Sputnik's Revenge

Happy Hallow--err All Saints Day!

2010-11-01T22:25:00.000-07:00

preview comic for the upcoming website launching on 1.1.11!

that's a lot of 1's!

Team effort! Dan Ciurczak, Corey Lewis and Myself + our respective comics.

2010-09-29T01:36:00.000-07:00

Grimm shall be back at the beginning of the New Year along with some new friends. So consider what I posted earlier to not even be the start. Let's just say I haven't posted anything yet. Pretend like I didn't even draw a comic until the for real for real debut later on, shall we?

Biter

2010-08-20T02:46:00.000-07:00

Paul Pope quickie bite as I take a break from other work. Compelled to do so after reading how to make my tablet settings not completely retarded (here)

durrp, keep dreamin' kid.

Oh and this is my comic online right HERRRRRRE. --> CLICK.

perpetual motion machine.

2010-07-08T00:14:00.000-07:00

I almost love the tonal studies more than the actual line art.

Step by step!

2010-07-08T00:11:00.000-07:00

day by day!

yeah, right.

2010-07-07T00:25:00.000-07:00

pffft. everyone knows I'm not productive AT ALL.

Like Lemmon and Matthau... or something.

2010-05-18T02:49:00.000-07:00

*fart*

lay it out.

2010-05-11T02:12:00.000-07:00

Blah.

Toon Boom make boom boom.

stress releavin'

2010-04-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

One day I was feeling pretty...

So I went home, opened up photoshop and was all like...

then out of nowhere this thing was all...

and then I smiled and went, "hmph."

MYSTERY BRAX

proof of life.

2010-03-14T13:18:00.000-07:00

script. tools. inspiration.

Pink Panther and Pals

2010-03-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

http://pinkpanther.mgm.com/

I worked on this! Sunday, March 7th at 7am (way too early) will be the premiere of this thing that I worked on with a lot of cool friends.

show secrets: the board artists wrote almost everything. we saw the scripts, turned our noses up at em and chucked em out onto Ventura boulevard where their wretched poisonous pap couldn't hurt innocent children. Then we inserted slapstick, action and acting where there would otherwise be talking heads. We did a lot of work. a LOT of work. Perhaps more so than would've gone into, say, family guy and got paid beans. But I have faith that this show will kick some ass.

not bad for a ragtag bunch of loopy college kids and old crusty veterans.

There are definitely worse shows you could watch, right?

TiVo it if you can't wake up early enough.

I still draw

2010-03-06T17:19:00.000-08:00

all the time actually. getting more and more into 40's style construction. Even messing with rubberhose stuff.

Strip it Down

2009-10-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

tore the clunker down and built it anew... Trying to put the story first and make the concepts for for that, instead of the other way around where I found myself constantly painting myself into a corner.

The Synopsis: Survivors in a post-zombie world encounter a strange and possibly psychotic kid claiming to be the human incarnation of the grimm reaper.

Here are some intial designs from previous versions of the story...

Grimm (Old concepts): After thinking about his origins and shaping his personality based on the history I gave him, he turned out to be far different than my first designs where I focused purely on making hims superficially "interesting" looking. Now I've incorporated more of the fact that he's more than a little "off" and has basically been surviving on his own in the midst of a zombie infested city.

Female Protagonist (Jessica, for now): After being just a generic female counterpart to Grimm who's sole purpose was to give Grimm a reason to fight zombies, I also started to develop her a bit more. Making her more pragmatic, disciplined and part of a group that work together, not to kill zombies, but to simply coexist and evade them. Took a cue from the fact that I see people riding 'fixies' all the time out here and tried to work in a system where they use bicycles to covertly travel about the city quickly to forage for necessary goods. Liberties are taken, of course.

Here are some sketches of what I'm leaning toward now.

uh yeah, work in progress.

Grimm

2009-08-23T02:31:00.000-07:00

comics maybe?

Draggin' my balls.

2009-08-21T22:40:00.001-07:00

apologies for the lame pun.

boldly going...

2009-07-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

roughing it out...

put another on the kettle

2009-07-15T15:28:00.001-07:00

a series of sci-fi themed whatchamahoozits for a gallery show..

explorer

2009-07-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. I'm settled in. Finally have things the way I want it and have more time to spend on art and aspects involved. Here's something I was messing with last night. still rough...

detail

I'm not what this blog wants, but what this blog needs...

