The mind of

Speaking Of Noir.

2011-05-27T06:15:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since the last update on this blog, but I simply ran out of time to update this one recently. I'm pretty happy how this one turned out. It was created for Phinehas who curates and runs the Speaking Of... reading series in Pittsburgh. If you are available, you should come out to the event on June 18th at the New Hazlett Theater. I hear it's going to be a good time, and one of my co-workers at Animal, Samm, created this sweet promo video, which is part of a full length video that will be screened:

Here is the intial sketch for the idea:

Simply a WIP:

To get closer to this:

To the final:

Jakob!

2010-08-09T18:37:00.000-07:00

Joe Ledbetter's Magnus Maximus Trailer

2010-05-17T18:09:00.000-07:00

Joe Ledbetter contacted me a couple months ago about animating a short trailer for an upcoming solo show he is having at the Corey Helford Gallery, and as a huge fan of Joe's work, I was more than happy to dig in for this one. Thanks, Joe, for the opportunity and hope we can work together again. Everyone in LA, definitely don't miss this show opening on June 4!!

Fake Fast Food

2010-03-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

Almost exactly a year ago at Animal, we shot a commercial for a local chain restaurant. The goal for this particular campaign was to make this restaurant seem as though the food there is better than your average fast food restaurant. In the spots, the people are eating the typical fast food burger, fries and soft drink, but we could not put an exact brand name on the foods, although they did use fries and burgers from a joint with the initials McD. Anyway, we created a fake name that would provide the audience with a placeholder for a fast food joint, and after coming up with many different options, Moo Moo's Quickies was settled upon. I was asked to create a faux logo for Moo Moo's Quickies, and above are the options I provided. The image below is the logo we settled on, which was a mix of the favorites provided above. Dig!

Twisted Brobee

2009-09-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

I love this!

Found on deviant art, by dyemooch.

JUICE!

2009-07-31T13:40:00.001-07:00

New Reel 2009!!!!

2009-07-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

FINALLY! A new reel! AH!

Gear vector

2009-03-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

I recently cleaned up and vectored a version of the character Gear for Monstroville!! The original design is by the magnificent Miah Alcorn!

I did a little animation test of him, too, which you can see over at the Monstroville blog here.

Ward Kimball Signed Library Card

2009-03-19T10:36:00.001-07:00

I recently bought this cool artifact!

A library card signed by one of the Nine Old Men!! Ward Kimball probably got this out of the Burbank library. It's not much to look at, but I'm so stoked!

I can now add this to my signed book, Kimball's Art Afterpieces, that I bought at a store in Burbank when I used to live out there for very cheap. When I purchased it, apparently they priced it so low not knowing that his signature was in the book, and the guy at the counter quickly offered to buy it back from me for twice and then quadruple the price he had marked it as. I rejected his offers - not because of the money but because I just wanted to own an authentically signed Ward Kimball book. When I went back there last summer, the store had gone out of business. It was located next door to Blast from the Past. I don't really want to scan the signature since it's on the inside front cover of the book and it is somewhat delicate, but this is what the front cover looks like.

I also won a group of Ward Kimball's tin toys on ebay last year that I keep in my toy collection. I'll post those sometime too.

Oh hey, look! There's Ward in that picture below! And who's he with? I forget his name...Walt something or another, I think.

Ronin Media Logo Animation

2009-03-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

I recently completed a logo animation for a friend of Animal.

So I never really posted my process to get to a finished piece on here and thought I'd share how I got to this finished piece. From beginning to end this took about 2 weeks. Jeff came to me with the image below and asked if I could come up with an idea for the animation.

I juggled some ideas including samurai sword fighting, anime, and asian culture, and then the opening sequence to Kung Fu Panda came to mind as inspiration to draw from.

So I drew up this storyboard with this artistic direction in mind.

He also needed a typeface for his logo, so I presented these options that I thought best matched the culture of the character.

Jeff liked the storyboard, so I moved forward with quickly creating a rough animatic for timing in Flash. Very quick.

After this step, when animating the samurai, my animation needed to match up as closely as possible to the drawing Jeff gave me. So I created a vector version in Illustrator since I knew that I would need to eventually anyway (since the version Jeff gave me was a bitmap that would probably get pixelated in the video). This also gave me a good idea to remember where the clothing wraps, how low it should hang, how much of his arms are showing, his hair length, etc so that while animating I could keep these things in mind.

