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Xerus
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Facts about my RebusQuest series. The inspirations, the making, and the process.
1. I always loved the rebus puzzle themed game show, Classic Concentration. And I started to make my own rebus puzzles for a while. Then I thought, why not turn these rebuses into a cartoon series?
2. I also always loved those stories about kids entering magic lands, like Alice and Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Here Comes the Grump, The Neverending Story, And the Phantom Tollbooth. Along with a sketch I found in a book by my cartoonist hero, Scott Shaw, called Alex in Videoland. So why not make a magic land where solving rebuses are a way of life?
3. The artwork for my lands and characters were inspired from those psychedelic cartoons from classic Sesame Street and The Electric Company. Mainly from John and Faith Hubley and Etienne Delessert.
4. Creating the two main characters. I remember drawing a sketch of a little boy with glasses and a red turtleneck, since turtlenecks are my favorite fashion. I named him Carson. After Johnny Carson, Not the late talk show host, but a voice actor kid from a 60's Hanna-Barbera cartoon called Dino Boy. And I always liked those stories about human boys befriending magical and non-human girls. Like from cartoons like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, a girl who's half tomato. And Darkstalkers, a half girl/half cat. Both shows produced by my favorite writer, Richard Mueller. So, I created a sexy teenage elf girl named Reba, named after the word rebus. I was going to make Reba's skin blue, but I thought that would make her too much like that alien girl from Avatar. So I found a magenta colored pencil and made Reba the hot magenta she is. And I gave her a long orange ponytail that serves as a tentacle she uses as a third hand and for detecting rebus clues. And I wanted my series to look like a cartoon from the 70's, so I gave Reba a Huggy Bear like cap, a 70's style outfit, and go go boots.
5. The secondary characters in RQ. Along with my two main stars, Carson and Reba, I wanted to create some characters they'd run into regularly on their quest. Inspired from those rebus clues that seem to appear the most. EYES gave me the inspiration to create a cyclops family, INK was the inspiration for squid pop star Squidia Inks, based off Stevie Nicks. HAY, EGGS, CORN, PIGS, COWS, HOES, and other farm based clues that seem appear in a lot of rebuses gave me the inspiration for Farmer Brownnose. INN for the Insane Innkeeper. TEA, I thought of a Cookie Monster like parody called The Tea Drinking Monster. The Watch Doctor was originally going to be a one time character, but I thought to make him a regular and give him and ON and OFF switch to make him a regular clue giver. I thought I needed a regular villain in my series, so I created a puzzle piece that couldn't fit in any puzzle and had this need to destroy all the world's puzzle because of that, and named him Puzz McPuzzler. And later, since a Scottish girl called a LASS appeared in a few rebuses from Classic Concentration, I decided to give McPuzzler a daughter named Lass as a villain's sidekick.
6. The making of each RebusQuest story. I try to be original as much as can. Sometimes I first think up the rebus puzzle and find a way for our heroes to get the clues and turn it into the story. Then I make it up as I go along, thinking up stuff I think is funny and being careful not to be too adult, since this is an educational cartoon for kids, but with some humor adults can enjoy too.
Usually each RQ story takes about a month or more to come up with and draw. Starting out with a sketchbook, taking a light pencil and ruler and drawing 4 even panels on each page and numbering them in the corners. I try not to go over 30 pages in each story. Then I start drawing up what happens in each panel. Then I find spots for the dialogue for each character and then draw the word balloons around them. I start out with a light pencil, so I can erase any mistakes I make. Along with tearing out pages with mistakes or when I realize something won't work in a story. Then I take a darker pencil and darken some the drawings. Especially the words in the speech balloons so they'd show up better on a computer screen. After that, I take my colored pencils and color everything. I know there are some people who think my drawings or colorings are little kiddish and poor, but I prefer not to be obsessed with perfection. Then I reread everything a few times to fix some mistakes and give the artworks a few touch ups. After that, I scan each page I make. And save them on my desktop. Then go to my website building site named Yola. And carefully upload each page and adding links so people can click and read and view each page one at a time. Once that's all done, I send out messages to my fans on Facebook, Twitter, and Muppet Central, letting them know I have a new RebusQuest story up.
