Upcoming Events

Busy..busy...busy...Mikhail have finalized all his layouts, however, Scott is still busy with his Virtual World. Hopefully, we can fully introduce a trial version of this interactive chat world and Mechtechs gaming at the upcoming Komikon event on November.

I made new designs for standees to be placed at the internet shops so that we will be able to attract more fans and viewers. Each standee is conceptualized to introduce each character. These will also be used during the upcoming events. We have planned to giveaway stickers and flyers as well to promote our projects.

Complete Layouts

Finally, we are done with all the layouts...23 pages to be exact. Mikhail did it. We are just waiting for Scott's approval. It's been a hectic week for us preparing for the prelude to the Animahenasyon 2008 event held in Eastwood, Manila. IAS was one of the sponsors so we had the opportunity to promote Mechtechs. We gave away t-shirts and flyers. The photos above were taken during the event.

The Owner of Molten Mecha

Hopper is the owner of Molten Mecha. He is an old mecha military jarhead from way back. He had so many pieces of himself shot off and replaced with metal bionics that he resembles one of his own mechas. As a military mecha-pilot, Hopper wired his brain directly into the mecha's computer systems, so that he and the machine would operate together as one. As a result, he suffers psychotic flashbacks from time to time. His employees prefer him to stay away from the shop - especially when he's having one of his flashbacks and possesses sort of some heavy machinery.

Godfrey made a design and submitted it to Scott. Scott liked it but wanted a few revisions made.

Scott's comment was:

"I think we have too much emphasis on his mechanical parts. We can see portions of a mechanical arm but it needs to be proportioned with the normal human anatomy. Let's make maybe a cable going into a band around his leg to suggest it is mechanical."

So revisions were made until the final version was drawn by Mikhail and colored by Mark. And so finally it was approved. Meet Hopper, the owner of Molten Mecha.

Mechtechs joins Animation Council of the Philippines, Inc. Convention

Mechtechs will get its first introduction in the Philippines on November 12-16, 2008 at the Animation Council of the Pihlippines, Inc.'s 2nd Animahenasyon 2008 Pinoy Animation Festival. This event is a showcase of unique, Filipino-made animation.

As a Mechtechs promotion, we will be handing out Mechtechs flyers that I created due to rush requirements and the artists' heavy workload. I decided to use Holly as focus character since she is the fans' favorite character and we have a lot of male viewers (you know what I mean...sexy, alluring Holly will be a good attraction). We will also be giving away t-shirts as a joint promotion with the ACP, Inc.

New Colored Characters!

Finally, I got a hold of the busy man, Scott. It's his birthday today, BTW! (Sorry for broadcasting it, Scott!) So, I took the chance to greet and disturb him. He's been busy with other major projects, so it took a long time to get approvals. But, finally, I squeezed in to get the new colored characters checked. As promised, here is Treble in color. And here's the revised Russ, although there's an additional revision to change his shoes to something more hi-tech or not-too-ordinary shoes.

Meanwhile, Mikhail is continuing all his pages and Scott wants him to finish everything before he looks at it for revisions or approvals. It's a long process, but we are getting there.

Virtual World Conference

Check out the private beta version of our MechTechs virtual world (still in development) that we showed at the Virtual World Conference: http://www.mechtechs.tv/beta/vw/cleveland/cleveland.html

The MechTechs virtual world is a pet project of Scott Ownbey. It is a flash animation that combines a social network and a virtual world. Once you log in, you can choose your own avatar and use the arrow keys to navigate you around Planet Cleveland. Here, you will feel the atmosphere of being in another world. You can enjoy walking, moving around and even flying while chatting with other Mechtechs fans.

Planet Cleveland is a rotting, junkyard at the ass-end of the galaxy. Cleveland used to be the industrial powerhouse of the galactic economy; producing star liners, battle cruisers and gleaming armies of giant Mecha-warriors that were the envy of every other civilized race in the universe. That was long time ago. Since then, planet-wide warfare, a few galactic financial recessions and corporate downsizing and outsourcing to the new, cheaper labor markets of the Galactic Rim economies has reduced the planet to a decayed and forgotten backwater, covered in continent-sized scrapyards and long ago-abandoned assembly lines, and inhabited mainly by roving bands of outlaws, mutants and scavengers.

Despite all this, though, people still come to Cleveland, home of the intergalactic's famous custom-mecha fabrication shop, Molton Mecha. With a starting price of 23 billion dollars, you can blow up a planet in style and still have enough Utonium to transport 45 tons of the most advanced weaponry across the known solar universe.

We need your support. I'll keep updating you with new stuff on our virtual world.

Genghis: Molton Mecha's Pet

Genghis is the shop pet and guard dog. He is one of Jeter's robot creations. Unfortunately, Jeter didn't tell anyone that he cannibalized most of the parts from some military surplus stuff that was lying around the shop to build Genghis and that the pet dog's core AI programming comes from the guidance systems of a planetbuster mega-bomb. Genghis' limiter controls work most of the time. When they don't, he wants to kill everything and anything, except Holly, who he'd rather fond of.

Genghis was first made by Godfrey when he submitted sample of his artwork way back a year ago or so. "It was almost there", Scott said. "However, it looks much like its from the Jetsons. So Andrew made his version of Genghis but Scott asked him to do some changes that will resemble the first one. So Andrew revised it and came up with better Genghis which was then approved by Scott with just a revision to add some teeth and some wiring connected to his legs. As soon as it was done, Mark colored it. And so here's our pet Genghis.

