Backgrounds in cartoons

Ever since I can remember, I've always loved watching Looney Tunes. Actually, I was an animation buff all my life and still am to this day (I don't buy movies or tv shows on DVDs. I buy animation). But I was never into the backgrounds.

Even when I was trying to get into the animation business, I never understood why anyone would want to be a background artist (how ignorant I was!).

But very recently, I've begun to truly appreciate backgrounds in cartoons. In particular those of Looney Tunes (and Merrie Melodies).

Below are some screen grabs from the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4 DVD box set I recently devoured. Now the unusual thing is, I am not a particularly big fan of the later stuff (not that they are bad, it's just that after seeing the golden age stuff from the 40s, the later era just no longer compared) and I never was a fan of Speedy Gonzales.

You can imagine how thrilled I was to find that disc 3 of the set is exclusively Speedy cartoons. I watched them anyway because there was a cartoon featuring both Speedy, Sylvester, Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner that I haven't seen before but wanted to see. So I skimmed through all the cartoons-- good thing I did. I really love the backgrounds on these Speedy Gonzales cartoons!

The colours, the bold brush strokes, the sharp angles-- love them!

This series come from The Pied Piper of Guadalupe. I like how the houses were drawn with the silhouettes of the trees or telephones (whatever they are) in front of them.
This was a particularly difficult screengrab to get because I was using VLC to do it and also the scen moved fast. But I swear this is a Dali scene.
This was also a difficult screengrab. VLC makes it too hard to get the right spot and I couldn't pause frame by frame. Anyway, the camera follows the barrel as it rolls down the stairs while you see the rooftops and side of the houses scroll upward. I don't know if I am explaining i tright. I'm sure someone illegally put this cartoon on YouTube somewhere.
I like the composition and depth of field in this one.

The next series of grabs come from Nuts and Volts. I was struck by the walls. How did the background artist create that effect with the blue and white paint? It looks a lot better on my tv than here in a screengrab, but I was wondering if I could achieve the same effect on my own walls!

This next one comes from Pancho's Hideaway. I love the title card! Yes it's plain with just red and black outline but I like the strokes. I noticed that the redness came out a lot different when I made the grab and then of course even more different once I made a jpg out of it (and even worse when Blogspot made a smaller jpg).
Again, the screengrab and saving it as a jog doesn't do the colours justice but the thick paint strokes really made me want to achieve the same result on my own walls. Imagine, living in a cartoon!
Again about the thick brush strokes but I like how well the different shades of green work together.
These come from A-Haunting We Will Go. The blues and shadows really struck me. Hm... seems to be a lot of monochromatism (is that the proper art term? Is that even a word?) in all these cartoons.

You can say that I am seeing a little too much in these things but I thought it was a great combination (for lack of a better term) of colour schemes to use between the blue outside and green inside of the Witch Hazel's house.

Last but not least, Mexican Boarders.
You gotta love that angle.




I'm always the first to give credit where credit is due even though it's pretty obvious that I did NOT in no way create the above drawings. Yes, Warner Bros. laywers, everyone KNOWS they are copyright Warner Bros and all patent pending etc. etc. etc. Like I said, they all came from the fantastic Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4 which you can easily buy all over the place (amazon, Chapters, Best Buy, HMV, you name it). So buy them so the lawyers will be happy.

Just realized I wrote screengrab instead of the obviously proper framegrab.

Sennelier (soft) pastels

About a month ago, I had set my sights on eBay to find a box of beautiful Sennelier oil pastels. I read about these before as being co-invented (well, not really invented, maybe developed? Do a search and you'll get the proper details) by Picasso and a nice man named, well, Sennelier (unless I got my facts mixed up).

As my luck would have it, these are hard to find where I live (and I'm too lazy to drive around Toronto checking each and every art supply store) so they can only be imported from France. or, if I didn't mind, from someone in the US. I don't like having to pay duty tax so I checked eBay periodically looking for someone in Canada.

So about a month ago, I found the best price ever! "Only" 60 bucks for a box of 80 half-sticks of soft pastels. These things go for over 200 bucks. I thought it was too good to be true but it really was. Long story short: I got the box and was immediately disheartened. CHALK PASTELS??

I checked the auction and yes, he did state soft pastels. I checked Google and no, soft pastels DO NOT equal oil pastels. Soft pastels are CHALK pastels.

I hate chalk pastels.

But then, I thought why not try these out? I do enjoy trying new mediums. So today was the day I was finally able to find some time to try them out.


Above is a snapshot of part of my box of Sennelier SOFT pastels. The brown one in the middle was extremely velvety to the touch (almost... sensual...). Either I don't know my own strength or these pastels are very delicate that it crumbled as I was drawing. It only happened to that colour. I noticed that some pigments aren't as robust as others (I noticed this in acrylic paints and oil pastels as well).


Above is the scene of the crime. Look how dusty. That's what I hate about chalk pastels. They are extremely dusty and you breathe in everything. I kept my window open. Need I remind you that today is the first day of winter?


This orange one was unfortunate. See the tiny shiny part? That's the dust being compacted from me using it to colour. I was a bit disappointed because that's quite an obstacle. But so far it only happened to that colour. I guess it's the pigment. But with soft pastels (honestly, that's a misleading term), you can always smudge so it's not a complete loss.



Note my garbage can (please excuse it's state of nastiness) for clearing the mounds of dust from my trial artwork. As the Italian cartoonist write, Etciù!


The final product. Before starting this piece, I worked on a drawing of a cartoon cat where I used a brush and water on the soft pastels (chalk is still chalk!). It's not completed yet so I won't post it.

