The Ponder Pot

quick long update

2008-10-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, i've been meaning to update for a long time now, but with holidays and school starting up again and now a 9-5 job for work experience, I couldn't exactly be bothered.

So to keep anyone who may actually read this up to date, i'm gonna write what i've been up too and show some recent sketches of mine :)

Okay so in July-August i was wondering around cornwall with my cousen and our friend Ant, which was fun, alot of good times happened such as the beer tent night which was awesome and sort of got us into a little bit of trouble with a few of the locals, just little missunderstandings is all.

In late August i went to Poland and the girls there are incredible and plenty.

Also a week before i went to Poland i began work on CatFat 2, the first proper episode. Since i've been back, though for more than a month now, i haven't really done much more work on it except get a little past the play menu, but i am starting up again...gradually.

Now finally on with the sketches, i've been wanting to upload a few of these for ages now, they were all drawn throughout the summer holiday and since i've been back. Hopefully you can forgive the slight blur on some of the images, but it was hard to take pictures of them with my camera.

All of the drawing produced in Poland were done without a rubber...since i forgot to take one with me....damn...

This was my first drawing whilst in Poland, this was my only form of entertainment.

This drawing was probably the 4th or 5th one i did when residing in Poland, I was particularly pleased with the way this one turned out as it was initially going to be a rat in stencil style but i changed it almost instantly and it took literally no more than 2minutes to draw.

I drew this one immediately after, having been inspired by my previous drawing.

I drew this one a few days ago before going beddy byes.

2008-06-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

CatFat didn't go down too bad, it got a decent amount of reviews so, it's all good!

Ah, i got MGS4 last week to this day, on the day it came out ( i preordered the specially sleaved one from hmv), and wow what a game it was! It's a shame it couldn't have been longer though, it only lasted me 5 days, about 3-5 hours each day :( But it has great replay value, as usual, so i'll be sure to start it again soon, it was incredibly epic and evocative of passion. well i could go on about it all day so...

Heres Spidey

It's got a little smudged since i drew it...:(

The Once and Future Cat

2008-05-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

Today, we find CatFat in his trailer...bored from still having to wait for the end....

(He demands a pay rise for he could have been an already 'famous adult film star by now...you stupid s***s'
But we deny him his check and threaten extinction towards him if he refuses to cooperate, his response, 'Oh it's just 'cause your jealous of me being so thin and beautiful..'.

This comment apparently caused uproar and offense amongst the 'Big boned' film crew...An appology of cakes and cookies has been sent out to them.)

But fear not! as the end is nigh, infact it should be finished within the next few days..yay!!

Well actually that's fairly missleading as i'm to add in subtitles after that and then some sound effects and music and finally cue the sync problems that will innevitably occur...woohoo!!

In other news, i did reset my password two long days after forgetting it and what a waste of time that gruelling process was...

And i don't feel well......

Stuff and..eh......STUFF!!!

2008-04-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Today, i forgot my msn password....damn...
In other news, i've been away recently, down Cornwall to be a little more precise but not of such precision that my location could have been discovered, since cornwall is a representation of a collective and i dwelled in only but one part of coastline within what we have come to know as Cornwall..Anyway! Whilst i was down there i made it my mission to draw a third entry in my new (my precious) sketch book and thus spent alot of time in the fields next to me with the sheep..
not actually THAT field, the ones on the other side.
And so i have realised that i have not shown anyone these sketches, so i'll publish it on here and will continue updates of each sketch i do
So here they are, in chronical order;
This here is a bird...with a pilot helmet..one of those old ones..
These are two birds sitting on a stick...interesting...
And here is the final sheep, inspired by a very funny sheep i saw last year...

The first two drawing were studied from some sketches by Joe Bluhm, man, what a guy..

This was because i was cowerdice with my new book and didn't want to draw real life, the last entry though, is studied from real life..hoorah!

Lastly i just wanna mention that animation called CatFat, man what a series that'll be, yep, i am still working on it, i've just been real lazy and undermotivated for several months, but now it is nearly finished, i'm aiming to have it complete before tuesday because thats when GTA 4 comes out..*drooles* But i won't release it till sometime after april 30th, because Pico day will be happening and well i want to wait a few days for the hype to calm down to give myself a fair chance..

well..i still can't believe i lost my password...:@

MAIDEN!!!!!!

2008-02-06T11:18:00.000-08:00

Yeah!!!
i'm gonna be at Iron Maidens only England appearance on July 5th! And bloody hell am i gonna splash out on the merchandise! jumpers gallore! mmm...

Soooo...

2008-02-05T04:56:00.000-08:00

Today i stand content, i'm making some serious progress on 'CatFat episode 1' now, yesterday i completed 2 whole minutes of rough character animation, 2 MINUTES IN 1 DAY?! yeah, i'm chuffed. It was an important section of the animation, where the audience begins to meet an array of colourful characters, though, i say colourful, I have created very deep pyschologies for each character, getting into their heads more and more, learning about them as i write their dialogue, this can be seen with such big characters as mr thin, or the recently animated Turpo the Turtle who portrays an almost manic depressive behaviour with an under-lining sence of the source of the problems he has. Anyway, it's really fun writing these, i was able to realise what made the original comic so good and have been able to insert that as a common narrative, the world, characters and series as a whole is really shaping up to be how i've wanted. Though, i'm feeling slightly frustrated by the time taken to do even one episode, as soon as i start one, i can't wait to begin on the next episode. But it's still fun either way.