I then created a rough animation test to get the movement of the guy running and jumping, hand animated in Flash.

I then blocked in color and started finalizing background art.

I wanted the background in the opening to be very eye-grabbing, so I used bright warm/hot colors with rough textures to mimick the old feel that you might see on old chinese transcripts. I wanted this to contrast the flat colors on the character and the dark background at the end.

I exported separate layers from Flash as PNG sequences with alphas, then imported these sequences into AfterEffects to create motion blurs.

Finally it was time to jump back on the logo type. Jeff picked a typeface he liked best from the options above and I went with it. I wanted to make sure the text really popped on top of the dark grey/black background and was very legible. I went into Illustrator and below is what you see in the final footage.

The sound was added afterward by a friend of Jeff's. I regretfully forget his name, but will make sure to update when I find out for his credit that really makes this piece work! Overall, quick and easy process - thanks to Jeff for the great opportunity to have some fun with this!

Thanks for reading!

City Folk

2009-03-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

Cameras Left on Benches in NYC

2009-03-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

Someone left a couple of cameras attached to benches in NYC - one in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn - to see what would happen. A note was attached to each which read “Good afternoon! I attached this camera to the bench so you could take pictures. Seriously. So have fun. I’ll be back later this evening to pick it up.” Sure enough when they returned to pick up the cameras, they were still there and the rolls of film had been filled.

When they were developed they had some interesting results.

View the rest of the pictures here.
Now I feel very inspired to try this out in Pittsburgh!

Found via swissmiss

Flash CS4 - Linking a Quicktime is No More

2009-03-05T06:27:00.000-08:00

So I've slowly been getting in the groove of animating with the new features of Flash CS4. Cool motion editor, IK capability, X-Y-Z rotation...all great new stuff, and so much more! BUT when I went to File > Import > Import to Library and selected a Quicktime file I wanted to link to in the timeline to animate on top of like I have in CS3 and older, there was no option for that.

This is what the import window looked like in Flash CS3:

And then after hitting Continue the user is presented with this:

I would then select the bottom option, "Linked QuickTime video for publishing to QuickTime". I needed to select Flash Player 5 in the Publish Settings for this to work, but that didn't matter to me since my final export wouldn't be a SWF, but instead a jpg or png sequence to make a QuickTime.

Now in CS4, instead of that screen, when the user goes to Import to Library, they are presented with these options:

I didn't want to import an FLV, I wanted to import and link a Quicktime for animating on top of for timing purposes. Then I would composite the animation on top of the Quicktime in AfterEffects (or other editing software). Since importing a Quicktime wasn't an option, I converted the Quicktime into an FLV file and selected the "Load external video with playback component", to which I quickly learned that's not what I wanted. I read "Embed FLV..." but thought that's also not what I wanted (why I didn't just try that in the first place I don't know), and I knew I didn't want to "Import as mobile device...".

I searched online and in the Flash help menu for an answer but couldn't find anything that addressed my specific issue in detail. So I called the Adobe helpline. After waiting a while and speaking with several people answering the same questions (what is your customer id, serial number, name, company, what is your issue, etc) about five times, I finally was on the phone with someone that could answer my question. Apparently the issue is that Flash CS4 no longer supports importing or linking QuickTimes. Nada. So there are two workarounds. 1: Go back to Flash CS3, import as you used to and you can then open that file in CS4 and it will work. Or the other option I will now be using, numero 2: Convert the QT into an FLV, import to library, and select Embed FLV in SWF and play in timeline. You are then given this window:

You may select Embedded Video or Graphic which which will stream in the timeline when you scrub. Movie Clips do not stream, but the flv video file will still be imported into your library which you can drag onto the timeline to scrub through.

This process is probably self-explanatory to many people, but for people like me that was used to importing and linking the QuickTime in previous versions I wanted to clear this up and note the change from CS3 to CS4 for anyone else that runs into this same issue. Hopefully you will find this blog post helpful!

Cheers!

Liz Gilbert is inspirational

2009-03-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

I've been watching these various lectures from TED that have been really inspirational. I just watched Liz Gilbert talking about how we perceive inspiration and thought you might find this as interesting as I did.

via Luc Latulippe, via Jon Hogman

Another one of my favorites is a great lecture by designer Paula Scher. (I loved her rant about how she hated Helvetica, and as someone pointed out to me, that is the font used on the podium in front of her)
See it here.

