Dead Animals

some pieces from some sessions at the museum earlier this summer.

August Wrap-Up

Just wanted to get in a post about...well...something. Finished up my trip to beautiful San Diego and the comic con in July with a trip to Chicago, then back to NYC two weeks later. Been working away on animation for a live-action feature film, designs by Bill Plympton. Lotsa work and lotsa late nights. Never thought I could do that kind of work again since senior year burned me out, but now it just makes it all seem quite easy. Posted a drawing over at my deviantArt page...just one lonesome drawing, but it's one more than I've done in a while.

a purdy ship in the harbor in san diego.

i love old planes. i really do. i went aboard the uss midway while i had some free time to myself in san diego. the midway was decommissioned in 1994 and turned into a museum. it's not just a place where grannies and vets flock to...it's really worth going to walk around an actual aircraft carrier - below deck and up on the top deck - and a perfect place if any artists need good reference like this. worth all $10 i paid, and took away a load of sweet pictures of all the jets up top. if you ever go, don't pass up the opportunity to chat with the workers there. most of them are war vets and have great stories.

buncha the ncn guys at the con in san diego.

got to run into a lot of artists in sd too, like steve here.

and david colman (aka davidsdoodles - deviantArt). lucky bastard works designing for disney now.

marlo and kali...lol.

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrk!

Festivities

Being freed from the confines of school, I've found myself quickly feeding an addiction of traveling. Might as well get it out of my system before "settled down" hits my agenda. Last week I attended a smash-hit of the debut Platform International Animation Festival in the lovely green city of Portland, Oregon. LOL WTF Portland!?, I hear all you internets kids say...but yes, Portland! Home of heavyweight contender Laika (formerly Will Vinton studios, of whom I actually got to see at the festival in person), Bent, and other mid-sized animation studios that play more of a major role in the industry than some of you are aware. It's also quite the lovely city and easy to get around, plus uber kindly bus drivers that one so used to NYC like me are not accustomed to.

Platform was the best...and the very first international animation fest stateside (the big one in North America being in Ottawa, Canada every year), and I encourage all you festival attenders and animators alike to add Platform to your calendar of "must do"s for next year's show.

Funny enough, Platform was a last minute gee-golly I think I WILL go decision on my part, and I'm very thankful I decided to do so. Much like what I'm doing now, planning a trip BACK out to the west coast for the San Diego Comic con. I've told myself for 3 years now I'd go, and I almost didn't plan for it this year...what with all the traveling I AM planning...but getting paychecks has been a sweet sweet gift this summer, and even after paying rent and groceries I find myself aching to splurge a bit on footing it out of town. So San Diego will be graced by the blue raptor later this month.

After SDCC, Chicago will see quite a bit of me, especially at the Chicago Comic con once again...though this time just as an attendee, and not to make dough on raptor goods only to barely break even on expenses....ha. So hopefully I'll get to hang out with more fine and dandy artists in Chicago for the month of August.

Boy oh boy...here's my lineup!

:::June - Platform....CHECK!
:::July - SDCC....GOING!
:::August - Chicago Comic Con....GOING!
:::September - Ottawa International Animation Festival....PENDING...
:::Sept/October - National Caricaturist Network Convention....GOING!

Let me know who's gonna be where...I'd like to run into lots'a'ya'll.

Some pics from the glorious mystical land of Portland and Platform:





A rad picnic requires deep thoughts...


...and some baseball throwin'.


Drinking and animating is apparently a huge hit.


Capture Master Javan Ivey muscling the "film" around.


Car trip!!


lol band photo.


A night of free arcade games, cheap beer, and Voodoo donuts.


Everyone loves award ceremony time!


Don't give anything to Don...he likes breaking things.



But congrats to Lee and Dan, who took home an award for their producing and collaborating in The Secret Life of Robots!


=)

Alright, Role Call

-Senior shows were a blast.
-School's done.
-Visited home in Orlando for a week.
-Moved into my new place in Brooklyn.
-Workin' freelance animation and havin' a great time.

-And just finished the Preacher series that one of my room mates had on him. Had to beg him to buy the last one's when I started! Just 'bout cried my heart out at the end. I don't read many series, or loads of comics in general, but this was one of those good choices with a great story.



Also, I'm drawing more for FUN again. Imagine THAT.

SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

just continuing to spread the word everywhurrr.



my film, "The Packrat", will be shown black and white since the animation itself won't be colored.

i suggest you check out the postings over at our campus' animation blog to get a sneak peak at the other students work and such.

break from thesis

...actually, not really. breaks don't exist. but i do get really annoyed now and then animating the same two characters day in and day out, so i ruffed this out in about an hour last night just to loosen up and have a little fun:



it's animated in plastic animation paper, which i highly suggest all you animators check out. right now they're still working on the mac version tho, sowwie. it's a great little program right now, and i can work so fast in it that half of my thesis film is being done with its aid.

in past events, i also went to go see Meet the Robinsons on the 9th this month. i was going to write a long review on it but i've realized i've been wasting too much energy doing so. i'll just leave all of you to determine for yourselves whether it's good or not, and i'm sure many of you are familiar as to my opinion of it, but for record i gave it a rating of 6 out of 10.

i think i found the problem...

heheh. been meaning to draw this.

Run Gary Run

Some more movement for your eyes.

