SexuaLobster

Raw Latex 4 MP4

Here's the Raw Latex 4 mp4 if anyone wants it.

Cheers guys.

Raw Latex Music

New music is a bit thin on the ground for this one.  There's a new variation on the main theme and a new version of LaFonze and Keppler's theme from RL3.

Raw Latex Goofy Version 

LaFonze & Keppler's theme alternate ending 

Raw Latex Theme Extended 

zomg zomg zomg RL4 almost done + Fernando series?

I'm lodged firmly in the buttocks of Raw Latex 4.  And by that I mean that I'm doing all of the annoying stupid chores that I left until last. Will (almost certainly) publish tomorrow night!

After that it's My Mother in Law is a Scorpion, which is already about 40% done.  

So...one more episode of Raw Latex to go.  One more Pleasure Island to go.  My goal is to do them both in the next year....but not immediately.

I've cooled a bit on the A Sensual Encounter song.  I'm wondering if it's top shelf material.  When I've finished Scorpion I'll have done three music videos in a short time so I think I'd like to start another narrative project.  Perhaps a new Bruce Wizard cartoon, or perhaps one of the Fernando comics.  

Fernando and the Pink Floppy Disk of Chaos  (working title) would be a good candidate for animation.  Due to the nature of its inception, its structure is all over the place and some plot elements aren't utilised later and could be edited down, but over all I think it's a surreal, very cool story that could be a great cartoon.

Were I to tackle that, or Fernando and the Orb of Gaia, I could go about it two ways.  I could approach it as a web series, and split them into three.  Alternatively, I could animate them as one glorious cartoon that would probably be around 8-10 minutes long, however to do that I would switch the patreon to monthly because it would take probably 4-5 months.  I have been reluctant to do that so far because I want to retain the freedom to go on holidays and take jobs without feeling like I'm milking money from you guys while I'm doing it.  But for longer projects, it is the only feasible way for me to fund them.  

What do you guys reckon, would you cancel your pledge if I switched it to monthly to work on a large cartoon?  Not saying I'll do it yet, I tend to flip flop wildly on which projects I'll do before I start them.

Quick Update

RL4 is treading water at 95%, I still don't have the final voices yet for two of the characters.  While I wait, I've come pretty far with My Mother in Law is a Scorpion (probably like 40%).  So they may even be finished reasonably close together.... but hopefully not.  I'm really eager to finish RL4.

Also, I'm going to be on a panel at an event hosted by my old uni.   I've never been on a panel before, I look forward to exhibiting my formidable public speaking skills.  And by that I mean probably seizing up with nerves and mumbling quietly while avoiding eye contact.  

I'm supposed to be talking about making a living from online animation.  The event is co-hosted by youtube, so I'm probably going to be expected to encourage people to do what I do.  Although I would always encourage someone to animate a cartoon if they have a desire to do so, I do not feel positive about running a business on youtube, unless you have a way to make minutes of decent content every couple of days.  If it wasn't for you guys on patreon, I would not be able to make the kind of cartoons I make, and it's an open question whether I'd be making anything at all as I can't imagine myself embracing the quantity over quality model.  Even with patreon, I need to take jobs when they come up (the decent ones, anyway).  

So if they ask me about any of that, I'm not going to lie.  I also won't lie about how youtube undermined the ability of anyone who makes short, dense material, either animated or live action, to make a living on their platform by promoting longer videos.  You can still find an audience on Youtube, but you better have ways to earn a living that don't rely on ad revenue.

Finally, I'm working with a local production company on a pitch for a grant from our local funding body, to make a live action series based on my cartoons.  I shouldn't say more than that, but if we're successful (a very big if) we'll be moving pretty quickly on it so I should be able to share info early next year.  It's been really cool working with film professionals on the concept, story world and episode outlines.  If it gets made, it will be a unique series, that's for sure.

Change is in the air for tracksuit guy

GIF of shot 1 from My Mother in Law is a Scorpion.

