I'm working on a new Web cartoon series

I would like to make an announcement.

In the wake of having renewed an interest in cartoons since August 2014, I felt like i was motivated to start a new project.

Last September, I have offically launched my latest project.

I am working on a new cartoon series that I plan on uploading to a video sharing site after the first season is completed.

The episodes will follow a similar pattern to Saturday morning cartoons in the 1980s. 13 episodes per season, consisting of two 11-minute segments.

This cartoon series will be designed for viewing by mature audiences (TV-14) because of certain content that may be a bad influence, but there definitely won't be any material deemed "too adult" (hence the TV-14 rating), though I will do a TV-G version afterwards.

The series will focus on a group of female teenage detectives, and has an ambiguous setting - it is set in the early-1970s, but with more modern fashion, and definitely some pop culture from today. Some episodes will involve a Scooby-Doo style plot, minus a canine companion, while others will be more like saving a damsel in distress, or investigating a crime. At least two episodes will not involve crimefighting - one will involve defeating a tough guy in a race, and one will involve traveling back to prehistoric times and getting trapped in time.

Some of the plots I intend to use are:

- Invisibility
- Stolen statues
- Criminal posing as one of the detectives (as in a double)
- Submarine/Surfing
- Treasure hunt
- Ballroom
- 5K race
- Blackout
- Kidnapping
- Camping in a forest
- Robots
- Missing book
- Mummy
- Animal transformation
- Birthday robbery
- Prehistoric/Dinosaurs
- Shopping mall
- School for crooks
- Rock concert
- Wild West

I may do a Bermuda Triangle plot too, but that may be the treasure chest episode.

James Vipond, a user on these forums, has agreed do to some of the voice work, while I am doing some voice work, storylines, scripting, and animation - the latter using a program called DAZ Studio, with the pwToon shader. James and I will be credited for the voice work.

James is also helping me find some props that would be useful in my productions.

I am aiming for a release of my series before the decade is out, and while animating may seem tedious, that was the case many years ago. In this day and age with computers and technology, animation is a piece of cake.

I have created some video clips already, one scene I created for an episode runs for 30 seconds, so there is only 10 1/2 minutes of that particular episode to be worked on.

I don't plan on announcing my series until I upload all of the episodes in the first season to YouTube or wherever I choose to upload them. Only James and I know about this, but the rest is private - for now.

I recommend to James not to release any links to my sample work - I don't want to spoil it for anyone, I want my series to be a surprise.

Update:

Because of limited funds I am unable to spend as much on props at least for February. I will monitor my financial situation for March, but it is confirmed I won't be buying any props in April due to reasons beyond my control.

But my animation project is still going ahead as planned. In fact, my new plan is to have a comedy-mystery format with many of the episodes set in a high school. Some episode titles from the non-cartoon series "Saved by the Bell" and also story titles from the Richie Rich and Archie series of comic books, inspired ideas for episodes, but adding a twist and not doing a complete copy of those stories.

For example, I found a title in an Archie comic digest on the Grand Comics Database that refers to "Real McCoy" - I decided to alter the title and name a story of mine "The Steal McCoy" which could imply either the crook has a last name of McCoy, or the object being stolen is a genuine version of something - the real McCoy.

I do intend on having some episodes set outside of a school, but will likely be held in the following places:

Bermuda Triangle
Shopping Mall
Downtown
Character's residence
Beach
Museum

One episode will feature one of the principal characters being wrongfully sent to jail because of an impostor.

As of last night, I have been building a shopping mall in DAZ Studio using a set that I purchased on Renderosity last fall. I already have purchased a gymnasium and a senior prom set in January. I would like to buy a school cafeteria to complete the school scenes, but a high school I should be able to construct in Blender. I'll have to find some floor plans for a high school, and I would like to make it similar to my junior high school.

There is one item I plan on buying in the near future - a set to create a crowd. I may consider purchasing a cafeteria scene in March.

Update...

I have made my decision on future purchases for DAZ Studio. I have decided that I purchased enough items for the time being. I may consider purchasing a grass-related item later in March or the very beginning of April, but for now, I have to watch my spending in the coming weeks.

As for props, I may consider creating exteriors of buildings, maybe a warehouse, using a free program called Blender.

