THE INTRO IS COMPLETE!!!!!

OR

CLICK HERE! TO SEE THE INTRO

I am very happy with how the intro turned out. The idea behind the intro was to make it fast paced, with lots of quick cuts, and tons of action. Then when the show starts the pace is instantly ground to a halt. The show is slow paced, with no action at all. So the intro serves a couple of purposes; first, it gives us some contrast in pacing. Second, it shows the characters have a history and a life outside the washroom, making them more real. The show takes place entirely in a washroom, so the intro was a good place to escape that.
The theme song was written by my friend Haris Cehajic many years ago, when he was in a band from Brampton Ontario, called DILAN DOG. I loved the song from the moment I heard it, and right away thought it would make a great intro for a cartoon. Now, more than 10 years later, I finally got to use it.

bg revised

A couple reasons I had to change this bg; first, the whole graffiti and textured look came about AFTER this bg was originally made. Second, the shot didn't look right after I finished the scene before this. The two scenes are sequential. I didn't know what the scene before this was going to be when I did the original bg, I'm putting together the intro on the fly, making up scenes as I go along to put together into some kind of fake montage for the show. I say fake because these scenes are never actually going to be in the show. I used some of my old illustrations as posters again, and some of the graffiti drawings on the wall is from an old sketch by Errol Burke which was from another series concept we where throwing around years ago.

my neighborhood

This is a bg used in the intro. Once I decided to put the graffiti and textures on all the backgrounds, it has come to feel very much like my neighborhood. I always thought Montreal felt like Sesame Street, without the muppets...except some of the characters around here are practically muppets anyway. I used my art for the posters on the foreground pole and on on the building. It was a good way to make use of all those random illustrations.

Action Packed Entrance

This is a pose of Blaction Hero falling or jumping into the scene.

toiletpuck.com

The website is up...kinda. There's not much to look at just yet. The first episode is very close to being done, I would say only 3 weeks away. Then it'll be on the website for the world to see. The website is a work in progress. I plan on having many more features, especially if the series catches on, then we will have a message board feature, a shop, games, and downloads. So visit toiletpuck.com and check back by June 14 2009 for the first episode to "air". I know it's air for the television, but is it air for the world wide web too? I dunno.

rotation on the fly

I only had a three quarter view of this scientist before I started animating. I got to a point in the scene where I needed a front view, but did not have one. So I created his front view on the fly.

janitor

The pic above is a screenshot of how the final scene actually looks. The pic below is a shot of the design of the janitor and the establishing shot of the first scene.

We only see this guy in the first sequence of the first episode, and never again after that.

pan test

Trust me, it'll be hilarious once the audio and sound effects are added, and the timing adjusted. I just wanted to render it to make sure the pan works...and it does. There is a quite a bit of dialog in this scene, so it'll stay on the characters legs longer, but you get the idea with this abbreviated version.

Urinal Puck

It's amazing how many people I talk to that do not know what a toilet puck is, until I explain it to them several times. Everyone knows the urinal puck though. So to make it crystal clear what a toilet puck is, I made a scene where the janitor tosses pucks into the urinal. A couple scenes later he puts a clip on the same pucks and sticks them on the toilet rim. Brilliant!

ep01 sc07

Another scene, without sound. It's all coming together quite quickly now. Thus far I am very happy with how it's turning out.

compositing

Put together the walk cycle, the background, a new opening door, and voila! You have a complete scene, minus the sound.

writing on the washroom wall

Some of my girlfriend's quotes I used as graffiti on the background.

The audience may never be able to read them, but it's the kind of inside joke that makes the creative process fun.

The "inside joke" graffiti was my girlfriends idea. In case you can't read the backgrounds, here are the quotes:

"I'm dream interpreting, don't talk to me right now."

"I want to introduce this to your life; I wanna sit around and discuss with you the aesthetic value of different tomatoes."

Z-"In a crunch it could be a substitute."
N-"I don't want a crunchy substitute."

"It's really hard to maintain a naked life style."

N-"Look at him."
Z-"Where is he?"
N-"He's not there. Look at him in your mind."

economy of a scene

It's all about economy of a scene at this point. Primarily because there are only 4 weeks remaining to finish it on time to submit it to the Ottawa Animation festival. So in this sequence, instead of showing a long shot of the characters pull their pants up, flush the toilet, and exit the washroom, I cut to a close up shot of their legs, panning from one character to the other as he pulls up his pants. I don't have to animate them flushing the toilet, because once they stand up we will hear the flush. Then I cut to the shot of them walking out to the left. Doing it this way saved me a lot of animation. Plus there is something really cool about the low angle shot of their legs on the toilet, it's kind of Quentin Tarantinoish.

current line up

Here is the current line up of Super Heroes and Super Villains in the Toilet Puck Universe.

censored

Even though Toilet Puck has no "anatomy", I thought it would be funny to add a "censored" block over him when he drops his clip.