Meet the Whalers

So I guess it's been a while since the last HV post. I've been busy with designing the interiors of the Alpha Centauri, designing how the weaponry would work, and what the other Whalers look like. (I also got sick twice, and went on travel)

We've already gotten acquainted with Asa, the lead baddie in this story so far.

Note: This design is the second revision, as each successive design had to be streamlined. I needed to edit out everything that made me tell myself "I ain't animating all that"

Look at my handsome trash prince son.

So we've got Asa, and even though the golden rule of animation design is "don't design on the panel" I designed his buddies on the panel. Sue me. I'll make a more official design image for those two goobers later. Right after I figure out what their names are.

Now I had to design the interior of the ship. Where are these guys gonna sit? What does the bridge of the ship look like? What is the steering wheel gonna look like?

These are some watercolor studies I made of the ship's interiors. I kind of wanted the bridge to feel somewhere between an Evangelion cockpit and a luxury yacht made for idiots. And it just so happens I've been on two cruises so far, so I'm quite versed in how fugly modern cruise ship design can be. Crass, ugly, commercialized. It looks vaguely like Baroque design barfed all over a shopping mall. I wanted that replicated in this ship.

Gross.

Also, while I wanted the laser cannon to be triggered by a more traditional trigger switch...

...but my animation partner suggested I use video game controllers, and that busted everything wide open.

Of course, a rich goober in the future is gonna get sold on a boat controlled by video game controllers. OceanGate anyone?

Now the antagonists of this mini-episode are evil gamers.

Do I feel bad about that? No. Am I worried I'm going to alienate gamers? No. This is a cartoon. Not a video game. Go play Call of Duty #6,839 and leave me to my whale cartoons. Will I welcome gamer controversy if it means I get more subscribers and follows? I am only human. >:)

I wanted the invading laser to feel devastating to the local sea life. Everything is all fun and games for the boys in the boat, but for the animals down below, it's apocalyptic. These poor animals are being vaporized for teenage thrills. I need the audience to feel how desperate it is to be an animal suffering this treatment and why they might want to assist a few renegade surfers in taking this ship down.

And that's why my talking whale sounds like a Cuban revolutionary.

Anyway, $10 Patreon subscribers are welcome to watch the Secret clean up of this animatic in full...

While the rest of you can watch the Death Laser Demo available to everyone. Enjoy!

See you next update.

-Love, Joolz

Meet the Surfers Animatic

This is what it’s all about! So far, I’ve gotten nearly half the first scene cleaned up. All of the full episode one has three scenes in it, so that’s a good amount.

Now do you see why I had to make all those character design sheets? I never could’ve kept these characters’ designs straight otherwise.

It’s neat to see everything come together like this.

More to come soon!

-Love, Joolz

Finally the Surfing!

It’s taken a long time to get here. A long, long time. So why did it take so long for me to start storyboarding the best parts of the script: the whale and the surfing?

My entire two-second pitch for Hurricane Vendetta is “teen girl surfer revenge whale story.” But it took me a long time to figure out how best to present that. Where do I start? Should I start with the party dress scene? Should I get straight to the surfing and hijinx? What do I show of the good guys? How do I design any of those characters? I have to design weapons now too, don’t I? Blargh.

Vanessa and the whale, Baracoa

Opening Scene: How it started

Opening Scene: How it’s going

But good news, I worked it all out. By the time I wrote my third script revision I knew I had nailed what I wanted. It’s fun, it’s bubbly, it’s cute, but it’s also intense and insane. And it showcases what these surfer kids can do like a good pilot should. Now I can finally storyboard the surf sequences! Woohoo.

So these are some of the storyboards for the opening sequence. They’re still fairly rough, but I’m very excited at how this scene is coming together. If this was a Saturday morning cartoon when I was a kid, this would legit be my favorite show. Here are some more background shots leading to this creamy goodness…

And of course, we’ve got some unused panels I had to take out, but look so good I had to add them to this blog.

It’s true we really do have to kill our darlings. These panels came out so nice. I’m a little sad they’ll only end up here.

I’m so glad I can finally get this story started right.

-Love, Joolz











Bad Friends (And how to Handle them)

With a few exceptions, most American media about female friendships are all overwhelmingly positive. Two girls or more girls pictured on screen are presented as the best of friends, and neither of those friends ever seem to have complicated feelings about one another. None of them are abusive, classist, or racist. Just sunshine and candy canes for the most part. And any mean girls who present in the wild are fully declared rivals. No hiding, no lies. But real toxic people don’t work that way. This is an important lesson for my audience.

Real Toxic Bastards prefer to make friends with their prey.


