Piano cat plays you off

Based on the Youtube sensation, "Charles Schmidt's 'Cool Cat'", this piece is inspired somewhat by that, and the spawns of multiple youtube videos of that particular video mashed together with others as if the cat is playing them off because they are just just terrible. The REAL reason I created this was based on a unofficial contest by Attack of the Show's G4 host, Kevin Pereira, where he made the challenge for artistic types to submit a piece based on this particular video. I haven't decided to actually submit it or not.

I tried to give this more of a Roy Lichtenstein feel to it. Playing with dots to color and trying to give it a hard black shadow and inking style to make it more of a comic frame.

"Piano Cat Plays You Off" Flash, Contest Submission 6/25/09

This is a scene from the 1st season of "Wordgirl" on PBS Kids I had worked on. There is more I did on this episode, but this is my favorite. I especially like Scoops' movements in this, I'll give up props to the storyboarder for some awesome timing on this.

NOTE: This is pre-lipsynching and special effects

Shamus MacBeard

I saw this dude at the video store today...I don't think I did it justice, but his beard was absolutely awesome. His entire face was shaved except his jawline which had a really long red leprchaun-esque beard. The tiny dog in his arms was just gravy on top of awesome wrapped in bacon.

"MacBeard and Snickerdoodle" Flash sketch 6/22/09

ACCEPTED!!!

GREAT NEWS! I was accepted into the University of Washington's Certificate Program for 3D Animation for Games and Media. When I told my mom I got accepted, she wanted to know which pieces I sent in as my portfolio...and these are them, minus some other pieces which are having some issues uploading :(

I know I haven't posted much in a while, I only just finished a deadline this week of which I was up for 30+ hours straight working to finish but now its over and I got 12 hours of sleep. So I should be good to post more again. I actually got accepted a few days ago, but didn't have the time to mention it with an illustration on the blog.

Some of these pieces you probably recognize since I already posted the majority of them on this blog already. But they are what I submitted to UW for the application process.

Its been a while since I last posted...sorry...been busy with work and general life things...including the 3rd annual Man Weekend. Which just includes a bunch of dudes doing guy things like drinking and playing cards and eatin' pigs and drawing on passed out guys' faces.

Anyways, the Man Weekend was another reason why I didn't make another Sunday Drawing Session in downtown Seattle. So here are some older ones for your face eyes.

"Standing Woman in Blue #3" White Charcoal pencil on Blue paper 2006. ""Sitting Woman #6" Black and White Charcoal pencil on Grey paper 2006.

I found out that its acceptable to show some of my scenes from the show I work on as long as its aired previous to posting. This is a clip from "Wordgirl" (PBS Kids) about a superhero girl who has super strength, the ability to fly, a monkey sidekick (Captain Huggyface) and a large vocabulary. This clip is a scene I worked on with one of my favorite characters, Beatrice Bixby aka Lady Redundant Woman. She met an unfortunate accident with a copy machine and now has the ability to make copies of herself. I love this scene in particular because of the rather flamboyant Wordgirl fan. The writing of this show is absolutely stellar (Emmy Award winning, in fact) and I advise everyone to see it...even if you think its just for kids...because there are some awesome adult references in this show. I noticed a "Silence of the Lambs" reference in an episode from early in the second season.

NOTE: This is in its raw form before lipsynching and special effects. Both of which is not my job to do. I just make the drawrings move :P

Mice play WoW?!

This is a piece based on a real person. I'm one of the millions who play World of Warcraft and within my raiding group, we have this girl who has the smallest voice I've ever heard. Its so small and squeaky and funny. So it inspired me to create an illustration based on what that person may look like based on her voice.

"Meascii" Flash 6/8/09

Willard is Obese

My wife, Misha, and I got into one of those weird conversations that couples get into now and then about just odd things that make us laugh. This is the result of one. We were talking about her weightloss and how wonderful its going and that I should create a character that represents the lost weight (just for fun). And the result was a duck representing the weight my wife has lost. Each pound lost the duck would grow bigger. At this point, Misha didn't want any part of this project because she felt sorry for the duck...but I was having too much fun drawing a fat duck...so here it is. We named him "Willard the Fat Duck"

"Willard" 6/6/09 Flash

Three Delivery

This is an animation I did for Fatkat Studios back in 2007 as part of a required animation evaulation, to test how good I was and to put me into an appropriate roll on the show "Three Delivery" which was a very action orientated Flash based show. I saw some of the other evaluations and some were much better than this, but I still got in as a rough animator. For those not in the "biz", it means I'm the first line of defense of interpretting the storyboards before the clean-up crew. Basically I animated scenes in a rough fashion, and then another crew of animators came in and cleaned up the action and then colored it. For a visual example...if any of you have been to Disneyland and gone on the studio tour where you see the monkeys in the glass cages animating for your amusement...i'd be the guy flipping the pages back and forth, then drawing a line in non-photo blue pencil and repeating that process over and over.

"FLLLAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!"

Hmm...Sometimes I'm up late and I just sort of go a little nutty with drawing stuff. So I found a reference picture of William Shatner and just sort of did this for no particular reason. :) Guess the movie and the line and you get extra points! Hint: The movie title ryhmes with "Bar Neck: The Bath of Flan" and the line ryhmes with "FLAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!"

"KHAN!" Flash 6/6/09

Animated Blob

After 3 days of trying and failing...I finally found out how to post videos. I was compressing the video wrong from Flash, so I went through a round about way of making it into an iMovie and compressing it from there. It seems to have worked! JOY!

So I'll try to post tiny animations every now and then. And if I can get the clear from Sou2nuts, I'll post a few of my raw scenes from the shows I've worked on. :)

This is just me screwing around in Flash 8. Playing with shaping tweens. Its based on a character I came up with 8-9 years ago for a music animation project where I had this character trying to jump for an apple hanging in a tree but failing. One of the comments from my instructor was..."Why is he a condom?" which sparked me laughing out of my chair. No...he's not a condom...he's just a blob with eyes. Maybe someday I'll color him and it'll look totally different. "Blob Eating Apple" Flash 8 2009

Mariner sketch

Uuuuuuhhhh...no idea what this is about. Just started sketching and this sort of just spawned on the page. I have the idea that he is a mariner of some kind...maybe someone who lives under the water. Kevin Costner, maybe?

The Trap

This piece is an update of an illustration assignment from college. I liked the concept a lot. The assignment was to illustrate a single word. This is the second reincarnation of this piece. I displayed the first reincarnation (Photoshop) in an art show in downtown Everett WA where it was purchased off the wall on the third night. This piece I put together purely because I love the sinister quality.

"Trap" Flash 6/1/09

Figure Drawings - Week 2

Time for the weekly Figure Drawing post! I haven't found the time recently to go to the Sunday figure drawing sessions yet..but until I do, here are some from a few years ago. The one on the top is of two quick poses, probably about 10-20 seconds long where all I have time for is to block out the pose with the broad side of my conté. The bottom piece is a longer pose, about 10 minutes. I like the unrefined lines and the detail in the face and shape of body.

"Girl in Motion #2" Black conté on paper 2006. "Sitting Girl #6" Burnt umber conté and white charcoal pencil on paper 2006.