Hey there Ricketeers! I was really hoping to have a complete albeit beta version of my game done already, but I still need to finish a number of pieces. But I do have some stuff done already that you can even print out!
Here's a sheet containing the Rickety Rat, Rascals Rabbit, Digby Duck, and Dolly Duck game pieces. You can print out the sheet, cut them out and you'll have your own little Rickety game characters! You can even make them stand on their own if you: 1. Cut on all the dotted lines 2. Fold in the creases on the bottom front 3. Fold the front bottom segment and stick it through the slit in the back bottom segment 4. unfold the front bottom creases It works, but it may be a bit confusing. I should probably take a picture or draw a diagram.
Also here are some sample game cards: Skeleton cards are what makes the game interesting. If you get a skeleton card, and then get an action card or land on an action space in which you get outed, then you have to go all the way back to the start. I really want to beta-test this out.
Also, here are some board pieces of the interchangable board: I'm hoping in a couple of weeks I can have all the assets completed and I can make it available for beta-testing. Until next time Ricketeers!
Good news Ricketeers! I'm in the process of making my new Boardgame! I give you: It's about the perilous road to stardom and the objective is to take your character all the way from the Rock Bottom Bar to the Tippity Top Theatre before anyone else does! Some things will help you on your way like getting sponsorship and or having a "private meeting" with a director, while other things will impede your path, such as acquiring skeletons in the closet. And if your skeletons get found out, it's back to Rock Bottom, or worse!
The game features the main characters of the Animation as playable pieces: Rickety, Roofie, Dolly, Digby, Rascals, and Stumbles, plus the inclusion of Blusto the Bull and Donna Daisy the waitress making it up to 8 players. The game board comes in multiple pieces that can be switched around to make any number of customizable board combinations. Here are a couple of sample pieces I sketched up: One possibly Combination: The game idea has gotten fairly good reception since I've pitched it to multiple people, so I'm pretty excited. I'm going to make the entire game a free downloadable PDF that people can print out and play, similar to tabletop roleplaying games. I also plan on making a deluxe version which has more game pieces, more board pieces, different versions of the playable characters, and even new game mechanics that aren't necesarily needed for the game, but make it slightly more interesting to play. I'll probably sell it for like five bucksish.
And if you think I'm not working on the animation anymore, you sir are wrong! I'm in the middle of doing character sheets. I did naked versions of the characters first(which was slightly odd) so I could place multiple clothing pieces over them easily. Check out a few: I'm having an interesting time providing textures for al of the characters' clothing. I should have more character sheets next week along with some player pieces and card examples.
Keep your eyes peeled and your ears to the floor Ricketeers!
I've also been doing some costume design for our heroines, look at this smart but cute attire for Dolly and Roofie:
That might be fur on her coat, not because she's an extravagant duck, but it's something Rascals would buy for her.
Don't have much else for you this week, Ricketeers. I've been working on the storyboards, and I might be at the half way point. I should really be doing set and environmental design, and I've scoured art deco books for reference, but it's probably going to be put off until I absolutely have to. I much prefer drawing characters than buildings. Who doesn't? YOU'RE HIRED!
For this week on Noir Review, I want to talk about something you're probably all familiar with and it may even be one of your old favorites as it is mine, Batman The Animated Series!
I think this old 90's cartoon is one of the best examples about how to do great noir (especially the first three seasons before the style changed). It's got a perfect 1930's-1940's feel from the buildings to the attire, it's filled with dark shadows and alleyways, and the music is some of the best scoring I've ever heard (when are they going to release a soundtrack?!) And the voices they got to play such iconic characters, Mark Hamil will always be the best Joker
What gave the show it's biggest noir feel is he stories. Many times they'd focus an episode around a normal person who spirals psychotically into the criminal trenches, or an already down and out criminal who's just trying to get back on his feet but society or his own urges won't let him. Many an episode ended on a sad note, or at the least a feeling of, "sure, the batman stopped him this time, but it doesn't matter much because he'll be back", that continuous downward spiral.
I could talk all day about my favorite episodes, but 'll only name a few:
Feat of Clay parts 1 & 2: voiced by the amazing Ron Pealman, a failed actor with a horrible facial disfigurement gets turned into the horrible monster Clayface and tries to get his revenge on the man who changed him.
The Gray Ghost: Voiced by Adam West, A washed-up TV star helps Batman stop a mad-bomber somehow connected to his old TV show.
A Bullet for Bullock: A whole episode revolving around Harvey Bullock, played out like a jazzy detective drama, as he figures out who's trying to kill him.
Almost Got 'im: I think this is one of everybody's favorite episodes. Siting around a poker table, the Joker, Two-Face, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, and the Penguin share stories about how they all almost killed the Batman.
Two of my favorite scores:
Trial: Batman and Prosecutor get trapped at Arkham where all the villains put Batman on Trial for turning them into monsters. Let's face it, this should be the next Batman-Phoenix Wright crossover videogame. Objection!
But what's your favorite episode? See you next time Ricketeers!
Man have I got a bunch of stuff for you! I have stuff up the wazoo! Having stuff up the Wazoo should be considered a serious medical condition for what I've got for you!
First off, I've got brand new all new pictures of the rest of the gang! Rascals, Roofie, Dolly and Digby! I might still tweak the textures and such, but on the whole I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. Check them out!
Rascals in his swanky suit. EDIT: Thanks from Sean letting me know I forgot his whisker Mustache.
Dolly in her classy pokadot dress
Digby I'm still working on the textures. Something strange.
Dolly in her fishnets.I love how they turned out.
And not only that!
