A BACKGROUND IN ANIMATION

I thought it might be fun to share some of the backgrounds I've been adding to my animations. I've placed the characters in there so you can have a bit of the story to go with the original backgrounds. Even with all the portfolio work I've been amassing I've been trying hard to put a good effort into my classes as well. The combined efforts have resulted in lack of sleep, a drain in my energy, and a sweet body of work. These are two of the backgrounds from my current animation tutorial class. Having a setting as fun and appealing as the story in the animation is very important to me, and even though I have to rush these so I can get to the animation, I've still been trying to take care in making them fit with the story and in some cases even give hints as to what happened before the moment that happens in the animation. My teacher has been really helpful in guiding me to think about and perfect that stuff as well. In fact both of these have been changed from the original to better fit with the animation, and one of them has five versions that change throughout the animation to help the story progress. Anyway, enough talk. Enjoy!

JUST BEAT IT

I'm just throwing these on here for today. I'm feeling the heat of deadlines so I'm not able to write much at the moment. Check the end of the last post for a description of this assignment. Enjoy!

WORLD WIDE SKETCHCRAWL JAPAN TOWN SAN FRANCISCO

This was my first Sketchcrawl. I was told about these a couple years back, but when I was told about them I was also told they were only once a year. Well, they were wrong, and I can't be more happy that they were. I had so much fun at this event that I wish they could take place once a month, but I guess four times a year is good too. I'm already counting down the days to the next one, and I can't wait to look at other people's sketch pads again. I was a bit shy this time around, because everyone else's work was so amazing, but next time I'll break out of my shell more. I'm too busy to scan all of my own art in so I just scanned in my take on the Sketchcrawl logo. It shows the ambivalent nature of being both crushed by the phenomenal work of all the other artists and enthusiastic about getting out to draw with such an amazing and friendly community.

Joining me on this venture were some of my favorite people and good friends Tim Kallok and Jim Allison. Together they form team TimJim. Make no mistake this team doesn't fight crime or play extreme sports, but they do play a mean game of Cranium.

Character Designs for Ed Bell's class

For this assignment we were able to pick from about 7 different animated shows to design a new cast of characters for. Two shows stood out to me most, X-men and Jonny Quest. It broke down to a question of drawing superheroes or trying to match Doug Wildey genius. That said, I tried my hand at a group of characters that could fit in the Jonny Quest world.

I later attempted to go back into these and realized I wasn't in Wildey mode anymore. To which I promptly stopped and decided to post these as is. However in the same vein as Bandit I did try to give the Cheetah character more of a Hanna Barbara feel. I could easily perfect these further if I ever have the time, but for now enjoy the originals.

Also my nerd picks for a live action Quest movie would be Daniel Craig for Race and Liam Neeson for Dr. Quest. Best bet for Jonny and Hadji would be unknowns. End nerd talk.

FANTASIA AT THE PARAMOUNT THEATRE IN OAKLAND

I had the good fortune to see Fantasia(1940) at the Paramount in Oakland this Friday. I've seen it on VHS a few times, and I saw Fantasia 2000 at the Imax in San Francisco, but this is my first viewing of the original on the big screen. I don't know what I enjoyed more the animation or the newly refurbished interior. For those that think that's an insult to the animation, please reserve your opinion until you've been inside the theater.

Someone behind me mentioned that outside it looks like the tower of terror, but on the inside it looks like a palace. Though not my favorite analogy, I'd have to agree that most would think nothing of this theater when they pass it by on the street. Choosing my favorite animation out of the lot was difficult, but in the end humor wins again. So here it is "Dance of the Hours"

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I thought I should ring in the new year with yet another blogpost about my activities in the art world. Yay! The forces of the universe have been trying hard to make me sick and get me out of commission this holiday season. Probably trying to get me to take some sort of a "vacation". Pfft, that's for chumps. Which is why I've decided to load up on a lot of what you see in my first picture. That thermos is full of about six bags of a blend of throatcoat and lemon/ginger tea. Blended together it tastes . . . well, it tastes awful. However, it gets the job done. Also beside the thermos is ginger lemonade for washing down coughdrops, echinacea, and Airborne. Take that ailment, nobody gets me away from my art desk, and into bed. At least not without a couple of crisp Benjamins. (ehem)

Anyhowww, The second picture is to show that I'm moving into phase two of Operation Redeye. All those sheets of paper total up to about 75 storyboards. Originally there were 90, but I took 15 out, and I still need to double what I have left. Which means before I'm done there needs to be . . . like a thousand or something. I don't know, I never learned how to count. Anyway it's a lot of drawings. Needless to say I still need to redraw all of the ones pictured first, all the while filling in the blanks and correcting the screen direction and compositions. Notice how they're all hanging over my desk in a daunting way. That's called hierarchy kids, and if I were in that shot sitting in my chair, it could be considered foreshadowing of the week to come. You'd probably just see the top of my head, all dinky looking, shadowed, and forlorn until . . . STARWIPE to the third photo in this blogpost.

The last picture is a photo of the building designs I've been working on. I still need to do a few more drawings for it but have other things to move on to for the time being, which is why I haven't bothered scanning it in, so squint yer eyes and get a peek.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I haven't had the chance to do a Holiday post, and I've been needing to work on caricature so I decided to kill two birds with one stone. In case you're not aware, or my caricatures are too terrible to recognize, these are a couple of my favorite Griswold characters from National Lampoon's Christmas vacation.

I was rewatching this movie recently and realized just about everyone in it was perfect for caricature. So, where better to start. I know these are still a little stiff and there are some twinning issues going on, but I'm working with shapes and likeness first. My next round of caricatures will also be from this movie, and I'll do my best to make their poses express their personality more. I'm thinking the two neighbors in their jogging gear. I'm doing these as a break from internship work, so it might be a little while before I do those ones, but I'm hoping they'll be even better than these characters. Enjoy!