I thought it might be fun to give tracksuit guy a shiny new tracksuit and put him in a stylish new pad.  Just for this one.  The decor here is influenced by some 80s interior design pictures I found on tumblr.  The phone is ripped wholesale out of my 2012 Ragemelon cartoon (might recolour it).

RL4 isn't finished yet but I thought I'd start on this while I'm waiting for some voices.

Raw Latex 4, Next project(s)

Raw Latex 4 is...like...90% there.  If all goes well I'm aiming for Nov 7-10 ish.  Perhaps a bit sooner.  I'm still missing some voices and need to figure out what to do with music but I've done almost everything else.

I've tried to keep the art style consistent, but I re-watched the first three and what I've done of this one to get a sense of how they fit together and there is certainly a difference between the first episode, which came out May 2013 but which I started way back in September 2012, and the fourth episode.  Four years!  When I finish episode 5 I'd like to compile them together into one cartoon, hopefully it works.

I've been poking and prodding the song I've posted about before, A Sensual Encounter, but I don't think I'll make it my next project at this stage.  I need to know I can actually make the song work before going further with it and at the moment it doesn't.

So, for my next project, I was thinking of making My Mother in Law is a Scorpion.  This idea started as one of Captain Drake's tunes back in early 2013.  I've since written a whole song for it, and unlike with A Sensual Encounter, I'm confident I can make it work.  I will use my self insertion character as the singer (the same guy who sings Calloused Hands and Final Form) rather than Captain Drake.

Some time in the next 12 months, I'd like to make Raw Latex 5, which will finish the series.  I'd also like to make A Sensual Encounter, and perhaps a few more music videos as I've found I'm really enjoying getting back into them after a few years off and the two I've made so far have gone down well.  I'd also like to make Fernando and Orb of Gaia, but I haven't decided if that's wise yet as it is a biiig project (3 episodes, plenty of action).  I feel like I'll gain some legitimacy with regards to starting a new series if I can finish Raw Latex.

A Sensual Encounter....or is it?

I've got two versions of the same song here:

Version1

Version 2

The lyrics were written via the Greasytales facebook page, the same method used for Calloused Hands and Final Form.

I like the song and I'd like to animate it.  I'm thinking Gooseman and Fernando will sing it, there will be some staring into sunsets, pagan rituals, etc.

I made version 1 first, but I felt I'd set the pitch too high for my voice and it sounds stretched, so I made a second version that's 4 semitones lower.  The second version is twice as long.  

Each one has elements I prefer.  I like how the song sounds 4 semitones lower, but I needed to play the chords in different places on the fret board so the guitar doesn't have the same rising appeal (hard to put in to words, perhaps you can hear what I mean).  Each one has lines of vocals that aren't quite there and would need to be redone.

So I'm wondering which one I should go with.  Which one is better do you think?  

Final Form

Final Form is finished!

Here's the ad free version.

And here's the regular version if you'd like to share it.

Thanks again for supporting one of my dubious projects. If you didn't catch my previous posts, this came from a lyrical collaboration on the Greasytales facebook page.  

I've started a new track collaborating using the same method. It's a love song sung by Gooseman. I pretty much have to start from scratch with it because I set the pitch too high and my singing is too strained.  You can listen to the work in progress here.  I'm not sure if I'll animate it yet (it will be around 1:20 when done, there's a whole second half I haven't done yet.)

Now to finally finish Raw Latex 4!

Final Form track

Hey guys,

Here's a Final Form mp3

And also Calloused Hands if anyone wants it.

Final Form HD mp4 download

Hey guys, here's the Final Form video.

And here's Calloused Hands in case you want it!

Final Form update

I'm thinking of calling it "Final Form".  Picking titles is sometimes difficult because you've got to think about something that a) is a good title that represents the cartoon b) doesn't give too much away, and c)is something people will click on.  Some of the title suggestions I've gotten tick A and B but not C.  I also considered calling it "Anime", "Anime Made Me" or "The Anime Song", all of which fulfill item C but not so much A.  Final Form ticks all the boxes for me.

