Illustration Friday: "Signs"

Sign of the times? Maybe. Maybe not though.

Here is the animated music video Chris and I lovingly crafted. All in all it took around 3 months from intial concept to completion. Enjoy.

teaser

I love to draw. I love to write. In the end, what I love are stories.

I don't remember when it was exactly but at some point I came to the realization that there was the possibility to write and illustrate.

It was somewhere around the time I picked up Where the Wild Things Are and I saw the four little words, "Story and Pictures by..."

Those four little words changed the course of where I wanted go with what I was doing. They pulled me out of the semi-ambiguity of "I want to be an artist" and crystalized it: I wanted "story and pictures by..."

To make up things and draw pictures of it? I can not fathom something more fantastic.

* * *

The two most prominent stories I've talked about on this blog are The Blue Goblet and Jack & Inar.

Many times I have been asked this one particular question. I've been asked on this blog, emailed, and otherwise, "When are these books and stories going to be available?"

I will tell you, fair reader, your wait may very well be over soon.

Look in the coming months for fantastic things.

The Ruin of the Beast // MATRIX Edit

Here's the music video cut to a track from the third Matrix film. The track is called "Neodammerung" and it screams important.

baby?

Yes, we have a baby. He is new and his name is Mortgage. He is very fat and needs lots of money. He is a four-bedroom, 2 bathroom, two car garage kind of baby. There is also a treehouse.

He is nice, but he is a very fat Mortgage.

All of our evenings are wrapped up with this thing and as a result there's been little personal work on my end.

But,

here is a screen shot of a commercial I am working on here at work:

The spy Guy running, carrying the Girl.

84, 11 [update]

updated numbers for today:

---------------------

The music video has garnered a distinction-- one of the most viewed videos in a day on YouTube. 84, out of, I don't know, a lot of videos on YouTube. In "Music" at least.

And one of the "Most Linked."

I think this is a distinction.

I'm glad.

FINAL MUSIC VIDEO

Here is the fruit of many hours of labor.

A work spanning 3 weeks of animation and several more weeks of development and the making of the artwork used.

Behold, YouTube, here it is.

Click below for the full four minute, twenty-some seconds music video:

dinosaur

i used a fax machine for the first time today.

i imagine my experience of out-dated discovery could undoubtedly be likened to the elation the recipient of a telegram must have surely felt.

after the invention of the telephone.

Illustration Friday: "Fortune"

This is Ennio Montebello. He is old and though he may not look it, he is worth a fortune.

the best policy...

more music video:

I'm 98% done.
Video to be unveiled soonly.

iChat

iChat is just another instant messaging tool.

On any given day my avatar will be set as The Terminator, raccoon Mario from Mario 3, an etching of a cat, or Totoro. It just depends. Today I set it to a picture of me. For fun. See below.

note: I blurred out my less cool attempts at cool little pictures.

You can also set your iChat "status." This is just a little line underneath your name that lets everyone else know how cool you are because you are listening to --fill in the blank--

or, you can just write something.

Today mine was,


If you know this quote you get a star.

---

Below is a real, actual iChat with Brannon in three installments. He had set his avatar to an "N" today. I am still unsure of as to exactly the reason. But that is fine.

more work on the music video [edit]

update ^


Work is drawing to a close on the music video for Steven Delopoulos.
Gunning to finish the Beast this afternoon/evening.

4:10 running time; I'm at 4:03.

Previous posts:
A post with many links/ info.
And more
More music video work
Semi-animation test

flashes of brilliance

I get them sometimes. To my discredit I ignore them until it's one second to late.

Sometimes when I am doing something I think to myself, "Stop. Stop it right now or this --fill in the blank-- is going to happen."

I, most always, stop one second too late.

Two small examples:

I was cleaning the hamster cage and smaking the bottom of the glass to get all the pine chips out. I thought, nearly out loud, "I need to stop-- my hand is going to go right through this..."

One second later my hand went through the bottom of the cage, I picked the pieces of glass out of my bloody palm, and continued towards my next flash of brilliance.

I taped up what was left of the bottom of the cage, put in a plastic trash bag, and started to fill it again with fresh pine.

I filled the cage and thought to myself, "I ought to carefully set this sixteen pound bag of pine chips back down or it'll dump pine all over the hallway.

I dropped the bag

and,

One second later

I was sweeping up sixteen pounds of spilled pine chips.

---

If only I was living TWO seconds in the future.

This would make conversations difficult, I know. I imagine it'd be like playing tennis with H. G. Wells.

But I could go on TV and wow audiences with my powerful abilities, be a couple-seconds-in-the-future-psychic, or maybe best of all, my flashes of brilliance would actually help me.

Or I could just listen in the first place.

magic tricks and baby ducklings in a sparkling land of birthday parties

But I saved the birthday cake. And the ducklings are very grateful and the train swinging poachers are behind bars.

Ducklings.

Ducklings....

Or were they koala bears.

...

I have a magic trick. I can do it at parties, I can do it at weddings, I can do it anywhere.

I can even do the trick under the house in the crawl space, which is where I was this time.

My total magic trick count to date is six.

Six times I've performed this incredible trick.

Six times I've dislocated my shoulder.

Magic.

a little red eye

This is an old thing but I did a little new stuff to it for no good reason this morning.

I'm working on a music video-- see below the windmill test for the feel of it.

Illustration Friday: "I Spy..."

I spy... SPY!
New animatic [new ending] and concept art:

Semi-animation test

Nothing really happens here-- just some windmill turning in a choppy fashion.

Click above.

The little bit of music that plays is the beginning of God's Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash. Enjoy.

Queen Julia

I visited my mom's class (2nd Grade) for their Art Week. I talked to them and showed them what I do. They made me some thank-you cards the next day.

My favorite:

The first "fan" drawing of Queen Julia.

Queen Julia

* * *

Ilustration Friday: "Total"

Total goat.

For a step-by-step demonstration of this piece and many others, check out my side blog:
The Photoshop Experiment

The Photoshop Experiment

Bringing back the T.P.E.
And yes, I guess I just said the the photoshop experiment.

and

lounge music

and more paint.....

a little work in prog...

of the drawing below.

new pencils

I've been in a creative slump the past few weeks and feeling really bummed.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, is medicine for that like finally getting down some good drawings.