Brian & Stewie in 'Road To The Microverse' - Dated 20/09/2011
Brian decides to exact some sweet revenge for past abuse after stumbling across one of Stewie's latest inventions - a fully functioning shrink ray.
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Anyone who has subscribed to my Youtube page will probably have noticed that I don't really use it for anything much - my account was largely created for the purposes of watching videos as opposed to uploading them. However, I thought this time I would utilise the facility to showcase my latest big project.
Those who have been following some of my journals recently may be aware that I have been working on an animation project based on Family Guy involving Brian and Stewie Griffin. Having drawn both characters several times before, I came up with an idea back in March this year for a short sequence which builds somewhat on my parody of the Family Guy episode "Road to the Multiverse" from last year entitled "Road To The Macroverse" - except instead of a growth scenario, I opted for a shrinking one.
As is often the case with my work, I made little effort to keep track of how long this project was taking me. I started it in mid-March and worked quite intensively on it for a couple of weeks before putting it on the back burner for most of the summer. Given that I am set to lose much of my free time once I return to University in October however, I decided to resume work on the project in the hope of getting it finished before my course starts. On the whole, I would estimate it took around 6 weeks spread over that 6 month period.
To make a few things clear: as most people will be fully aware, obviously Family Guy and the characters of Brian and Stewie Griffin are the creations of Seth MacFarlane (Fuzzy Door Productions/Twentieth Century Fox), and the style of this animation is basically a slightly crude imitation of his work. In addition, the voices of the characters and a number of other sound and music samples were sourced from episodes of the show. On my part, the story is of my own creation, and the drawing and animation of all the visuals - both foreground and background layers - was executed by myself. I also compiled and mixed the soundtrack, combining the samples sourced from the show with a collection of my own sound effects recorded by myself, and the Flash file was programmed by myself as well.
Whilst this is fundamentally a furry macro/micro crush animation, I have tried to make it entertaining in its own right with a number of references to the show that fans will most likely recognise. Family Guy is obviously an adult programme which has never been shy to showcase gratuitously graphic violence, but whilst the actions and sound effects of this animation are in keeping with that tradition, I have sought to keep the visuals 'tame' enough for a general audience and avoid making it too dark in nature. Hence, that is why Stewie is depicted coming out of the experience relatively unscathed despite plenty of suggestion that he should be reduced to a bloody pulp!
This has been my most ambitious project ever and, whilst the 1 min 30 secs running time ranks it with the shortest of the shorts by professional animating standards, it is also by far the longest and best animation I have ever created. It has been a great deal of hard work, time and effort, but I'm delighted that the final product has come out looking so close to my original conception of it 6 months ago.
Comments and feedback very much welcome as always, and if you have any problems viewing the animation in any format, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me via PM or email.
RRRex
