19!!!

Well, I am officially nineteen! At the moment Im not really feeling it. Im sure it will kick in soon enough. Either way, its the official legal drinking age and that must count for something. But usualy when the ol' birthday comes around I like to look back a year and see how I've improved artistically, or matured as a person. I think I have gotten just that much better on both spectrums...

Heres to many more years of improving artistically...and enjoying life at the same time

Caricature Nonsense

The following are caricatures of some of the talented students that made up class B, and with which I spent my entire first year in animation with. Heres a tribute to a great group of people...class B is sexy!
( unfortunately these are photo referenced, but I sketched them up as fast as possible no more than 3 minutes each and tried to capture the characters who I studied alongside of. I hope to find more photos of the rest of my class B buddies, and ill add them on later...)

have a good rest of the summer !

Transformers movie

I was doing my usual browsing about and came upon a new trailer for the upcoming Transformers movie Directed by Michael Bay. Im not a major fan of the cartoons or comic books but they played a small part in my childhood ( espeacially the toys ) so I'm looking forward to it but at the same time Im not a big enough fan to be worried about every single detail. I do however think the designs on Optimus Prime and Megatron could've been handled better ( particularly Megatron ), but Ill just wait and see once the movie is out.

Here is the trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/summer-movies/Transformers/1808716430/trailers/31

And here are some Character stills of some of the robots. Interesting alien designs.

ANIMATION ROADSHOW in the T.O!!!

One of the greatest art book stores ( we're talking illustration/how to/comics/ everything an art geek could want in book form )
that frequents Sheridan, has popped up in Toronto not too far away from my parents place! Move over SilverSnail...I got me a new destination for my weekends

BLOG:

http://www.animationroadshow.blogspot.com/

WEBSITE:

http://www.thelabyrinthstore.com/

I seriously recommend checking this place out if you haven't already.

Spidey 3

It has been almost a week since the release of the much anticipated ( surely not by me ) release of Spiderman 3. I saw it with some friends the second day out, and I have to say, was thoroughly disapointed. I had set my standards low since I hadn't found the previous 2 to be all that great, but by no means was I expecting the 3rd one to actually be as bad as it was. Its hard for me to talk about it without spoiling anything, so I'll just list what made it truly bad. Too many characters ( sandman was particularly pointless and wasted a large amount of screentime that most definetely could have been focused on the black spidey suit, or venom ), horrible pacing, acting, dialogue, continuity...it goes on. The entire film just seemed to be a live action comic book, which most surely doesn't ensure it is a good film. The only scene I found to be truly interesting and cool was when sandman first comes to be. Rising out of sand, his determined rebirth...otherwise the film was full of alot of things I thought could have been done better, or didnt need to be there at all.

Below are some conceptual drawings and maquettes done for the film. They and many other production materials are collected in the book: The Spider-Man Chronicles: The Art and Making of Spider-Man 3. Its probably a must buy for die hard spidey fans.

I flipped through this book before going in to see the film. There are some great conceptual graphite drawings by E.J. Krisor ( some of which appear below ) which have some nice rendering of the actors, and capture the feeling of tension and pain that the suit imposes. If they had released just a collection of the pencil drawings I would have bought that in a second.Too bad.

Ren and Stimpy

Well I was recently able to catch a full viewing of the latest and last Ren and Stimpy: The Lost Episodes. I know its old news, but since I hadn't got a chance to check it out until now, I figure I might as well put up a comment up on the old blog.
I have seen all the old Ren and Stimpy shorts and this one definetely wins hands down in grossness, sexuality and just pure outright outrageousness. Each time I thought I had seen the craziest or grossest moment yet, the next gag would just surpass it. The cartoon also featured a ridiculous amount of sexy cartoon babes ( which were fully nude at some points );P, as well as some extremely suggestive animation sequences ( some involving Ren and Stimpy with each other ). Although hard to watch at some points, the wicked animation and classic Ren and Stimpy gags are still there and I think its a nice final touch to the world that JhonK molded.

Now, the animation was just so great and so different from anything out there at the moment, I figured I'd post some screeshots. Some of these also act as visual warning of what is to be expected if you sit down and get comfortable and ready for the 'old' Ren and Stimpy....although there, these have alot more layered on top. The perfect two words to describe Ren and Stimpy: The Lost Episodes? Beautifully Dirty.

Enjoy.









This lovely artist did some of the beautiful sexy chick designs and animated them as well. Some nice tips and other juicy stuff on her blog: http://funnycute.blogspot.com/


Here are some sequence shots from my favorite cartoon of the bunch. Its titled: 'Ren Seeks Help'
This is a part where he freaks out and bites off a guys hand and then swallows it. Amazing animation.

Other Site

Got myself a gallery orientated site to display my tighter more developed work. I'll continue posting nonsense and sketches and all else on the blog but I'll have this site on the side as more of a PORTFOLIO

Hope ya like

THIS-IS-SPARTA!

I am not a Miller fan. His artwork just doesn't appeal to me as much as it might to other people. I've seen pretty much all his works and the Sin City stuff is probably what I liked best. The main issue is the artwork itself, I admire the techniques and the fashion in which most of it is executed but there are minor issues that just bug me enough not to enjoy reading many of his works. It primarily lies in his ability to nail some really nice panels, compositionaly stunning with great use of contrast, silouettes crisp and nice inkwork. But as soon as it comes to him drawing characters I just get let down. They seem to be much messier and stylistically over wrinkled or just plain weird looking. I think its that contrast between Miller's tight drawings and loose drawings ( particularly people ) that truly bugs me and pushes me away from buying anything of his.
Who knows. My mind can always be changed I guess. Maybe I'll grow or be convinced to enjoy his works. For now though I'd much prefer Mike Mignola ( Hellboy ) or Eduardo Risso ( 100 bullets ) for my dose of stunning, consistent, visual contrast.
Point is ( yeah there was a point to this entry, Although I guess we can call this my first official blog rant...) I enjoyed the theatrical adaptations more than I did actually flipping through his work. Sin City was nice+stylistic ( and pretty much panel for panel anyways ) and the latest 300 was a feast for the eyes. I had a fun time watching both, and I was actually even hyped up enough about 300 to go ahead and do some random sketching from screenshots of the film before I went and saw it.

These are some unfinished Sketches of some of the characters from the 300 film...But cartoony looking. The hunchback-deformed Ephialtes I might consider colouring if I have the time. As for me posting them so late after the film's release: Better Late than Never.










AND a little PS sketch I did of another screenshot from the film.