Warm-up 1

2009-02-27T07:16:00.000-08:00

I like to do a warm-up sketch once in a while. Here's one.

Can anyone tell me the name of this place?

Steven the Film Moron

2009-02-13T12:35:00.001-08:00

This was an extremely fast drawing I did a while ago. This is based on a true person, a film history "teacher" actually. Why do I put quotes around teacher you ask? Well in 2003, the man said that Tom Hanks is an up-and-coming actor, and he claimed he never heard of Christopher Walken when a student mentioned Walken. In his mind, "Pulp Fiction" was the greatest movie ever made, which I guess to some can be debatable, but nope, you're all wrong. Good movie though. On his RateMyProfessors.com page, he is quoted as saying "...I don't know. You're the student, I don't have to know this".

This is Steven. The film moron.

New Pepsi Logo

2009-02-13T07:28:00.001-08:00

I found this, and thought the same.

More Tilt Shifts

2009-01-22T08:59:00.000-08:00

Photos from Pens vs Rangers 1/18/09 and Steelers vs Chargers 1/11/09. See other pictures from these events on my facebook here and here.

Dr Sketchy in the 'burgh

2009-01-21T07:56:00.000-08:00

Here are some drawings from Dr Sketchy Pittsburgh last Mon night. I'm super rusty (or never really was that good) at figure drawing, so please be gentle. It's still fun though and I love to get out and draw when I have the chance.

Logotype and Concepts

2009-01-20T07:38:00.000-08:00

GO STEELERS!

2009-01-15T08:32:00.001-08:00

So the Steelers game was pretty awesome last Sunday, and I was there for it. I'll post some pics of that soon, but I made this to hold you over...

Tilt Shifts

2009-01-09T06:41:00.001-08:00

With all of this talk about the tilt shift photography on other blogs, I was inspired to give it a shot. Images taken at Mid-Ohio, San Diego, Steelers vs Bengals 08, and New Orleans.

Yo Gabba Gabba wins a BAFTA!

2009-01-08T12:30:00.000-08:00

What the heck is a BAFTA?!? Well it's the British Academy of Film and Television Arts - I think it is sort of like England's version of the Emmys. Congrats to the whole crew of Yo Gabba Gabba! You totally deserve it.

Now let's see some more season 2 episodes, Nick!

Monstroville!

2009-01-07T08:57:00.000-08:00

So lately I've been pretty busy at work. I wanted to be just as busy at home, since I wasn't already busy enough with all of the projects around our new home, so I accepted an offer from Von Kreep to do some animation work on this feature project called Welcome to Monstroville. It's a fun side project that you can keep updated with on the production blog. Recently added to the already-awesome voice talent crew including Carolyn Lawrence and Tara Strong is Tom Kenny. Gotta love it.

Zombo Gallery Ukulele Show

2009-01-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

Hey! Hope everyone had a great Christmas and Happy New Year! I sure did.

I should've posted about this months ago, but better late then never I suppose. I was recently in a group gallery show called the Zombo Gallery Ukulele Show in Lawrenceville, just east of downtown Pittsburgh. It was pretty rad in that each artist was to paint something, anything, on a ukulele! It was curated by a local friend of mine, Nathan Mazur. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the actual show and now kicking myself for it, but I did keep the ukulele. Inspired by our cat, Brobee.

<< UKULELE IMAGE >>

First I thought this might be a cool idea:

Then I played with it a little more and came up with this one:

I thought this was a better idea so I went with it.

Some great local talent was involved in the show including Pat Lewis, Wayno, Eric Luden, Joe Wos, of course Nathan M, among others. Hopefully, this will be an annual show, and get a bunch more artists involved next year!

Typography

2008-12-10T07:01:00.001-08:00

I am always inspired by typography artists such as Alex Trochut, Nicolas Alexander, Shiny Binary, and Guilherme Marconi. No where near as good as these guys, but I decided to give experimental type treatments a whirl a little while ago.

Birdie

2008-11-07T07:29:00.001-08:00

Bunny!

2008-11-06T14:01:00.001-08:00

Kittie

2008-11-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

Wormie

2008-11-04T10:54:00.001-08:00

New Orleans

2008-10-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

We went to New Orleans last weekend. If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it! Here are some things we saw.