In our Pilot, we see Vanessa hanging out with Lyra, her only so-called friend on screen for the episode. Lyra is not actually her friend. She takes great pleasure in making Vanessa feel insecure, poor, and worthless. Why? I’d like to say we’ll find out later, but her jealousy is too easy to spot. I’m being so unsubtle and loud about who Lyra is and what her intentions are. She’s an emotional vampire hell bent on taking everything away from Vanessa, and laughing at her tears about it. She hates her. She wants to see her humbled brutally. And this is the scene where Vanessa finally clocks it.

In this scene, Lyra has contacted Vanessa pretending to be concerned about her tough times at school, but really it’s an attempt to concern-troll her. No, she does not actually give a shit about Vanessa’s well-being. Lyra wants to watch her suffer, but things don’t quite go her way when she sees where Vanessa is: a gorgeous tropical paradise.

And Lyra is…not in a tropical paradise.

I wanted to show Vanessa finally channeling her power as an Island Girl and firing back at her haters, but in the most hilarious way possible. Why be angry when you can just brag about being on vacation? It’s very difficult for Lyra or Phillippe, the other OP in the situation, to break through Vanessa’s good vibes. They can’t make Vanessa angry or upset, when they’re up against the power of sunshine, whales and piraguas.


Let this be a lesson to the rest of us Neuro-spicy kids. Haters will come for us because we’re special and they’re not. They think we’re easy targets, but that’s a projection. Nobody’s more vulnerable than an emotional vampire. We just gotta be unshakeable, and remind them that we’re on the vacation they wish they were on. We have the gifts and they do not. Follow up with a heaping dose of pity. Narcs hate it when we feel sorry for them.

We all have bad friends. The best thing you can do is make them so angry they throw themselves out of your life. Good luck.

-Love, Joolz









Authority Figures

Vanessa struggles with authority figures some more.

I feel bad. A good chunk of this pilot is spent putting Vanessa through the wringers. First, she gets betrayed by her friends. Then she gets expelled. Then she says too much truth again and gets in a fight with her mom. Now she’s in trouble with the police. And she has yet to get the worst news of the night. This poor kid can’t catch a break. (no surf pun intended)

I had a lot of fun trying to figure out the cheapest, easiest way to convey that the police have arrived at Vanessa’s lowest moment. Changing the character matte from blue to red really helped. All I have to do is throw in some sound effects and voice work for the cops and the vibe will be perfect. (Looking forward to working with my Animation Partner on the sound design).

Of course, not all authority in this story is heavy-handed. Vanessa’s mom cares. She loves her. She just happens to be overwhelmed with her responsibilities. The point of this sequence is to show even moms with the best of intentions have their limitations.

Shout out to all those kids who had that immigrant mom experience. The sweet always comes with salt.

What's a Surfskate board?

So I’m finally getting to storyboard the sequence where we see Vanessa on her skateboard for the first time. Up until this point, we’ve only seen her as a misguided private school kid. We’ve never seen who Vanessa is when she’s a badass on a board.

This sequence takes place Vanessa’s fight with her mom. Now we’re seeing her negotiating the roads as a skater. These backgrounds will give me the chance to showcase the neighborhood Vanessa comes from. No frills. Not as golden and shiny as the fixtures at Silver Needle Academy, but it’s respectable and it’s home. But that’s only one goal of this sequence. The other goal is obvious: Show Vanessa can ride.


Vanessa is actually riding a surfskate board. If you don’t know what that is, great. Neither did I until a month ago. But I’ve recently learned that a surfskate board mimics a surfboard on the road. You ride it like a surfboard (not a street skateboard, like you’ll see in most media). So animating her skating is a different vibe. I have to capture the movement of her swaying to and fro as she’s riding to give us the feel of that surfskate experience (and also show us she can easily transition to surfing later). So what’s the secret to capturing this kind of fluid movement?

By doing it, of course. Getting myself back into skating and into a surfskate board gives me the movements I need to draw to show Vanessa weaving in and out of the long streets.

I’m especially proud of this foot pump animation. Learning this movement for myself lets me see what looks right and feels right. If my work is supposed to take you on a ride, I better learn how that ride works, right?

I’m so proud of this animation. I’m still working up to the heavier action surf sequences. This is the gateway drug.

The Perfect Rich Boy

Tim Heidecker is accidentally a feminist.

Okay, I know how that sounds. Hear me out. One of the greatest crimes a man can commit in Bro Code is telling the world how men operate, especially when it comes to treating women badly. I admit I’m nearly 20 years late to the Tim n’ Eric party, and thirteen years late to the movie The Comedy, but Heidecker portrayal of douchey characters is spot on. We all think the best villains comes to us in a mask and a prison jump suit. But, no. Some villains come to us in a button down shirt and cheap, plastic sunglasses.

