THE DANDU STUDIOS BLOG

A Wales Of A Tale Part 1

2011-12-30T09:51:00.000-08:00

A new adventure for 2011, A Wales Of A Tale.

The Last Arabian Nut

2010-09-04T14:06:00.001-07:00

Arabian Nuts Wrap Up

2010-08-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

Average Jones Gets In Serious Trouble In Arabian Nuts!

2010-08-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

More Magic in Arabian Nuts

2010-07-25T17:21:00.001-07:00

Magic In Arabian Nuts

2010-07-19T07:42:00.000-07:00

Arabian Nuts Get Nuttier

2010-07-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

Fourth Of July Meets the Arabian Nuts!

2010-07-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

Arabian Nuts Part Four

2010-07-04T05:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry I am late with the installment, I was having computer problems.

Arabian Nuts Continued

2010-06-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

More Arabian Nuts!

2010-06-13T15:52:00.000-07:00

6 And A Half Arabian Nights Part One

2010-06-06T16:42:00.001-07:00

The Final Act of William's Sphere Gets Shaken

2010-05-18T06:37:00.001-07:00

Shakespherian Frolics Part Two

2010-05-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

Brush Up On Your Shakesphere!

2010-05-01T05:15:00.001-07:00

Two Sundays In One!

2010-04-18T16:42:00.001-07:00

Here is last week's and this week's sunday episodes.

Sundays VIX

2010-04-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

French Frolics Part Sixteen

2010-04-05T08:14:00.001-07:00

The finale of our final adventure for a while.

French Frolics Part Fifteen

2010-04-05T08:11:00.001-07:00

French Frolics Part Fourteen

2010-04-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

French Frolics Part Thirteen

2010-04-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

French Frolics Part Twelve

2010-04-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

Sundays VIII

2010-03-26T10:10:00.001-07:00

February's sundays.

French Frolics Part Eleven

2010-03-26T10:08:00.001-07:00

Officer Translation helps out, but...

French Frolics Part Ten

2010-03-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

It does not look good in court for Mr Jones!

French Frolics Part Nine

2010-03-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Penelope and Busta help bail out Average Jones!

Sundays VII

2010-03-26T09:47:00.001-07:00

French Frolics Part Eight

2010-03-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

Mr Jones is arrested!

French Frolics Part Seven

2010-03-26T09:39:00.001-07:00

Jones is in big trouble now!

French Frolics Part Six

2010-03-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

What a mixup on the SS Titanic!

French Frolics Part Five

2010-03-23T08:18:00.001-07:00

Pickpockets galore in this chapter!

French Frolics Part Four

2010-03-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

Is this the end for Average Jones?

French Frolics Part Three

2010-03-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Silliness and suspense on the SS Titanic.

French Frolics Part Two

2010-03-23T07:49:00.001-07:00

Jones is in a pickle now!

French Frolics Part One

2010-03-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

A new adventure for our heroes!

Canadian Capers Part Eight

2010-03-23T07:45:00.000-07:00

The final episode.

Canadian Capers Part Seven

2010-03-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

Merry Christmas from Average Jones and friends!

Canadian Capers Part Six

2010-03-23T07:34:00.000-07:00

Our heros help out old Saint Nick!

Canadian Capers Part Five

2010-03-23T07:30:00.001-07:00

Canadian Capers Part Four

2010-03-23T07:27:00.000-07:00

Our Heroes arrive at the North Pole!

Canadian Capers Part Three

2010-03-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

Oh no! Our heroes get framed!

Canadian Capers Part Two

2010-03-21T17:54:00.000-07:00

A burglary! Oh no!

Canadian Capers Part One

2010-03-21T17:47:00.000-07:00

A new plot unfolds in Canadian Capers!

Sundays VI

2010-03-21T17:33:00.001-07:00

Highland Hijinx Part Seven

2010-03-21T17:27:00.000-07:00

Explosive excitement happens in this final chapter!

Highland Hijinx Part Six

2010-03-21T17:17:00.001-07:00

Oh no!

Highland Hijinx Part Five

2010-03-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

Murderous mayhem happens in our story.

Highland Hijinx Part Four

2010-03-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

Read on about the suspenseful mystery of "Highland Hijinx!"

Highland Hijinx Part Three

2010-03-18T08:12:00.001-07:00

Part three of the mystery.

Highland Hijinx Part Two

2010-03-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

I fell ill drawing this, so mind the drawing quality this week. It gets better, don't worry.

