The Cuphead Show premiering February 18 on Netflix!

 Here's the most recent trailer for The Cuphead Show with many shots that I tweaked making it into the trailer and a scene I got to animate at the end with the boys walking and singing! Can't wait for the world to see it.

Still Kickin'

 HEY! Long time no see. I'm still alive, still kickin'. Anyway not much has happened since I'm still on The Cuphead Show at Netflix BUT the movie I worked on came out a few months ago on Netflix AND a preview for The Cuphead Show was released a few months back. Here they are:

Arlo The Alligator Boy

This was the last project I worked on while at Titmouse and it was my first feature film! Go check it out on Netflix!

The Cuphead Show! w/ Wayne Brady as King Dice

And here's a short clip of The Cuphead Show revealing Wayne Brady as King Dice! I did some minor animation tweaks for several of those scenes and the spotlight scene with the characters on the balcony was probably my third assignment?? Anyway enjoy that clip for now as there is still not revealed release date yet, so stay tuned for that!

Cheers for now!

Animaniacs is now available on Hulu!

 Animaniacs is now available on Hulu! As for Canada, it's currently airing on Teletoon! It's such a great honour to have worked on such an iconic show that had a tremendous influence on me growing up. Seeing my name there in front of the water tower is like a dream come true for younger Marco. I hope you all enjoy the show as much as I did working on it.

In other news, here's my first feature film I got to work on this past summer! Arlo the Alligator Boy was announced and will premiere on Netflix in 2021! 

Netflix Animation

This past week was my first week at my new gig! I'm VERY excited to work with The Cuphead Show team as an in house animator at Netflix!!! It's so wonderful being reunited with some familiar characters! The Cuphead game was my first job in animation and I am so grateful I get a chance to work with this property again. It holds a very special place in my heart. So here's my Cup-sona, MugMarco, I made in 2015 when I interned at Studio MDHR reunited with an old friend.

Long time no update!

 I WAS BUSY WITH WORK AND LIFE. But now that I've got a massive amount of free time and there seems to have been proper scheduled releases of stuff I worked on I can finally post about it.

Cleopatra in Space

Cleopatra in Space is finally available but only in the States and parts of Asia where it first premiered late 2019. Not much luck for us Canadians who worked on it. I had the opportunity to work on this from summer 2018 - summer 2019! If you have a chance to watch it take a gander! I might be posting animation of it on my Instagram, I have posted only 2 so far.

Animaniacs

I had the wonderful chance to work on Animaniacs and it was a dream come true. Animaniacs was one of my favourite childhood cartoons and it made a massive impact on me and my interest on animation growing up. I referenced it SO MUCH during school as well, going frame by frame on my own time during school amazed by how fun animation was. I referenced it a lot making my thesis! Working on a heavy traditional animated show was also another dream come true. It's slowly been making a comeback and it felt so good flexing my traditional animation skills again. The series is set to premiere on Hulu on November 20, 2020! Tough luck again to us Canadians!

A God's Purpose

For this year's 5 Second Day at Titmouse I helped out with Gary Ye's bonkers short, "A God's Purpose"! I always enjoyed Gary's ideas since school and getting a chance to work on a short with him was really fun! I only had 2 scenes at 1:25 with the over the shoulder shot and the leg coming in as well as the scene following it with the melting pug.

Archibald's Next Big Thing Now Available on Netflix!

Archibald's Next Big thing is now available on Netflix! I only worked on this production for a little bit last year but it was real fun while I was on it! I only worked on 2 episodes and they're both in Episode 2! So go check it out now!

Happy Canada Day!

No Cuttin' Corners!

Did some UmJammer Lammy fan art the other week because I was listening to its soundtrack at work all week.

Leave it to MilkCan!

5 Second Day 2019 - POW!

For this year's Titmouse 5 Second Day I participated in a collaboration with 5 other artists at my studio! Organized my Jordan Theberge, we all got together to create an exquisite corpse animation. Here it is called POW!

Mine's the second part with the space cadet! The design for the character was a reuse from a quick collab I did with Koko Chou two years ago. You can check out the collab here:

https://twitter.com/_sbko_/status/929266490330640385

Quick colour scheme I made 2 years ago.

Koko Chou's interpretation of our Space Cadet!