2009-05-26T15:18:00.000-07:00

Another Step

2009-05-20T23:37:00.000-07:00

Kid missile. plugging... plugging...

MOAR.

2009-05-20T01:18:00.000-07:00

chipping away...

She's fast enough for you, Scotts Man.

2009-05-18T23:48:00.000-07:00

Sup. WIP of a piece for the Satellite Soda art book. more soon.

it's like being back in highschool

2009-04-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

2 minute sketch of napoleon as a hipster samurai with a broken arm. back to verk. mach schnell!

enough already!

2009-04-08T17:59:00.000-07:00

argh! I miss my blog and drawing for myself. I also miss talking about what I've learned, however I think much of it would be skirting the NDA borderline. once things are taken care in the next few weeks I promise some art.

lamentations

2009-03-31T16:01:00.000-07:00

was in the middle of a board when I got the itch to draw a barbarian. been a while since I've drawn anything for myself. BLAGH back to work.

2009-01-30T11:26:00.000-08:00

Finito. Text may be altered.

Brush me.

2009-01-29T01:37:00.000-08:00

WORD.

here's A drawing Mr. Puga

2009-01-22T11:10:00.000-08:00

brrrrrrttt... there. crapped that out about a month ago. Just don't have time for anything but writing lately. so there. nyeh!

I dig the music.

2009-01-01T19:48:00.000-08:00

Yoshinori Kanada tribute made by someone that isn't me.

I'm just gonna quote wikipedia...

Yoshinori Kanada (金田伊功, Kanada Yoshinori^?, born February 5, 1952 in Nara, Japan) is an influential Japanese animator.

Best known of his popular work in 1984, Birth, one of the first OVAs released in the market. He may not do much character designs, but he is famous of his character animation skills, his characters literally come alive on the screen. His work in Galaxy Express 999 (1979) and Harmegeddon (1983) has been very influential to an entire generation of animators in Japan. These two works also served as partial inspiration for Takashi Murakami's Superflat art movement. During the 80s and 90s, he has worked with the famous director, Hayao Miyazaki closely in several movies from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind to Princess Mononoke. Also, he is known for breaking down the directorial system in animation allowing individual key animators to exert their own style into a particular work.

Amazing to see how one animator giving power to individual directors on productions led to a multitude of stylistic movements on Japan that are still going strong today and continue to create even more influences. Anime is not one dimensional and shouldn't be counted out simply because there are no "anime historians" around to talk about the GOOD qualities of eastern animation. For the most part the West largely ignores the amazing things they get away with that are simply taboo in animation over here.

Eastern and Western animation are fairly similar in how homogenized they are stylistically. Western has their generic "look" just as the East does. However, we excell at our qualities just as they have certain things that they absolutely kick our asses at. The unfortunate part is that we hog the spotlight despite how stifled I think our industry is, whereas they catch a lot of flack for being "cheap" yet they excercise much more freedom and experimentation in their craft. Chew on that I suppose.

electrocute him then set him on fire.

2008-12-03T22:51:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2008-11-09T21:40:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

Blagh

2008-09-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

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

Cal Arts?

2008-09-10T13:34:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-03T18:15:00.000-07:00

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

but available on torrent ;)

Done.

2008-08-30T02:31:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-29T02:29:00.000-07:00

meep morp.

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

2008-08-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

By Roger
By Roel
By Carl

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

goodness.

Share and share alike...

2008-08-24T23:25:00.001-07:00

Looking for visual inspiration?

http://ffffound.com/

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

The Fastest.

2008-08-19T00:30:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-08-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-08-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-08-06T22:29:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-06T18:57:00.001-07:00

temporary idea.

Less talk, more art...

2008-08-06T00:05:00.000-07:00

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

The Rebel Speaks.

2008-08-01T21:46:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-07-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

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

Comic KHAAAANN!!!!!

2008-07-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

\

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...

2008-07-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

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

Where my mind is at...

2008-07-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-07-10T20:52:00.001-07:00

Someone, somewhere, owes me a cookie...