I requested on Facebook for some links to certain free downloads that are useful in my animation development, such as a slush maker and ice cream freezer for a convenience store scene in one of my episodes. I plan on using a 7-11 style convenience store, but give it a different name. Perhaps Uptown Farm or Mr. Quik would be cool names.

April 2018 Update:

I have confirmed that I will be using a high school setting for the earlier episodes, but the later episodes will more involve cases and crimefighting outside the high school. Also, I plan on adding a "fourth" heroine to the lineup, and she will be a vital part of the group of heroines. She will use super powers, though she will be a human being, but look like an average girl. She has a black belt in karate, and her father, a magician, is credited for her super powers.

She will use the following powers:

• Invisibility by breathing deeply and holding it (doesn't work while underwater)
• Flight
• Turbo speed
• Holding breath underwater for extended periods (but not indefinitely)
• Anti-gravity
• Using hand gesture towards creature to make it get away from her and her friends (useful while underwater, especially with sharks)

Some of the later episodes will take up the entire show, split up into two parts. I do still plan on using a Bermuda Triangle plot, and now I am considering a jungle plot (which I intend to use quicksand), a babysitting plot, and a plot involving a character's divorced mother dating a new boyfriend. Two of the aforementioned plots will involve only one of the main heroines.

August 2018 update:

Nearly a full year since I launched my project, development is slow and steady, which may mean the cartoon may likely be very good quality.

The holdback on development is the limited assets in my DAZ Studio inventory, and I have to stay within budget. For the first time in months, I am unable to spend any money on purchasing assets for my animated series this month, as money is tight these days, plus many of the assets on my wishlist is low priority and purchasing them can be deferred for a later time. Same may likely hold true for September. Plus, I am very grateful that the number of items I intend to purchase is running low, so that's not a bad thing for my bank account. But come October, I am expected to have a surplus in my account, considering I have three paydays that month, and that's a real bonus.

Our fellow user, James Vipond, has already contributed voice files to me for several episodes already, and more will be worked on I am pretty sure.

Another holdback is the creating of poses, as I intend to replicate them from other cartoons. That may help save money on creating animation files. My method of animation is based on the traditional 12 frames per second cel animation style.

The format may mostly involve Richie Rich-style crimefighting more than Scooby-Doo style, as the heroines in my series rely on technology and gadgets to hunt down the suspect's whereabouts. The leader of the group, a redhead, is the oldest, is very intelligent, and is interested in science and technology, creating formulas and gadgets that will help them in their investigations; the youngest heroine, a blonde, is part of a wealthy family, but not as extensive as Richie Rich's family; and the other heroine, an African-American girl aged 16, is likely to be the "idea girl" who comes up with strategies and even ways to capture the culprit, but has to be approved by the redhead leader.

I had considered launching my animated series in 2020, but that release date is now changed to an undetermined date. I plan on producing 13 episodes for a first season, each with two segments of 11 minutes each. Once I have created the 26 segments for the first season, I will then aim to release my animated series in the first fall season afterwards, coinciding with the traditional ABC premiere dates for Saturday morning cartoons in the 1980s. ABC traditionally started the new Saturday morning lineup on the second Saturday in September back in the 1980s (except for 1980 and 1982, due to strikes involving voice actors and animators respectively).

November update...

A major development in my animation project - I have acquired a number of props to create a full city. I even acquired a hospital last week, for the purpose of a plot set in a hospital, but thankfully will not involve bleeding or any injury or physical aggression in action.

The number of items on my wishlist on DAZ Studio and Renderosity is relatively lower now, and any items that do exist on my wishlist are currently lower priority. My next desired items are a couple of male hairstyles, and there is also a fire truck for a plot set in a high school where the fire alarm is pulled by a troublemaker.

After so much work on developing my city scene, I feel as if I have gone through burnout lately, and I am considering putting focus on creating stories and transcripts for the next little while.

Back in October, my city scene would be slower to load and slower to save, but that is because of using full resolution images in the props. I decided to resize the images to a smaller file size (extra small, in some cases), and it seems to help load/save the scenes much faster.

The intent of the city scene is for the purpose of scenes where driving or walking would be involved.