Highland Hijinx Part One

2010-03-18T07:25:00.001-07:00

Highland Hijinx Part One!

Sundays V

2010-03-18T07:14:00.000-07:00

Here are the Sundays that ran during "Highland Hijinx" 9/28-11/7 2009.

Egyptian Enigma Part Ten

2010-03-18T07:02:00.000-07:00

The final chapter of "Egyptian Enigma."

Egyptian Enigma Part Nine

2010-03-16T17:27:00.000-07:00

The ninth part of "Egyptian Enigma!"

Egyptian Enigma Part Eight

2010-03-16T17:24:00.000-07:00

Oh No! This may be the final curtain for our hero!

Egyptian Enigma Part Seven

2010-03-16T17:20:00.000-07:00

Oh dear! Deadly Dan might have the upper hand!

Egyptian Enigma Part Six

2010-03-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

Deadly Dan gets his share of laughs in this chapter.

Egyptian Enigma Part Five

2010-03-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

More enigmatic events in "Egyptian Enigma!"

Egyptian Enigma Part Four

2010-03-16T17:08:00.001-07:00

Things look rather grim for our heroes!

Egyptian Enigma Part Three

2010-03-16T16:52:00.000-07:00

Our friends arrive in a strange town where strange things happen.

Egyptian Enigma Part Two

2010-03-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

Dear oh dear! Lost in the desert! How will they get out?!

Egyptian Enigma Part One

2010-03-16T16:46:00.001-07:00

Here is the start of my favorite adventure "Egyptian Enigma!"

Sundays IV

2010-03-16T16:33:00.000-07:00

Here are the sundays that were published during the run of Egyptian Enigma (8/3-9/26 2009)

Shanghaied Shipmates Part Six

2010-03-16T16:31:00.001-07:00

The thrilling conclusion of this nautical adventure!

Shanghaied Shipmates Part Five

2010-03-16T16:24:00.000-07:00

This story is about to wrap up! Argh!

Shanghaied Shipmates Part Four

2010-03-15T17:35:00.000-07:00

So many twists and turns at sea! Ahoy!

Shanghaied Shipmates Part Three

2010-03-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

An exciting chapter of "Shanghaied Shipmates!" Avast!

Shanghaied Shipmates Part Two

2010-03-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

MORE SWASHBUCKLING ADVENTURE WITH AVERAGE JONES!

Sundays III

2010-03-13T07:35:00.000-08:00

Here are the sundays that ran during "Shanghaied Shipmates."

Shanghaied Shipmates Part One

2010-03-13T07:32:00.001-08:00

Here is part one of "Shanghaied Shipmates."

Smith Manor Part Seven

2010-03-13T07:27:00.000-08:00

The final installment of "Smith Manor."

Smith Manor Part Six

2010-03-13T07:24:00.000-08:00

This is the penultimate installment of "Smith Manor!"

Smith Manor Part Five

2010-03-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

This is a dangerous case for our heros! Will they make it?

Smith Manor Part Four

2010-03-12T17:28:00.000-08:00

More of "Smith Manor!"

Smith Manor Part Three

2010-03-12T17:03:00.003-08:00

Here is more chilling drama and comedy from "Smith Manor!"

Smith Manor Part Two

2010-03-12T17:01:00.000-08:00

More mystery in "Smith Manor!"

Smith Manor Part One

2010-03-12T16:56:00.000-08:00

Here is part one of "Smith Manor." The drawing and writing as you can see is improving. The first two stories of mine are not that amusing but in my third story "Shanghied Shipmates" the humor really picks up.

Sundays II

2010-03-12T12:03:00.000-08:00

Here are the sunday episodes that ran during "Smith Manor."

Moronic Miners Part Seven

2010-03-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

The conclusion!

Moronic Miners Part Six

2010-03-12T11:58:00.001-08:00

More adventure in part six!

Moronic Miners Part Five

2010-03-12T11:50:00.000-08:00

We're about to wrap up "Moronic Miners!"

Moronic Miners Part Four

2010-03-12T11:42:00.000-08:00

Here is more of "Moronic Miners."

Moronic Miners Part Three

2010-03-12T11:40:00.001-08:00

Here is part three of the story.

Moronic Miners Part Two

2010-03-12T11:36:00.001-08:00

Here is more of the Moronic Miners storyline.