Inked

2008-10-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

It's on my website but here it is again. My contribution to a group show in Spain called the Tenerife Tattoo Fest in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The printed size is 16" x 18".

SOS

2008-10-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

A logo I designed - quickly - for an old friend.

FlashPitt 2008

2008-10-14T08:41:00.001-07:00

So I went to FlashPitt last Friday and WOW!!! What a blast! Learned some cool new features about CS4 coming out soon, some rad plugins and such that can be used, and met a few new animation/Flash folk. I really hope this will be a yearly event in Pittsburgh, it really brings a lot of creatives together and this area could always use more of that. I was really impressed and will be there next year! Link

I'd like to give a special thanks to the super rad dudes at sunKING for the great evening! Cheers!

Rad Jon Burgerman poster!

2008-09-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

While strolling through IKEA on Saturday with my wife, I was surprised to see this rad poster by none other than one of my new favorite artists, Jon Burgerman. I quickly grabbed it, and it was a steal for only $12, plus it's HUGE!

I first ran across his work at the I am 8 Bit show in 2007 and now kicking myself for not getting this print:

Also he just came out with a new toy series by Kid Robot that I'm pumped for:

And made this awesome dunny a little while back:

Checkout more of his work at his site!

Website 2.0

2008-09-25T09:22:00.001-07:00

After around 4 or 5 years of having the same design, I've finally got around to updating my website. I'm still updating the content, but there are a few newer pieces of work. What are you waiting for? Go check it out!

Unicornasaurus!

2008-08-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

Unicorn by Joe Ledbetter. Animated by me. For Fun.

Monster Walk!

2008-08-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

Just for fun.
Monster by Matt Cruikshank.

Aardvark concepts

2008-08-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

Some designs I did for an independent feature in Burbank a couple years ago. The feature never went into production.

Walking

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

For an undisclosed project:)

Fanny for Fortitude

2008-07-11T07:54:00.001-07:00

Falco for Fortitude

2008-07-09T23:17:00.000-07:00

A couple years ago I did some character designs for a German TV show called Fanny and Falco for Fortitude Studios in Burbank. They have since moved or gone under, I'm not sure what happened, the sign disappeared one day, but anyway here's a few of those character concepts.

More where this came from! Stay tooned!

Caricatures

2008-06-07T08:32:00.001-07:00

Tape Art in Spain!

2008-05-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

Check this out! The Tape Matters show from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain asked me to do a piece and I found a picture of it online in the gallery. Here's my submission:

And here are some other ones that are better than mine in the same show:

You can take a look at the rest of them in the Pictures section of their myspace here.

Karpa

2008-05-23T00:22:00.000-07:00

Detail of an unfinished project.

Persistence of Vision short film

2008-05-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

So I was telling somebody the other day about the short film "Persistence of Vision" I worked on in my last year at Edinboro and when they asked if they could view it, I said not yet, maybe it will be posted online someday. And so I thought I'd share. I was able to work with some really talented friends on this. They are the ones that made this film happen.

Part 1

Part2

You may also watch it by right-clicking and "save as" here. (mpeg4-QT - 66mb).

I Never Smile If I Can Help It

2008-04-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

"I never smile if I can help it. Showing your teeth is a submission signal in primates. When someone smiles at me, all I see is a chimpanzee begging for its life." - Dwight Shrute

I have "the office" desktop calendar and thought I'd share Dwight's thought on smiling.

The Classic Crime "Seattle"

2008-04-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

So here's my latest endeavor, my music video directorial debut for Tooth and Nail Records' band The Classic Crime. Also directed by the awesome dudes at Endeavor Media.

It's been getting a lot of hits (almost 18,000 on YouTube as of this posting). It is also on Yahoo! Music!!

Please enjoy!

Best Audition...Ever

2008-04-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

This was an audition tape from 1984 for Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket". Probably the best audition ever. That's right, ever.

Too long of time

2008-04-02T07:04:00.001-07:00

So it's been a while since I last posted any work. I've been super super busy.

What have I been up to? Well, besides being crammed with animation at Animal, my wife and I moved to a new house last month. It looks sort of like this:

If you've never bought a house, don't. No, I'm kidding (sort of), but be prepared to be overwhelmed with self maintenance the first year or so. One of these days we'll be able to relax on the patio. Nah, who am I kidding.