I ended up adding a portal gun to his design because when I agreed to do the film the first idea that came to mind was: PORTALS. I don't know why, other than the fact that it's my most favourite game ever. I guess I'm always thinking with portals (I'm sorry). After the idea with portals I didn't have enough time to create a new character so I whipped up an old design I made that I never had the chance to finish animating. Minor tweaks to the little kid such as his limb colour because it would blend with the black background and minor simplifications to get the animation and clean up done in a week. 

Yes his own portal gun design was a reference to the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. Let's just say this was my homage to my favourite game. I was going to make the portals orange and blue like the game but that would have been too much info going on in the screen in a short amount of time and he was already orange, so I didn't want any confusion with the colours.

Also here's some rough animation because I always love showing progress work!

The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants Season 2 is Now Streaming!

Captain Underpants season 2 is out!!! This is the season that I got to work on a lot unlike the first season where I only worked on 1 episode with only 4 short shots haha. The time I was on this show was fun as it too was cartoony and had a bunch of ridiculous and fun posing. As I continued working on it I became more comfortable with the animation style of the show and began to animate a ton of scenes that I ended up liking a lot! 

Hopefully I can gather all my scenes that I like and compile them together into a video sometime soon. I also want to do it with my Home scenes as well so I'll try and get working on those compilations pronto! Anyway enjoy the new EPIC season of Captain Underpants!

Titmas 2018

For this year's Titmouse Secret Santa Exchange my person requested a llama with a poncho so here it is!

UPDATE

WOWZERS!

Haven't updated in a loooooong time. I've been super busy with work and life that I just kept forgetting to post when these stuff released. So here's a rundown of what you missed! Most are now available on Netflix or will be soon!

Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh Season 4

The first gig I had at Titmouse!! It was such a fun and enjoyable show that I do miss it sometimes because of how wild and wacky you can get with those characters and animating them. Googling Home season 4 brought up that first screenshot which is a scene I did haha!

The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants

Captain Underpants also released during this past summer and is also available on Netflix! This was also a fun show to work on! I loved the characters and the crazy villains the show had, animating them was a blast.

Archibald's Next Big Thing

Just recently announced, Archibald will be coming out soon in 2019! It's an absolutely adorable show based on a children book by Buster Bluth Tony Hale. My time spent on this show was brief but boy did I enjoy my time on it (half the reason was because it's animated in ToonBoom). The characters are fun and it reminds me a lot of cartoons from the 90's that weren't grand in scope in terms of storytelling. Look forward to it! Here's a quick rundown of the show from the Deadline article that announced it:

Archibald's Next Big Thing - 2019: Inspired by the children's book from Tony Hale, Tony Biaggne, and Victor Huckabee, the show follows the adventures of Archibald Strutter, a chicken who "yes-ands" his way thru life. Though living in the moment often leads him astray, Archibald always finds his way back home. Executive produced by Hale, Archibald's Next Big Thing emphasizes the importance of being present and celebrating the journey, not just the destination.

***

There you have it! I am currently still working at Titmouse in Vancouver and still animating my little heart out on a cool new project. I don't want to say I'll update more frequently because I know I can't keep the promise. BUT I can guarantee that I will still be updating here from time to time, it's just a tad hard with work things since I need to wait for things to be announced/go online in order for me to talk about them or show them off. So when things like that DO happen, I'll make sure to update as soon as possible, unlike this post which was several months late. Don't worry, I'm still kickin'!

Dilemma + Sheridan and Screen Composers Guild of Canada Workshop Performance

If you're not busy this Saturday April 7, 2018 you can go check out this event taking place at Sheridan College in Oakville where they will be having a 13-piece jazz ensemble do live recording of custom compositions created specifically for my thesis film! I am honoured and grateful to have my film selected for this event. I'm super excited for this and I'm really bummed out by the fact that I'm all the way in Vancouver and won't be able to attend. I can't wait to hear what they came up with! 

https://www.sheridancollege.ca/news-and-events/events/sheridan-college-and-screen-composers-guild-of-canada-workshop-performance

Cuphead @ The Annies and Video Game Awards

Cuphead's getting some recognition!!! 

For the 45th Annie Awards Cuphead will be the recipient of this year's 'Special Achievement Award'!!!! Which according to their website is:

An Annie Award for Special Achievement in Animation is given to an individual, individuals, or a company for unique and outstanding achievement in animation not recognized by in other Annie Award categories. This special award is given by the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood, by a unanimous vote, when such recognition is deemed desirable. 