The first part of the cartoon takes place in a dark room, which is not my favourite environment.  I've developed a technique for painting rooms where I use vectors for the lines and paint the rest in Manga Studio.  This is because I'm not very good at painting edges, nor am I good at determining perspective in Manga Studio, where you cannot draw outside of the stage.  Illustrator is particularly good at drawing in perspective because it has a gigantic stage which allows you to find those distant vanishing points.  Flash is a bit crap at this because it's stage size does not extend very far.

The frame above depicts a young me watching Dragon Ball Z.  I didn't actually start watching DBZ until I was 16 but the line is "Anime made me the man I am today" so it's more effective to start from a younger age.  Anime was actually very difficult to access when I was a child, the very first films I saw were Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Ninja Scroll, age 12.  Then Neon Genesis Evangelion was on TV late at night at one point, that was pretty much it until DBZ was aired in the morning.  

I'll finish the assets for the dark room shots today and tomorrow and then its all explosions, panty sniffing and sailor suit J-pop from there. Hooooo!

Btw if you missed my last post and don't know what I'm on about, I'm animating a cartoon to go with this track.  The track is still a work in progress.

New Music Video

So I worked on Raw Latex 4 a little more after finishing Calloused Hands, and the assets are like 99% done.  Still haven't done any audio!

But I'm going to put it aside again to make another music cartoon for this song.  

(This is a version without the spoken words and heavy breathing at the end.  The translation of the Japanese I'm butchering is "I glide my penis slowly with confidence in your ear".  I haven't decided whether to include that or not yet, opinions welcome.)

It was written the same way as Calloused Hands, on the Greasytales Facebook page.  This is proving to be a great writing method, and I haven't been this musically
active for years!

I would like to count this one as a patreon project.  I'm not certain how long but I think it will take longer than Calloused Hands did, I'd like the action part in the middle to frenetic and I'd like to animate a full band for the last part.

I haven't quite decided what to call the song yet either.  Any suggestions?

Calloused Hands

Here's my first music video in a while: Calloused Hands.  

If you didn’t see my last post, this was a collaboration I ran on the facebook page.  I’m not treating it as a “patreon project”, for which I will activate the arcane gears
inside Patreon (in other words, no one will be charged for this).  I feel like this is too small a project.

I intended to see what I could do in 7 days, but it ended up taking 12.  That’s not because I couldn’t have done something adequate in 7 days, it’s more that once I’d started I felt like it was worth the extra time.  You can see the loose edges in places (but don’t go looking!). I think I learned a fair bit about painting environments from this project as well.

In the past a lack of good material has prevented me from making music videos.  I so seldom seem to have a song in mind that I feel strongly enough about to spend the necessary time on.  The music cartoons that I do make always seem to do better than my regular cartoons, so if I can turn out more half decent songs using this collaboration method I’d like to make more music cartoons.  We'll see!

HD Cartoon Compilation

Here's all the toons in HD if anyone wants to download them (I'm making this list to repost occasionally for newer patrons).

Piccolo: Attorney at Law

Sweet Sweet Goo

Pleasure Island 5

Raw Latex 3

Let's go Clubbing!

Meth Orcs

Moancore

And here's all the bandcamp tracks - it's missing the Pleasure Island 5 sound track but that is in this compilation.

Patreon Cartoon Music Compilation

It occurred to me that it would be awkward for people to go through the posts and find them, so I made a compilation of all the music I've made for the seven Patreon cartoons.  

And just so they're at the top of the post feed again, here's the older tracks:

SexuaLobster's Hot Release

Side project: Calloused Hands

I'm taking a break from Raw Latex 4 to make a short cartoon for this song (still a work in progress).

On a whim I asked people on the facebook page for the first line of a song for me to make music to.  Now I'm setting myself an additional challenge to make a quick music video.  Like, 5 or 6 days quick (not 5 or 6 weeks).  It won't be a patreon project, it will be something fast and dirty with a loose style.