Other than that, a couple freelance/commission projects and getting to know Pittsburgh. We checked out the Andy Warhol museum

this past weekend and it was quite a trip. The Ron Mueck exhibition was there (ended March 30) and to see his huge human sculptures in person really gives the viewer the sense of how much time and effort went into each piece.

So beautifully done with so much detail it blows the mind. If the exhibition is coming through your town, I highly suggest checking it out. I was never really a big fan of Warhol. After going to his museum, I'm now a bigger non-fan. I mean, his stuff was just OK. I appreciate what he's done for the art community (mixed photography and bright-colored paint/silkscreens) but he was pretty full of himself, didn't create great pieces (just a whole slew of multicolored primary color silkscreens) and even wrote a book of his own philosophy. I'd have to say I believe he was a better businessman than artist because he fooled so many people into buying into his recreation of pop culture icons in fine art galleries. Graphic artists love him because he began to evolve commercial art into "fine" art, yet the general public still doesn't look at commercial package design as "art". That's a whole conversation in itself. Eh, whatever.

Greenhouse Gas - Episode #1

2008-03-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

A recently completed Animal original.

I did the art and animation. The short story was written by Gene Collier, a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. And created by Michael Killen.

Stay tuned for a few more...

R.I.P. Steve Emmett

2008-03-25T11:26:00.001-07:00

I heard the terrible news that Steve Emmett, a painting and drawing professor at Edinboro University of PA (where I studied), passed away Saturday, March 15.

I never personally had him as a professor while there, but I did have a run-in with him last October when I went to Edinboro to give a lecture about Flash animation. We ended up talking for a few hours, about his life up to his then current status, and I told him my short story and where a bunch of Edinboro students are working, some of whom he remembered from his classes.

He told me about how when he was younger he lived in Ventura, CA for a while, Colorado and a few other states before realizing that he didn't need to move around to find happiness. He said he was happy in the small town of Edinboro, able to pass his knowledge of art onto future artists at the school and still able to be a painter at home. He said "Let's be honest with each other, I know where I stand as an artist and I'm just not that great. I'm good, ya know, but not great." He did say he was OK with that, but those thoughts stuck with me for a while. At the time I tried encouraging him by saying many artists create work throughout their lifetime, and may not achieve artistic success in their lifetime, but do afterward. He agreed in part with me, but kept insisting his art was just alright, not memorable. I remembered and sincerely enjoyed his work from the faculty exhibits.

He left a lasting impression with me that I will always remember from that one conversation. He was very proud when I told him what many Edinboro students are working on in LA, NY and around the world. He talked proudly, and briefly, about his artistic sons. I know I'll always remember how full of life he was just a few months ago. My prayers and condolences are with his family and friends. He will be greatly missed.

Here's a few of his paintings to remember him by that I grabbed from the Edinboro University website.

Cornelius on Yo Gabba Gabba

2008-02-07T11:51:00.000-08:00

The night before they taped this, Cornelius played at the El Rey in Los Angeles and the crew went to the show. Such an amazing live performance and I think they did an AWESOME job for YGG. Animation on the back screen was based on the original they use from their live performance to a modified kid-friendly version for YGG, done by the very cool Joel Fox.

NOTE: You can see clips of the unaired animation segment I posted on youtube in the background collage.

EDIT:

Since YouTube took down the video because of Viacom restrictions, I found another link to the video. YouTube is awesome like that.

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet

2008-02-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

Although I don't have a gaming console (not since Sega Genesis), I might need to buy one for whatever system this game can be played on. It's seriously insane.

Happy Birthday!

2008-01-31T08:14:00.001-08:00

Happy Birthday to me!!

Awesome Handmade Cartoon Bookmarks

2007-11-07T19:09:00.000-08:00

Checkout these rad bookmarks and other little tidbits an old friend of mine does in her spare time now. You can buy them by contacting her! Sweet!

Animal

2007-11-07T17:05:00.001-08:00

I don't think I ever plugged it, but here's where I work.

Unaired Yo Gabba Gabba animation

2007-11-01T07:25:00.001-07:00

This short was made for Yo Gabba Gabba's 2nd pilot episode but was taken out for the on-air episode for reasons unbeknownst to me. I personally think it's awesome so thought I'd share it with all of you.

If anyone remembers who did this, let me know because the studio name slips my mind at the moment. This was done by Lifelong Friendship Society. (Thanks Tyler!)

Yo Gabba Gabba merchandise!