Sundays

2010-03-12T11:06:00.000-08:00

Here are my sundays that I published during the "Moronic Miners" story-line. These sundays do not continue from the story, they are just amusing anecdotes of situations that my characters could get into. Mind the poor handwriting and drawing, it improves as the strip progresses.

My Comic Strip

2010-03-12T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I bet you readers wondered about where I was for the past two years. I have still been working on Average Jones cartoons and my colorizations, but I have also been working on a daily newspaper style strip. The strip is a light hearted adventure story with a naive lovable fellow named Average Jones with a rival named Busta and the girl that they fight for, Penelope. I have been drawing this strip since April the 9th 2009 and I hope you will enjoy reading it.

Today I will post the story that I title "Moronic Miners." Which ran from April 9 to May 16 2009. Mind my poor handwriting and artwork, it will improve over the next few months.

MY NEW WEBSITE!!!

2007-12-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

Merry late christmas everyone, my big christmas gift that keeps on giving is my new webpage at http://www.dandustudios.com/ it's not much right now but later in the year, things will be added from Average Jones to my colorized films...

Average Jones Ideas

2007-09-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

Here are a few ideas for upcoming Average Jones cartoons, complete with years of "official" release.

The Love Potion (1928): Jones sees his lady Penelope in the park, she spurns him for Buster Skull, a big strong man. Jones finds a love potion and trys to get him and Penelope back together again.

Average Jone's Silly Circus (1928): Jones runs a circus but on opening day, his staff needs to be paid, but he has no money, so the staff run out on him. What is Jones going to do?

Jones the Defective Detective (1928): Jones is a detective who tries to catch the mysterious phantom lurking about and murdering people.

Porky Porkers (1929): Jones arrives home drunk, and his wife interrogates him and of course he tells a big lie.

Herd of Cows? (1929): Jones is tired of the noise of the big city, so he and his girlfriend Penelope go and stay at a farm. When they arrive they of course do a bit of chores but when the work is done they sing "Jollity Farm" while the animals dance. Here is what the song sounds like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJt9-l27fY8

A Lot of Bulls! (1929): Jones and Penelope are in Spain and Buster (in spanish dress and accent) challenges Jones to a bullfight!

No Time to Lose! (1930): This is a modern reworking of Punctured Romance, with Jones and Penelope going to a club and singing and dancing but Penelope gets kidnapped yet again!

Jones the Sailor Man (1930): Jones forms a trading company and sails a ship across the Atlantic, but gets taken by pirates!

Nanook of the South (1930): Almondsen Jones explores the north pole and finds a lovely eskimo woman...

PLEASE COMMENT READERS!

Colorization Mania!

2007-06-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

Around October 2005, I had an idea to restore my copies of Felix cartoons, they were splicy, full of scratches and also the contrast on some was dimminished because of film deterioration. As well as restoring the cartoons, I thought of computer colorizing them, adding tints to the cartoons so that they would be more enjoyable, as well as putting the soundtracks (I was going to color the 1928-1930 series that had soundtracks) through a dolby c filter to boost frequency and hear subtleties better, since the copies I have are pretty muffled. My first experments were making several copies of the bw frame and adjusting each's brightness and darkness tinting them various colors using paint shop pro. This is a picture with that method used.

As you can see there are various Irregularities, like the transparent purple edged rope. Next I tried to just fill in various objects.

The colors as you can see are nicely saturated but the process was a little time consuming, so I simplified it...All of these were made by Paint Shop Pro, btw.

And Disney if you are reading this, please do not sue, it is something I thought of doing in my spare time to see if I can handle different cartoons. I started colorizing Forty Winks (1930) around halloween but it got messed up, so i perfected my process and tried it on Futuritzy (1928) , the colors were too watery and unsaturated to be much of anything, so I gave up the idea for a while. Until March 2006 after watching a few redrawns of old cartoons like Porky Pig, Betty Boop, and Popeye. I thought of tracing and coloring cartoons myself. I started out with Indoore Outdoor (1928) another felix cartoon, I guess I was on a Felix kick at the time. I drew backgrounds from what I saw/measured, I don't have tracing equipement to do it on paper, I trace cels using animation shop pro. Here are the results:

My redrawing process may not be perfect, but they are better than most of the colorizations that were made back in the early 1970s by Korean sweatshop artists. I actually care for the cartoons and I'm doing this to give these ancient classics a new life on TV and video. Ask anybody on the street about Bosko, Flip the Frog, Bimbo the Dog, Farmer Alfalfa, Cubby Bear, etc, and you will see most of them shrug their shoulders, why?, because TV stations and lots of video manufacturers feel really uncomfortable releasing rare black and white material, but if they were in color and in good condition, they would be more likely to release it and expose us to the classics again after around 50 years!