2nd Day of the Month

How many days left? Argh! It's all pressure for us now..since we only have 2 months to rush things out! Of course we wouldn't want to sacrifice the quality of our project.

It's been quite hectic the past few days due to storyboards projects, however, the guys still fit Mechtechs on the agenda. Godfrey is done with another revision of the villain for the teaser. Andrew is doing sketches of Da Monet as Scott wasn't really satisfied with his Da Monet. He's definitely having a hard time with that character. I think it is more of the fashion statement of Da Monet where Andrew is having difficulty getting the concept. Well, aside from Da Monet, Andrew is tasked on sketching a motorcycle for the layout and a Mecha for the teaser. Mikhail started to sketch our teaser for upcoming events. I've posted a rough, unfinished sketch to get you excited for the final drawing.

Treble: The Techie Guy

Treble is an African American guy who is into hi-tech stuff and latest gadgets. Out of all the submissions, Godfrey did a good job. The wardrobe looked great as commented by Scott, although the body type was too skinny and similar to Jeter. He is a cool brother. He is the audio expert so Scott wanted to put gadgets on him that suggests his character.

Andrew had some difficulty drawing Treble because he was not an ordinary guy. He tried different versions of hair for him to make him looked cool; from corn rolls (as first suggested by Scott) to Afro hair and dreadlocks. But it all comes down to a "bandana" covered hair.

I'm giving you guys a little suspense for the colored version. Mark is still working on it.

Only 79 days left!

The countdown is putting a lot of pressure on me now. Progress on MechTechs has slowed because we have lots of storyboards projects that must get done first. Scott have been busy too with other projects, so I have limited time to communicate with him regarding approvals. Yesterday, it was a good thing that he spared a little time for me. So far, Godfrey, was assigned to revise the main villain to be more futuristic and to have more of a blend of modern elements. So far the submissions of the evil characters were exemplary and very detailed, however, they had more of an old-school Chinese look. This character will also be used for the teaser, so he needs to be done ASAP since I have only a little more than a month left before the Comic-Con Manila. Although the character hasn't been approved yet, I'm letting you view the proposed evil characters now to see how Godfrey's work-in-progress.

Teaser Layout for Comic Con Manila 2008

We have moved forward with layouts since we're behind on our time frame. Here's the teaser for the first issue. I'm not posting all the layout sketches because you need something to look forward to, right? Mikhail started with several layouts and we had several revisions made. Some of the layouts were approved. As we go along with this project, our Creative Director, Scott sees more ways to improve it. So we keep adding more elements and details and removing the unnecessary stuff. Along with these layouts, Mikhail is tasked to do another teaser for the upcoming Comic-Con Manila 2008 and Komikon 2008 to be held in Manila, Philippines. We plan to give away posters and postcards and some stickers at these events.

Lotsa Revisions

Today I got a lot of instructions from our Creative Director, Scott Ownbey. And a big "OPPPSSS" on Russ; unfortunately Andrew needs to revise his face to look like the old face we used for the Comic-Con 2008 postcard. Andrew needs to add some techie stuff also so that he won't look too "ordinary". I'll soon post the final Russ. Aside from Russ, Andrew is finishing some elements for another character, Treble, and doing a very minor revision on the cute pet dog, Genghis. Watch out for those characters especially Genghis. He's actually my favorite aside from Jeter & Holly. The above sketch is a teaser of our pet.
On the other hand, layouts were also started by Mikhail but revisions are being done now for four layouts. Hopefully it's done by tonight so we can move on to more layouts. We're really behind on our time line. More updates coming soon.
For those who have a Deviant Art account, check us out at http://mechtechs.deviantart.com/ I would appreciate your comments on our characters.

Meet Russ, RJ's cousin

Russ is a good ol' boy. He's a southern redneck who got the job at Molton Mecha because he is R.J.'s cousin, although he is a brilliant fabrication master as well. Russ does great work, but he likes to take his time which drives R.J. crazy. Russ hangs out with Jeter all the time at work where they are always creating little robots that do the most useless jobs.

Russ wasn't in any design submissions from our artists. I guess this was because of his character being the good guy with a warm, likable personality. I think our artists prefer drawing the tough characters with more challenging descriptions. Andrew was tasked with creating Russ with the above mentioned character guide. Scott thought the first sketch of Russ was "excellent." However, minor revisions were needed since Russ is human. The elf ears were eliminated, a sleeveless jacket was added and the long sleeved undershirt was rolled up. Revisions were made but it took time because the face was not consistent.

Mikhail was then asked to tighten up the sketch of Russ with the revisions in mind, so that Andrew could move on with the other characters. Mikhail drew three faces to be reviewed by Scott. But with so much work on hand, it took Scott some time to look at the sketches. So to move on, I posted it on the Deviant Art site and asked for help from the viewers. Unfortunately, when Scott saw the faces, he was not satisfied because they were different from what was first approved. So there were four more done before we got an almost-finished Russ. Since we were pressed for time, the 4th sketch was used for the San Diego Comic-Con Mechtechs postcards even though there were revisions that needed to be made to his face. Andrew continued to revise it and finally got what we were looking for. The first color version of Russ was used at Comic-Con. The coloring of the approved Russ was tweaked by Mark Taduran.