In case you forgot...

LCAD films are screening tomorrow. 10am. Laguna South Coast Cinemas.
Be there, or feel like this.

Coming May 18

My long-gestating, soon-to-be-fully-colored senior film, A Little Hitch, will be screening with a bunch of other excellent films by my friends and colleagues at LCAD next month, at the LCAD Animated Film Festival (LAFF).  That will be at the AMC South Coast Cinema in Laguna Beach, Saturday, May 18, at 10AM.  Hope y'all can make it!

Lil' Hitch

All right, kiddies...if you must know what's really been taking up my time while the wee hours are spent on pinups and such (I admit it takes the edge off), look no further.  Presenting the first 15 seconds of "Lil' Hitch."

The first pass has some technical issues, although I'm mostly pleased with the character animation.  More importantly, the story as a whole has many ridiculous twists and turns I am loath to spoil before it's ready to screen for an audience.  Those of you from LCAD likely know how it goes already, but I'm dangling this carrot to whet your appetite for the final carrot cake of a film -- which, in an extremely optimistic situation, will be fully baked this December.

Cheesy metaphor is futile.  Back to work!

Peace of mind?

I've been lounging on DeviantArt 'cos I likes getting feedback from, and giving feedback to, fellow nerdy students. So, there's not much in the way of new drawings, but I thought I'd post what I little I had up here for continuity's sake.

Big Fat Edit, 1/31/11: Optimism and stuff! On to the senior film!!!

Progress?

No doodles today, but the animatic for my senior film is 99.9% complete (some dialogue needs to be swapped out) and I have gotten the go-ahead to start animating. Enjoy a storyboard drawing, kids!

Meanwhile, I rediscover what is likely the most unapologetically appealing Disney feature of the post-Walt era. It's clear that the new wave of Disney talent in the '80s was huge into Milt Kahl and Frank Thomas and all those guys, but for funny characters especially, they brought their own discoveries, like Tex Avery's vivid takes and Chuck Jones' strategically applied moving holds, to the table. Contemporary animators have consistently told me this and I am beginning to finally notice it.

So, to rewatch The Great Mouse Detective, a movie chock full of funny characters all drawn by animators exploring these influences with childlike glee, including an exceptionally gleeful Glen Keane drawing the villain...leaves me breathless.

(C) Disney, but I wish it was mine.

If you forgot this frame was in the movie, chances are you need to watch it again.

And for my next trick...

My 3D Computer Animation final! I got cozy with the Norman rig (no, not like that) and did my best to show how he'd react to seeing something inside a box. I was surprised how closely I could match Norman's poses to my original drawings.

One more semester gone. On to my senior film with a vengeance! Merry Christmas folks!

Runnin' Hoss

For my Animal Drawing final!

The tail's a little weird but I know how to fix it. In the meantime, enjoy.

From the story again

Mood painting, with me still trying to figure out the kid's design. I don't want him to be generic, but I do want him to be simple and flexible.

By the way, it'll be a funny story, but it has to look creepy.

Odosketch!

Thanks to a post from Eric Scales, I have joined the Odosketch fray, testing out slightly varying designs I might use for my senior film character. I confess, my story portfolio focus has shifted now that I have a faint idea of where my efforts are supposed to go. (We have a portfolio class I'm not in yet, and I didn't ask quite enough questions prior.)

EDIT: Uh-oh. The embed links are blanking out on my compy, and so is the Odosketch server. Better post some screengrabs. As an aside, this paragraph would have made no sense twenty years ago.

Join us! (And hope it works!)

Shame on me...

Another pinup. And with a white background, no less! Ah, well, if it offsets the bland in-joke of the last post (edit: DELETED) it can't it be all bad. Plus it's an okay stab at clean-up.

I've been fooling myself with two ideas lately: 1) that story drawing is harmful because it takes too much time away from my homework, and 2) that doodling is harmless. Usually, yes, doodling is harmless. It's obsessing over a doodle until it's a finished piece that's not so good -- especially when there's no story.

I love sharing my stuff and I'm thankful you're all around to see it, but there's only one way for me to blow you away and that's if I focus. So let me cocoon for a while and hopefully I can show off some new, and some improved, stories by the end of the year.

Also, Chris, thanks for pushing me to do small exercises. I'm slowly getting back into the habit as time permits -- plus I've drawn so many pinups that I'm getting tired, and I'm eager to know these characters. Believe it or not, watching Animaniacs with a friend recently made me a little more conscious about how cartoon characters can interact (even Mindy and Buttons' simple antics were highly entertaining).

My history with "dropping the blog," of course, is checkered. But if I know what's good for me I won't start it up till the time is right.

Oi! I'm not dead!

I'm just helping the miscreant below gain publicity for our academic digs.

Animated this from Steve Buscemi mouthing off in Desperado, for whoever wants to know.

Enter, Look, Take, and Leave

Sigh... posted a week later than I intended to, and none the better for it. Chiefly, the overlap on this quickie exercise needs work. Hope you enjoy this anyway!

The Princess Bride

Did these for a Character Design class. We all emulated artists who were better than us so as to become better artists ourselves. For God knows what reason, I chose the way better, but animation-proof, Ralph Steadman. The results -- centered on The Princess Bride and the warring genres of '70s music -- are a mixed bag, but it was a lot of fun to do anyway.

Disco Humperdinck

Punk Vizzini

Soul Fezzik

Glam Inigo Montoya

Heavy Metal Dread Pirate Roberts