The only major work I have to do next is creating animation poses, especially dance animations for plots involving a school dance.

July 2019 update...

I got many of the props taken care of, and I do have at least 21 of the 26 scripts developed for Season 1 so far. I am going through my existing scripts in development, and whichever are fully completed, they will be confirmed for the first season of my animated series. Once I confirm that 26 scripts are fully created, I will then focus on voice work. Once the voice work is completed, I will then focus on producing video for my episodes.

The order of episodes for Season 1 will be determined using a site called Random.org. The first two numbers determine the segments in the first episode, the second set of two numbers determine the segments in the second episode, etc.

Also, once I get all of the episodes in the first season produced, I will then produce a trailer to plug my animated series in advance of the official launch of my series.

August 2019 update...

My fictional hometown is significantly completed, just got to fill the dock along the river with some items. I filled the dock with a refinery and warehousing, but right now I am adding a sidewalk and grass adjacent to the sidewalk. I plan on adding transmission towers along the dock too. Plus, there are other areas in the downtown district in which I would have to fill those voids.

Also, I am considering using a certain format per episode, at least in my first season:

Segment A: This segment will involve a mystery which involves a creature whom the youngest but wealthy heroine is terrified of. In fact, that youngest heroine is very easily intimidated by creatures and monsters everywhere.

Segment B: This segment will involve the heroines trying to end criminal activity in which at least one friend or family member of a heroine is impacted (usually a robbery or kidnapping).

Frames are being rendered at 6 frames per second, in order to speed up production.

The most intensive work, however, involves voice acting. Considering it was commonplace for first seasons of a cartoon series to have 13 episodes of entirely new content, and subsequent seasons had fewer new segments (usually with repeats in the mix, though this did not apply to most Scooby-Doo series except during Season 2 of "Scooby Doo, Where Are You!", "The New Scooby-Doo Movies", and "The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show"). Once I get the voice acting for Season 13 completed, my work will be lighter in subsequent seasons., with roughly 16 new segments as opposed to 26 for the first season. I think, in terms of animation, it probably takes many, many years to produce a full season of 13 episodes. I even learned of some rumor that the animated spinoff of "The Little Rascals" may likely have started development by 1970, and much of the art for the episodes from that series, despite being aired in 1982 and 1983, may have been drawn in the 1970s.

***END OF OCTOBER 2019 UPDATE***

Development on my series is still ongoing, and is going smoothly.

One episode I am presently working on has roughly four minutes worth of content produced so far. And based on tbe corresponding transcript, there may be a chance that tbe segment may fall short of the eleven minutes I aim to achieve. If it ends up falling short of eleven minutes, I'll probably throw in several 30-second educational segments as time fillers.

As for 30-minute episode count, I am thinking I should release the series in a future summer season. I could launch the first season early in July, and have eight episodes of 30 minutes apiece, releasing one episode per Saturday morning through sometime later in August.

So far, I have significant work done on another segment which stalled earlier this year, but I do plan on getting that back on track at some point.

As for script composition, I believe I may have ran out of ideas for new scripts. I just can't think of any more, so I guess it's safe to say I will be focusing on production as of lately.

The approach I am using to get work done more efficiently, is tgat I am focusing on scenes from various segments that involve a still background. Scenes with scrolling backgrounds, I am hoping will be limited, and will be saved for last regardless.

Regarding 3D assets, there is virtually nothing more left for me to buy, so that marks the end of 2 1/2 years of financial burden for me. I am now back on track with regards to my financial situation.

***FEBRUARY 2020 UPDATE***

Production is still ongoing. I decided to scrap the big city scene, and have tree props in the far background of each side of the residential blocks. I realize that many cartoon series do not show a big city scene from an overhead view all at once, except for maybe the intro to The Simpsons.

I am working on so much of an episode at a time. Some of the segments will likely be loosely based on comic book stories, or contain some elements from comic book stories. So far, in 2020, I have done work on an ice cream shop scene, where a little girl (whom the youngest heroine and lowest-in-command babysits on occasion) tells one of the heroines about her discovery of her father's briefcase containing keys, which gave the little girl the impression that there may be a million dollars in her father's briefcase, and two bad guys are sitting down in the ice cream parlor, eavesdropping and planning their next crime.

