electrocute him then set him on fire.

Galactic Mail from Asterokid on Vimeo.

This was so nice. seeing 3d getting to a point where it actually FELT genuinely cartoony and not just pose to pose zippyness you'd find in even feature quality 3d animation.

~~

Anyhow, I guess I should've said it sooner but I'm doing board revisions for a show that you'll hopefully see sometime next fall on Cartoon Network about a certain big cat of a lightish red persuasion. It's pretty cool, learning a lot and also having some of the negative aspects that we've all heard about on other blogs being brought to hilarious reality.

Biggest lesson learned since working there; tv animation is a collaborative process and no one sets out to make a bad cartoon on purpose. The general education (cinematic and storytelling-wise) of the crew combined with obstacles and obligations presented by the people actually paying for the show all effect how well a show works... or doesn't. No one's out to destroy cartoons, but it does feel like there's just a TON of overanalyzing and "fear of ____" on the part of the executive side that just forces the writing of shows into a corner.

So you get a lot of sighing and eye rolling and "well, what can ya do? We gotta work around it."

yeah...

AND THE PROM IS TOMORROW!!!

I don't think the actual US Akira remake will be as much of a sell out as this video postulates, but it does bring up (in very broad terms) the VAST difference in sophistication of content between what you can generally find in Western animation and Eastern animation.

And it made me laugh, which is the only real reason I'm posting it, of course.

Bill Moyers and Susan Jacoby on the American Failure in Education and Reason

Blagh

My laptop is dead. The economy is about to collapse. Here are some boards.

Cal Arts?

So what happened to Cal Arts? One might ask themselves if they cared at all about this blog or happenings in my life (which might well be like 3 people).

LIFE... that's what happened.

Despite my efforts over the last year or so I can only guess that I just didn't fight hard enough or the tidal wave of happenstance was just too strong, but the cards simply aren't in place. A lot of cruddy things happened during the summer to prevent me from having the resources to go and a fair amount of GOOD things are happening right now that are pulling me away from focusing on school.

It's down to doing what Cal Arts would've done for me anyway, only I'd be doing it on my own and without having that safety net of school under my feet or going to school and simply delaying my struggle to hopefully give me a better shot somewhere down the line.

If you know me then you know that whether I'm in school or not, I don't stop learning and drawing and trying to get better. Maybe in another year. A year to get out of debt, repair my credit and be more self reliant and prepared for bigger tasks. But by then I might have already achieved my goals.

Nothing is ever certain no matter how well you plan things out. That's the biggest lesson I've learned so far.

Anyway, maybe I'll see some of you guys in Corny's class.

More Bakshi

Bakshi talks about his works, including "Hey Good Looking" which is almost impossible to find in stores...

but available on torrent ;)

Done.

Crap. I just noticed how it looks exactly like the other pinup I did. Will rework colors for the POSTER version, eh..? Anyone interested in posters? yeeeeessss? *wink wink*

Thrash Trash

meep morp.

"el" to the "oh" to the "el"

By Roger
By Roel
By Carl

Welcome to the wondiferous world of caricature artistry. Done by my co-workers...

goodness.

Share and share alike...

Looking for visual inspiration?



http://ffffound.com/

A blog that basically looks for interesting images and puts them in one convenient place.

The Fastest.

Top: Rough version of the Derby Girls flyer (second version). WIP. Just alying out the typography. Need to work more on the hierarchy of type, change some things here and there. but I like this version MUCH better than the pink one.

Middle: YO. word.

Bottom: Sup cutie.

I want to be THAT guy.

Animation heads NEED NEED NEED to check out the "Journey to the West" promo for the 2008 Olympics that has been produced by Gorillaz honchos, Damon Albarn and my style-saint, Jamie Hewlett.

KLIP

Now I'm going to put my pants back on.

Here's more on their Journey to the West project. Did I mention it's an Opera?

This message will self destruct...

My buddy Dave Igo called me up last night to inform me that the guys who do The Cryptics were 3 pages short, so instead of filling up the extra space with lame ads they needed some pinup art pronto. Done and done.

16 hours with breaks and watching the Science Channel. addictive.

What I'm into...

At the moment it's, Studio 4C's "Amazing Nuts!" series of short film/music videos/project demos by their various in house directors. Read a bit about it here.

See it:




there's a bunch more, but you can find em yourself.

Oh, and J.U.S.T.I.C.E.'s video for "Stress":


raddddd...

version 1

temporary idea.

Less talk, more art...

In the meantime, here's a WIP of a flyer I'm doing for the L.A. Derby Dolls.

The Rebel Speaks.

Just felt that this needed a post, if not for anyone elses interest but my own . Say what you want, but he makes a point about just going out and doing it. The are people making shorts all the time on newgrounds or on other flash sites that are all fairly low quality (there are a few exceptions). But I know a ton of talented artists (especially myself) that just sit around waiting on things to happen for them. I worked with two other guys (Joel and Iza) and did a short in 2 weeks. I admit that it sucked hard, but it proved that it could be done. Maybe the focus should not just be on making a short for the purpose of submitting to studios or whatever in the hopes that someone may hire you for it, but to just do it for the sake of telling YOUR stories.

Chew on that, I guess.

I could kick myself for missing that panel. Video credit to ASIFA Hollywood.

In a nutshell...

Comic con was, well... not as productive as I'd hoped, but it was still a hoot.

Comic KHAAAANN!!!!!

