Two More Ultrafoots

Ultrafoots is the correct plural. I looked it up.

These are based on earlier designs I'm not entirely ready to abandon.

New Character Designs

Alright! I've finally had some time to spare for Ultrafoot, and I hope it lasts. I'm really gung-ho to make some progress. I'm dying to just start animating, but obviously I've GOT to figure out what he looks like. Damn it! It's time to nail that down. WAY past time, actually.

So what do you think of these guys?

Scroll through earlier posts and see if there's anything that speaks to you. I'm sold on the school uniform concept, but everything else is pretty much up in the air. Generally, I'm leaning toward skinny over fat, and I think he's got to have those glasses. I'm still trying for that ugly but cute at the same time idea.

I want to take comments and start refining a final design.

Poor Neglected Ultrafoot!

It was my fervent hope to finish Ultrafoot before the new year. Man! I didn't even get close! A new son and a supervisor position on a TV series (check out The Mr. Men Show airing on the Cartoon Network this spring!) left no time at all for Ultrafoot. I haven't touched it for months!

There has, however been some progress. I've recruited some guys interested in helping out. Jessica Buuck has come on as a recently graduated intern. She enthusiastically provided this background painting of the thug's hideout...
...before being called away to complete her school work and graduate on time. It's a gorgeous painting! And it sets a high standard for the look of the rest of the cartoon I hope we can maintain. If we're lucky, nobody will hire Jessica for a while and she can continue to help out.

Sorry, nothing new.

Hi guys! Long time no blog. Sorry about that. Unfortunately there's no real new work to show. I just want to touch base. Thing is, my paying job, usually strict about avoiding overtime pay, has told me to go nuts. It's the nature of the current status of the project. We're way behind. It's a great job! I'm working on the Mr Men show to air on Cartoon Network starting in January. (Andy must be familiar with the Mr Men and Little Miss characters, being from England. Mr Happy, Mr Tickle, Miss Naughty, etc.) With the duties of caring for my son I'm having enough difficulty managing 40 hours per week, but I feel obliged to do more if I can manage it. I'm the lead animator of a crew of 8 other animators, as well as providing storyboards. Telling other animators their work isn't good enough and they need to redo it is fun, but storyboarding is the most fun. It's like being the writer, director, and animator rolled into one.

But I feel really bad about having set aside Ultrafoot for so long, so I'm working hard to figure out a scheme where I can keep making progress but continue to earn the big bucks.

I do have this one drawing you haven't seen. Another shot at a character design.

This guy's cute, but maybe a little too hip and cool? Not nerdy enough? I like the school uniform, though.

I've been drawing bunches of these little kids and nothing's speaking to me. Sometimes I think it really doesn't matter. Do I really think I'll come up with some sort of innovative or ground breaking design? It's just not my strong suit. I'm really anxious to just get animating and I could just pick a kid and go! But I should keep at it. I don't want to make the same mistake I did on Ruby Rocket. I started animating before being comfortable with her design and I ended up with about 30 different Rubies.

I'm depressed. I was having fun with this fat kid, then all of a sudden he looked just like Dexter to me.


I really want a character with some volume and flexibility. With Flash cartoons you tend to get one head drawing and you move around the mouth and eyebrows like a Mr. Potatohead. It's cheep and looks so cheesey and I'm so sick of not drawing cartoons! For Ultrafoot I want a kid who can go from cute to hideous as his mood changes.

Back to the drawing board.

These kids have some spunk. I'm going to keep working in this direction.