I have also done work on a small scene where the heroines operate jet skis while escaping from an Alcatraz-style island, which supposedly sinks upon the youngest heroine's discovery.

Also, another separate scene I was working on, was a drive-in movie scene, where the three heroines and their canine sidekick are watching a movie from the lead heroine's convertible. The lead heroine mentions "there are very few drive-in theaters left in the United States, and this is one of the very few that exists, so we should enjoy the drive-in theater while it lasts!", or along those lines.

One scene I am presently working on, is a school dance scene, a Valentine's Day sweethearts' dance to be exact. Two days ago, I created brief footage of the two youngest heroines volunteering to mind the punch bowl table, and the youngest heroine's teacher thanking the two heroines in advance for the task. But the reason for their duty is for the purpose of monitoring suspicious activity on the dance floor, and when they, or the lead heroine, discovers any wrong behavior happening, a summons will be sent to the principal to catch the bad guy in the act, plus video footage of the incident will be supplied as proof. Currently, I am working on the beginning of the school dance scene, where students are seen dancing with their partners, and the camera pans across from left to right, showing many dancers.

Another bit of footage I created as well, earlier this past week, was a scene where the little girl whom the youngest heroine babysits on occasion, is abducted by aliens in their UFO, and while on board the UFO, the little girl throws a temper tantrum, demanding she wants to go home.

By December, I was working on a scene from an episode where a friend of the youngest heroine, her family had adopted a new white dog, and the dog growls at the youngest heroine, which in turn scares the heroine.

I have also been in the process of developing transcripts for eleven-minute segments. A rough draft of the script for the UFO/moon plot is completed, though I may do some edits. I have likely completed one or two other scripts in the last two weeks as well.

I will also mention that I won't be getting as many items from various sites anymore. I got basically everything I need at this point.

I think, personally, the big city scene and trying to acquire animations was what slowed down production of my series. Thank goodness everything is now starting to get back on track, as the above mentioned proves.

***AUGUST 2020 UPDATE***

I did notice, over a period of time, that whenever I do intense work on one scene (for as much as two weeks), it causes me burnout and a lack of desire to produce footage for upwards of two weeks. As a new approach, and instead of doing intense work on one scene in any episode, I decided to do production in small pieces at a time - as in do a small amount of production on one episode, then move to another episode to do a small amount of production. It will help add variety to my project, and will help combat burnout.

Regarding the script development, I have created many of the scripts, but only need to do minor tweaks. I have the episodes lined up for the first season already, and some being lined up for a second season. I realize that the first season is usually the most strenuous to work on, considering it is nothing but new content; however, subsequent seasons tended to have a sufficient number of new segments, sometimes paired with a repeat from a previous season. City scenes would also be useful for scenes in which the main characters would be traveling by car.

Regarding a city scene, I had a new approach on tackling the city scene, and will be rendering big city scenes, if in frames with pieces of a city at a time, and importing the frames into layers in Adobe Animate. The big city scene would be useful for producing the opening to my animated series. I realize it is very impossible to have so many items in my big city scene all at once, and the rendering would likely take too long, or maybe even cause the animation program to crash.

I think my new approach will make my project less strenuous and allow for a quicker release of my series in due time. I think rendering the backgrounds take longer than rendering the foregrounds with the characters and other props. Right now, I am putting focus on scenes that involve still backgrounds, and there seem to be more of them than with scrolling backgrounds for scenes where characters are walking or traveling by car. I'd be quite surprised to find out how much work I could get done by focusing on scenes with still backgrounds.

There may also be some 30-second comedy skits on each episode, in a similar manner to the "Richie Rich Gems" skits on the corresponding cartoon. A couple of such segments have some footage created thus far. If any episodes fall short of the 11-minute target, there could be additional 30-second skits to fill the remainder of the 11 minutes.

As for future acquisition of items, I don't have very much left on my wishlists that I need, and I think the longer delays in production were due to acquiring what I need. So I am glad that part is now winding down, as I basically got everything I need at this point (based on the episodes I plan on using in my series), with very little left to acquire.

I will release another progress report before the end of 2020.

*** JULY 2021 UPDATE ***

First update in nearly a year, and long overdue.