2007-10-16T10:09:00.001-07:00

Check these fun things out!!

These are exact replicas of the figures you see on the opening and closing credits on the show!! At the office a few months ago I heard these were coming out, just didn't know when. I'm impressed they're out so soon!

From the Kid Robot site:

The new face of children's television, Yo Gabba Gabba!, is rocking away as it gives kids and adults an entire world of fun to wrap their mind around while losing their marbles. We don't want you to be left empty handed though, so we're premiering a series of 7-inch to 10-inch figures at $24.95, as well as our collection of Kidrobot Loves Yo Gabba Gabba! apparel. Forget how old you are and relive the days of sugarfrosted cereal and Saturday morning cartoons.

Flight

2007-10-11T09:29:00.000-07:00

Visuals of the crisis in Darfur

2007-10-11T06:10:00.000-07:00

Concepts for a PSA aimed at helping the crisis in Darfur.
For Animal Inc..

Ottawa Animation Festival 07

2007-09-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the Ottawa International Animation Festival and it was a blast! I met a lot of really great people there, lots of fans (and a few guest animators) of Yo Gabba Gabba, saw some really great animated pieces and attended some very interesting workshops.

My favorite short of the festival, and I think many other attendees will agree, was Claude Cloutier's "Sleeping Betty". Apparently the judges thought so, too, because it won "Grand Prize for Best Independent Animation".

This trailer doesn't do it justice because the storyline was just great. At least you can see some of the awesome drawing skills that are throughout the piece in this clip, though.

Another favorite was Jesse Rosensweet's "Paradise", although I don't think it's technically animated. Still, an outstanding piece.

I enjoyed Augenblick's "Golden Age" shorts, although there was just a few too many. I missed it, but apparently during the first shorts competition on Wed night there was a projector failure and the Golden Age piece didn't play, which consisted of about 10 different clips. So OIAF decided to break up the clips to play 3-4 throughout the other shorts competitions screenings. I enjoyed watching 3-4 at a time, but on Friday night they played the entire piece, with all the clips and it was just honestly too long. By the 8th clip, you're saying "wow, another one??". All in all, they were pretty funny.

Some other miscellaneous favorites include Nick Cross's "Waif of Persephone" (which I had seen before), Trevor Jimenez's "Key Lime Pie", Matthew Walker's "John and Karen", Michael Langan's (whom I met at the Animator's Picnic) "Doxology", Juan Pablo Zaramella's "Lapsus", Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski's "Madame Tutli-Putli", and Luis Cook's "Pearce Sisters".

I attended the Blogging for Animation panel and was happy to hear what bloggers who I read just about everyday had to say about their take on getting involved in writing about animation and what they think the future holds for blogs. Jerry Beck, who I first met at John K.'s house a year and half ago, said he first began writing for the web in fanzines and just wanted to share his knowledge and love for animation. He said he wishes he could get paid fulltime for the blog he co-writes with Amid Amidi, which I thought was a great point. You read other people's blogs, who spills so much information to you for free, yet they are doing it at their own will. I get so much more information out of blogs than I would in a magazine. Michael Barrier, Mark Mayerson, and Jeff Hasulo were the other panelists.

I'll be back later to update this post soon with some photos I took!

My First Sketchcast

2007-09-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

This is such a cool new tool!!

Go check it out at Sketchcast!

Big Guy

2007-09-14T06:10:00.000-07:00

Mona Lisa

2007-09-13T00:00:00.001-07:00

Experiment 1

2007-09-12T22:18:00.001-07:00

Lambo's Inspiration

2007-08-21T02:45:00.000-07:00

So here's an 8-bit styled character I did for a game for Liquid Generation back in October 2006.

Around the time I did this piece, I showed it to someone I met from Lambo (a commercial studio in Marina del Rey) who expressed a high interest in my work. In January 2007, I saw a strikingly similar looking character on Motionographer, featuring Lambo's new piece.

I'm pretty sure they dubbed this off me. If that is the case, I think I'm more flattered than angry about it. It's kinda cool. Kinda.

The Motionographer article where I first noticed this piece is here.

You can watch this piece by going here and clicking the Fuel TV "New Pollution" link.

You be the judge!

Yo Gabba Office

2007-08-21T02:26:00.000-07:00

A few pictures of the YGG office in Santa Ana.

Wow, what a nerd. And I'm sporting my Dave Wasson shirt!