Yoko's huge freaking hand.

2008-07-10T00:30:00.000-07:00

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

Cooler than Cool

2008-05-30T00:15:00.000-07:00

A blog about all my favorite things.

http://worldofkane.blogspot.com/

Wisdom

2008-05-29T04:05:00.000-07:00

"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...

2008-05-12T00:34:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-10T16:06:00.000-07:00

wips wips wips...

2008-05-09T17:22:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-05-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-05-05T01:58:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-04-24T00:41:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-04-23T00:53:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-04-21T22:36:00.000-07:00

Bleep. Blorp. Blop!

5 upside.

2008-04-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

Phantasmo and his Hand of Fate lay the smack down on any criminal element caught running amok in Monstroville!

burn.

2008-04-18T01:11:00.000-07:00

A newer version of the Baron. BTW he's makes Halloween candy in his secret candy factory.

The clean lines of the Vamps in their Hot Rod. This one burnt me out due my not being able to settle on any design for the hot rod that i was truly happy with. Poor planning (as far as the car was concerned, the characters were the easiest part) and just generally trying out everything to the point where I got seriously off track. Days of post-its and light boxing and redrawing and erasing and fuggedaboutit.

Here's the rough of what I eventually used for the complete version above. You can see the post-its where I basically drew and redrew parts over and over. This isn't counting the post its I threw out.

Going off on a tangent. The original intent was a "wacky racers" feel and this is like some gothic skeleton space ship... thing. More layers of post-its. This is maybe version 3 out of 5 versions I did. All of them with their layers and layers of post its.

Drag-u-La

2008-04-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

WIP. Some Vampy Greasers speeding around in their blood fueled coffin shaped conveyance.

Gonna head out to Amoeba and satisfy a DVD craving real quick then I'll finish this up.

Something for something...

2008-04-11T18:10:00.001-07:00

Some designs inspired by Viktor Von Kreep's Monstroville

A short gag sequence...

Bits of Gold.

2008-04-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

Mr. Fun's Blog

Floyd Norman, AKA "Mr. Fun" has a damn interesting blog consisting of anecdotes about his experiences in the animation Disney and of his life in general. I'm led to believe he was the first black animator to work at Disney studios but the blog really shows that the subject of being a black animator is besides the point, he is experienced, full of wisdom and is one of those rare artists that seem open to sharing his opinions as shown on the "gag wall" section of his site. Brilliant stuff.

Cal Arts.

2008-03-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

Hey. I got in. Woohoo!

Uhh... can't think of anything further to say about that at the moment.

oh wow...hey.... drawings.

2008-02-29T00:24:00.000-08:00

The Cellar...

Hold on!

The Dragon's Den...

Yeah. Rough sketches and dirty scans... Just the way I like it.

Quality Control.

2008-02-15T15:42:00.000-08:00

Let's face it, regardless of if you love or hate "Anime," Japan is kicking our asses when it comes to outright technical skill and creativity and actually taking advantage of the 2d animated medium. Not just 2d, but also using technology and combining 2d with 3d and even live action to get effects and shots you could only dream of in your wildest imaginations. Meanwhile, we live in Disney's shadow. Simply trying to relearn and relive what has already been. While we're catching up with the past, they're actually creating things that are completely new. Chances are being taken.

To think that hand drawn animation is considered a "risk" in today's CG saturated market, let alone hand drawn animation that seeks to experiment and manipulate rules to create new stimulating visuals. Certain elements in Japan at least acknowledge animation as a craft, not just a commodity. In the states we "ooh" and "ah" in 7 minute intervals at something mildly different and creative that was made by some obscure animator living in a closet somewhere. They've got at least a couple of entire studios dedicated to trying out new things.

Apparently they're making money or how else would movies like Mindgame, Paprika or Tekkon Kinkreet keep getting made? One could argue that their audience is more sophisticated and appreciative of art, comics and animation and recognize that the mediums are in fact, MEDIUMS and not just a "kiddy genre." Is it simply a difference in culture or could a lack of effort to challenge status quo here in the west be all that stands in the way of saving a dying (and believe me, almost dead as far as big business in the West is concerned) craft?