This is freaking amazing!! Holy cow!!! 2 animators who worked on the game, Hanna Abi-Hanna and Tina Nawrocki, are also nominated for Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in a Video Game! Super cool!!

At 2017 Game Awards, Cuphead was nominated for 5 categories and won 3! Cuphead received Best Independant Game, Best Art Direction, and Best Debut Indie Game!! It was also nominated for Best Score/Soundtrack and Best Action Game.

https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/939212959812907008

Even Justin Trudeau went out the way to congratulate the team! I always told people who were on the fence on buying the game to get it so they can "support Canadian content!" A lot of people tend to forget that it is!

***

This is insanely amazing to see Cuphead receiving so much attention and praise! The creators and those who worked on it put so much passion into it that I can't help but be so happy for them to see their dream project succeed. Cuphead is still continuing to pop up on other website's Game of The Year Awards lists it's exciting! 

Titmouse Secret Santa Drawing Exchange!

At work we did a Secret Santa drawing exchange and the person I received asked for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so here's what I gave him! He like it! Also really awesome to hear other people in the studio enjoyed it as well.

Home For The Holidays

Ever since joining Titmouse I've had the wonderful opportunity to join the Home team!

Here's a Christmas special that I had the chance to work on! First scene after the establishing shot is mine. So cool to see it together! That's one off the animation bucket list: Work on a Christmas special.

Working on Home has been super cool and I appreciated it a lot to be put specifically on this show for my talents due to how cartoony it is! We can really put a lot of fun into the acting and have the freedom to push the poses as far as we can. Really glad to be on a show that doesn't rely on the storyboards entirely and gives the animators actual freedom to act beyond what is provided to us. I've learned a lot since being on the show and I am very grateful to be on it. Look forward to the Christmas special this December 1st on Netflix!

*** UPDATE ***

NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM ON NETLIX!

Here's a fun sequence of Ben Schwartz rapping about Hanukkah with a bunch of scenes I got to do! From 2:16 - 2:25 are a chunk that are mine as well as the scenes where he's fat at the end 2:52 - 2:59. I also have a couple of short scenes sprinkled throughout the sequence. It was fun to do! I still have to try out latkes...

Cuphead is available now!!

Cuphead is available now! The game was my first animation gig and I had the wonderful opportunity to work on it briefly 2 years ago! Go buy it and play it! The team put a lot of passion and hard work and I hope you enjoy it for its challenging gameplay and wonderful art and animation.

Available on Xbox One, Windows 10 Store, Steam, Humble Bundle, and GoG!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/268910/Cuphead/

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/cuphead

https://www.gog.com/game/cuphead

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/cuphead/9njrx71m5x9p

Dilemma

Here it is! My thesis film! The film that consumed my entire life for 8 months and I enjoyed every minute of it. I put a lot of work into the film and I I hope you enjoy it and take something away from it.

DILEMMA

Here are links to posts about the process and a concept art dump:

IDEA DEVELOPMENT

ART

Dilemma - Idea Development

I had the concept for the film at the end of first year/early second year. Just the look of it popped into my head: A round cartoon character juxtaposed with straight and edgy abstract shapes. That's what I wanted my film to look like. The image was there but the full idea wasn't. 

At the beginning of the second half of second year I quickly drew a concept drawing out since I didn't want the image I had in my head to go away. So here's that drawing from 2ish years ago!

Even that early on I already knew what I wanted in my thesis film. 5 things:

1 - Cartoon animation

     Because I love it and have fun doing it.

2 - Motion graphics and moving shapes  

     Because I love graphic design.

3 - Music based (specifically big band) 

     Because I like old music and big band fits with cartoon animation acting as sound effects.

4 - No layout 

     Because I'm not good at it.

That's it! I wanted my film to be about everything I enjoy and I wanted it to play to my strengths. I didn't want to spend time on things I didn't like and things I wasn't particularly good at. My thought was that if I spent time on something I'm not good at, that is time away from improving on something that I want to be better at. I also wanted it to be 1 minute since during industry day they only show 1 minute of our films during the screening. I wanted a whole product on the screen and I also didn't want to overwork myself. 1 minute was already a ton of work for this film and I would have ripped my hair out if I did it any longer.

