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Bits and pieces, stuck together to make stuff, makes for good living. Or in other words, all the content on Mr. Buffalo is user generated (made by me and my buffalo hooves) and I have heaps of fun doing it. all content (obviously not re-blogs) copyright Thomas Hunter 2012
Anonymous asked: Really enjoying your work! I found it via Drawn. The answer to my question is conceivably to long to answer in a paragraph. I love your gifs, I know you use photoshop, but what's the process? Also your drawing style is so direct and fresh how about you give us a post on your influences?

Thanks grey buddy. In regards to the gifs it’s a really simple process. I just represent each frame I need for an animation with a layer in PS. I change the opacity of previous frames (layers) to trace and progress the animation. I try to make them as simple as possible, so use lots of loops and boils (looping on a very few frames, like 2 or 3. It gives a frantic wobbling/strobing effect). I’ll test them using the PS animation function (in the window tab) and output them using the ‘save for web and devices’ option. This way I can reduce to colours/quality/size of the gif to optimize it for the web (me ‘optimizing’ is just frantically trying to do whatever it takes to get it to play on the web. clicking all the buttons). It’s basically a damn easy process and is kinda great practice. Proper animation takes so long, and making gifs are a great way to keep the skills fresh between slow and heavy work.

Now about ma style. I’ve always been into cartoons with an emphasis on line work. When I was growing up my older brother and I always used to draw heaps, but he was in a crazy league above me and was very good at doing very detailed and realistic things. He had a really good grasp on tone and colour that I just didn’t get, so I kinda always turned back to cartoons, and more humorous pictures. I really loved guys like Gary Larson and Murray Ball and like every other kid, was drawing my favourite TV cartoon characters from stuff like Rocko’s Modern Life or Ren + Stimpy. I loved comics, but never really read anything sequentially. I’d have heaps  of mixed up issues of Spiderman or The Phantom and would kinda connect them in my own weird way. I think the Far Side really shaped my early ideas on humour, which is something I always found strongest in the expressions and presence of the characters. Ian Miller’s The City (or more so James Herbert, but man Ian did the grunt work on this baby) was really the first comic I got obsessed with and I think is definitely influential. I really put a lot more work into my lines and ink stuff after this and naturally merged the new techniques with how I drew cartoons. I was also really into sport and was kinda aggressive and competitive about the whole thing from a young age, and I can see that being behind a lot of the energy I try to put into my work. So to be kinda blunt, I really think the work I make, and feel driven to make, is a weird mix of goofy faced people and exploding barbarians and weapons. I really feel like there is a double sided way I approach everything, imagine some weird mix between a Far Side panel and a fight scene from The Phantom or Conan.

I think there are a lot of other very important influences that I’ve had more recently, but I might leave that to a later post. I think I need to actually think about this properly to give a better answer. I think It’s really important to be able to look at what you make, and discover why you feel compelled to make it that way. I could ramble all day.




  1. mrbuffalo posted this
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