Monday Morning Monster Vitamins

Take six every hour on the hour. Take with milk. May cause drowsiness leading to extreme nightmares. May cause minor stomach irritability in some. This medication used to combat minor boredom. Use as directed.

At long last....Jeremy

Ahhhh.... At long last I have finally gotten my hands on a copy of Jeremy.

One of my first posts on this blog was in regards to this childhood stop motion series which we used to watch on TVO in both french and english. It was a show that I remembered with great fondness. I finally got my hands on the first 8 episodes of the series on dvd through a seller on eBay.
I was worried that I would be disappointed with the quality, having remembered it being much better than it actually was, but I was not disappointed in the least. Sure it's quite jittery in places but overall it tells a great little story with some great art direction and great little models.

If you were a fan of this rare show I strongly recommend the $5-$10 it cost on eBay and pick up a copy.

Here is the best link I've found in regards to this great little character.

LINK

Bunnies

Older and wiser?

Now that I've been in the biz for a while,(13yrs), I feel I'm just begining to learn.
And one of the many things I'm trying to improve on is composition.
Hans Bacher is as good as they get in this respect and he has started his own blog which not only showcases his wonderful work but also offers some great tricks of the trade.
I strongly recommend bookmarking this site.

LINK

More Creatures

Creatures

Busy Busy Busy

Sorry for not posting for a while but things have gotten insanely busy. But for now here's an old sketch which I may have posted a while back but figure it to be a good place holder.

My gosh

Oh my Gosh, Check out Stephanie Choi's new blog. What fun. How inspiring. Over on Cartoon Brew they say that the summer of 2005 will go down as the Summer of the Blog.
So many great artists getting their work out there with relative ease. And if I could I'd thank every last one of them. Keep the inspiration alive.

Stephani Choi is a character designer on Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends.

Check her out HERE

Rain Kids

Some sketches for the kids book I'm trying to finish. Well except for the guy in the straight jacket.

Dog days of summer

As the dog days of summer draw to an end here is a drawn dog.

Smook

Now that he's got it up and running I must direct you to check out good friend Mike Smukavic's Red Dot Blog. Mike is a storyboard artist of immense talent and character. You can also view samples of his work by following the link to his portfolio on his blog.

Thanks alot Red Dot.


RED DOT BLOG

John Nevarez

Ooooooo, you must check out John Nevarez's blog. Absolutely lovely sketches and designs that you can sprinkle on your Corn Flakes cause they're so darn sweet.

Go there.... NOW!


LINK

It's a bird, It's a plane, It's Siepermann

The greatly talented Harald Siepermann now has a blog which must be bookmarked.

Check him out HERE

Thanks to Cartoonbrew for the link.

Matt Jones

Another blog from another Uli Meyer artist.
Check out Matt Jones work HERE

Making of Corpse Bride

Great interview with Graham G. Maiden on the making of Corpse Bride.

HERE

Gur-B

Check out Gerben Steenks from London, England. Great character designs. Has worked for many, most notabley Uli Meyer. He has a great blog of his work going and updates quite regularly.

Very Cool

HERE

Saul Bass

Cartoon Brew has posted a great link to the movie titles designed by Saul Bass.
Fantastic stuff! The funny thing is I was just watching the Seven Year Itch on the weekend and was thinking of Saul Bass. How ironic.
Anyhow, Check out the site. You can advance through the credits by clicking on the image.

SAUL BASS

pleasent surprise

I was looking to post an image and link to the nicely drawn Over the Hedge strip by Mike Fry and T.Lewis when I came across these story sketches for the Over the Hedge movie(Dreamworks). Stephen Gordon is the name and he's been around the animation world for some time. So check him out.

HERE


Oh, and here is the link to the comic which is updated daily over at comics.com

HERE

technical difficulties

For some reason I have lost the ability to post links the way I normally do. I'm assuming this is temporary and things will be back to normal shortly.
In the meantime here is the link to the Mars and Beyond post below.
http://www.vintagetips.com/2005/08/illustration-tom-orebs-mars-beyond.html

Mars and Beyond

Check out some great paintings created for Ward Kimballs Mars and Beyond..

New from Uli

It's always a good idea to check some of your favourites in case something new pops up.
Case in point is Uli Meyers site which has a couple of new commercials up. Big Giant Rabbit and Sky Safety.( Which at the time of this posting I was unable to watch). Be sure to look around his site if you haven't done so before. Amazing.

Uli Meyer

Super student animation

Check out this cool short film I found on Cartoon Brew.
Super Tibetan racer. From the same school as those that brought you Le Building.
I love it.

HERE

Woody Woodpecker

Ahhhh Woody...

Apart from Woody Woodpecker and the gang being part of my after school must watch routine, I remember with fondness going to the mall with my mom and being able to watch one of these cartoons in one of those arcade cartoon booths.
I don't know if anyone out there remembers those but for a quater you could sit in one of these booths(similar to photo booths) and watch 16mm prints of Woody, Popeye, or Heckle and Jeckle.
I've looked all over the internet to find an example of these Cartoon Booths but haven't found one yet. So if anyone out there has a link to one please feel free to send it to me.

In the mean time, check out this wonderful site with clips and pics of Woody and his gang. Go to the main Golden Age page and find lots of other shows to enjoy.