I also wanted to incorporate a bit of fine art into it because in the end I have a huge passion for art. When I saw Michel Gagne's Sensology had imagery that resembled Wassily Kandinsky's work, I had a direction I wanted to take it to. Other works I referenced were iPod silhouette commercials, Day & Night by Pixar, Carnival of Animals from Fantasia 2000, The Dot and Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics by Chuck Jones, UPA, Fleischer Bros., Piet Mondrian, Picasso, Saul Bass, and more that I probably missed. 

Here are some stuff I made in 3rd year. Quick doodles that I made in order to get the idea across.

Although Kandinsky was my first idea, I experimented with boards and sketches with much more basic shapes. A lot of people suggested I simplify things and choose the basic shapes to make the workload a little easier for myself since I was already planning to fully animate characters for the total 1 minute. Which was a smart suggestion since in the end the workload I had was already enough and challenging for me. But I still think about how my film would have turned out with more elaborate Kandinsky style effects.

Here is the first image I made that incorporated the idea I had of using flat shapes to suggest perspective and only when placing the character in it would it give context. I created a rough storyboard sequence in 3rd year using this concept and my instructor suggested I take that idea further.

Progress Reel

Here's my progress reel! I locked down my storyboards by end of September and started animating in October. Other classes got in the way so full on animating didn't start until January to very early March. Clean up took the whole month of March and colouring was a breeze on Toonboom which took 3 days. My original plan was to finish in March but I took into account delays and revisions. I still managed to finish several weeks early! I also never pulled any all nighters and only worked at school from 9am - 9pm and took weekends off! I had to come in on weekends a few times during clean up, but apart from that I had a very healthy lifestyle in fourth year compared to my other three years. I felt great!

A few of my friends kept asking about how I time manage well. Here's the secret: JUST WORK ON YOUR FILM. Don't get side tracked. Fourth year was deceiving with all the "free time" you have with less classes, I just spent most of that working but still took time to have fun. So to any upcoming fourth years working on their thesis films and are reading this: work on your film as much as you can. Lock down your boards as soon as possible. Aim for something manageable and to your strengths. And most importantly sleep. Don't work tired, it will just make the work you output worse. Good luck!

Dilemma - Concept Art Dump

Some art I made during the process of making the film! I'm just going to dump them all here:

Original Dilemma title design by my good friend Juan Munoz! Really great but I felt it was too serious and didn't convey the fun and energy of my film. I really liked the colour choices and the placement of shapes a lot though and wanted to keep that. The final title design is by me taking inspiration from old UPA cartoons whenever they used type in their films as well as old cartoon episode title cards. 

Some colour schemes and images that I referenced for them. I referenced a lot of Rothko's paintings for colour schemes. 

Some super early thumbnails playing around with colour and composition. The large orange and yellow one was an attempt to see the least number of colours to create a space, in this case a down shot of a room.

Colour Script

Making the colour script was difficult! Certain colours needed to seep into the next sequence but each sequence needed to have a different mood. There are 1 or 2 moments in the music and timing that allowed me to cheat and change the colours in an instant. I wanted primary colours at the end due to their abundant use in minimalist paintings but I didn't want one of the three colours to just appear out of nowhere in the end. So I decided to make the first four sequences focus on one primary colour and transition into the next. 

Here are some old in progress colour scripts:

Here's the only layout that I had to do and I needed to get it right. I looked into that Gobelin film, Stewpot Rhapsody as inspiration. I needed Art to fit into the world and also be a contrast to the clean flat painting in order for it to stand out. I ended up picking a the one with the least noise since I wanted to audience to focus more on Art and Dilemma. I was close to choosing the second but the frame took attention away from the characters.

I have posted a lot about the character design process of Art, but here's one of the (spoiler) second character that appears at the end. His name is Intrigue and rather than base it off a question mark ?, I wanted this character to be based off an exclamation point ! Even though he's there for a very short time I imagined his personality is that of genuine interest in contrast to Art who was curious. 

Animation Tests

Here are some animation tests I did very early on while I was still storyboarding. I wanted to make sure I was able to manipulate the characters and shapes in a way I imagined. I also made it as a means to test character timing and emoting basic shapes.

Intrigue

I needed a character that fit in with Art's design but still be different in order to contrast him. All Intrigue's shapes and gestures, from his arms to his feet, are based off thin triangles and circles to mimic the exclamation point.