Raw Latex Update

Welcome to the Pickleverse

That is the very first shot from Raw Latex 4 - I'm pretty pleased with the effect of the pickle layers as the camera moves forwards, it took a while because they're all painted rather than vector coloured like the characters.

Raw Latex 4 is coming along nicely.  I've been incredibly slack with the audio, in fact there is none at all yet, but the character assets are mostly done.  It's better to have the audio done as early as possible, preferably at animatic stage...but then...sometimes...I just don't.

On another topic, the comic collab is still going on either here or here.  I slowed down a bit on it because I wasn't getting enough done on Raw Latex but it's still happening.

Raaaaawww Latex

Hey guys, a quick post to say that the results are dead even with Pleasure Island 6 and Raw Latex 4 both with 65 votes.  I've started on Raw Latex, for the simple reason that I just made a Fernando & Gooseman cartoon  and the variety would be nice.  Four Horsemen a very close third with 50 votes, Fernando and the Orb of Gaia with 42 votes.

Next Project Poll!

GET OUT AND VOTE

It's time to find out what I've got concealed in my trench coat.  Put another, clearer way, it's time to vote on the next cartoon.

The poll is only for you guys.  Multiple selections enabled.  Here are the options:

The Four Horsemen: Famine & Son. Famine's old girlfriend wants to go on a holiday and needs Famine to take care of their son, who he didn't know about. 

Ragemelon: The Pickle of Prophecy.  The two episodes I made for the Happy Hour channel in 2013 (1 2) will go up on my channel soon.  Ragemelon and Bananacles and a coupla other freaks must defeat the evil Admiral Melon who is seeking to conquer the mud farms so he can unearth the Pickle of Prophecy.  Two episodes needed to finish this tale.

Raw Latex 4: Can Dick & Virginia thwart the Bonerhead gang’s plans to strap a strap-on to the moon?  2 Raw Latex episodes needed to finish the series. 

Pleasure Island 6: The Yeasty Aroma of Victory -  Fernando’s been eaten by a squid/duck hybrid, and Gooseman’s mildly perturbed. The stakes are pretty low, and this series needs one more episode to put it out of its misery.

Mongoose Man –An old comic character who so far has made only two small appearances in cartoons. This would tell his origin story and face him off against his first enemy.  Could be the start of a series, could also be a standalone story.

Bruce Wizard: Magic Trick – Bruce wigs out while teaching a class and it’s up to Jackson to convince Bruce life is worth living.

The Glistening Orbs – The first episode of a story based on my friends and my role playing campaign. Barrels of grease are going missing all over the city!  A group of total wackjobs are let out of prison and offered freedom if they can apprehend the thieves.  If you really liked Meth Orcs, perhaps this is for you.

And finally: Fernando and the Orb of Gaia.  Originally a collaborative comic, and some of you may have seen the illustrated audiobook, this would be a significantly expanded version of the story broken into three episodes. Fernando uncovers the Orb of Gaia and confronts an old girlfriend, who is being impersonated by Fernando's family's ancient enemy.  Tension and arousal abounds!

Comic collab

Hey guys,

Firstly, I finally made a facebook page.

Secondly I started a new comic collab.  You can contribute or just check it out at either the facebook  page or, if you don't do facebook, here.

Next project(s)

In the last couple of posts I wrote a little bit about the work project I've been on these past few months. It kinda disintegrated a few weeks ago which allowed me to finish Moancore.

It has resumed, and once again I am not really sure how long it will go for which makes it difficult to plan my own projects.

Unfortunately all of the projects I'd like to do are quite large, so I'm unsure how best to go about doing them, which is why I don't feel like I can turn down this work.  I know that I haven't had a patron vote in a while, so I should do that again soon.

Another org has been asking me for ideas to represent and to sell on to media companies interested in commissioning series, but they are only looking for ideas to buy wholesale, including all intellectual property.  If they sell anything I'd have a hand in making them but wouldn't be doing most of it.

