I don't really remember shit about the show "Charles in Charge", except that the opening theme is catchy. It's rare that we cover a song. But when we do, It's usually something silly. We had this idea to do an e.p. of all t.v. show themes, but never finished it. Sometimes we cover the theme from "Baywatch". I don't have a video of us covering it, but the original version is way funnier than anything we could ever do.....
See what I mean. Sadly it's still better than most of the shit on t.v. today.
If new shows had titties bouncing in slow-motion I would start paying my cable bill.
We also Cover the theme from "Duck-Tales", although we don't exactly sing the right words. (If you don't like it your shit out of luck-tales) I think we watched a video on youtube to learn how to play this, but we only watched it two or three times, so we play kind of a half assed version of this song. I made this video in Flash. It's one of the first things I made, so the animation is kinda crappy, but then again so is our version of this song. I'm pretty sure Walt Disney is rolling in his grave right now.
( Testosteroso live at the Lizard Lounge 8/21/10)
Whenever we have some extra time in our set, we do a medley of "Rappers Delight", into "Ice Ice Baby". Cody takes over on vocals, which gives me a little break from singing. It's extremely repetitive, but it's fun to play. We also bust out "Baby got Back" when we're real desperate.
Here is some artwork I've done for the band. The animation above was done as a test for a new music video we're currently working on. I recently switched from flash, to Toon Boom Animate Pro and I have to say, I like it a lot better. The drawing tools are easier to use, and it makes traditional animation way faster. I painted the backgrounds In photo-shop, and composed the final scenes using Adobe After effects, and Premiere. I also used Preston Blair's book "Cartoon Animation" as a reference guide. Some of the animation is a little bit choppy, but like I said, It's a test. I am by no means a professional animator, so this is definitely a learning experience.
This is a graphic I did for our website, which is currently under construction. It's two of our mascots, Sex Pig, and Robo-Sexual. I was thinking about using this design as a t-shirt, or maybe a sticker. This was also done in photo shop. It was one of the first things I've created with my new Wacom Cintiq 12wx. They cost a lot of money, but are definitely worth it. I recommend getting one if you are trying to get into graphic design, illustration, or animation. It's the next best thing to drawing on paper, It will speed up your work, and save you a lot of time.
This is a painting I made for one of our songs "Bambi Sandwich". It's supposed to be me, but I look like I'm on meth or something. When we finish recording the song, we're gonna make an animated video for it, but in the meanwhile....here is a live version.
( Testosteroso Live at the Lizard Lounge 8/21/10)
This was a comic book design we made based off the video for the Testo Theme (Click here to watch it!!!). I was going to make it into a ten page comic using the characters we created, but I'm too lazy for that shit. Plus, most of the characters died in the video, so I guess it wouldn't make much sense. I'm not very good at drawing in that style anyway. That's probably why my drawings look so weird, I suck at anatomy. The only thing I usually can draw really good, our tits. I spend a lot of time drawing them, and studying them.
I got bored one day and decided to make the entire band in Garbage Pail Kid form. I only did Cody and I. I collected GPK cards growing up, and also had the movie( Which I watched not too long ago, and remembered how awesomely bad it is). That's probably why I'm so fucked in the head. I love how much detail goes into making these cute little babies do gross shit.
This is the cover to our 3 song e.p. (Click here to download it for free!!!) This again has our mascot Sex pig. This is an older version of her, I drew her kinda fat. It has the songs "Kick you in the Vagina", "Mail Order Bride", and "TESTOSTEROSO THEME" on it.
And finally, this is a drawing of what I look like making these things. It's funny because, this is what I look like right now typing this shit. And yes, I do have a bottle of pepto at my desk at all times. I hope to do more animated videos in the future, but they take a long time to make. Maybe If I became unemployed I could actually get some shit done.
After a failed relationship, Skot decides to swear off woman all together. He works fiendishly in his basement on the prototype for a robotic sexual companion. He then takes his new date out on the town, and enters a couples dance contest.