Our adorable antagonist, Asa, character started as a recycle from an older series, but after watching The Comedy. I realized he needed some punch up. Asa isn’t just a clownish, rich kid villain from an 80’s cartoon. He’s so much worse. He’s a brutal life lesson of who not to trust. He’s what happens when you give kids more toys than guidance. Asa is a nightmare in nautical shorts.

Why do the worst dudes always wear those shorts? Those specifically? Whyyyy?

Anyway, Tim Heidecker’s main character in The Comedy is also a nightmare. His problem is that he’s an unparented party boy living on a houseboat while managing his emotions with drugs and alcohol. He’s a rich failson with nothing to offer the world except uncomfortable jokes, drunken chaos, and drama. Partying with him is rough. Having to service him is worse. Dating him is particularly heinous, as Heidecker’s character spends one pivotal scene watching a date have a seizure and doing literally nothing to help her. Heidecker’s character is a perfect portrayal of this type of Rich White Dude. Having lived in Southern California, let me tell you dating someone like this is a walk through the bowels of hell. That’s the whole point of telling stories about people like this. So if you meet one in the wild, you can clock him, avoid him like Covid, and move on with your life.

But of course avoiding the party boy is the one thing our girl Vanessa doesn’t do. Her lesson is what drives the whole story: all that glitters isn’t gold.

I feel a little bad that so many other Youtube pilots I see coming up, especially the ones with female leads and shoujo plots, are all about the power of friendship. Because…this pilot shows how the wrong friendships can totally destroy your life. I was a teenager during the time in the 90’s where you had to stay friends with terrible people FOREVER. Any time I ever told the adults in my life about my bad times with friendships, they all stressed forgiveness and making things work with total emotional vampires. I want to teach the world differently. I feel like it’s a good use of my time to show viewers not only what good friendships look like, but terrible ones too. And when things go terribly, you have the right to respond unkindly.

If you see this man out in the wild, no, you didn’t.




Vaporwave High School

Okay, as I’m getting more storyboards done, and as I’m approaching more re-writes on the pilot, I’m getting closer the problem of “how are we going to make background art for this animation?”

I’ve done artwork explorations using digital art, gouache paint, and watercolors, and the look I’ve really resonated with for the animation character art is watercolors. I love watercolors. Watercolor paintings have a certain life to them. I vibe with watercolors. I like working with them more than with opaque media.

The last time I did a background study, I put the question to the internet which looks better, and the pencil line work won by a landslide. So I set about doing another background test, this time only finishing the line art with pencils…

I think this art test came out okay. The design itself isn’t quite what I’m looking for, but this is a solid first draft.

Going further, I tested out which pencils would work better for final background art. Regular 2B pencils get washed out with watercolors. I would need a more hardy pencil than graphite. I busted out my old colored pencils from art school (13 years ago???) and it came to a question of two colored pencils: Verithins or the Aqua Monoliths.

Pillar in Verithin, sphere in Aqua Monoliths

The Verithins won.

So now let’s talk about Vaporwave aesthetic. I am obsessed with Vaporwave! Weird, mall music that speaks to the glory of a bygone era.

Silver Needle Academy is the standing memorial of a disaster from the past, so I realized it would be great to incorporate that white marble look into the design. I did a little practice around rendering marble materials.

I tried adding gold band textures and I’m loving it!

And It’s a success! I feel like I could push the actual background art a bit further for Silver Needle Academy’s design. I could add a few more buildings and scale up the needle, but this is a solid stopping point. I’m very excited for these backgrounds now!

Now I can’t wait to draw out the (incredibly short) adventures of Vaporwave Academy.

-Love, Joolz

From Prom Party Girl to Wetsuit Soldier

Being a writer means you have to kill your darlings.

RIP, Pink Party Dress

It’s sad. Pour one out for the pink party dress that was originally supposed to be in the pilot but now has gotten the axe because we do not have time for the party lead up fight scene.

I like showing photos from my sketchbook directly. It makes you understand I’m a mere mortal.

I had originally written the pilot to include an opening scene where Vanessa is at a big, splashy birthday party and she’s in a pretty pink dress (that’s conveniently designed for the brawl she would have later). I loved the design and I loved the spunk of this concept art, but sadly the scene got deleted in a recent script revision.

Look, it’s a show about teenage punk surfers and whales. That’s what needs to get shown first. Not a birthday party gone wrong. Sorry, guys. We gotta go straight to the final square on the right of the Scene sheet. Creating artwork helps inform the writing process.

I may use this dress design later, but it’s not gonna stay in the pilot at this point. This is the process, folks. You start with one idea until you figure out an even better idea. And being my own director means being my own studio notes exec. Marketing informs my decision making too. I have to be two people who hate each other at once. It’s tricky. If everyone had infinite time, sure I could have a bigger birthday party scene, but we don’t. This is what we call cutting to the chase.