I gave them an old idea that I never animated. I don't feel like I can sell any of the ideas or characters that matter to me. Fernando & co. are not for sale, although I would make a series for an org if they commissioned it but didn't want to own the IP. That looked like  it was going to happen late last year but then the org changed their mind, saying it was "too male for our mandate". Which is fair enough I guess!

Sometimes I don't think I have the capacity to come up with something that is mainstream popular, my tastes are too marginal and i'm too disconnected from and alienated by popular culture.

So anyway, what next? I've started working on Mongoose Man (pictured is a frame from Mongoose Man's very short 2007 adventure), a cartoon based on some comics my friends and I drew years ago. He appeared in quite a few comics but has only ever appeared in cartoons twice.  I think he's really easy to write for, so future episodes would be plausible if the first one did well.

I've been writing a new fantasy series based on my friend's and my D&D adventures, I want to animate the first episode to see if the idea works and if people like it. I don't have a title for it yet.

I'd like to animate any of the three Fernando comic collabs from 2014 (1 2 3). They're all massive of course.

And then there's Raw Latex, which could have one monster episode or two shorter ones to finish the series.

If you are a new patron, hello and welcome!  

Here is the $5 reward and $10 reward links.  They get buried in the feed so I like to post them at the top occasionally.

Moancore for patrons!

Wowsers!  Finally! 

Watch MOANCORE 

It was cool to return to Manwhore Industries, though my style has changed a little in the last 18 months so it looks a bit different to the 2014 cartoons.

The first half of this one (minus the Golden Girls part) was going to be the last episode of Manwhore Industries way back when.  The second half of that idea involved Fernando’s father dropping by and punishing him for making such sexual music.  It was pretty crap so I binned it!

That’s why Fernando’s father pops up in episode 3 and never reappears.  I did intend to bring him back but it hasn't happened yet.

Thanks again, and I hope you guys like it!

Moancore video

Moancore video!  Cheers, guys.

Moancore tunes

Enter the Moan

Open Mic Night

Quest of the Manwhore (Sad and Slow)

Release Your Moan

The music for this one was a struggle, but rewarding.  I think there's about six half finished tracks I abandoned when it became clear they didn't work.

Crowd scene + Moancore sample

I've been working on the Moancore sound.  I've shared a snippet of Moancore before but this time I'm a lot closer to what I had in mind.  Harken to my sultry mating cry!

I've never actually portrayed Fernando at a gig before (outside of the greasy tales 3 comic where Fernando performs to rapturous applause inside an inflatable sky phallus/palace).  This is not a typical crowd though, but explaining the context here would be a minor spoiler.  Anyways it's the biggest crowd scene I've drawn.  Drawing crowds can be tough because if you half-ass it I think it can drop the audience out of the story a little.  That is my experience as a viewer anyway.  

This was inspired by a recent foray to a local open mic night which was much less well attended than the one I've drawn.  It was an overwhelmingly male affair, and almost everyone was there to perform rather than watch.  The audience/performers didn't look quite as sad and desperate as the people I've drawn here, with several notable exceptions.  They weren't a supportive audience for one another, the whole thing was pretty flaccid.

uuuupdate

Hey guys, here's an update on my activities.

The job I wrote about in my last post is a little over half over. It's going generally well. I'm not sure yet whether I'll want to publicly link myself to it, I've asked to not be credited, as it is..... well i'm not sure how it's going to turn out. I'm directing it and doing all of the character assets (no writing, backgrounds, music, voice acting etc). One thing I will say is that after this much time away from my own projects I am feeling creatively recharged and when this thing is over I will be ready for some sweet action. You can interpret that any way you like.

I have submitted not one but two grant applications to Screen Australia, my local funding body. One is for a 30-35 minute cartoon set on Pleasure Island called Fernando and the Phallus of Glycon. The other is a smaller one for an animated version of Fernando and the Orb of Gaia. I'd rate my chances of getting the first one as very low and my chances of getting the second one as regular low. The first one is gigantic and probably a lost cause if I don't get the grant. If unsuccessful with the second grant, I think I will try to fund Fernando and the Orb of Gaia through patron ie with your help.  I think it's an amazing story and worthy of cartoonifying.  (If you're not familiar with it, it's a collaborative comic written by viewers from 2014.  The animation would be significantly expanded and different in places.)