It turns out my animation project is really gaining momentum now. I learned some interesting facts about limited animation and the benefits of doing animation at 12 frames per second.

Also, I find that animation work gets much easier when I use comic books as references. Every few months, when I have sufficient cash, I would order some comics. But first, I would go through the Grand Comics Database to find some comic book stories that would make interesting plots for my animated series, but with paraphrased dialogue and maybe additional dialogue and at least one twist, so that the story appears to be my own. I did order a comic book on eBay last week, and it has a potential election plot that I could use in my animated series, assuming I paraphrase the dialogue and maybe add a few twists.

I know the Richie Rich cartoon series that aired on ABC in the early 1980s did use animated adaptations of comic book stories, but with paraphrased dialogue, a different location, and add-in twists. I can see why Irona was made into a Go-Bot or Transformer-style character, and Dollar was made into a klutzy dog who daydreams and copies it in real life only to end to slapstick disaster. These different roles of Irona and Dollar were likely designed to help make the stories appear to be the work of Hanna-Barbera and not be a blatant copy of the stories published in Harvey Comics. Some stories published in Harvey Comics never included Dollar and/nor Irona, but if Hanna-Barbera adaptated the publshed story, they would be done to include Dollar and/or Irona with their respective Walter Mitty-style and Transformers-style roles in order to make the Hanna-Barbera version look more original. This may explain why I never saw any credit to Harvey Comics in the closing credits to the Richie Rich cartoon series that aired on ABC.

Is there any good site that can allow me to paraphrase dialogue from a comic book story?

good luck it's hard toc reate things and things will get better have faith on yourself.

*** NOVEMBER 2021 UPDATE ***

And possibly my last update of the year...

Some major progress in my animation project as of lately. I have a new approach in how to make my animation work more efficient and can get a full eleven minute segment in a shorter time frame.

A few weeks ago, I learned of a feature in Adobe Animate called Auto Lip-Synching. It was quite interesting, and I decided to take a stab at learning it. It really gets the work done for sure!

Instead of rendering many frames for characters speaking in DAZ Studio, I realize that speaking frames only requires 12 frames max for Adobe Animate. I realize that animation studios of yesteryear, such as Filmation and Hanna-Barbera, used fewer frames for lip-synching. I had joined a Facebook group devoted to Filmation cartoons a few months ago, and I had learned that they were very big experts at limited animation. They knew something that Hanna-Barbera didn't. Filmation relied heavily on recycling frames and cels. But unlike with bygone animation studios, I can create 12 frames much faster in DAZ Studio than the bygone animation studios did which relied on using ink and paint by hand.

About a month ago, I took on producing footage for an 11-minute episode in my animated series. As of right now, I managed to surpass five minutes of footage, just seconds shy of the halfway point of my 11-minute goal. I aim to produce, on average, one minute of footage per week, usually on weekends. I am also using comic books as references so I could figure out how to place the characters and pose them accordingly. This was not possible in the past years using just DAZ Studio and due to my lack of knowledge. I agree, if not for learning the auto lip-synching function in Adobe Animate, I probably would be further behind to this day.

I have also purchased the Hanna-Barbera Sound Effects library earlier this month, and even got the end user license agreement to use such sound effects in my work. The package was on sale for 50% off, as it was a Black Friday sale. I really am glad I purchased those sound effects while I did.

I can see why technology can make producing cartoons more efficient today, and full seasons can have 26 episodes or more nowadays, as opposed to a season of just 13 episodes back in the 1980s. I can see why the most recent incarnations of "Scooby-Doo" cartoons have a lot of episodes in their series (except for "Get a Clue", which had very few episodes, and rightly so since the character designs were horrible. "Be Cool" also had bad character designs, but it was at least slightly better than "Get a Clue", and "Be Cool" did somewhat better than "Get a Clue" - but regardless "Be Cool" got cancelled prematurely and quietly in the U.S., and never got to complete the series beforehand, while Teletoon in Canada did air the full series.

Really lipsync to learn is hard, took me mostly 2 months. I dominate it and understand all the ways it is relaly cool.

Actually, it took me only two to three hours for me to master the auto lip-sync feature in Adobe Animate. If not for that, production of a single 11-minute animated segment would be moving at a snail's pace.