Episode 8 -
of my animated cartoon series Xylus and Dexter in Space!
Here is episode 8 of my animated cartoon Xylus and Dexter in Space!
Concept
In this final episode of the story: Xylus and Dexter escaped from the alien Phineas Handala and Xylus has his own plan for how to fix this whole situation.
(Related post: Xylus and Dexter in Space! "Pins and Needles" Episode 7)
Artwork
I decided to elaborate on more of the background art that I liked from the last few cartoon episodes that I was experimenting with. I used more of the digital sponge artwork keeping with the style of the old cartoons from Hanna-Barbera that I've been watching.
What I did for the backgrounds on this was create them as a digital painting in GIMP and then imported them into the animation software and drew vector outlines on them to sharpen them up.
I also did a 90s Nickelodeon-style cartoon splatter background. The kind they did to show how stuff is going off the rails. I did this for the scene when the Phineas character is getting a little crazy.
The rocket that comes to save them is a drawing I made copying an old 1950s metal rocket from Japan that I found a picture of online.
Animation
I really wanted to lean into the extreme squash and stretch for this episode. I had been freeze framing some old Cartoon Network "What a cartoon!" shows from the 90s too. I was loving how the animators were trying to push craziness in their pilot episodes on that.
Like this scene where Xylus catches his breath.
In one frame his head shrinks way down.
Then it gets real big as he's coughing.
Then I also did this scene with Dexter making the sad puppy eyes where I just animated the light on the pupils with a quivering lip.
There is also a lot of camera-shaking animation in this one. From the castle blowing up, the face slaps, and the freeze ray shot.
Audio
I did more searching for background music in this episode. I needed some dark theatrical music for the scene where Phineas gets angry with Xylus. Plus I needed a sad violin part for Dexter's sad eyes moment.
I also had to find a cracking ice noise to use for the part where Phineas is shot by the ice gun and animated the cracks to go along with that sound effect.
I also recorded my recap narration at the beginning using a tape recorder. I just liked the way that it sounded more. Not sure why? You can even hear me turn it off at the end of the recap narration.