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.

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>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.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>
</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Animation</h2><p>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.</p><p>Like this scene where Xylus catches his breath.</p><p>In one frame his head shrinks way down.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>Then it gets real big as he’s coughing.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>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.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>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.</p><p>
</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Audio</h2><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>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.</p><p>
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