I've also got a rough animatic of the first part for the animation, Stumbles' Cartoon, "How to be a Noir Detective" which I might release as a promotional piece to hype the project up. The voices and sound effects are rough, but Lucas, my sound guy is gonna make it sound Beeeeautiful. Also, the music is "Frankie and Johnny" by Bunny Berigan, from the Brick Soundtrack. So even though I think it works pretty well for the mood, I probably definitely can't use it. But I wouldn't want to anyways, because my sound guy Lucas who's done all the music for my previous animations is making an amazing score from scratch! So take that copyright infringement! I think it's coming along pretty nicely.
EDIT: if you wanna see it bigger than two inches by two inches click here.
So this week since I'm using music from the soundtrack and also because it's awesome, I feel I need to talk about Brick. Brick is Noir + high school. You'd think that given so many teen angsty revamps these days it would be a bad idea, but it is truly one of the greatest Noir movies(and movies in general) ever. It's got a great cast of characters that are high school versions of their older noir counterparts, Dialogue seemingly ripped straight from Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum, a haunting mesmerizing score, AMAZING cinematography, and a twisting winding story. The best part are all these little mundane moments you would see in high school life but come off as comical in a noir story. I can't recommend this enough. Check out the trailer and also these awesome character posters I recently found:
Well that's enough for this week. Don't get used to this luxury, I won't always have stuff jammed up my wazoo. I need to sit down sometime!
Greetings! So I changed the page a little and added a cool new banner up top! Huzzah! Although I may change it when I finally vectorize all the main characters.
I finished Storyboarding up to the title sequence, and that part is going to be a little tricky to storyboard, so I'm going to have to plan it out very carefully. But the animatic should be fun. I'm not sure if I should storyboard the entire thing, then make an animatic of the entire thing, or make animatics of parts as I go along. Hmmmm.
Here's my favorite storyboard so far:
The dialogue sounds great! There was a possibility that the digby dialogue was lost forever, but then we found it! Hooray! I wanted to upload some outtakes, but I may have to convert it into a movie first so I can upload it. Hmmmm again.
I may use the characters again for another 11 sec club animation. But only if I can make it work in a funny way. But this one has Bogey in it! How can I resist?!
For this week's film noir movie, I bring you...Film Noir! No really, that's the name of the movie(making it incredible annoying when you have to find it). It's a recent 3d animation from 2007. It's about a guy who wakes up with Amnesia(Obviously) and finds out he may be one of two people, but he doesn't quite know which one he is.
I really like it. From an animation standpoint, It's not all that great. The animations are kind of stilted, the facial expressions aren't the greatest, and all their pieces of paper have "this is a single polygon" syndrome. But the story is twisting and suspenseful and filled with interesting characters, the music is spot on and the voice actors are amazing. In the end, I'd prefer watching a semi-good animation with a great story verses an amazing animation with a sub-par story. This is the website: http://www.filmnoirthemovie.com/ and you can watch it here: http://www.movies-links.tv/movies/film_noir/ honestly, it's the only place I could find it.
Well first of all, I think that these Rickety Rat updates are a little too sporadic. So I've decided that Thursday is now Rickety Rat Update day! Every Thursday a new Update on your favorite noir vermin! So now fans (all two of you) will know when to look for new sketches, animations, sound samples, and general updates! Hooray!
Next, I'm designing a new banner for the blog to make it look prettier and draw in more followers. Take a look so far!
I have to figure out how else I can mess with the graphics of this blog. Maybe make a cool background texture. Who knows! I'm also working on a Rickety Rat poster idea, like those cool classic noir posters they used to have. I have a number of ideas, including an "everyone has a gun" poster, which I thought was kinda funny. Take a look at one of the designs:
Other than that, going through the dialogue and storyboarding. There's some great dialogue here, but it looks like because of interference, we may have to rerecord some lines. Bleah. The Storyboards are coming along nicely, here's one of them:
Roofie and Dolly in Dolly's dressing room
I just wanted to show off the nice design of Roofie's dress. So onward storyboarding!
The title sequence is gonna be tough to storyboard, so I may do something different and just put together something in After Effects, now that I've just learned some AWESOME After Effects tricks from http://www.videocopilot.net/basic/. Yay me.
Alllso, I just watched Born to Kill. It was a pretty cool old noir movie with great acting, alot of suspense, and some interesting characters. The bad guy was a hard headed tough guy and the good guy is a fat kooky detective. I highly recommend watching it for anyone interested in old Noir films. Check out the cool poster!
Hey! That's a cool idea! Since this is a Blog about a Noir animation, maybe I'll recommend a different Noir movie every time also! How does that sound? Does anyone know of some cool old or new Noir movies I should watch?
So I did a little sketch of a few of the main characters to figure out the heights of all of them. Rascals is about the normal height of an average person/character. Rickety's a small little chump, Dolly's a little too tall and thin, and Stumble's is freakishly tall, so much so they don't make pants for him. I would think that Roofie is just slightly taller than the norm,a nd Digby just a tad shorter, so I didn't include them.
Also, if you look closely, you'll see I changed Rascals' face a bit. I think the previous version is too detailed, not cartoony enough, so I made his face rounder like before, but still kept some of the detail around the cheeks. Still can't figure out the profile view though.
Also, here's a sketch of Wally the Willow. Originally, I thought of him as just a big tree with eyes, but I'm considering putting a mouth on him. I liked the idea of him not having a mouth because it gives him more of a feeling of just sitting there and not really being able to do anything, just tuck in one place. It means he's not really a character, he's just an animated part of scenery, which is pretty depressing and what I'm going for. But if I don't give him a mouth, I'm missing some opportunities of making him look like an old man with altimeters and depriving an animator of a key lipsyncing tool. Soo I'm not sure yet.
Skeleton cards are what makes the game interesting. If you get a skeleton card, and then get an action card or land on an action space in which you get outed, then you have to go all the way back to the start. I really want to beta-test this out.