So it's here

2007-10-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

Yeah it's late by bout a month but i was taking it easy with frequent breaks and you know what? i enjoyed making it.
For the first time, by not becoming so obsessive over it and stopping when i had enough or was growing frustrated, i actually enjoyed the experience and can watch it over and over again, even with the bad sound quality,and not cringe at it. Such incidents happened with my Myth Of Sisyphus animation, which i can barely stand to think of, infact when i do, it's shamefull, it's an embarrasement in my mind. It was just too heavily influenced by Adam Philips' Brackenwood animations that it lost it's identity and caused much controversy.
CatFat has been around for almost 4 years now and hasn't been influenced by anything infact.. especially not any internet animations such as BlockHead or Foamy, since blockhead wasn't yet around back then and i've only been with NewGrounds for about a year.
CatFat originated from a little orange baloon to kick around, on which i drew a fat cat in speedo's with a body builder pose. i then made ms fin whom he would consistently try to shag and then mr thin who would get pissed at CatFat. It all sort of developed from that until my old buddy told me to make a comic, which i let him co-write but he wasn't any good and didn't show enough dedication or motivation towards it and so we split. From then on, CatFat went down a bad rocky hill until i no longer knew what he was. So i put it off for nearly two years until my friends who were big fans of the comics reminded me of it and demanded more. It opened my eyes to what i had achieved with CatFat and how much i missed the idea. I then went all the way back to start with it. To the root of what was funny about CatFat and what made it good and what didn't. I found that, the real comedy, the real stories, came from the characters personalities and their attitudes towards one another. For about the next year i did no physical work on the CatFat world, instead i would make them real, get inside CatFat's head.
So last summer whilst down cornwall i began to write scripts, developing into stories and found that i had become satisfied with what i had written. It captured CatFat's essence that i had always been searching for.
The concept of an animated CatFat is still extremely daunting for me. Though with it i can realise my dream of what i wanted it to be. The voice, movement, world, interaction is all now available with the touch of the Wacom tablet.
I'm not too bothered whether or not you all like it since it is just what i really want to do.
Well that's it for now...damn....too much writing..

A Theory....

2007-10-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

So apparently the area i live in, Barking & Dagenham, i live in Barking, is the 13th worst place to live in the UK. Woohoo! :) and Newham, neighboring borough, is 3rd worst. Surrey is the 2nd and 3rd best and Edinburgh is the best. So having just found out about this, i now feel it is time to let the public know of my theory to stop it, that i have had for a long time now.
well, basically, NASA or something could just redirect a meteor, big enough to destroy a whole town, and aim it into the dodgy area's destroying all the dodgy people and buildings. Of course it would be made to look like a natural disaster and so will allow regeneration of the corrupt, poisoned land, over many, many centuries. well that's my insane dictating idea, but know this, it would also sort out a bit of the over population issue.
To people whom might complain about my theory ( do not take it seriously, please, don't complain about how evil and cold hearted it is, just take it lightly. Don't worry, valuable people will be spared :))
yeah, well anyway just an idea, for all you know this isn't possible, but fact is you'll never know 'cause you'll probably be blown up before you realise ;D

My first post? wow..

2007-09-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

Heloo and welcome to the pot of ponder and other junk...I know the name sucks, but i can't think of anything else at the moment..damn..

Anyhoo, if your reading this then a) your probably from newgrounds just after witnessing one of my animations, b) Your a friend from myspace, c) i don't know you...

Sooooo, well...i will be blogging with this i guess. The reason this informative page has just moulded into existence at this moment is because you imagined it...no not really, it's because it's the beginning of a new era a new revelation, a new breed of cat.

Yes it has finally happened, CatFat, the reason i started Flash is finally in production. Since late 2004 CatFat has gone through many series of rough drawings on Balloons and papers to successful underground comics to scripting on a notepad, now to Flash on the worldwide web.

I'm assuming, if your here, then you know that i do flash animation. How did CatFat all start? well with a series of 3 balloons actually, CatFat, Mr Thin and Mrs Thin. How could you imagine making a series out of a random personification of balloons you ask? well, i don't know. But people including me, liked the idea and so it became.

At this current moment in time i am drawing the trailer for the series with everything already recorded. Several of the episodes of the series have already been scripted and just waiting for recording. Well i was researching something and decided i might aswell start this now, so by the time you MIGHT be reading this the trailer will probably be out. I say 'might' because i am really unsure at how it will be received.

Anyway, if it happens to be a freak success, than you shall see updates on progress reports of how the episode is shaping up and just read the jibber jabber of crazy unorganized mind.

So look out for my animations on http://www.newgrounds.com/, especially the CatFat trailer that I'm expecting will take only a matter of days. My NewGrounds user name is TheThingy5 you may recall my previous animations such as 'The Myth Of Sisyphus' on the other hand, maybe not..

so you wanna see a little clip of what the trailer is looking like at the moment? well, here's a screen shot!

Oh and if you have just happened to come across this by chance, my names Shaun McGinley.