THE FUTURE:

After playing the next Fred Ladd, I might go into being the next Ted Turner, by making and releasing colorized versions of movies and short films like "Phantom of the Opera" (1925) "The Stolen Jools" (1931), and also if I can get the rights, various UK movies like "Oh Mr Porter" (1937) "No Limit" (1935) and maybe even "I'm All Right Jack" (1959), even though I will have to do a lot of legal work in this matter. I might even have to stick to just PD titles, but I really want to bring the classics back to the popular market and to make it cooler.

These two previous pictures were made by a program thats simply called "color" I downloaded off the internet, the colors are a bit too garish, looks like an early 1980's job, I looked for another program called "blackmagic" which boasts that professionals use it, especially columbia for colorizing the three stooges films, you can get these on DVD, they are really nicely done, and the restoration is terrific. Here are some attempts to colorize title cards off of my favorite stooge episode:

Here's one of my favorite Heros: George Formby, he was a musician, actor, motorcyclist and jockey (at least when he was younger) here is a shot (colorized by me with blackmagic) from "Come on George" (1938).

Presenting Average Jones

2007-04-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

Well, here is the star of our studio, Average Jones, in a rather recent drawing.

<------------------------

You might notice the difference between the picture on the previous entry and this one. Jones is still in his evolving stage, and since it takes months to make an Average Jones cartoon, I can get easily bored with drawing the same style over and over... Also my mentors changed, the first two cartoons actually really had nothing to follow, it was just my way of thinking what a pre 1930's cartoon looked like since I didn't see any made before 1929 when I created Jones. Then I got fascinated with Pat Sullivan and his creation of Felix the Cat, so cartoons between West of East and Jone's Sweepstake Ticket (my most recent one) looks more sullivan/messmerish. My future cartoons, I thought I would do in more of the style of late 1920's/early 1930's rubberhose animation, ala Betty Boop, Flip the Frog, Oswald the Rabbit, etc.

It all really started out when I was a 9 year old, watching tapes of UB Iwerk's Flip the Frog, Betty Boop, and most importantly of all, a tape of Silly Symphonies recorded by dad from the Disney Channel. Most of the cartoons on that tape in my opinion seemed so-so. I don't really care for slow paced/cute Disney cartoons. But one cartoon caught my attention "El Terrible Toreador" (1929) which is more of an effort to be funny, and it was. Drawn by the great UB Iwerks, it starts out with a guard being wooed by this lovely waitress, and then the toreador (who as you can see resembles A.J.) comes in and theey duel, and to show his courage, the toreador has to fight the most ferocious bull in Mexico.

After watching this cartoon I was deeply inspired to recreate cartoons from the 1930's, it used to be my dream to do 60's style cartoons, since I was fascinated with cartoons like Underdog and Bullwinkle that used to air regularly on local N.C. stations. As time passed, 1930's style cartoons really interested me and still does. When I was 12 and at the time I was learning animation by making stop motion films with my legos, and I thought of changing to 2D for fun. First since I didn't know how to do it, I thought of making paper cut outs and animating. But it didn't work especially since this was around June and my fan was on near my desk! I then figured out a couple of weeks later about how to use animation shop which I have had for over a year. I finally created a short demo of Jones walking through my imitation of a background of El Terrible Toreador (the dilapadated mud walls) it was around 10 seconds but I knew something was going to come out of this. Around July I thought of just doing something fun and making my first cartoon complete with gags and stuff, I thought at first making a cartoon where Jones had to work at an office job, but it got too complicated for me to animate and I thought of adding some sound to it, BUT HOW?! Since I couldn't play music, it was not going to be a success. So I thought of instead producing a simple, silent cartoon, with added stock music, and it was going to be one of those gay-90's melodramas "Jone's Puntured Romance"....

