The Caveman Robot Project!

Loser Pete Blocks Uncle Ned's TV (rough)

2009-06-29T21:26:00.000-07:00

As Zarathustra waxing poetics about Caveman Robot on Monumenta's Airwaves. Pete blocks the view of his Uncle Ned.

Still feeling out the expressionist/photo collage/ drawing atop video, but I think the final product will embraced that "state of becoming".

Loser Pete's living room

2009-06-24T18:12:00.000-07:00

working on backgrounds, basically creating them from photo-collage of my actual apartment, oh the glamourous life of an artist.
Notice the vintage "Visit Beautiful Monumenta" poster on the lower right.

Chimps!

2009-06-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

Working on Chimps for the Animation, Ape Lincoln's ragtag army of chimps, pulled out of their mundane lives here on earth, via Ape's amazing simian charisma. The chimps become a mindless force of nature attacking the city, and taking the hapless Loser Pete captive. Many are from the Zoo, but others come from The circus, various medical testing labs, and the space program.

Progress on the Animation

2009-06-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

tooling along on the big fight between Caveman Robot and Ape Lincoln, I wanted to have them cast shadows on a billboard, and what better service to promote than "Invisible Donkey Removal Services!"

Loser Pete and the Chimps

2009-06-08T19:30:00.000-07:00

Slogging along here, I need to go to the Diamond District and take some photos for source material for the Backgrounds.

Loser Pete

2009-05-17T19:09:00.000-07:00

Here are the latest stills from the animation we see Peter "Loser Pete" Malfortuna, in his Televison enlighted living room.

What is on the wall in Loser Pete's apartment? One a mask from HIs Uncles travles, a portrait of Dr. L.L. Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, and a baby picture of Pete. Pete lives with his Uncle Ned and Aunt June, who are part of the native Esperanto speakers of the city of Monumenta. This came about because Monumenta was an attempt at an Utopian city, so all manner of dreamers and forward thinkers came there to try to make a go of it there. Really no much happens in this story that leads into Pete's background, it is more the idea that there could be later stories, where Pete's ability to speak Esperanto will save the day.

I know it might seem crazy to go to the trouble to draw the pictures on the wall for a background that will be seen for a few seconds, but that is what it is all about, this is the business of making worlds, worlds that don't fall apart in a few days, but last beyond the life of their creators.

My good friend, artist, and former student Jon Latiano, was the life model for Pete, beside being the right body type and age, Jon has the ernest heart of gold quality that I want to get across in Pete's character. Loser Pete was first used in a short story by Britton Walters in Caveman Robot #1, were he was Caveman Robot slacker roommate. He kept finding his way to the growing mythos of Caveman Robot over the years, and was masterfully portrayed by Chris Harcum, in The Adventures of Caveman Robot the Musical.

Comic-Con-Years-Artists-Writers-Friends

2009-05-14T18:56:00.000-07:00

I got an email from our old pal Adam McGovern, looks like Caveman Robot is right dab in the middle of this Sergio Aragones cover,
Comic-Con,40 Years of Artists, Writers, Fans, & Friends!

Caveman Robot has had a few run ends with Mr.Aragones, we thought he did not like us, really nice to be part of this history.

work so far

2009-05-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

I have been plugging away on this Caveman Robot animation project, here are most of the clips I have so far, basically I have 120 some odd clips planned out each one 2 to 30 seconds, I am treating each one as it's own little flim, and build them up and fitting them together, here we see Dr. Zarathustra, Caveman Robot, and the nefarious Ape Lincoln.

Great write up on Joe Infurnari

2009-05-12T17:26:00.000-07:00

http://graphicnyc.blogspot.com/2009/05/daring-to-be-different-with-joe.html

Check out this get write up of our own Joe Infurnari.

Yooouuutuuube.com

2009-05-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

Yooouuutuuube.com is a site that allows users to create a frame-by-frame video wall display using any YouTube video link.

http://www.yooouuutuuube.com/

Prooooogreeesssss

2009-04-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

Working hard on the animation, will have more up soon, finding the right mix of media and elements.

-Jason Robert Bell

Zarathustra Introduces Caveman Robot Test

2009-04-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

Aging Adventure Dr. John Zarathustra, D.D.S., speaks his retirement ceremony , where he is about to pass on his position of official protector of Monumenta to Caveman Robot. Voice and Life Model Adam Swiderski. Text by Jeff Lewonczyk.
Art by Jason Robert Bell

Worked for a few days on this, mainly trying to out the right work flow, and building up a painterly/ old time projection flicker feel to it all.

A better version of this clip can be send on vimeo here.

Progress on the Animation...

2009-04-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

I am back on track working on the Caveman Robot Animation, going over all the live action footage and vectoring it up into keyed layers, which at best is a low budget rotoscoping, but I am using this method as a starting place, not a finish, once I have this done, I can then add in the limited, full, and cgi elements, along with the digital collage and mixed media ideas I have for this monster. It is a long process, and I am trying to come at it more the way I would my ink drawings on actual paper.
For way too long, I have been trying to make this project fit into other people's ideas about what a cartoon, or an animation should be, and other people's ideals about adventure. Since I am all alone in making this, I am free to make it what I want it to be, and discover what that is along the way.