There is an incredible lack of skill concerning art and entertainment in the United States, in general, that I think is brought on by serious ignorance and a lack of historic context. Instead of capitalizing on hundreds of years of technique and knowledge developed by master illustrators and painters and building upon that knowledge and moving ahead with even better work, many people that "draw" simply seek to emulate what they saw the day before. Copying copies of a copy of a copy and not ever once thinking about the source of that style or technique and what that particular line on a character's chin is really supposed to represent. Merely content to emulate drawings superficially and without thought as to WHY the artist they copy put that line in that particular spot.

Gee, where have I seen that hand before? I'm not even gonna bother with pointing out everything else wrong with this drawing.

An even more disturbing thing I notice is that some so-called "professional" artists and animators don't even know how low the standards for their craft have gotten. One need only look to foreign art and animation to see that people around the world, particularly in places like France, Spain and Japan, have been able to develop well-crafted, original art, comics and animation more consistently for mainstream purposes. That's the key right there... MAINSTREAM art. Not some guy, in a closet, working for crumbs and living simply off of passion and getting lucky enough to be showcased in a festival seen by people who already like animation, in essence, preaching to the choir.

Obviously those countries have their fair share of crap as well. People that hate anime are, for the most part, justified in their prejudices, but you can't ignore the fact that the small percentage of well-crafted work in Japan still exceeds the standards of what we consider well-crafted in the States.

Please top yelling...

Many details simply get lost and only serve to make compositions harder to read.

This probably also causes A.D.D. in children...

Quite honestly, shows like El Tigre are a bit overdone and lack focused art direction. Everything is yelling at you in terms of detail and color and there is no seeming hierarchy that leads your eye to focus on what is important at any given moment. The backgrounds are loud and the characters are loud and the storytelling.... well, that's loud too. It's wonderful that all of these talented (and many personal fav's of mine) are working on the show, but some detail must be held back in order for the other elements to be their most effective. Still, it's one of the most well designed shows on tv...

When it gets right down to it, our priorities in the West are simply counterproductive to any attempts to add to the culture. Instead we've simply perfected capitalism and made everything into an assembly line. That's fine and well when it comes to creating cars and toothpicks but when it comes to something so incredibly personal and customized to each person's way of thinking, the culture suffers. We have nothing personal to show or to say to each other. Nothing to be proud of and to look back on as an incredible accomplishment. We've replaced culture with hollow nostalgia. Even the shows and movies we create nowadays simply seek to remind us of better entertainment that has long since passed. Family Guy makes a fortune off of it. But even Seth McFarlane is at least personally invested in his creation as he pitched a fit when Fox decided to continue the series after he decided to leave it. I understand a guy like Seth McFarlane is a huge fan of good entertainment and he is certainly cares about celebrating good entertainment, but when your biggest achievement was simply a creation that gets most of it's entertainment value from reminding us of past entertainment, well... there's something wrong going on there.

Eh... let's just end this rant right there. I hope that whoever reads this at least gets the gist of what I'm trying to articulate. We gotta try harder and take more chances. Don't look at what's current to set your standards for what's "good," look to the past for what was "best" and seek to go miles beyond that.

peace.

'Sup?

2008-01-20T13:19:00.000-08:00

What've I been up too? Helping my good friend Breehn Burns on one of his new Dr. Tran shorts! Seriously the best job I've had in animation so far, and I get paid in free food. Typical. Hahaha.

It's been a really interesting experience trying to step away from the super limited, pose to pose puppetry style of animation the Dr. Tran shorts usually have and getting into more complex, traditional style animation using Photoshop and After Effects. Being able to set up a scene, animate frames onto separate layers and composing them in after effects and being able to seamlessly go back and forth between the programs allowing me to instantly test the animation and edit frames. Still not quite as easy as flash but it's getting there. My hope is to be able to set up a workflow that can achieve traditional style animation without paper and expensive camera set ups and without the "Flash-ness" of using Flash. It's giving me quite a few ideas for executing my own personal project.

Also having a good time just hanging with Breehn and his roommate Pendelton Ward who's known for his awesomely charming Adventure Time short.

Check out Breehn's production blog.

The hole.

2008-01-09T17:39:00.000-08:00

art desk/short film project peek.

I like it so far.

