Hanukkah comic!

Just barely too late for a christmas comic, luckily i'm TOTALLY on time for a Hanukkah comic!
Complete with crappy scan, courtesty of the only scanner at my parent's house.


For actual information on Hanukkah, read the wikipedia article on the matter... just like i had chose to do.

On meeting new people

A 100% true story.

Tried inking with a brush pen because, hell, i have a really nice one and it's what all the cool kids are doing these days (i think?).

Ssssssh

I'm hiding!


So crazy political times, am i right? It's finally a good time to be an american so far as i'm concerned. I guess i'm not going to talk politics on this blog too much. If you (for however many people are still checking in here, sorry for not updating much) care to hear my opinion on the subject i've been blabbing on my livejournal.

a thing i did

So i posted this video a while back:
(Pelican eating a pigeon, in case you don't want to re-watch it.)


I did this based on a conversation had over lunch.


This is kind of an A sketch to that one:

Less whiney

I found a drawing that was less whiney. I liked the little moleskine tassle/place-holder thing there so i left it in the scan.

Problems!

But only little ones.


I've only actually gotten two citations for invalid registration stickers.
Only two.
SINCE SATURDAY(it is currently Monday evening)!!!
I'm totally on top of it, City of Glendale. Chill out and cut me some slack.

(i'm hiding my car in our appartment's underground garage until my new stickers arrive. shhh. don't tell Glendale!)

Totoro Forest Project

So i think literally everyone and their mother has made mention of this on their blog, but if somehow anyone's missed it:


The Totoro Forest Project is underway! Spearheaded by Hayao Miyazaki, the Project is a fund raising effort to save Sayama Forest in Tokyo, which served as inspiration for the film "My Neighbor Totoro". Dozens of amazingly talented artists have come forward to donate some stunning artwork to the cause which will be auctioned off at Pixar Studios on September 6th.

Tickets to the auction were made available to the general public, unfortunately (for those of us who missed out, but good for the forest) they sold out in 2 days. Now here's some information everyone and their mother might NOT have mentioned yet: if you email them at admin@totoroforestproject.org they're starting a wait list and will know in a couple of weeks if spots open up. I had hoped to go, but didn't count on tickets disappering so fast, so you know.... i found this information helpful.

Whether i can make it or not, best of luck to those guys. I know they've got the firepower (in an artistic sense... not a guns and ammo sense) behind them to make a difference.

One last tiger, while i pull some interesting art together.



Maybe.

I've got my eye on you, Paul Briggs.

Paul.

Comic Con part 2: Swag

What's the best part of Comc Con? Loadin' up on bad ass books!

Pictured here are:
-Justin Parpan's "Gwango's Lonesome Trail", which i've been meaning to pick up since forever.
-Josh Parpan's "Eeks and Shrieks!" card set (not laid out)
-Emma's sketchbook
-Mike Mignola's sketchbook
-Chris Sander's sketchbook.
- Flight 5
- Who Is Rocket Johnson
- Ted Mathot's "Cora"
- Bill Pressing's "Bookplate Betties"
- Scott Morse's "Red Window: Summer 2008"
- Derek Thompson's Monster-a-Day
- Frank and Frank by Chris Applehans
PLUS the obligatory two books from Stuart Ng. I went into Stuart Ng expecting to make a B line for some Wenling, or an issue of Skydoll or Belladonne (my go-to titles for mind-blowingly appealing european comic book stylin's), but looking at them for the hundredth time i didn't find that i absolutely had to have them. Instead i tried to find something that i didn't already have, that i hadn't heard of and hadn't seen before. First i found 'Fennec' by Lewis Trondheim and Yoann. It's done in a really simple appealing style with equally simple and appealing watercolors. You don't need to read French to get the story. At the suggestion of some friends i also picked up a collection of the work of Sergio Toppi. His inking, crosshatching and color washes are refreshingly bold. I can see his influence in a lot people i've known who have come through CalArts, students and teachers alike, and it's nostalgic and refreshing to see the source.


FrankandFrank caught my eye with it's unusual shape. The awkwardness of trying to read such a long (not in the usual sense) book posed a humourous challenge. And the short, simple sequential strips it contained won me over (daaaaw!<3)

Videos of interest

First and foremost, our Princess and the Frog teaser is now up and online!
Check it out. It's 2-D, guys!

Secondly, a totally badass ad campaign from BBC Sports for the upcoming Olympics in Beijing featuring the cast of Chen Shi-zheng, Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn's Monkey: Journey to the West! The animation in this is way better than anything i saw in the show. I've gotta find a way to download this:


And lastly, just because this is so freakin' wierd.
At lunch today my friend Sarah told me about this video clip of a pelican eating a pigeon.

a PELICAN.
eating a PIGEON.

apparently this happens way more often than people think? Anyway, here's the video.
[EDIT] I now feel compelled to mention that the pelican video is not only totally weird but possibly also a little disturbing. Nothing graphic or gross, just ... a tad disturbing. Consider that a heads up.