This is the first video we ever shot, and it was part of a musical we never completed. The best part of making this video, was making the robot suit. I went to home depot, and bought a trash can, and some metal tubes to make the bulk of it . The eyes are actually from a giant Mr. Potato head I had, and the rest of the costume was made out of duct tape, and broken computer parts. I'm pretty sure I stayed up till 7am making this in my basement.
We filmed part of the video at Bubes Brewery (http://www.bubesbrewery.com/). They let us shoot there on a Monday when it was slow, and we had a bunch of our friends show up to be extras. It was really hard directing, and coordinating a bunch of drunk people, but they did an awesome job. Our friend Ethan Tuthill played the robot, and had to be in the costume for 5 hrs or so. It was hard to see out of the eye holes of the costume, plus the lighting inside the bar was kinda dark, so there was a few times Ethan fell or stumbled into something. When he got out of it, his eyes were blood shot and he was drenched in sweat.
The other part of the video was shot at my apartment. We got our friend Wes Funk to fill in for Ethan, cuz after being in that suit for five hours he needed a break. We continued shooting till about 7am. I think I drank 3 energy drinks, and had very little sleep during the making of this, which might explain the insanity of this video.
Since the video, we've had robosexual apear at a few of our shows.
Skot has just received a call from a one night stand he had a few months ago. He is given some very important news, and the only way he can resolve this problem, is with a good old fashioned musical number.
This is part of a musical we wrote that was never completed. It was one of the first videos we ever made. The basic plot is about a guy who has a one night stand with this girl at a party. A few months go by and he finds out she is pregnant. They decide to have the child aborted, but can't afford to go to a ritzy, high priced clinic. They find a bargain back alley abortion clinic, but the doctors methods aren't exactly conventional. After the child is aborted, they throw him into a dumpster during a lightning storm. Lightning strikes the coat-hanger in his head, and brings him back to life. The child vows to find the people who aborted him, and seek revenge. (Kinda fucked up, don't you think?)
Oh, and I forgot to mention.....it has a robot in it too!!!
We shot the video in Mount Joy Pennsylvania, up the street from my apartment. In the last scene of the video I was supposed to grab the actress's tit as the camera pulls out into the sky. We rented a camera crane to do this, but we had to do numerous takes in order to get a smooth motion of the camera. So I basically spent half an hour feeling up her boob. I have to say it was pretty fun.
We only shot one other video for this musical (robo-sexual), but we might go back and film the entire thing one of these days when we have the time and money. Here is a pic of what the baby looks like.
I made it out of an old baby doll, a Halloween decoration, and some rubber latex. He works the same way as a ventriloquist dummy. Even if we never finish filming this musical, we would like to finish recording, and make the soundtrack available.
Skot is waiting for his new mail order bride to arrive, after receiving his first one dead in the box. There doesn't seem to be a problem with his new one, well... maybe one little problem.
This video was a little awkward to shoot. There's nothing like having to straddle your best friend while he is wearing a nightie. When we wrote this video we didn't know if people would find it funny, or extremely uncomfortable. The idea for the ending of the video came from an image I made in photo-shop.
CREEPY!!! Those are some ugly ass butt-babies! We decided it would be funnier to have the main character find out his mail order bride was a dude, but say "fuck it". It's like my father always said "If a chick has a dick, work around it."
The only problem we encountered when filming this video was an issue with the audio. Due to some technical difficulties with the boom mic, we were forced to re-dub all of the dialogue in the opening scene. For the most part you can't tell, but it does make the conversation between the two characters seem a bit robotic. All in all I think the main lesson we learned from making this video, is that people don't want to see two dudes pretend to dry hump.
Have you ever had a relationship turn out less than favorable? Testosteroso understands. They've been through the same thing, but they didn't just sit there and cry like a little pussy. They made puppets...
