JAM 2: The Second Annual January Animation Month Challenge

Welcome to the second annual January Animation Month! January 2012 is the second year of the JAM, where participants try to make an animation a day for an entire month. Last year I wanted to create a monthly challenge like NaNoWriMo and February Album Writing Month for my biggest love: animation. So, the JAM was born!

Last year we had a total of four people doing the challenge.  Hopefully we can at least match that number this year, if not beat it.

For the JAM, the only rule is to make thirty one animations in January.  The animations can be made one a day, or you can make several on several days, or even all at once (although I doubt anyone will do them all in one day, you’re more than welcome to try .  The animations can be about anything. They can be animated gif, flash, traditionally animated, stop-motion, CGI, or whatever you wish. They can be 1 second long or they can be 20 minutes long. It’s up to you. Just remember you have to make 31 animations in the 31 days of January, so use your own judgement so you don’t burn yourself out.

You can update any animation as much as you like throughout the month or beyond. After all, this is all just for fun.

I don’t have the space or the bandwidth to host animations here, but you can use video hosting services like YouTube, or if your animation is in flash, you can use services like DeviantART or Newgrounds.  If you want to participate, post your animations in this year’s JAM thread at the Telltale Games forum.

Like other challenges like it, you do not win anything for completing JAM. It is just for fun. You do, however, get the sense of accomplishment of finishing something, and you get the opportunity to improve your skills and share your art with the world!

NaNoWriMo

Long time no post. I’ve decided to try NaNoWriMo again this year. In 2009 I didn’t find out about it until November 11th, so I was only able to get just over 25,000 words done. I’ve always wanted to write a novel, so I’m going to be trying hard this year to make the 50,000 word goal (and the 1,667 words a day goal so I don’t get burned out). I typed 1,891 words for day one, so it’s looking good so far.

April Fool’s

Today’s April Fool’s Day, but it’s not a day of foolishness for us.  Today’s the day that my sister’s baby went home for the first time, and the first day that he got to meet the dogs.

The event inspired me to create a cartoon for my new nephew, which I hope to have finished in a few days.

A Bear?

So, I still haven’t decided on what the third anthropomorphic character is yet.  I want to keep the alliteration of the names in place though.  So, for now I’ve decided he’s a bear.  I’ve updated the characters page accordingly.  Once he appears in a cartoon, hopefully I’ll keep him the same species, although he might still change ala Disney’s Pete.

Characters Page Updated With Diamond Joe Characters

I updated the characters page with characters from my planned animated sitcom Diamond Joe and the American Goldfish, since they all appeared in Jenni Comic 25.

Jenni Comic 25: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and happy birthday to me. Right now I’m sitting in a brand new computer chair I got for my birthday, eating Reese’s peanut butter cake and drawing a nice St. Patrick’s Day drawing that I’ll add to this post shortly.

The image is finished, and I decided to make it an image for my Jenni comic since I haven’t made one in a while.  A real new comic will be coming in a few days.

Jenni Movie?

While I’m posting about hypothetical ideas, I thought I’d post about another idea I’d like to do, but that I doubt I’ll actually ever do. I’d like to do a movie based on the multi-universe idea based in the Jenni world, but each universe would have it’s own style. The main universe would start in the Jenni comic (animation) style, and then other universes would be live action, stop-motion animation, possibly 3D computer generated animation, and it would all climax into a point where all of the styles intersected. It’s a fun idea, but I really have to finish the comic storyline before I even think of starting something like this (and possibly the video game too). I’ll probably never make this, but I’d love to see it so if someone wants to take the idea and run with it, have fun.