My name is Fernando Costas
I was born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico thus proving that I am naturally Hispanic by default, however I speak in the English Language. I am not as fluent in Spanish as I would like. In my High-School days ,despite my own struggles as a person and the fact that I struggled a lot to make a Stop Motion short, that experience pretty much inspired me to work harder and push my ambitions further. As I have a passion for drawing, but personally I feel like I should be telling stories no matter how serious or absurd mine is regardless. At the end of Junior year, I decided to pursue the arts, especially drawing and animation.
I won't lie, I was diagnosed with autism and it's hard not to let it become a hindrance and try to take responsibility for most of my actions as best as I can. I have been practicing and then improving on my art skills lately, I even considered creating original properties inspired by many things I enjoy growing up. Its not easy to establish your fictional universes either, but it takes time and effort to do so as it requires consistency.
I have a passion for comic-books and I can tell you all about comic-book history, the social commentary they have engaged. Comic-Books have a history of social justice, entertaining us with various genres such as superhero, comedy and horror. I watched a lot of cartoons, and I myself wanted to make cartoons that are well... I do use ToonBoom Harmony and Storyboard Pro for the animation (Storyboards, Animatics and Final Animation). I am wanting to become a film producer giving people opportunities or just have people on board.
From Scrappy Beginnings
Back then, he had an idea of a Webcomic called Ode to the Dwights that was originally going to be an animated series independently. Fern Costas knew how much time does it take to animate and storyboard the whole story. Fern Costas, the stubborn mule he was ran into a snafu with his Mini-Mac which explains the halt of production til the Fourth of July when he both celebrating his grandmother's birthday and said holiday with the Dwight family.
Ode to the Dwights originally was gonna have Dash, but was not inserted as Fern didn't have any idea how to insert it at the time. Up when Fern nuked his Facebook account and went searching for himself to do, Fern had hit rock bottom a few times in life online, but managed to get up and find himself oppurtunities like working at The Kalamazoo Public Media Network, Rebooting his Webcomic as a Webtoon you see on WebToon Canvas featuring a new art-style and more serialized direction which will require Fern time to fill in the gaps of the story.
The Struggle with Projects
For Fern, It's easy to explain the animation process than to answer how much he got done and Fern knows this by heart because frame by frame animation takes over an estimate of 10,000+ frames and rigged animation requires drawing each and every part and drawing additional frames for parts for rotations, hand gestures and perspective shots of each part.
Fern's stubborn and yet ambitious at his best (or in some cases worse) as he always feels like needing and wanting to tell a big story with settings and characters he keeps changing til Late-2024 when Fern fessed up, but felt like focusing on characters he created himself (along with keeping Molly Ratowski around). Right now Fern's doing the adults-only animated series Total Absurdity and the PG-13 Ode to the Dwights as Fern's busy making character models, background art and promotional posters.
A Little Known Fact About Fern and his advice
Fern Costas is inspired by the works of Walt Disney, The Fleischer Brothers (Fleishcer Studios), E.C Segar, Kevin Smith and his View Askewinverse movies, Mike Judge, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Walter Lantz, Rudolf Ising, Hugh Harman, Tex Avery, E.C Segar, Dr. Seuss, Friz Freleng, Leon Schlesinger (the producer of many Looney Tunes from 1933-1944), Stephen Hillenburg, Joe Murray, Stan Lee (which explains his admiration of the superhero genre and what its capable of), Bryan Lee O'Malley (creator of Scott Pilgram), Jhonen Vasquez, Tim Burton and Phineas and Ferb creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff Marsh (which explains Fern's use of geometric shapes on his colorful diverse characters).
Always read Content Warnings before proceeding, because Fern cares for your mental health.
Ode to the Dwights is avaliable on WebToon Canvas