Getting back on track

2009-04-11T00:05:00.000-07:00

I have had to put the animation project on the backburner, first to work on my gallery exhibit at Thomas Robertello Gallery a few months ago, then to work on the Love video with Chris Uphues and Istvan & His Imaginary Band, and then to do Caveman Robot Radio Adventure Hour at the 92nd Street Y's new tribeca space show with Trav S.D..
Hopefully I can spend the next few months working on this animation and getting it to where it needs to be. The two main ideas I am dealing with is getting a more natural organic feel to the line work, which has involved me trying out different ink quills and brushes and getting a better understanding of After Effects and how to better use that program with Toon Boom.

-Jason Robert Bell

THE HOBO AND THE HERO by Britton Walters

2009-04-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

Our good pal and collaborator, Dr. Britton Walters, was so insprired by Caveman Robot recently crossed into the world of radio with an old time radio play broadcast on WFMU, That he did this drawing.

Status: Safely stored away in the Nerfect Worldwide North American Archives.

Caveman Robot animated by 2nd Graders

2009-03-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

I am doing a 4 day animation workshop with 10 2nd graders at the Bronx Charter School for the Arts. This out first test "walk cycle" using a Caveman Robot paper puppet I created last night.

Caveman Robot at Bronx Charter School for the Arts

2009-03-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Caveman Robot, did a guess appearance at the Bronx Charter School for the Arts as part of their Arts Week Parade.

It is funny, few years ago a tv exec told me that Caveman Robot was too "cool" and that kids could not relate to him, and then I have 300 kids hugging him, and proclaiming their love for him.

Caveman Robot Radio Adventure at 92nd Y went great

2009-03-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

I am going to post up more later.

People in order from left to right, Maya Wainhaus, Caveman Robot, Moira Stone, Chris Harcum , Robert Pinnock, Trav S.D., Richard Harrington, and Peter Mcnamara.

Photo by John Bell.

On the Air with Joey Reynolds

2009-03-26T13:40:00.000-07:00

Last night Trav SD and Myself, taped an interview for the Joey Reynolds Show on WOR Radio
We went to talk about out Radio/Performance/ Video Projection piece we had just done at the 92nd Street Y's new Tribeca Performance space. Instead we had a wonderfully insane discussion of metaphysics.
http://www.tetragrammatron.com/CR_on_joeyreynolds.mp3
You can download this mp3 to hear our interview.

Jason Robert Bell

Caveman Robot Radio Adventure at 92nd Y

2009-02-28T13:07:00.000-08:00

Here is the Invite image for the Caveman Robot Radio Adventure show we will be doing with Trav S.D. the night of March 25th, 8:00 pm, at the 92nd street Y's new Tribeca performance space. 200 Hudson St., New York, NY

Caveman Robot Radio Adventure Hour: Episode #167 Enter Boxcar Willie: The Supertramp!

Writer/ performer Trav S.D. (author of "No Applause, Just throw Money"), presents this old time radio show featuring the cult comics character Caveman Robot (http://www.cavemanrobot.com) , with performers the actual 7 foot tall Caveman Robot, Trav S.D., Robert Pinnock, Pete Macnamara, et al., TBA. Live music and sound effects and hand drawn animated video images of the adventure by Jason Robert Bell, with comedy for an experience calculated to make you all yell out Caveman Robot's battle cry “Oolar!”

Caveman Robot Figure Maquettes

2009-02-19T15:23:00.000-08:00

I am working full time on The Caveman Robot Animation project. To that end I am currently making Figure maquettes of the characters, mainly to work out ideas for lighting and poses. Here are process photos of Megan, Ape Lincoln, Zarathustra, and the start of the Professor. Also A fully posable 25 inch tall Caveman Robot figure. All the pieces are made from Sculpture wire, foam core, styrofoam, and oil based clay. I'll be updating the process over the next few days they can all be seen here on Flickr.

Nice little write up

2009-01-18T12:15:00.000-08:00

http://www.modernmythologypress.com Always nice to hear kind words about your efforts.

A Christmas Photo from Captain Ass Kick

2008-12-24T23:20:00.000-08:00

Annie Pollock, The West Coast President of the Caveman Robot Fan Club, sent us this today.

Past from the blast

2008-12-02T21:03:00.000-08:00

My old pal David Wells just sent this to me, he says that he made it in Second Life, so maybe you can find it there.

Do the CMR STOMP

2008-10-14T15:47:00.001-07:00

I am experimenting with laying animation from Toon Boom on top of video footage via After Effects, in this case I used the cartoon bible that Jonathan Latiano made from Joe Infurnari and my artwork. Caveman Robot looks like he is dancing to the music.