Then something seemingly insignificant happened; I made a silly little Live Action short called “The Cigar Box.” It had no story, but this quick project began the creation of several worlds. I wanted to make a series of shorts based on the slim idea in the first. Of course I needed some real story to make the series interesting. With the help of Ray Kamb, I started a two-year effort to find the story. It evolved a lot in this time and went in many directions. (The back story became more like serious science fiction and we eventually separated those ideas into a different story. But that’s another yarn.)

I took the sillier bits of this effort and, through many more iterations, came up with this world.

February 16, 2004
Production is finally underway. No really I mean it. I have more than 2 minutes animated. There are a lot of effects to do but its finally moving forward. The story is solid now and I'm motivated as hell.

November 02, 2003
As is always the case a personal project must suffer when there is work to be done. I am currently working on visual effects for a film called Freedom's Gate. The work is fun but it is not getting "Scrap" anywhere. Hopefully I'll be back at it soon. One plus from it all is that I sat down and improved the story a bit.

September 13, 2003
I finished the first draft of the trailer for "A Curious Bit of Scrap. In the process of creating it I came up with a few new shots that are a lot of fun. At the pace I'm going I think I'll be done with part one in a week and a half to two weeks.

Also the image gallery is up!

September 7, 2003
Yeeha! I just sent the first shot to render. I will be posting some samples soon. Expect the trailer up in a week.

Production to Date
The main drive of my efforts so far has been in story. But along the way there has been much construction to do. I’ve spent a lot of time re-working Dim-Bot, now named Harvard. His rig (the part of a CG character that controls the movement) has been upgraded several times. I reworked all his facial controls so he could be as expressive as possible.

The other major step, in fact the one that helped define the world, was the creation of the Bully-Bot. The Bully-Bot model came from a simple sketch I drew at work. My initial thoughts for Higgins that he’d be like Baloo, but he turned into something else entirely.

The model for Higgins took about 80 hours to finish. I still have to create some variations for the other Bully-Bots.

I began making the set pieces for “A Curious Bit of Scap.” Unfortunately I spent a week going in the wrong direction and everything came out as CG looking as it could. But I quickly bounced back when I rediscovered that the look of the series in simple in form with complex realistic textures. I made a windmill that was inspired by some that I saw in Northern California. I also made a scrap pile for the Curious Bit of Scrap to be found near.

Well, I believe I finalized the stories for three shorts.
A Curious Bit of Scrap
Rocks and Cans
Where the Squat-Bot Leads You