Anyway the new beginning cuts straight to the chase of the story: Teenage Punk Surfer Freedom Fighters. And here’s the start of that design process.

Happy Birthday to Me

So, yesterday was my birthday. I figured I’d take this week’s post to celebrate me, Jules Effin Rivera. We wouldn’t really have any of this without me. so let’s talk about my incredibly obvious self insert character in Hurricane Vendetta and why she matters.

This is Justice. This is the Love, Joolz insert character and she’s here to impart surfer wisdom on Vanessa. Justice is the Surf Jedi of the story and she’s the one adult who doesn’t admonish Vanesssa for blowing up her life by giving a Joke Speech at School. In fact, Justice celebrates it. She even rewards Vanessa with a gift we’ll see later.

In the beginning of this story, Vanessa isn’t very sure of herself, especially not after her speech bombs spectacularly. You’ll notice her friends aren’t really around to support her either (Why yes I am packing a lesson of unreliable friends into this adorable surfer whale cartoon). By the time she gets on the C Train, she’s alone and sad. But a chance encounter with whales and later Justice helps to change all that.

We all wish we could’ve had a “cool adult” in our lives as teenagers who could guide us through life without judgments or expectations. Sometimes we get that in school. Sometimes we’re even lucky enough to have that in our family. But for those of us who didn’t get that growing up, I wanted to show you what that could look like.

In a way, the story of Vanessa and Justice is a way to give surfing to my awkward adolescent self. I didn’t get that kind of mentorship, so the least I could do is render it in ink and paint. And this isn’t just about me. I’m doing this for all the awkward, shunned girls who said Too Much Truth and got in trouble for it. I may not have gotten a surf mentor as a kid, but I can pay it forward.

Animation is more than a product. Animation and storytelling can be the gift you give to the next generation of kids just like you.

Happy birthday to all of us.

-Love, Joolz

First Time in a Surf Shop

Still need to get sound done, but I would love a weekend off.

Anyway, this follows Vanessa’s trip to the surf shop, where magical, fun things happen. I had a great time creating this surf shop based on my own experiences. The fiction surf shop was based on the now defunct Boardriders in Malibu. (Sad to hear about their closing, that was the first place I ever got a wetsuit.)

I wanted to feel like this trip to a surf shop is the most fun, exotic thing Vanessa’s done in a while. This poor gal has been through it, and now she’s finally treating herself with a gift from a stranger.

This scene was all about the wide shots.

A surf shop is a very specific kind of experience. There’s a lot of beach stuff on display but then there’s a lot of wetsuits and surfboard stuff most newbs have never seen. It can be overwhelming, but fun. Vanessa is lucky her surf shop is run by this super friendly, character, Randy.

Randy is low key based on another helpful guy from a whole other shop (Val Surf in Valley Village). I had such a good experience there, I figured I’d draw inspiration from that. Surf shops aren’t always the safest place for women. Sometimes the guys there can be real jerks, just because you’re smaller and easier to punch down to. I at least wanted Vanessa’s experience to be ideal. Good surf shops deserve to be shouted out.

But Vanessa has no idea how ideal it’s going to get for her.

I’ll save the reality of those other shops for a Love, Joolz comic.

Recycled Boyfriend

So we're getting to a very interesting part of the story: meeting Asa.

Vanessa is a hormone-addled teenager. She's going to make some choices you or I wouldn't make based totally on those hormones. And one of those decisions is Asa.

Asa is a hot young buck on the island who meets Vanessa in a chance encounter. He has dreamy blue eyes and gorgeous curls. And he surfs! Oh, Vanessa has her hands full with this guy.

Now some of you who've been following my work for a while might recognize this guy. This guy is based on Biscuit from one of my previous comics, Misfortune High.

Misfortune High is a story about a magical school, teen wizards, and class warfare. Truly the spiritual successor to Hurricane Vendetta. (HV is slightly a magical girl story if you count Vanessa's ability to talk to whales). The character I specifically based Asa on is called Biscuit. He's a spoiled rich kid with more dollars than sense. He gets expelled from the magical school because he's a cheater and a liar. He spends a good chunk of the story as a punching bag or a punchline because he's a joke.

But what if Biscuit wasn't a joke? What if he had the same privilege as Biscuit, but was actually a capable fighter? And what if I made him a whaler? Suddenly, he's a much more intriguing character. Now he's a credible threat.

We've all seen those DOGE teenagers blow through government offices empowered by sheer privilege (and sadly their disposability). Asa is this but with a yacht and a thirst for whale meat.

What does that mean for Vanessa? We'll see. I'm sure going on a date with a whaler will end totally well for her. 

-Love, Joolz