Now lets review my first cartoon "Jone's Punctured Romance" I created this back in July 2004 and it only took around 2 weeks to make it just in time for mom's birthday in early August. I originally thought it would be a flop, the drawing was rather primitive, but the gags in this 1 minute cartoon were rather fast paced. When mom and dad first saw this they rippled with laughter and I thought that this little guy would be a success after all.

http://www.dailymotion.com/dandu386/video/x1dr1m_jones-punctured-romance

My next cartoon was going to be "Jones Brains the Baby" , where poor old Jones gets kicked out of his lodgings for not paying his rent and having to get a job minding a baby who is so cunning, he's impossible to take care of without disaster, but of course I ran into the same problem as "Jones the Office Boy" except it wasn't the sound barrier, it was just too hard to draw for me.
Around October I started working on "Jones the Magnificent" it originally had no backgrounds ala "Punctured Romance" but a day after it was finished, I tried to edit it for time as mom suggested and the file went corrupt, so I had to recreate it later on, the same thing happenend to my original copy of "Jone's Punctured Romance" but unlike "Magnificent" I had a copy of it on camera, so all I needed to do was follow the tape exactly, but with "Magnificent" I had to recreate what I remebered and what I remembered was a little hazy so it didn't garner as many laughs when it was remade. Punctured romance was finished again in early Febuary and Magnificent in mid April.

http://www.dailymotion.com/dandu386/video/x1dr4z_jones-the-magnificent

After redoing those two, and after exhibiting them at my homeschoolers review with Mrs Culver, which she enjoyed so much...I made "West of East" during the Summer of 2005. At the time I was studying Pat Sullivan since I got a DVD of some of his toons after the review, and designed backgrounds closer to his style, lots of lines, barely any filling. It was also a success.

http://www.dailymotion.com/dandu386/video/x1dr5u_west-of-east

At one time I thought of converting Jones to sound afterwards since I had a friend who could play music but we didn't get along after a while for many reasons and so I was left alone to still produce silent Jones cartoons. While we were discussing converting Jones to sound. I created another called "The Awful Tooth" but it was shut down because of creative reasons and it wasn't going to well especially with the blow of loosing my possible friend/musician in december. The creative problems was what really blew the cartoon in January since I realized dental humor was not funny as dad explained. I didn't scrap the cartoon unlike the previous two failures "Office Boy" and "Braining the Baby". I kept the footage and reused it later on. In the meantime I created another picture called "Choose Your Husbands" and took 6 months to finish it from mid January to early July, at the same time I started my business of redrawing and colorizing old cartoons from my favorite era, which I will cover in a later post. The cartoon was amusing, but the thing is that it was too slow paced since I would advance my cartoons from 3 minutes to 6 as most animators made cartoons.

http://www.dailymotion.com/dandu386/video/x1drgt_choose-your-husband

Remember my footage that I didn't throw away? Well, in August I started making "Jone's Sweepsake Ticket", and the first 3 minutes was basically stock footage from the unproduced cartoon, it shows where Jones falls out of the window and lands and then it starts again after Jones lands on the rock pile and flies up and ends before you see the railroad tracks. A lot of physical comedy and lots of fast paced animation I tried to put in both cartoons, and it all worked out. Except theres a big timing error when jones is spit out of the shark and flies through the city and crashes in a lamp post. It had the same results as the previous, this 6 minute cartoon thing is not really working is it?

http://www.dailymotion.com/dandu386/video/x1gjsm_jones-sweepstake-ticket

Well in future, I will have to tighten up gags and make Jone's cartoons more Fleischeresque and learn keyboard or have my freind Joshua Vega play. Josh runs another blog about his 8mm films, he realy likes popeye as well as other classics. My next production would be "A Night at the Theatre", where jones goes into a "Feartre" and ends up in a very spooky funhouse!

2007-04-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

Hello folks, I am Dillon and this is my blog about my cartoon studio, Dandu Studios. I started it when I was 12 with a character called Average Jones who is a simple character (haven't really defined his personality yet) who seems to lose out (sometimes win) in his cartoons. Here is a picture of the man who started it all.

Even though he doesnt usually appear in color, you see with Jones I am trying to achieve a look from the 1920's/1930's, which is one of my favorite eras, especially in terms of cartoons. Cartoons back then were more whimsical, jazzy and just rather unusual. Reccomended cartoons from that stage in time are Felix the Cat, Betty Boop, Flip the Frog, Aesop's Fables and many other cartoons. I have been interested in these classics as far as I can remember, one of the earliest cartoons I can remember viewing was when I was around 3 watching Flip the Frog and Comicolor cartoons with dad which he got from the library, and I enjoyed them to this day. As well as cartoons, I enjoy gaming, music, sports, normal teen stuff...