#rdcHQ Cobwebs Meetup – Adventures in Clip Art
- November 15th, 2012
Greetings from #rdcHQ! This week, the Cobwebs Crew began their 3D Um tutorial and were challenged to create one Um for practice to get a feel for Blender and then explore the construction of a character of their own design after that. We’ll be building these sprites as an Extra Credit project as we work on other aspects of Cobwebs: The Animated Series this Winter.
The Crew also wrapped up a few final visual details of the scene they have been working on, and learned to work with open source clip art. We used the excellent Open Clipart Library as our resource for this exercise particularly for the scalable vector graphic (SVG) option. The art was remixed by the Cobwebs Crew to create new visual elements for use in the series. We encourage this practice for visuals that are not considered primary elements of the scene – the Cobwebs Crew takes great pride in their highly creative original artwork!
Bill Young’s video game and Cobwebs Currency by Gabby McCutcheon and Nate Malamud
Artist Evelyn Jennings also created a new character for the series that we will be introducing soon (Claire Libre), and wrote a new scene for another character she designed (Luna) that will be worked into a revised version of the script. Speaking of the script, here is the excerpt that the Cobwebs Crew is working on right now. It is interesting to see how all of the pieces work together to become an episode.
Cobwebs Script – Scene One – Quail Farm
Setting: Nevada City, California, May 6, 2011
(A family of two adults and two kids are driving in a car. The kids look bored, the mother is singing along to “I’m Walking On Sunshine.” The sister is looking out the window petting a dog, while the brother is holding a sock monkey playing a video game.)
Bill: C’mon C’mon….C’mon C’mon……Yes! Perfect Score!
Stephanie: Dude, calm down, its just a video game, whats the big deal? Its not like you won the Nobel Prize or something.
Bill: Well, maybe I didn’t win a Nobel Prize, but I got forty thousand race coins! Now I got a giant motor engine for my race car! Now I can win all the race challenges that I face, plus I might be able to win an even bigger motor engine for my car if I keep doing this!
Stephanie: (Snickers.) Sure, thats great… maybe if we get that in real life than we don’t have to look at trees and sheep all the way and just speed up to our new home.
Bill: Hey, I think sheep are cool! I also thought those apple trees were cool to, we never get apple trees at our place.
Stephanie: (Trying to be funny.) Of course you do, I wonder what sheep do to you in that video game of yours, give you something cool to look at and you earn extra points? Ha! Bet that’s how you got your “Perfect score”.
Bill: (Mumbles.) That’s not even what they do, they make blockades for you so that the opponents are stuck for a few seconds while you jump ahead.
Mrs. Young: Oh my gosh! Look kids! Its the California Quail Farm! Look at it! They have over 46 acres of sanctuaries for quails! They even sell quail eggs for three dollars! (Sighs) I would love to get a job there!
Mr. Young: Honey, I promise as soon as we get set up in our home and get the kids ready for school. I can see if you can get a job there, and maybe I will get a job there! I have always been fond of quails.
Mrs. Young: Oh thank you George! Thank you!
Stephanie: Why are you guys in love with quails so much? I mean whats the point?
Mrs. Young: Who wouldn’t love quails? They are soft, their fluffy, and they have the most adorable face!
Stephanie: They look like soccer balls with legs to me.
Bill: (Sarcastically.) Gee, Stephanie, do you have to ruin everyone’s day?
Stephanie: Well the sooner we get to our new house the better my mood will be.
Mrs. Young: Stephanie, I don’t understand why you don’t like to look at interesting things. I mean we are moving to Nevada City, you should be happy and enjoy the sites, but the thing is, you just want to just stay on one topic and one topic only, why is that? Why not enjoy the ride? Well if you are really that serious about getting there you will be glad to know that we are almost there.
Mr. Young: Yes, we are almost there, and what a beautiful house she is, four stories big, little pond where Bill can get macro-invertebrates for his studies with, a little wooden pole where we can put some birdhouses to attract quails, even a satellite so that Stephanie can watch… (Sigh.) cable.
Stephanie: Yes! Whats on tonight?
Mr. Young: Whoa whoa! The TV is not set up yet, also I have a rule, no TV after nine o-clock P.M., and no TV before seven thirty A.M.
Stephanie: (Shocked.) What! But then I won’t be able to see high school musical! I will miss an episode every night! And seven thirty is an hour before school begins! I won’t be able to watch “Alf!”
Bill: Well you shouldn’t have turned the volume on the TV so loud and it woke everyone up, and you made us late for school just to finish an episode of that TV show!
Stephanie: But-But-
Mrs. Young: Sorry Stephanie but we think that cable is taking over your brain, plus, we should enjoy ourselves, we are here!
Greetings from #rdcHQ! A brief note from the field as we continue to make progress on 
Building a 3D Um. Original character design by 
Creating background art.
The new COTW web server at #rdcHQ and 
