the frames look pretty. Takes longer than it should because I have to correct my old mistakes along the way.

 



It's been over a year now. Frustration at only being 50% done with this. Decide to try out episodic releases to create the illusion that I'm getting more accomplished than I really am. It works. I feel invincible again. All the material for the first episode is ready to go.




But wait- since I'm a complete idiot and think I'm ahead of schedule somehow, why not go back and add new content? Feverishly animate tons of new frames to scatter throughout the first two minutes that I already previewed. Animate an entirely new opening sequence. So much time has passed that my animating skills have improved noticeably. Now I have to go in and completely reanimate crappy scenes that I feel are below my current level.




Isn't stained glass cool? I should put stained glass shots in the intro. Draw them on full sized sheets of paper and everything. All of this is fine, I'll be done in no time and start pumping out episodes like nobody's business.



Seven months pass. Whoops. My computer pronounces that as 'hoops'. I finally dig my way out of the grave I created for myself, and for the first time in almost two years, manage to not hurl myself back into it on a whim. I've slept maybe ten hours in the last seventy-two. But it's done. Finally done.



Oh. Only a third done, actually. Well, that's okay. I have discovered things about sleep. It doesn't have to control us, it's just that as children, they condition you to think that it does. The good news is that in that convoluted, horrible mess, I've already completed significant chunks of the other two episodes. Because of the nightmare of Episode 1, I'm barely going to add any new content to Episode 2. Maybe. Can't control myself. It will probably be a little underwhelming compared to #1 because of this, but hopefully it's not too noticeable.




In closing, after 'Empire' is finished, animations will take a long time as always, but nothing like the nuclear train derailment that's occurred over the last two years.

Until next time!

(Various Sock pottery made by my mom)

Soon