Evil Villian Designs

2007-08-21T02:12:00.000-07:00

This dude has some issues, with a split personality. Some concepts I recently did for a project.

Hickville

2007-08-21T02:10:00.000-07:00

Ledbetter goodness

2007-08-09T13:01:00.000-07:00

Dude, I can't wait for these! Kid Robot release on Aug 30!!!

Animax

2007-08-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

A test animation I did before working with Animax. I'm sure many of you Flash animators that have applied to Animax have done this. I heard they give you a new test now, though.

I did this mainly focusing on the acting. Watching it now, I would have changed the timing in "Sloshie's" reactions a bit, but it's finished now considering this turned in quite a while ago.

Adios, Hollywood! Hellooo, Pittsburgh!

2007-08-02T21:00:00.001-07:00

So long Hollywood! I've moved to Pittsburgh!

I have to say I've loved my experiences out west but it is now time to start my life in Pittsburgh. I've accepted a new job and more importantly can't wait to live a strong, healthy and happy life with my beautiful wife!

(this seems to be a typical thing for the penguins from what I hear, but hey, the King didn't do much better!)

(Hollywood picture via http://www.elementinsites.com)

MARRIED

2007-07-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

I got MARRIED!!! AHHHHH!!! That's right, Mr. Boban now has a Mrs. Boban. I'm the luckiest guy ever, she's too good for me. Check it out!

Flashmaster!

2007-04-08T00:11:00.000-07:00

Check it out! I'm the Flashmaster of the Week on StudioDaily.com!

Yo Gabba Gabba and Getting Married

2007-04-07T16:08:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a while since my last post but I don't think many people noticed, so it's all good!
I've started working at The Magic Store as an animator on the kid's TV show Yo Gabba Gabba. You can sometimes see me on the Yo Blogga production blog. It's so exciting! I wish I could show you what I'm working on but you'll have to wait until it airs in October. Meanwhile I'll post some new independent and freelance stuff I've been working on in the last few months. Some really exciting things and I can't wait to see what the next coming months have in store!

And of course you've watched it a million times, but here it is again:

And one of my favorite guest animator's shorts "Dancing" on Yo Gabba Gabba.

I wish I could show you more, but they'll be on soon!

And even better!! I'll be getting married on June 2 and going on a weeklong honeymoon to Jamaica. I won't find another girl in the world as nice and caring, not to mention beautiful, than her. So before I became what's in this comic, I decided it was time to commit to her to care and love each other until the end.

We're going to Jamaica on our honeymoon, I can't wait!!

For now, cheers!

Old Rich Guy

2007-02-14T10:15:00.000-08:00

Donkey

2007-01-19T13:57:00.000-08:00

Sick Iguana

2007-01-10T19:37:00.000-08:00

Sailing in Santa Barbara

2007-01-09T16:20:00.000-08:00

I went sailing this last weekend with my wonderful fiance, my friend Lyon and his girlfriend, Bridgette and my friend Shaun who hooked us up with the boat.

Have a looksy!

Another world

2007-01-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

This is a planet thousands of light years away from Earth.

Or at least my interpretation.

People Look Funny

2007-01-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

Some random caricature doodles from the past couple weeks. Some of these are from the airport and the bottom few from a sketch jam last Saturday.

Amanda Visell

2007-01-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

Kristen and I went to Amanda Visell's solo show "Switcheroo" art opening last night at Gallery 1988 and it was sooo cool! She had a 3-piece (trumpet, tuba and banjo) dixieland band playing and gave out cool little bags to the first 100 people which I'll be posting some pics soon! Not to mention every piece of art in there is strong eye candy!

Her work is a lot like Tim Biskup's style but she works more with animals and human characters that the general public can relate to a little better than Biskup's more abstract/experimental shapes and characters. When looking at Visell's work, the viewer writes a story in their mind for each and every piece which I love. When looking at Biskup's, I personally don't get that but moreso look at his work for its artistic value. I don't prefer one over the other, just comparing the two.

I highly recommend if you're in the LA area to go check out Switcheroo.

Great show, Amanda!

Natural Disaster

2006-12-26T21:11:00.000-08:00

This last couple were done on/in the airport/plane on the way back home for Christmas vacation. More soon!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Land Ho!