2008-01-04T22:55:00.001-08:00

WIP.

No love for dem alien bastards.

2008-01-04T22:54:00.001-08:00

a drawing I lost interest in...

Initially done to mess with CS3's nifty tools. Stylistically this is what I get when putting together all the "rules" and whatever I've learned throughout my experiences, but this kind of stuff doesn't really hold my interest. I probably could go the whole "concept art" route or whatever but I like messing with styles and trying to push the personality of drawings. More than anything I'd really like to go the route of Ronald Searle or Eric Sokol.

I love that loose, shapely quality that goes right to the heart of the character's personality. It's simple and to the point. Doesn't get caught up in strict anatomy, perspective or realism. Even though it does excel in those qualities, they take a backseat to the point of the picture... the CHARACTER. maybe this is why I spend a lot of time drawing people, faces, body language... I don't do fan art or even post a lot of what I draw.. they're not for show or to get props from my peers. I just like capturing people and their attitudes and moments of humanity.

Meh... I'm easy. I would be a lot more successful if I finished more pieces or did shit that appealed to a wider audience and became a total art attention whore, but I just don't. Or maybe I'm lazy, who knows?

I prefer storyboarding. I'm weird.

currently in progress... It's a lot more fun and intuitive. Unfortunately I have to go to work in the morning and finalize my portfolio so I might not touch this until the weekend.

Back on the Ball.

2007-12-26T23:53:00.001-08:00

We're using this sequence to try out some V.O. talent (friends/family/ourselves)...

'Choo lookin' at?

2007-12-21T21:05:00.001-08:00

Finally! A day off. Really quickly (like 5 milliseconds, that's why it's sorta cruddy) did this in flash. Experimenting with possibly doing my comic this way instead of pencil and ink which just takes up time that I really don't have anymore. It just might work. Also need to catch up on personal/freelance stuff that I haven't been able to touch due to a whack work schedule.

Haha, I used the word "whack."

Damn you, old man!

2007-12-14T15:05:00.000-08:00

I'm just plain out of steam at the moment. Hopefully I can regain my spark after the New Year. Right now I'm just trying to get my portfolio ready for submission, worrying about money while half-heartedly doing pro bono freelance (for friends), and spending a lot of time in philosophical bewilderment and spiritual defeat. My waking hours aren't very lucid and I'm just sort of mulling about in a zombie trance. Thus is the temperament of a lazy, unfocused artist with more ambition than energy. Like a bear, I only wish to hybernate until Spring breathes life back into my lungs.

Simply put, I hate Winter.

Load yer pistol.

2007-12-04T18:00:00.000-08:00

Busy trying to make some comics.

Meh.

2007-11-21T11:25:00.001-08:00

My thoughts, exactly...

Inside UPA

2007-11-14T15:16:00.001-08:00

Yay! My book just came in.

It even came with this nifty placard SIGNED by living, former UPA artists.

sweeeeeeeeeet.

Inside UPA is a pretty cool book with lots of rare photos and descriptions of what it was like to work at the legendary UPA animation studio during it's heyday. I got the swank $150 signed copy limited to only 50. Even though my stomach is empty and I'm all out of coal for the furnace, it was worth it...

Worse comes to worst... I can eat the book!

(Apologies for the really crappy photos, my hands shake like crazy... I'll never be a surgeon ;_;)

You Win!

2007-11-14T14:53:00.001-08:00

More boards. Trying not to give away the story.

Portraits.

2007-11-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

Done with guache. Practice, Practice, Practice...

Shaddup you two!

2007-10-19T14:51:00.001-07:00

More Boards we won't use. Conflicts with some story stuff.

I'm really enjoying doing these. Me and my friends are quite literally teaching ourselves the process of putting stuff together. We have an outline and beats we want to hit but no formal scripts since we would rather board stuff out, see if it works, what's funny and what's not and let it come together naturally. It's way more fun this way.

Animation shout out.

2007-10-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

By Graham Annable. Oh man, I love this stuff.

Rejected!

2007-10-17T20:38:00.001-07:00

Here's a sequence I decided not to use because I thought of something better.

