Follow Me As I Build My Two Cartoon Web Series So You Can Build Your Series Too

Bat Storm and TET from Resident Dragon,
Behind the Scenes on these two series.
Image by Gemini AI and TET.

Many cartoonists, authors, short story writers, and other types of creators find themselves aspiring to make an animated cartoon web series because, although a challenging task, it's seen to be achievable by a team of one. You don't need a big studio, a killer pitch, or a big budget, (which would all be nice) you can just start making something yourself, in your spare time, on a shoe string budget.

That's what this blog, going forward, will be focusing upon. I'm going to document the behind the scenes on how I'm making my two web series, which will hopefully inspire you to say, if he can do this with almost no budget, then maybe I can too.

Along the way I plan to create guides and tutorials, so you aren't just seeing behind the scenes, you also have the option of following some of my processes step by step.

Full disclaimer. This is just my process. I'm a self taught animator. I've never worked for a studio other than my own. I have written scripts and made animated shorts for my own projects, and commercially for clients, but these are my first attempts at my own, ongoing series. There is no one 'right' way to do this. This is just the way I'm doing it.

So what series will I be working on?

Resident Dragon - I'm a Cartoonist in My Spare Time

Resident Dragon Book 1
A Dragon's Gotta Live Somewhere.

If you've followed my work, or this blog, within the last two years you'll know about my joke a day, cartoon series, Resident Dragon, that I literally draw in my spare time, after breakfast for about an hour, after lunch (sometimes while watching a TV show), and after dinner (sometimes, also usually watching a show).

I stopped drawing this once I hit 366 cartoons (enough for a daily desk calendar), and I am currently in the process of digitally inking them. So far I've done just over 100 inked, with 90 published in three books (that I designed and typeset myself).

Unintentionally the cartoons have created a far richer world of the Resident Dragon than I could have imagined when I initially wrote the first two episodes of a planed six part animated series. There is now a whole mine of potential story arcs that could be adapted into the series.

Bat Storm - Experimenting with AI Animation in My Other Spare Time

If you've been following me for even longer (like more than a decade) you'll have heard of my Batman parody superhero, Bat Storm.

AI generated image of the iClone version of Bat Storm.

Bat Storm started out as a 2D animated series created with GoAnimate (now Vyond) using its various character designers and art (i.e. not my artwork but my stories). It made the jump to 3D/Pixar style animation via Muvizu, then iClone, Reallusion's 3D animation Studio.

While iClone is one of the easiest 3D studios to get started with, Reallusion's quest to be the industry leader in the field has pushed the software to overwhelming learning curve levels, and to be honest, it's priced itself out of my budget.

However generative AI is getting better all the time at 3D/Pixar style animation, to the point where it can do a better job than me at the actual animation, at a speed that makes it viable to be an 'other spare time' project.

I'm interested to try generative AI on an actual project instead of just experimental clips, and It would be nice to bring Bat Storm back from the 'I just don't have the time to work on this' shelf.

What's Next and How to Stay Up to Date

My Resident Dragon series I'm primarily planning to animate with Reallusion's Cartoon Animator, with some AI animation crossover if it'll speed up production. Presently I've started designing and rigging my characters.

Since three of the four main characters are Quadrupeds (one with wings as well), there's plenty of opportunity to create tutorials for rigging animals for Cartoon Animator coming up.

Creating the definitive version of my TET avatar for Resident Dragon using Inkscape. 

As mentioned, Bat Storm will be animated with AI. Most likely using OpenArt.ai and possibly some Elevenlabs.io (mainly voices but they've recently expanded into being a one stop destination for all things generative AI).

There will probably be fewer tutorials here because I don't consider myself anywhere near an authority on AI, but I will be showing what has been working for me.

If you would like to stay up to date subscribe to my email newsletter, where I will give you a run down of everything new, no more than twice a month, and give you exclusive discounts on my paid Cartoon Animator Courses.

You may also like to subscribe to my AnimLife YouTube Channel, as this is where I will be posting my free video tutorials (and where they're are currently many free Cartoon Animator tutorials).

Hopefully that all sounds exciting to you as it does to me. Feel free to ask me questions in the comments (or you can email me directly at etourist@arttimeproductions.com). I try to answer all communications within 2-3 days max.

Remember, I'm hoping this will inspire you to get started on your animated web series. Don't wait for me to finish, just start now, and we can work on our series together, share experiences, overcome challenges etc.

Subscribe to my email newsletter, too keep you in the loop with all the latest updates.

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