2006-12-26T21:09:00.000-08:00

W.I.P. - freelance book

2006-12-20T15:34:00.000-08:00

This is a cover page for a freelance project I'm working on for a book. I'm also doing seven black and white illustrations for inside the book. These will be published for teachers of around kindergarden to 3rd grade students. I'll post more progress as this is worked on a little more.

Merry almost Christmas!

Ratatouille Art!!!!!!

2006-12-14T11:47:00.000-08:00

I just got the Art of Cars and currently reading it now. I can't wait for this one to come out! This is the official cover just released.

Walker

2006-12-13T03:19:00.000-08:00

A gift for a friend.

Starbucks Schmucks

2006-12-12T14:22:00.000-08:00

This is my part of Tremendoustan's second episode, Starbucks Schmucks, that I animated. See the whole episode here:

Tremendoustan 1

2006-12-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

This is the first part of the first episode in which I rigged, set shots, and animated. Go see the whole first episode.

8-bit

2006-12-12T13:09:00.000-08:00

These pieces are for a game by Liquid Generation called Escape from Scientology Land. The style of the game was to look like the 8-bit old school Zelda/Ninja Gaiden type, but the main idea for this game is you are a guy named Gene in Scientology Land ruled by Xenu, and you need to escape from Tom Cruise, John Travolta and other scientologists. Sounds a lot like Hollywood to me!

We actually made 3 levels to this. You can play the first part here , the second part here, and the third level here. Go play, it's actually a lot of fun!

True-Life Adventures

2006-12-07T22:03:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went to see John Canemaker host the celebration of the release of the True-Life Adventures at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood with Roy Disney (and a couple other guys but who cares next to John and Roy!). What a treat!

Roy told us some stories about his Uncle Walt telling him the story of Pinocchio when he was sick in bed around the age of nine. He said that's around the time Pinocchio was still in the story department. When he went to see the movie over a year later in the theater, he was very disappointed compared to the story Walt told him. That's kind of expected but still great to hear.

There was also one of the cameramen, Paul Kenworthy, that shot some of the True-Life Adventures (including The Living Desert and The Vanishing Prairie) who spoke briefly about his experience. When I used to watch these as a little kid with my grandpa (he had a collection on VHS), I used to think the True-Life Adventures were completely natural and wondered how they got so much great footage of animals fighting, but in actuality Kenworthy revealed to us that they would place the animals in the habitat just to "see what would happen". There's a clip of a bobcat and boars I believe in The Living Desert where the bobcat is scared off by the boars and climbs a tall cactus to escape but to find himself stuck at the top. But Kenworthy said he had a friend who raised the bobcat and let them use the animal to see how it would react to the boars. They got a good take of the action and never got the bobcat back.

At the end of the night, I had to congratulate Mr. Canemaker on his oscar in person and get a quick snapshot.

Snoop

2006-12-06T04:18:00.000-08:00

Family of Gangsters

2006-12-06T03:56:00.000-08:00

Ye Old Shoestore

2006-12-01T02:12:00.000-08:00

Progression

2006-11-30T14:21:00.000-08:00

Boy Concepts

2006-11-27T05:24:00.000-08:00

Some concepts for a short story I thought of yesterday. Usually I'll draw up concepts of an idea I have so that the idea is at least recorded and then forget about the idea for a few years until I randomly go back into old sketch books for ideas. Most of the time these ideas usually get lost because I'm moving forward or look back and say "what the heck was I thinking? This idea stinks!"

Anyway, today I was really excited about the little story I came up with and maybe will stick with it for an upcoming Flash diddy, or at least an illustration. Maybe I'll even share the idea with you someday, but for now here's some concepts of a little boy.

Vormator

2006-11-27T04:34:00.000-08:00

I'm currently working on a few things right now, and one of them happens to be this piece for a competition over at Vormator.com.

It's a piece that needs to be done in Illustrator, limited to only a certain number of shapes that you can work with (they provide the vector elements file for you). It's a great, challenging piece to work on!

Oh yea, and if your piece is good, they'll publish it in a book! How exhilarating!

Here are some characters I've made for my piece!

Oldies but Good-...eh...Just Oldies

2006-11-21T04:39:00.000-08:00

These are just to give you a basis as to where I stood artistically around 1-3 years ago. None of these were for any subject in particular other than my own imagination and free time. In these personal exercises, I was striving for readable silhouettes, appealing characters, and strong expressions.

More Old Comics

2006-11-21T04:22:00.000-08:00