2007-10-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

Opening sequence to our Press Start short. Don't mistake our harsh criticism of today's TV as a lack of love for cartoons. We LOVE cartoons... but sometimes you hurt the ones you love. It's for their own good :P

Anyway this is the only thing I want to even work on nowadays. Been getting a bit impatient waiting on the situation to present itself to pitch or get other people to back us on this project. We're just gonna make it and put it out there.

Shoot me in the head already.

2007-10-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

So for an art battle over at Satellitesoda.com we had to create a spagetti western style gunfighter. I was pretty excited at the beginning but some life situations and moving back to Hollywood didn't really allow me the stability to get into the right mindset to really go all out for this one. Also problems with the deadline changing and the other contestants not even realizing they were in the battle kinda made the whole contest a complete mess. In the end we all thought we would be "clever" and "original" by creating female gunfighters... I only now realize how f-ing retarded and typical that choice was as we ALL made our characters female. Genius.

Anywho the reference I used for my character, who I call "Widowmaker," was this Lady from the movie El Topo.

And my newfound actress crush, Anita Pallenberg. A Beautiful lady with a very distinct voice to match. I wish I had an audio clip to share with you guys because her voice was MADE for voice acting. Go watch Barbarella instead if you wanna hear her.

The original pencils. I like the character but ultimately I didn't think the pose was action oriented enough.
With time running short (or so I thought) I rushed through this and hated it even more than the first.

Well, contest is over and we all pretty much turned in equally slap-dash pieces. Oh well, just showing up is half the battle.

Steady as she goes...

2007-10-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, but right now my life is once again in a state of flux. For the last few days I've been staying in Valencia with a friend and have been auditing classes as Cal Arts, preparing my portfolio for submission. It's been a crazy couple of days, life drawing 8-10 hours a day everyday and not really having any time for much else. Unfortunately I don't have access to a scanner at the moment so I haven't really been able to post anything.

Being here is really wierd. Me and Rob planned this out about a year ago and here we are... almost there. And if we DO manage to get accepted, it would only be the beginning. I'm exhausted just thinking about it... and how easy it would be for me to just say, "F-it" and work a regular studio job. But I feel compelled to go the distance. I'm 25 and feel like an old man compared to some of these kids, regular power-houses these guys are! I feel energized just being in their vicinity. It feels right.

Drawing Life.

2007-09-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

Or... random objects.

Srs Bzns

2007-09-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

"When art becomes an obligation, it's no longer art."

Nah, it's still art. It's just transparent, painfully rehearsed art.

I think it's sad how 99% of people out there think art is just this ethereal, non-descript thing, open to a million interpretations. And especially when they say something is or isn't art due to certain parameters that rely solely on their personal tastes. First of all the word "Art" is derived from "articulation."

ar·tic·u·la·tion (noun): 1.an act or the process of articulating: the articulation of a form; the articulation of a new thought.

Taking thoughts formulated in your head and communicating them to others through speech, drawing, physical manifestation (something built), or physical action (dance, martial arts). So, ANY thing you think of and then do, based off of thought is an articulated action. Thus, practically everything we see, hear, smell and do is technically "Art."

Now, what in blue blazes makes GOOD art? This is where this post stops becoming fact and starts becoming theory and personal conjecture, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. Since art, distilled to it's very basic definition is "communication," then I can assume that, the better the art communicates it's message to others, the easier we can consider it "good" art.

(Still) Life/Realism - Is like having a tape recorder and being a reporter for the local newspaper. All you're getting is facts, no spin, no pizzaz, no opinion. you're looking at something and doing your best to translate it accurately onto paper. There is no need to know function and structure because you're not trying to make it move and you're not adding anything extra. It's like making a list of bullet points and you don't really even need to understand what the bullet points mean because you're simply translating whats right there in front of you. Still lifes are possibly the most "non-creative" of all visual art forms. But, you and many others can consider it good art. It communicates it's message very clearly, although it's a boring message, with non of the artist's personal opinions to be found within.

"But what about the masterful painters like, John Singer Sergent, Picasso and the other guys I learned about in art history?"

Look at the work they're famouse for. It's not the still lifes' we praise, it's the pieces where they took life and subtely injected their own opinions within. Sergent's colors, Picasso's abstraction... all those we consider "masters" either invented new techniques and ways of looking at "still lifes" or they stylized "life" in their own way. If there were ANY artist in existence that was able to capture life without injecting a lick of his own opinion and spin into it, he's a security camera at the local mall parking lot.

