Writing is done, designing is fun

State of the Wavetro (August 2024)

Welcome to the August 2024 edition of the monthly wavetro update! We’re finally entering the phase where actual visuals are starting to take shape. This all may seem overkill from how much planning I’m putting into this Ben and Teddy series, but it’s going to be well worth it in the end.

Let’s dive in…

Five whole storylines are WRITTEN!

In my last update, I naively proclaimed that I should write five finished episodes of this comic idea before going any further. As it turns out, five is a very big number.

There’s nothing wrong with writing five stories in itself, but DO NOT attempt to do this in a single month like I just did. I ignored my health and doubled down on writing and revising so that I could reach the visual planning phase by the time this August newsletter came out. Had I not done that, I wouldn’t have much of anything to show you today.

I pulled this off using about 3 weeks of August instead of my original (and foolish) estimate of 1-2 weeks. Do note that it won’t be as hard for me to write future episodes: these initial stories were only difficult to write because I had to simultaneously finalize the main characters and solidify the rules/style of the Ben and Teddy universe, all while writing something funny. With the pilot episodes now written, I have a pretty clear idea of how an average day at Snack Cactus plays out.

Honestly, I only felt compelled to push myself as hard as I did because of how disappointing my last project (Call Wavetro) was when compared to my older videos. I really want to reach for my peak with this new project and give it my all, even if it means I sometimes skipped exercising or found myself at the Whataburger drive-thru at 4 in the morning this month.

I really want this project to be my next big thing. I’ll be careful to not burn out and give up, though I’m only really susceptible to that after I debut a new series (which is why I want to release five episodes at once in case I really do drop this project immediately after.)

The character designs are FINISHED!

Pictured here are the (mostly) finalized main characters you’ll be getting acquainted with in the coming months. Granted, they’ll be in 3D instead of 2D, and I might add a visor hat to Carlos, but this is pretty much the final plan otherwise. Not bad for only having a few days left in August to make these!

Let’s take a closer look at each of the four:

Ben

Ben is pretty much the same. The only difference with him is that his 3D model will be re-made from the ground up. I’m doing this because the standard Stickmen 2020 model has always been terrible at bending and posing:

Correct rigging and topology was the least of my worries when I did 3D animation. Making 3D comics is much easier to do though, so I’d like to go through the trouble of making Ben’s shoulders look cleaner.

If I can’t figure out how to model this properly, I might actually detach Ben’s arms and have them as separate pieces that are just “glued” onto his torso:

It won’t look as uniform as the old Ben, but there won’t be any more crumpled or stretched vertices. I’ll let you know which option I end up doing.

Teddy

Teddy has some tweaks to his design. He’s now more uniformly shaped, including a flatter silhouette and a tail that’s as tall as his torso. Something that’s always bothered me about the classic Teddy design is how uneven and lopsided his original shape is:

Notice how his head is this uneven rounded oval with a tail that’s shorter for no reason? I’m not a fan of that. When I remake Teddy’s model, he’s going to have these new, cleaner proportions, and even a new shape for his fins that also makes more sense (which is also pictured above.)

Rest assured, he’ll still be the same old Teddy otherwise!

(Side-note: In my five completed stories for this project, I was actually unable to implement what I planned in my last newsletter post: making Teddy feel shame for causing his usual disasters, other than a brief self-reflection in one of the five. I did find other ways to add depth to his character, just not this way I initially planned.)

Vince

Vince is a brand new character, one where his design is based on a circular Shapien combined with a cloud-shaped head. Vince’s personality is that he’s a bit of a slowpoke with strange skills and personality quirks, so I made his head shaped like a cloud since it’s like his head is always “in the clouds.”

No, that doesn’t mean he’s a pothead. He’s just really spaced out all the time.

These first three characters were kind of easy to mock up, and their existence implies a universe where all the people are either stickmen, fish, or symbol-based Shapiens. But I wanted to squeeze in one more new category of character in the Ben and Teddy world. It took me a while to come up with a fourth, but I did eventually land on…

Carlos

Carlos is a brand new character, debuting a new character category of food-based people. Unlike Teddy being a real fish, Carlos isn’t actually made of edible pizza. His head just happens to be shaped like a pizza slice, and other food people will happen to have different food as non-edible heads too. His eyes are also uneven, just like when pizza toppings slide on a tilted pizza slice, though it won’t be possible for Carlos’ eyes to slip or fall off.

Carlos is the boss of Snack Cactus, so it makes sense for him to be the “tallest,” even if his shoulders are actually at the same height as Ben’s. However, coming up with a new minimalist torso design for this fourth character category was tough, so I did reach into my old 3D portfolio to bring back an old friend…

Yes! For those of you that remember: Carlos’ design is based off my “Blue Guy” character design from 2018, essentially keeping the same floating torso and eyes but with a new head shape. I did decide to omit the mouth, since Ben, Teddy, and Vince don’t have one either.

Snack Cactus

BOOM! I also managed to create the logo for Snack Cactus last weekend. I found a font I liked and paired it with a cleaner take on the one-armed cactus I came up with in the last newsletter post.

I used nuclear yellow and red colors to evoke the feeling of a local desert-themed business, like the multiple -Berto’s restaurants in the southwest (or even the flag of New Mexico.) Throw a black outline on everything to make it feel retro, and it’s good to go.

I even made a vague idea of the uniforms Ben and Vince will be wearing on their jobs. I’d like to give Carlos a name tag instead since he’s primarily yellow, but we’ll see what I end up doing.

…And that’s as far as I got! I want to be finished with all the new character rigs and models in September, and MAYBE get started on modeling the store too. I shouldn’t promise too much though. While I’m REALLY excited about this entire project, I don’t want to keep scaring you guys every time I get carried away.

And I hope you’re excited too! See you all sometime next month.

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Thank you for your time! Please let me know what you think in the comments.

George (wavetro)

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