I have found some time while on this job to work on Moancore, and it's starting to look pretty good in places. I'd say it's about 2/3 there. I'll probably need 2 weeks to finish it once I'm free again.

To new patrons, hello, welcome and thanks for making a pledge! Here is the $5 reward and $10 reward

for anyone who is new or has missed them, as they tend to get buried in the feed somewhat.

Work Hiatus

Hey guys, I'm going to have to put Moancore aside for a while to work on a job that's come up.  It's a little hazy when the end point of the project is at this time, probably looking at 2-3 months.

I'd like to be able to turn it down (and almost did) but after a year of almost entirely animating patron funded projects, the finances are looking a little weak.  

The killer for me has been project length.  I aimed to do a project per month when I started on patreon, but so far I've only managed that feat once (Meth Orcs).  I tried really hard to think of projects that were achievable in a month or so, and I have a few that are the right size, but I'm not enthusiastic about any of them!  I'm attracted to the longer things with the more interesting stories, as always.  I did consider switching the patreon to monthly instead of per cartoon, but then I'd feel weird about taking jobs and going on holidays.

Thanks for all of your support, stick with me and when I come back I will be in a better position to keep doing this!

Mo' Moans

For now I'm sticking with Moancore as the title over Groancore.  I was very much persuaded by the argument that a groan is a sound of pain, whereas a moan is a sound of pleasure.  So perhaps Moancore and Groancore could operate as dual genres, Fernando is all about the moans whereas Gooseman can provide the groans.  But overall, pleasure should be dominant in the sound.  Honourable mentions: Greasepunk, Greasecore, and Squidhunting Whorecore.

I'm kind of tempted to call the film Whorecore  because I think that will probably get the most clicks.  I'll have to think about that.  The music does come from a company called "Manwhore Industries" after all so it's not tenuous.

My main reason for posting is to share the above picture.  The climax of the cartoon takes place at an open mic night, and I want to do something interesting with stage lighting.  Still to come: light beams, glow effects and dust particles.  

After I finished Manwhore Industries in February 2015, I needed to have a rest from the world of Fernando and Gooseman and it was just under 7 months before the next project, Sweet Sweet Goo.

I feel really motivated to resume their stories at the moment.  I'm applying for another grant (Manwhore Industries came about after receiving a grant from Screen Australia and Google).  The grant on offer is for long form projects of at least 30 minutes, and I've written a 30-35 minute script for a cartoon set on Pleasure Island.  There are only three grants on offer and I'm betting a lot of big names in the Australian youtube scene (if you can call it that) will be applying, so my chances are slim.   In the likely event of failure, perhaps down the road I can kickstart it.   I think it's some of my best writing!

Back in the realm of the possible, I've been thinking of animating Fernando and the Orb of Gaia (albeit a significantly expanded form, making a three part series) and this untitled beauty (also in the form of a three part series.)

Lastly, I agreed to work on a series for a US site a while back (sadly my income has been low since starting crowd funding, so I can't afford to turn down decent paying work when it comes around).  For 2 months or so the project didn't look it was going to happen, but now it does.  So I will probably need to put Moancore on the backburner, for a few weeks at least (or possibly longer).   I will update further if this actually happens.

Moancore or Groancore?

Which is a more suitable name for this style of music, Moancore or Groancore?

*edit* 

Thanks for the responses guys! Right now I think I will stick with Moancore over Groancore because a moan is a pleasure sound whereas a groan is a pain sound. Honourable mention: Squidhunting Whorecore, Greasepunk, Greasecore.

Next Project... MOANCORE

Fernando is back, but it's not Pleasure Island 6!

It's a standalone Manwhore Industries story.  It's shaping up to be around 2:30 in length.

Without giving too much away, Moancore will feature COPIOUS MOANING.

Although, I might change the title to Groancore, either would work.