Cartooning/Animation - The other side of the spectrum. It becomes more about your opinion than anything else, however for your opinion to come across effectively you still need to know and understand the function, and structure of nature. It's like telling an entertaining, colorful story but grounded in at least a little reality to suck in the audience. The more you embellish, the more fanciful you can get, however, fantasy still requires that the lie plays by it's own rules. Any con-man would agree that if you betray your own story, you're not gonna fool a soul. This also differs from Still life because you need to know the in's and out's of movement, anatomy, structure, composition and many other elements to create, from scratch, a believable, yet fantastic piece.

Commercial Art - Can contain both realistic and cartoon art. The thing is now you're not really communicating from anywhere genuine, you're in it for the money. I think this is the problem a lot of artists run into when trying to make a living doing what they love. The only way you're ever gonna be happy or satisfied is if what you love just happens to be what's selling. You're still communicating, and you're still injecting opinions into the art, but they might not necessarily be YOUR opinion or even GENUINE opinions. It's a case of a con-man, needing to lie, but not believing his own BS. Which is why a lot of commercial art and animation leaves a lot to be desired. You'll definately get some people to believe in what you're selling, but the more initiated, involved and intelligent your audience, the harder it is to convince them to believe in something that you or your boss don't necessarily believe in.

Now on the issue of style, let's say that anything non still-life is cartooning, including non-fantasy, photorealistic art that is made up. Cartooning is like having an accent, or certain idiosyncrasies in your speech, your voaculary, your regional dialect, these all make up your style.

It's like a Brooklyn accent, versus a New England accent versus the way a teenage girl from the Valley would talk. They would probably have a hell of a time understanding each other and what they are trying to say, but amongst their own they speak with perfect diction. This is akin to learning art on your own, in your own terms, not everyone is going to understand or even like what you're saying but your fellow man probably will. Going to art school is, or rather SHOULD, be like learning proper english and the roots behind words and syllables and the proper way to prounounce them, then taking what you've learned and putting your own personal flair into it so that you can write speeches that can move entire countries and even effect politics. Of course, the drawback is that you might lose touch with the common blue collar man and even alienate them completely. But you'd be able to talk to diplomats and important muckety mucks with ease. The truly versatile will be able to communicate both ways, knowing when it's ok to speak jive and when to fluff it up with the silver spoons.

Details (less is more): Using a ton of detail in a drawing is like reading the dictionary and then using every word you memorized as often as you can in as many sentences as you can possibly crap out of your mouth. You've become Don King, mezmorizing the foolish and gullible with your word-play but not really saying anything at all. The truly charismatic know what to say, when to say it, and how to say it at the appropriate time, in front of the appropriate audience. Do you really need a million cross-hatches on that face? is it completely necessary to draw each and every strand of hair on that woman's head? Probably not, but it's an easy way to impress racoons and other individuals that know very little of art and how to meaningfully quantify it's worth.

Abstraction: There is a very fine line here. Modern art is rife with abstraction but very few of these "modern artists" really understand where it came from and why the innovators chose to blaze this territory. Picasso and his contemporaries developed cubism as a way to see things based in life but in another perspective. Seeing multiple angles of a figure all at once. The shapes, colors and methods used were not random or ill-thought out. There is still a message being communicated but it's like using a voice modulator to change your voice to see if you can invent a completely new voice altogether.

"I have nothing to say." <--this is DaDa

Dadaism was a group of artists' rather silly attempt to see if they could say nothing at all. It is paradoxical-art because they were trying to tell people that they didn't have anything to say. In fact, they did have something to say; that thay had nothing to say. See? it's pretty silly because it's art that's trying really hard not to be art. The uninitiate and self-delusional were impressed nonetheless.

The guys that splatter paint, paint squares and lines and use colors willy nilly are just humming a tune. Not saying anything specific, but still trying to evoke an emotion by humming or whistling or grunting, happily, angrily, sadly or any which way. This is decorative art. Looks good with the sofa and probably ties the room together. You like the way you feel when you look at it, but it's not saying anything subjective. Ironically this is probably the most profitable kind of visual art for gallery artists.

