Testosteroso- Bambi Sandwich

 

WWW.TESTOSTEROSO.COM

Testosteroso is currently working on a new animated music video called "Bambi Sandwich". In the video, It shows the band slaughter some beloved animal icons. Let me start by saying, we do not condone cruelty towards animals, this is meant entirely as a joke. However, I do condone cruelty towards P.E.T.A., and other nut job vegans who give me shit for eating meat. This video is meant to piss those types of people off.





It starts off with a bunch of hippies being thrown into a meat grinder, and then the band grills them up at cookout. The layout of this video is kinda weird. The verse shows an animated sequence describing the exact action of what is being said, and then during the chorus it follows an actual story. Part of the reason we made this song into an animated video as opposed to a live action one is, that the verses were so bizarre that it would be impossible to re-enact what was being sung.

    The animation was done using Toon Boom Animate Pro, and the background layout was done in Adobe Photo shop.I recently purchased a book called "Cartoon Animation" by Preston Blair. It shows step by step how to make a traditional animation. I'm trying really hard to avoid techniques that a lot of flash animators use. Most cartoons today are done very similar to the way paper cut-out animation  is done. I want this cartoon to look more hand drawn.

Drawing some of the scenes in this video was a bit of a challenge. Luckily I bought a cheap stuffed Bambi doll at the mall, which I referred to whenever I had to draw him at weird angles.
The end sequence came out pretty good. It shows the band dressed as deer hunters, while Bambi runs to safety inside of a cabin.

   When he gets inside he sees it's a hunting lodge. The heads of different Disney characters are mounted on the wall, and there is a Winnie the Pooh bear skin rug on the floor.

 It is then revealed to him who the real killers of his mother were. 

To research somethings for this video, I watched the movie "Bambi". And even though we're making fun of it a little with this video, It still remains the best Disney movie of all time. I forgot how awesome the animation was, and how beautiful  some of the scenes were (not to sound like a puss or anything).I wish Disney still made cartoons like that.  For updates on this video, be sure to join us on facebook. Or go to www.testosteroso.com

Testosteroso 70's Cartoon Intro (Finished!!!)

I just finished the new Testosteroso 70's Cartoon Intro. It's only 55 seconds, but it actually took a while to get the look just right. I tried to mimic the Drawing style and film grain of a 70's Hanna Barbera cartoon. Plus I added some VHS Video distortion in Adobe After Effects to make it more authentic.  The final effect I used  was a low end phase and pitch bend on the audio to make the sound get fucked up whenever the tape appeared to be warped.

I roto-scoped the actual video for some of the footage ( If you haven't seen it click here to watch it.), and I also roto-scoped some episodes of Jonny Quest, Thundarr the barbarian, GI Joe, and Thunder-Cats (yeah I know that's sorta cheating, but I'm fuckin' lazy.)

Pig guards based off of Jonny Quest.

 Roto-scoping is a good way to learn animation. It helped me get prepared for the next animated testo video, which is more "cartoony" than this one. I am not used to drawing things proportionate, so making this video was a pain in the ass. The last animated thing I made was for our website http://www.testosteroso.com. It's the whole band as a 4- headed baby that does gross shit. Click here to check it out.

Testo theme 70's Cartoon

Codan the Barbarian

Here are some screenshots from the new animated short we are currently working on. We're basically remaking the Testo theme video   as if it were an action cartoon from the 70's. Kinda like Thunder cats, G.I. Joe or He-man. Above is a picture of Col. Thunder-cock (left) And Codan the barbarian (right). Codan is kinda based off of He-man.

Legolias on his mighty flying dragon

The animations were done in Toon boom animate. I either rotoscoped the original video we made, or old episodes of G.I. Joe. The backgrounds were made in  adobe photoshop.

For right now I'm only animating an opening credit sequence. If it comes out good, I might actually write an episode just for the hell of it (Although I doubt it, because animating this shit is extremely tedious) The plus side to animating in this style is, to truly mimic the cartoons of the 70's you have to cut corners. Which makes it a little bit easier. 

Col. Thunder-Cock

Col thunder-cock is the lead henchman. He's some kind of space rooster I guess.

 

Thunder-cock and BI-polar bear

Bi-polar bear is either a "Bi" polar bear, or a Bipolar bear, I haven't decided yet. He has a short circuit in his brain which causes him to switch personalities  from a highly intelligent mastermind criminal, to an  unintelligible broken robot.

Dr. Kaporkian is the mad scientist who created thunder-cock and Bi-polar bear in order to stop Testosteroso from thwarting his diabolical scheme, to change all the village woman into his piggy sex slaves.



 I hope to have the video done in the next couple weeks, but I've been getting extremely frustrated making it, which causes me to take a lot of breaks from animating. I wish I could afford a Korean animation studio. I basically stay up till 5am, drink a shit ton of caffeine, and smoke a pack of cigarettes every time I work on this cartoon. I don't know how the fuck real animators do this shit on a daily basis.

Animation/Illustration

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.