Moleskine icons!

Well I am a happy designer. I came across this beautiful website called pixelpressicons.com and the first thing I saw were the vacuum tubes. Then I scrolled down and my eye caught the swiss army knife. I downloaded them and surfed to another site. It was probably a sixth sense, or ESP, or perhaps even my guardian angel willing me to go back and that is when I found it. THE MOLESKINE ICON!

Needless to say, I downloaded it and found some fantastic icons of the moleskine diary (even the back of it!), the reporter, naked moleskine (without the coloured label), etc. I used the naked moleskine for the folder on my desktop containing my book notes. Inside, is the Swiss Army knife for my spreadsheets of character profiles, and a lightbulb for ideas.

That website again is pixelpressicons.com.

Sympatico customer service is terrible and they keep screwing up my bills

I am a subscriber of Bell Canada's high speed Sympatico Internet service since 2000 and never really had a problem with them. Until near the end of October when I received a notice in the mail from Sympatico that I haven't paid my bills since June. I owe thm a total of $221 and something cents (I forget at the moment but it isn't important to the blog posting).

Now that's ridiculous, I thought. I pay through my credit card. Good thing I keep all my credit card receipts for such an emergency. Turns out, Sympatico never did bill me since June. So a call to them verified that indeed it was their fault and that I can pay the full amount by credit card over the phone.

• why did I have to give Sympatico my credit card details if they already have it on file?

However, then they asked me a question which would change my impression of Sympatico forever. "And what about your other account?" Other account? What other account?

Turns out, they mean my cousin's account with Sympatico. Way back in 2000, she gave me Sympatico high speed service for my birthday. At the time (and before then(, she had already signed up with Sympatico dial-up. Since then, I had always paid for my account, not hers. And vice versa.

Further investigation by the Sympatico CSR revealed that since June, for some reason, both of our accounts were under my cousin's name, but with my postal address.

• the entire phoen call took an hour and 25 minutes of being passed from one Sympatico billing CSR to a CSR for Bell One Bill back to another Sympatico CSR and then to another One Bill CSR. Apparently, their CSRs weren't clearly trained on which department handles what. What happened what my cousin's account and my account got put together on a One Bill thing. Yeah, it's that convenient.
  

Whatever. I paid and she's gonna pay her bill and Sympatico told me they would deconsolidate our accounts (meaning, she gets the bill for her account and I get the bill for my account. What a clever concept).

Not until a week later when I receive my Visa statement. Oct 30th had a charge by Sympatico for $221 and Oct 31 had a charge by, you guessed it, Sympatico for $298. In total, I owe them a whopping $519.

This is where It gets fun. Another phone call which lasted another hour and a half with me being shifted between Sympatico CSRs and One Bill CSRs with each time I had to explain not only why I was calling, but the entire story of my Visa statement, my cousin's account and why it was there, how I had called before and why I don't owe $519. I had to explain all that over and over.

I eventually got someone who actually knew what she was doing and she promptly called up my cousin while I was put on hold. My cousin provided her VISA number and told the Sympatico CSR to take $104 from her credit card and give to me. The $104 is part of the $298.

It turns out that the Oct 30th bill I got was wrong. The Oct 31 was correct; 221 was for my account and 104 was for my cousin's account.

• I was told I would be getting a $326 refund cheque

I don't remember how the smart CSR got $326 but I have it in my notes and I was waiting for it.

And I waited.

And waited.

Until I got a nice envelope from Bell Sympatico.

Nope, it wasn't the cheque. It was a bill including both my account and my cousin's account. My bill also had a credit for $221.

SIGH

Another phone call which lasted-- yup, an hour and a half (must be a company policy) explaining e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g to each Sympatico and One Bill CSR that I was passed to. I must have spoken to at least 5 people before anything was actually accomplished.

• Bell Canada CSRs for whichever sevice (Sympatico, Mobility, ExpressVu, etc) don't know anything about their jobs. The minute they get a customer with a problem they don't have a clue about, they immediately send you elsewhere regardless of whether you'll get your problem solves or not

Not only did I have to explain everything for the hundredth time, but I had to add the refund cheque I was told I'd be getting (to which I was told "we don't give refund cheques") and why was my bill being credited instead.

Despite being told I'd be getting a refund cheque, Sympatico instead went decided to credit my account. Ok, fine. They did the opposite of what they promised but at least I am getting my money back.

• except they hadn't charged my cousin's VISA

Just so you know, my cousin used to be a Bell CSR so she knows all the tricks they're doing; the whole transfering me elsewhere just so they don't have to bother and also that they keep a record of what was said in every call you've ever made.

• Sympatico CSRs don't seem to read this file most of the time

I was livid and tired of explaining myself over and over and over and over and bloody over again and pulling teeth. They have no record of the $326 I was supposed to be getting (I guess Sympatico CSRs can't do proper math either) so it's up to me to get $104 from my cousin despite the fact that she gave them her credit card and told them to take that money out.

Honestly.

So I am bracing myself for the next bill soon to arrive to see who's account is on there. I can guarantee you that despite the many times I was assured that I will only be getting my bill for my own account, I know I will be seeing my cousin's on there.

The minute my credits are up, bye bye Sympatico!

A few weeks before this fiasco started, I had called up Sympatico to find out why my speed drops down to slower than dial up between 7 and 10 pm. Their reason: "You have too many phones in the house". Right. 5 phones. I received 7 filtres from Sympatico.

Now onto Bell ExpressVu. The excuse they give you for whatever problem you have is "Do you have your receiver connected to a power bar? You do? Well, it needs to be connected to the wall socket".

Right.