Comic Con part 1: New Friends

So yeah, Comic Con! I'm lazy, and my computer has... problems, so i'm going to report it in chunks.
The first chunk is about new friends ("chunk"+"friends" in the same sentence = great).

Sills and a happy pea! Sills was made by Elizabeth Ito who was selling him and his mini monster kin complete with birth certificate and cozy PETA approved carrier!


The pea came from Conduct Happiness, and opened the door for pea jokes the rest of the day.
"I think I'll take a pea." (when i bought it)
"Look guys! There's pea in my bag!"
(when the pea ripped a seam)"My pea is leaking?"
"Claire, i hope your mom doesn't mind if i bring pea in her car."
"I kinda have to go to the bathroom, but it's okay, i can hold my pea."
The list goes on.




Happy pea!
















Sills making friends.

San Diego Comic-Con, guys!
It's totally on.

Be sure to pick up "Who is Rocket Johnson?" (goin' like hot cakes! booth #2302), "Afterworks 3" (booth #1534), and "Scrambled Ink" (at the Dark Horse booth, i think, #2615). Compilations from the talented folks at Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks respectively, proof positive that these dudes and ladies can totally rock the art-making in the off-hours. Flight 5 is looking to be a good time as well (booth #1228). All this with a slew of independent artists' booths that are totally worth checking out.
I've got my panel schedule, shopping list and generous spending budget all set.

Good times, fellows.

Tyger, tyger.... tyger.

Where the hell is Matt?

(Cross-posted from my livejournal. I figure it's good to post more than strictly art here.)

Have you guys seen this video? It's pretty incredible. I'd love to go to just half of the places this guy's danced in :)



The song in the video is called "Praan". It's available from iTunes and was adapted from one of these poems (i think? information on the song was difficult to come by) by Garry Schyman, who also did the score for Bioshock. Go figure.

If you go to the guy's official website ( www.wherethehellismatt.com ), one of the questions in the FAQ is what the message is in the videos that Matt makes. His answer was pretty simple: he doesn't know. it's up to you. Somehow that makes me like it even more. There's no pretention in it. The message (if there is one) is as simple as the video :)

The industrious and witty Kate Beaton posted an invitation to all her readers to post a conversation between them and their younger selves. I genuinely can't believe i haven't done this before. It's a good time.


(Trader Joe's sells candied hibuscus flowers that taste like fruit snacks. Little me would probably have really liked them if she would just try them!)

This was the first one i came up with, but the second one i drew. (the book is a total lie. i don't actually read.)

On frustration.

Last fox for foxy monday!

This fox is easily startled. It's not his fault, though. He didn't see it coming.


This is also kind of an experiment to figure out how to get good color settings on my scanner. It's somthing that's been frustrating me. To be fair, i haven't really tried much with it, but i chalk that up to my poor computer, which over heats a lot :(
My poor computer is gettin' old. She's cute and little, though. 12" powerbook G4. 12 inches has been pretty good to me.

Figured i'd fox it up in a seperate post.

And here's some art! I was bored the other day and did some foxy fox studies (+1 bunny).


These foxes are just a little confused about things.

MOOVIES!

So, who's seen Wall-e yet? Anyone?
(looks for raised hands)
It's a pretty good time. I interned on Wall-e my first summer at Pixar. Don't let that fool you, i wasn't allowed to do any real work. I did get to participate in story meetings though, which was a truly great experience. They had a cracker-jack team of people working on that one, i tell you what.
The finished product was really impressive. A simple love story at the heart of a message film about getting your head out of your regularly scheduled programming. Definitely on the artsier side; main characters that don't really speak english, the strongest scenes in the film conducted without dialogue, a modicum of mixed media and a spoonful of social commentary. Especially in mainstream feature animation, where there is an ever-present nudge to be as accessible as possible to the entire family, i personally applaud the efforts of any film that can take it just one step to either side of that line and still come out quality.

So big ups for Wall-e! Kung Fu Panda turned out pretty excellent too. (this was originally going to be a quick post about wall-e, then some art, but i said so much about it, i thought it fair to mention the 'competition', as it were) A simple, honest story supplemented with totally bad-ass visuals! Congrats to all the dreamworks crew. You guys did a great job.

Seems like it'd also do to make mention of the work that i'm doing at Disney! I'm working on Rapunzel now, which has been fantastic. The image at the left was released at our last press conference. This thing is going to look fantastic, and we've got a really solid story to back it up. I'm sure i can't say too much more about it, so i'll leave it at that.
:)

Updating twice in once day! Slow work days = productive art nights!