\


I vowed I wouldn't show up this year empty handed so.... yeah. Light on story, heavy on "wtf was I thinking at 3am?!"

Jack Attack...

Yeah, I poke at it's lifeless body every now and then...

Where my mind is at...

Rough experimentation with photos over at thecobrasnake.com. I dunno, what do you think? I might expand on this concept using original photos.



style development, caricatures of hollywood people and messing with designs for t-shirts or whatevs...

Forgive the crappy scans, my scanner is all but useless other than it's able to scan in 11 x 17 format. Picking up colors is nigh impossible, though. Major pumping up of contrasts and saturation and frankensteining it with different pieces with different adjustments and it still looks awful. The page itself is pretty beautiful in my eyes, though.

Hey look who finished!

Someone, somewhere, owes me a cookie...

Yoko's huge freaking hand.

WIP. Done for a friend at Anime Expo. The character is Yoko from the pretty darn awesome and energetic "Gurren Lagaan."

Cooler than Cool

A blog about all my favorite things.

http://worldofkane.blogspot.com/

Wisdom

"Ego is the enemy of the imagination.

Anything that you think about writing, when you are not writing, is a product of the ego and is absolutely wrong. 100%, all the time wrong.

And if you take a step back and think about how much time you spend trying to purify yourself in order to get ready to write, that’s like 95% of the time. And the reason for that is the Ego has a stake in perpetuating the behavior that you’ve already engaged in.

We do not think our way to right action. We act our way to right thinking.

So what I do is I start writing. If I think about my writing before I start to write, what I’m really doing is justifying not writing. So, because what I’m thinking when I’m not writing, I’m not writing. so I’m gonna find a way to keep not writing. So what I say is I don’t have the idea, it’s not fully realized yet, my pencils aren't sharpened, I don’t have the right notebook, blah blah blah, it’s 11:45 time for lunch…"

-David Milch (taken from Story Fanatic)

Wow.

I'm sure the same can be applied to drawing. This is definitely something I suffer from. Thinking about drawing WAY more than actually just drawing.

marathon drawing...

The shot so far...

Need to give my eyeballs a rest from all this wonderful radiation computer screens spit out at ya. I have other things I need to work on as well...

Pow Pow!

wips wips wips...

Clean lines...



Something on the side, for my own amusement/portfolio padding. Attempting to mesh cartoon design sense + realistic rendering? One of the few guys I've seen done it right was Glenn Barr. His work is AMAZING. Hmm...

And I gotta get my ass working on some layouts!

Ping-Pong Carousel.

These are from last year in John Mahoney's class. Just thought I'd post these while I continue to peck away at the current piece I'm doing.








Done with Blue pencil, Fabercastel color markers with brush tips and Gold metallic sharpie (scans a bit dark due to its reflective quality). Varying degrees of success.

Been Lazy.

So I took quite a while off just generally slumming and slacking and sliding all over the place in a funk but I'm back and getting somewhat back into the groove. The most important thing I need to work at is my "sticktoitiveness." As my old teacher Nathan Ota told me, "You're probably the best student I've had in 3 years, but you lack discipline" and then he gave me a "D." Yeah, that's me, but it's something I try to stay aware of and try to overcome. But man is it tough! However, being out of a job and hungry definitely motivates one to stop being a bum.

Anyway, been picking at this piece like it was steamed mixed vegetables and the only way I'll get that ice cream dessert is if I clean off the entire plate.


I like it so far, but I've run into a funny thing, the more I like a piece I'm working on, the more nervous I get about messing up and ruining it. It's discouraging and tedious to take babysteps, but it's something every artist needs to overcome. While it may be your baby, you gotta let it grow naturally and allow it to have it's flaws and quirks. Just do it and finish it and next time you'll probably do it better. But I guess even the best artists are never satisfied. I think that's a good thing.

Here are some close ups of the characters.




Man, some guys can just pump this stuff out... I wish to have that stamina someday.

Ask Dr. Stupid.

Umm... I was asked how I do my clean up in Photoshop.

It's fairly simple really and has more to do with your own skill and patience with a stylus than with any sort of program or technique.

I start out AT LEAST 300dpi. I throw a layer of white underneath whatever layer has the rough drawing on it. Then I lower the opacity on the rough layer.


I tend to choose light grey or blue for the rough drawing and deep red for the final line just so it shows up nice an bright on the screen. It's not as easy to judge line quality with black and white.


Ok, here's the secret...well, not really. Zoom in fairly close, make sure shape dynamics are on so I can utilize thick/thin lines and basically hold my breath and cntrl-Z until I get a line I like. Yep, that's it. I also kinda "sculpt" the line with the eraser tool to further tune it. Also, zoom out often to check on how the line looks as you draw.

BTW- see those squiggly parts in the line? They pretty much don't make much of an impact if you're working at such a high resolution. When you res it down for the web (72dpi) it's pretty much non-existent. You can work at 600dpi and res down to 300dpi for print to do the same thing but still maintain decent resolution. However, if you're looking to make movie sized posters or anything, just use illustrator, Flash or ink by hand.

Draw straight through the shape and erase accordingly. You lines will be smoother and more consistent.


That's pretty much it. No Jimmie Hoffa secrets here but I hope that helps.

Dust 'er off...

Non Monstroville related art. This is an old story of mine about space ships, laser guns and prehensile tails. Finally got some inspiration to further develop the characters and just needed to draw something different for a change. WIP.

It's not a tumor!

Bleep. Blorp. Blop!