Yes... I do realize this is an immature way to deal with a break up, but it was fun to make this video. I just learned how to do chroma key in after effects, so it doesn't look super great, but it works. To further prove that I am immature and have no life, I decided to make the whole video with shitty puppets. They were made out of newspaper, cardboard, and felt. I also made a paper mache mask of our mascot "sex pig" and had my girlfriend dance around in her underwear with it on ( she puts up with alot of my shit for some reason).
The only real hard part of making this video, was creating the animations on the easels. I drew each one frame by frame in flash (which isn't the best program for that sorta thing). Other than that, the video didn't take very long to make. Most of it was shot in my bedroom in front of a green wall. It was shot on a cheaper camera then we usually use, so it's not quite the best quality, but for what it is, it works just fine. It came out looking like a bastardized Mexican knock-off of sesame street.
Now...I can understand if your a female and you find this video offensive. I get comments like "how would you like it if there was a song called "Kick you in the dick"? My response to that would have to be, somebody please write that song.
I remember we played this show once at a place called Bubes brewery, and we opened with this song. I looked over at the bar, and sure enough there was my ex-girlfriend. She saw me, walked up to the front, and stood with her legs spread out, as if to say "Here ya go, free shot!". I have to say, she had a good sense of humor about it. She could of just kicked me in the dick.
In this adventure, we follow Reginald Fitzgibbons on his quest to save the space princess from the clutches of the evil Dr. Kaporkian. Along the way he Teams up with Codan the Barbarian, Morrison the Wizard King, and Legelias. With their help, they take the castle of Kaporkian by storm, and thwart his diabolical plan to turn the space princess into his piggy sex slave.
This video took a few months to make. We made it on our free time, and I'm pretty sure I spent most of my paychecks within that time on this video. We basically wanted to make power rangers meets heavy metal. At one point I became unemployed, so I spent every free moment making cheesy puppets out of cardboard, great stuff foam insulation, and stuffed animals my dog chewed up. I got sooooo into making props for this video, that I added more and more to the plot (or what there is of it.). I built the laboratory in my moms basement. My boss helped me paint, and make the cave entrance, which is made out of pink foam carved with filet knives. The one day working on the cave, he missed the foam, and cut through his thumb. He was bleeding pretty bad, but he wrapped it up with a rag and continued working. That's dedication!
The other bloody part of this video, was the pigs head we used at the end. We got it at the butchers shops for 20 bucks. When I got home I opened it up and realized they took its eyes out. So I replaced them with goofy cartoon looking ones. Then, we had to get an apple in its mouth, which you think would be easy considering it's done fairly often. It took two of us to break the jaw open, and squeeze the apple in its mouth. It was so fuckin' gross. It had stubble, and a double chin. It was like putting your hand into the mouth of a forty year old dead guy.
The video was filmed by our good friend Dylan Stern-Courney. He does most of our videos, and he always does an amazing job! My friends Mike Lombardo and Tina Yanni created the make-up for the pig doctor. They did an awesome job. Mike also starred as the pig doctor. It was great having him around, because he is very experienced in film making. Check out his videos!!!
He would point out continuity errors that I would have never noticed, and he was fun to work with. We also had our friend Jason Pohlig do some of the final edits, and special effects for this. He also makes some cool horror videos, for Slightly Strange Studios.
Because of how cheap and tacky this video is, we obviously couldn't pay actors to be in it.
We had our friend Mandi, who is a model play the space princess. Which was cool having a chick on a saw table in her underwear all day, even though it was a bit distracting. My boss played the wizard, mainly because our bass player was supposed to, but he quit the band. Our friends Ethan Tuthill, and Matt Rimmer played the guards. Kelly, and Julia McMullen Played the cave girls. And Jason Pohlig played the Mecha-Testo.
All in all, It was a fun experience making a low budget sci-fi flick. Maybe someday in the future we'll make a sequel. Until then, Here's the blooper reel!!!