Rain-baroo?

Rainbowraffe likes what Rainbowraffe sees!

Lissa: Journey to the Southeast

So as i mentioned a couple posts back, in May i took myself on a trip to Charleston SC to see "Monkey: Journey to the West". As described by ,Wikipedia (the sad source of most of my worldly information):

"Monkey: Journey to the West is a stage adaptation of the 16th Century Chinese novel Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng'en. It was conceived and created by the Chinese actor and director Chen Shi-zheng, together with the British musician Damon Albarn and British artist Jamie Hewlett (the co-creators of the virtual band Gorillaz). However, the original idea came from Jean-Luc Choplin, head of the Chatelet Theatre in Paris."

I'm a big Jamie Hewlett fan. When i first heard of the production last summer it was premiering in Manchester, England as a part of the Manchester International Festival. I was so bored that summer that i actually made a desperate attempt via travelocity and a variety of other websites to figure out just what it would take to get me from Los Angeles to Manchester. Needless to say i never made it out my front door that summer. So when i heard it was coming to the states (and found myself with a steady income) i had to go.


In any case, i made it and it was pretty rad. It's a chinese opera, which has a very, very different sound from a standard western musical. It was more stage kung-fu and Cirque du Soleil type acrobatics than plot line, which is perfectly cool with me. They used bits of limited animation by Hewlett as scene transitions and traveling montages which were cool to see.
All in all a good time, and Charleston is a beautiful city. I've got some pictures on my Flickr if you wanna take a peak.
The show seems to only be playing one city per country at a time. It premiered in Manchester, then went to Charleston (the only US city to have hosted it so far), and it seems to be back in England now. I'm waiting for it to come to Los Angeles, which i'm convinved it must do at some point.

And that is the synopsis of the trip i took... almost a month ago! I thought laziness would get the better of me and i'd never actually post it. Much thanks to Jenny for a little prodding :)

SNEAK.

(insert joke here about how i haven't posted in a while)
The following is a true story. It might not be interesting, and it's probably not as funny to you as it is to me (for whatever reason i found it HILARIOUS when i did it), but i can assure you that it is 100% true.
And i made a comic about it.
Enjoy.


Oreo-delivery-bunny is courtesy of cuteoverload.com. For related hilarity, see also cookie bunny.

First off, a big thank you to all of you who stopped by from Scary Go Round! I appreciate all your comments, and appologise that i'm no good at replying to them (laziness coupled with a design flaw in blogger that doesn't allow for direct replies to individual comments). In any case, if you've just stumbled upon this blog be warned that it doesn't update too often. hopefully this will change in the future.
Either way, welcome to all.

Wednesday nights have been designated art nights at our appartment! Beer is imbibed, doodles are drawn and much fun is had by all.
This last wednesday became a sort of draw-eachothers-character night.
Here's Anne's character Squirt. she's part girl and part cat and has to learn to be human:


And Kelly's hipjet girl! She steers with her hips :)


Last weekend i went to South Carolina to see Chen Shi-Zheng, Damon Albarn & Jamie Hewlett's production of Monkey: Journey to the West". Charleston is (at the moment) the only city in the U.S. hosting this production, so i decided to send myself over there. A full account will follow in my next post, when i have more energy and a better grasp of good words to use to form interesting sentances.

Just a man.

Hooray for lack of posting!
Wait...
wait... that's not right.
BOO for lack of posting! :(
BOOOOOOO >:(

All of my art energy has been put into work lately. I'm boarding on 'Rapunzel' which is so wicked sweet that i want to use every bead of energy i have rockin' on it. Unfortunately this leaves me pretty burnt out on my own stuff, but i'm working on fixing that. In the meantime, here's the entry i did for John Allison's 'Feats of Strength!' contest over at Scarygoround. I may have botched the entry procedure (on top of submitting it a wee bit late) so here's hoping it actually makes it into the running. In case it doesn't... here 'tis.

Today was a slow day at work. The project we're on just got through a major crunch, and we trainees just had our final review last week (the results of which are still out) so we all got to kick back a little.
Plus i'm FINALLY starting to wrap up my freelance illustration job and clear my conscience up a bit.
This meant that i got to do some "me" art (art for me!) and nicole got to find this awesome book-case chair:
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/chair_that_holds_books_6654.asp
We were trying to balance the chairs pure practical bitchin'-ness with how comfortable it might actually be to sit in (note lack of arm rests). I speculated:

extra update!

Found some non-work related work doodles!
Thought i'd share.

LOLlerskates

Gave someone a little guff for lack of blog updates, so lest i fall vicitm to hypocrisy, here's some previously un-blogged art!
They're from at least four months ago, but ssssh, don't tell anyone.