Abstract artists today: My issue with many conteporary artists is that they really seem to be going out of their way to say anything. Making sounds with their mouths, hoping something interesting comes out. Making baby noises or gurgling or running your fingers across your lips going, "bladdybladdybladdybladdyblah." This is also silly, but it still manages to impress psuedo-intellectuals at art galleries.

The Issue of Anime:
"Anime" is not a separate genre of cartoons, it's still cartoons but it's a foreign language with it's own nuance. Even the Japanese language has different regional dialects and specificities unique to only certain parts of the country, same with the anime style... It's not all big-eyes and small mouths. They have their own specific cliches much like western cartooning have their rampant cliches. The thing about westerner's copping the "anime" style, appropriating the cliche's rather than actually LOOKING at the fact that anime is not an actual style, is like some kid from Ohio intentionally learning how to speak broken english and throwing in a few Japanese words so that he, in his mind, can sound "genuine." There are those however that are versatile enough to catch on to the nuances that make a foreign style unique but at the same tiem they avoid the cliches. It's like learning their vocabulary and knowing which symbols and syllables to use in appropriate situations instead of just throwing out Japanese words at random just because it sounds cool.

Well, those are my thoughts on art. I really think a serious, analytical discussion is in order to understand art and WHY we do what we do and what the motive and thought-processes behind it are. If you read this far, I applaud you for putting up with my theories and opinions and feel free to express your own. The only crime is not discussing and attempting to understand what art is.

stuff.

2007-09-14T15:14:00.001-07:00

Coffee guy, drinking coffee. you go coffee guy.

Character roughs for "The Cryptics" pinup contest.

Ponder.

2007-09-11T20:10:00.001-07:00

Does this offend you? Something I'm working on at the moment and it's brought up interesting notions that I think people should think about. Sure, this image depicts some pretty harsh stereotypes and most, well-mannered people's initial feelings would be to get offended. But I've found something interesting... growing up around "ghetto" people but also being raised "white-washed" I've discovered that it's the "ghetto" people that find this stuff humorous, but the well mannered are the first to get offended. Even wierder is that non-blacks seem to get way more offended than blacks do. This poses the question... Are we offended because we feel that that's how we're SUPPOSED to feel? This is funny to me because I know and have witnessed this behavior with my own eye (short of shooting an AK47 in the air), but I've been around these people. We all know who they are. There are individuals I had in mind when drawing this.

I think humor and truly enjoying humor really comes from how truthful with yourself you are. Yeah, we've al got faults and stereotypes, but I think that's something we need to be "ok" with and free to poke fun at. Just remember, it's a cartoon, it's not personal. Go ahead and laugh, it's good for you.

Drinking while Drawing?! preposterous!

2007-09-08T10:10:00.001-07:00

Guiness + Irish Car Bomb = this crap you see above. Done for Dave Johnson's Drink and Draw Social Club.

Back in LA!

2007-08-29T18:21:00.001-07:00

WOO HOO!

that is all.

Alpha-G

2007-08-29T17:28:00.000-07:00

rah rah rah.

Solid?

2007-08-29T15:18:00.001-07:00

took some rough sketches through some passes with tracing paper to try and "plus" a drawing...

I think I wanna play around with some simpler shapes and more varied proportions. I dunno, what do you think?

mini portraits

2007-08-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

Doing these on business card sized watercolor paper in guache.

Rut Rut Rut

2007-08-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

I realized I've been posting some really boring crap and I hate it so here's a few throwaway partially completed paintings from a year ago that I never posted.

I want to really jam out artistically, but this job is killing my buzz something fierce.

BG colors.

2007-08-08T11:19:00.001-07:00

Not my designs or layouts. These are based off the storyboards provided.

color work in flash. keeping it simple.

EMP thumbnails raaaawwwrr!!

2007-08-07T10:25:00.001-07:00

Here's some thumbnails for my Earth Monkey Prime short. First pass, unfinished, super rough, straight to pen. I'm going to re-do these and change the story up a bit, so here are the throwaway thumbs. Enjoy. BTW, at the end, EMP is shooting the monster from off-screen just to clear up any confusion.