Because photos are phun

...and internet spelling is phunnier. i am very tired.

A night working in the studio at Pratt with yours truly and the other animation bandits, sans one (Manny) who commutes to campus.


lucky bastards at calarts with their own little cubicles have nothin' against our little room and it's wall of skulls! (note kindergarten-like colored cut-outs on walls)

my little crooked desk I obtain the use of at times.

a defaced Meet the Robinsons poster, percentage done bars (ie. guilt trip), and lists of things to do make for a grand time.

deep thinking for my tush.

scissor fight!


*ponder*ponder*

More Animation for teh Blawg

a slightly update ruff version of the first third of my thesis film, "The Packrat". Sorry there's no sound yet.

More Dinosaurs

I like to take advantage of moments where I can just sit and get a drawing out of my system...something that doesn't exhaust me and is not part of a project that requires me to think a lot. This is usually when I get to drawing dinosaurs again =).

Here's a Cryolophosaurus that I was particularly proud of how sketchy and fun it turned out.


And an unfinished sketch of a T-rex...with someone...maybe me. Is he gonna make a meal of me or am I gonna show him who's boss??

Pratt Gets Starstruck this Semester...

So we've been having an amazing array of visitors grace our campus in Brooklyn with their presence. First it was Marv Newland giving us a little retrospective of his and his company's work, then we were really blessed to have long-time artist and animator from Disney and more Dan Haskett visit through the CG department. Dan gave us an amazing (and amazingly long but much appreciated) Q and A panel and a very inspiring display of work and advice. My friend and fellow animation bandit Lee Rubenstein got a great chunk of that night audio recorded before his ipod finally died. You can check that audio out here: Dan Haskett at Pratt. The audio gets a little funky at some points but bear with it...it's quite long too...I think my question I asked about his history at working in the studios at Disney is in there somewhere too... =)

Now today we had Michael Eringis from Blue Sky Studios. He showed a very well put together presentation of not only the studio's work and specialized tech styles, but a very "geared-toward-college-animation-film-makers" pipeline example that paralleled what their studio looks for in work but also relating to our work as well. Sorry I'm not much of a picture-taker or audio recorder, or I would have more stuff to show about all these visitors!

So tomorrow (that's right, TOMORROW. Sheesh!), Disney is coming back to the campus! This time it's a different group than what we've had before visit (thank goodness), and there's supposed to be bringing some goodies...
...Oh, and reviewing portfolios. I might give it a shot and see what they think of my stuff...

A couple of the CG guys want me to design a robot for them so they can model and rig it, maybe that'll give three of us something cool to show them!

Just a Dinosaur

...that I drew the other day whilst procrastinating. That is all!

Marv Newland visits Pratt

Our campus was lucky enough to get a screening and visit from animator Marv Newland, probably most known by those who didn't know any better (me) for "Bambi Meets Godzilla". He's a wonderful guy and I continue to wish him the best of luck with his films.

I don't normally enjoy films like these, or the more subtly strange and humorous, but Marv's stuff really found a niche in my heart!

Marv has a show tomorrow here in NYC at the Two Boots Pioneer theatre (www.twooboots.com/pioneer), and I encourage everyone to go check it out if you can (and if you're reading this blog obsessively enough to find out this late, which is a little creepy and a little flattering...). It's a great little theatre too, and actually where my fellow seniors and I will be having our premiere senior show.

Also, I further expand my growing knowledge in the vast world of HTML, and add myself a background image for the bloggidy blog. =D

Birthday Shindig and another Dino Sketch

So Wednesday night I finally had an actual birthday...thing. And since Saturday was my birthday and Sunday was Pat's, we all met up together and had an animator's birthday...of...animation goodness!!

my room mate attacking me in her usual fashion.



shots for everyone!


and more dinosaurs. lamest one i've done so far but there will be more.

Show and Tell

Think Samurai Jack is creative? Thought Disney animation was advanced during the 9 old men? How about a little something from the 60's...from Japan...that just might rival everything you thought you knew about animation...



Now, I love Samurai Jack...and I study the 9 old men's work day and night...but I think I wet myself a little when I watched it. And the poster on YouTube was also gracious enough to showcase the whole film as well.

Horraaaaayyy

Horray, I'm 22. 11 x 2. What a great number. Here's a girl and some dragons!



and a go at a sad little trex ala Heinrich Kley (sort of...), just for warm-up this morning before i get started animating.

More moving stuffs

Here's a clip from the work I had to show progress on for my film in class Monday. All the animation on Gary was done during the week leading up to class at 930 am. It's probably the most work I've gotten done in 7 days, animation-wise, even being sick half the time which made me want to sleep all the time.

I was too lazy to put the sound in for now.



Even after all of this, I'm still behind.

Pat: "That animation is so beautiful.....but it's not enough. Can't you, like, work MORE?"
*cue CRYING JESSICA ZOMG!!!1!11*

More to come next week on this.

a things

weeeeooooouuuuu i did a new drawing of meh self.



i have beautiful friends-

mooo

i'm in that weird crazy state where it's 330 am and i can't go to sleep and i hardly slept last night but then slept after class for 5 hours so my internal clock is all thrown off and i want to sleep but i don't at the same time but i have class in 6 hours and i'm not sure what to do so here's a horsey butt -


i also drank lots of red bull.