And that's how I did and do my RebusQuest cartoon series.
1. I always loved the rebus puzzle themed game show, Classic Concentration. And I started to make my own rebus puzzles for a while. Then I thought, why not turn these rebuses into a cartoon series?
2. I also always loved those stories about kids entering magic lands, like Alice and Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Here Comes the Grump, The Neverending Story, And the Phantom Tollbooth. Along with a sketch I found in a book by my cartoonist hero, Scott Shaw, called Alex in Videoland. So why not make a magic land where solving rebuses are a way of life?
3. The artwork for my lands and characters were inspired from those psychedelic cartoons from classic Sesame Street and The Electric Company. Mainly from John and Faith Hubley and Etienne Delessert.
4. Creating the two main characters. I remember drawing a sketch of a little boy with glasses and a red turtleneck, since turtlenecks are my favorite fashion. I named him Carson. After Johnny Carson, Not the late talk show host, but a voice actor kid from a 60's Hanna-Barbera cartoon called Dino Boy. And I always liked those stories about human boys befriending magical and non-human girls. Like from cartoons like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, a girl who's half tomato. And Darkstalkers, a half girl/half cat. Both shows produced by my favorite writer, Richard Mueller. So, I created a sexy teenage elf girl named Reba, named after the word rebus. I was going to make Reba's skin blue, but I thought that would make her too much like that alien girl from Avatar. So I found a magenta colored pencil and made Reba the hot magenta she is. And I gave her a long orange ponytail that serves as a tentacle she uses as a third hand and for detecting rebus clues. And I wanted my series to look like a cartoon from the 70's, so I gave Reba a Huggy Bear like cap, a 70's style outfit, and go go boots.
5. The secondary characters in RQ. Along with my two main stars, Carson and Reba, I wanted to create some characters they'd run into regularly on their quest. Inspired from those rebus clues that seem to appear the most. EYES gave me the inspiration to create a cyclops family, INK was the inspiration for squid pop star Squidia Inks, based off Stevie Nicks. HAY, EGGS, CORN, PIGS, COWS, HOES, and other farm based clues that seem appear in a lot of rebuses gave me the inspiration for Farmer Brownnose. INN for the Insane Innkeeper. TEA, I thought of a Cookie Monster like parody called The Tea Drinking Monster. The Watch Doctor was originally going to be a one time character, but I thought to make him a regular and give him and ON and OFF switch to make him a regular clue giver. I thought I needed a regular villain in my series, so I created a puzzle piece that couldn't fit in any puzzle and had this need to destroy all the world's puzzle because of that, and named him Puzz McPuzzler. And later, since a Scottish girl called a LASS appeared in a few rebuses from Classic Concentration, I decided to give McPuzzler a daughter named Lass as a villain's sidekick.
6. The making of each RebusQuest story. I try to be original as much as can. Sometimes I first think up the rebus puzzle and find a way for our heroes to get the clues and turn it into the story. Then I make it up as I go along, thinking up stuff I think is funny and being careful not to be too adult, since this is an educational cartoon for kids, but with some humor adults can enjoy too.
Usually each RQ story takes about a month or more to come up with and draw. Starting out with a sketchbook, taking a light pencil and ruler and drawing 4 even panels on each page and numbering them in the corners. I try not to go over 30 pages in each story. Then I start drawing up what happens in each panel. Then I find spots for the dialogue for each character and then draw the word balloons around them. I start out with a light pencil, so I can erase any mistakes I make. Along with tearing out pages with mistakes or when I realize something won't work in a story. Then I take a darker pencil and darken some the drawings. Especially the words in the speech balloons so they'd show up better on a computer screen. After that, I take my colored pencils and color everything. I know there are some people who think my drawings or colorings are little kiddish and poor, but I prefer not to be obsessed with perfection. Then I reread everything a few times to fix some mistakes and give the artworks a few touch ups. After that, I scan each page I make. And save them on my desktop. Then go to my website building site named Yola. And carefully upload each page and adding links so people can click and read and view each page one at a time. Once that's all done, I send out messages to my fans on Facebook, Twitter, and Muppet Central, letting them know I have a new RebusQuest story up.
And that's how I did and do my RebusQuest cartoon series.