Heracles' First Two Labours

Animan's "Heracles" is still in production, but it's getting there. At most, it will take another month. If I'm lucky, it will be finished before that. Nobody can say at this point!

In the first half of the movie, Heracles must perform 4 labours--that is, he must fight against some monstrous beings and win. Here are the first two of his adversaries.

1. THE NEMEAN LION

2. THE 5-HEADED HYDRA

An Idea Sketch

I was going through my computer files, and I found this sketch I made about 2 years ago. This is what finally became the video of "The Sheriff of Lone Gulch." My original idea was that the sheriff came into the saloon--the girl was trying to wink and get friendly with him, but he didn't care---he just ignored her, and went to the room where the outlaw Manny, was staying. When I finally made the video, the saloon girl was the first thing to disappear!  She didn't help the story, and I don't think the fans cared about her.

It's clear to see that this first design of the Sheriff is not very good. His hat is OK, but it doesn't have an attractive cartoon design to it. The Sheriff's face needs some changing to be more handsome. His chest and arms are nice and muscular, but his legs and butt need to be bigger to have a good balance and to look sexier. 

You can see that at this stage, I had no idea how to draw the inside of a cowboy saloon. I had to watch a few western movies to see what a real saloon looks like. I thought you would like to see this sketch and compare it with the finished video.

A First Peek at Hercules

Heracles is far from finished. But in the upcoming posts, I'll be showing drawings of some of the characters. This first scene is the court of King Eurystheus. He's the one who gives Heracles the labours to perform.  This building is like the tavern in Animan's Carmen. It has 3D walls, decorated with actual artwork from Ancient Greece.

Animan's Non-porn Animation?

If you've never heard of Kickstarter, it's a site which helps musicians, artists and authors get their projects off the ground. If some people so wish, they can even donate some money to help the project get started. There's a video on the site to watch for people to become acquainted with the book/music/artwork, etc. The video can always be watched for free!

A good friend of mine is receiving donations for his novel on this site. Along with helping to support me as Animan, this friend has done me about a zillion favors, so I wanted to do something for him. Although his novel is not exclusively gay, it does have some gay characters in it, so I decided to add some animated scenes to his video for fun. Here are some screengrabs.

 

                                               

Watch the free video