HERE

Gene Hazelton

Gene Hazelton died in April of this year and although I don't remember his passing receiving a great deal of attention, here he is summed up in a nutshell by Local 839...

Hazelton took an entry-level job at Disney in 1939, where he animated the goat kids and cherubim in Fantasia and several sequences in Pinocchio. He moved to Warner Bros. after the 1941 strike, where he designed the infamous characters for Bob Clampett's "Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs". He worked at MGM on "Tom and Jerry" and with Tex Avery on his shorts, and he designed the "Sinbad the Sailor" sequence in Gene Kelly's Invitation to the Dance. Hazelton designed the animated title for I Love Lucy.

At Hanna-Barbera, Hazelton was credited with designing Pebbles and Bamm Bamm for The Flintstones. In the 1970s he took over writing and drawing the Flintstones and Yogi Bear comic strips. After he retired, he continued to draw Hanna-Barbera gallery art as well as dabbling in teaching.

Rest in peace Gene.

Monday morning rant

Okay. It's time for a little rant. I just saw some footage from Disney's "A day with Wilbur Robinson" and "American Dog" over at Aint it cool news.com
The question I have is this.
Why must everything done in 3D look like it's 3D?
I know it's early and these are preliminary tests, but the fact remains that when they are completed they will have lighting up to wazoo, cast shadows all over the place and the characters will be moving in 360 degrees all over the place. Backgrounds are still too realistic looking for my taste.
Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against 3D. I work in 3D and love it. But I wonder why no one is taking a run at making things look flat or "stylized".
We once had the opportunity to take a project at our studio (a very flat graphic character) and try a 3D promo with it. The studio was thinking of doing it using Toon Boom( a Flash like program with a sort of 3D camera) but decided to do it in 3D and have it rendered flat to look 2D.
Unfortunately no one involved knew what they wanted. They didn't understand what the 2D look really was.
The result... Shadows everywhere, gradients everywhere, 360 degree camera moves everywhere, and animation that moved too much. Throw in a totaly horrible script and you've got a total waste of money.
You know someone, somewhere is going to do it and do it right. And when they do they are going to score big time.
One of my favourite shows that came close was Olive the Other Reindeer by Helix dna studios.
It's on every Christmas and is worth a look. There's also and interesting review of some test footage of "Rapunzel Unbraided" over at Aint it cool news, which counds promising.
In closing let me just say once again I am by no means against 3D, but, can we just try something a little different and utilize this immense program for something a little more visually creative?

Marionettes

Check out this site created by Scott Radke who also creates wicked looking marionettes and other things. HERE

Curious

Check out this Dolby Digital trailer with Curious George. I believe it was created by Project Firefly in Florida(ex Disney Animators).

LINK

This looks like fun

Check out this great blog from Enrique Fernandez. I don't know much about this fellow except that he appears to be an illustrator working in France.

Check out his blog HERE.

Thanks to good friend Mike Smukavic for the link.

Where are they all coming from?

One thing I like about this business of animation is that there's always something new or fresh to look at. Ye sometimes you have to really dig for it, but it's there.
Plus you have Colleges like Sheridan pumping out eager kids full of talent and energy. Well not all kids but some and Kareem Thompson is one of them.
Check out his Blog HERE.
And His film HERE.

Thanks to Drawn for the link

In your own backyard

Sometimes pure talent is right in your own backyard.
Picture if you will, one Ted Bastien.
Artist extrodinaire.
He's a board artist, animator, layout artist , director and all round nice guy.
His apparent fondness for extra terrestrial beings has brought him out of his day to day routine and placed him smack dab in the middle of the Twilight Zo...

I mean Bugsport.

It's his online comic.

Check it out HERE!

energy boost

Wow talk about a kick in the inspiration pants. Good friend Dan Merisanu just came back from Comic-con and brought with him " Scribblin away at Mike's Cafe" by Rik Maki.

Now all I want to do is drop what I'm supposed to be doing and sketch all day.

Rik Maki was raised in Vancouver and has been a designer in the animation industry for over 27 years, the last 18 at Disney.

For more samples of his work check out the Creative Talent Network

Or you can order his book HERE

Monday Makkies

Check out this site for some good old fashion funnies.
Apart from the comic strip there are also childrens books and some quirky cartoons to watch.

HERE

Makkies 

milk in 3D

Here's a link to some great little 3d commercials done for Milk.

HERE

milk 

Some inspiration

Some nice stuff from a fellow named Mark Slacker. And make no mistake about it this guy is no slacker at all. He's done tonnes of illustrations for magazines such as Nickelodeon, CG world and the New York Times.

Check out his portfolio HERE

Slacker too 

Slacker 

The Corpse Bride

Well this certainly made my day. A nice big fat juicy new trailer for Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride.

The more I see the more I like.

Personally I wish more films, both animated and live action, were more like this.

Check it out HERE

corpse bride 1 

corpse bride 2 

corpse bride3 

Open Book

Check out this short fillm created by four students and was chosen to fill one of the six spots at Annecy.
Nice stuff.

HERE

Open Book 

Patch of Orange

This is the type of person that I totally would have envied in school.
He draws like a Mother and mimics the likes of Searle and sasek beautifully.
I thoroughly enjoyed his old Patch of Orange web site,which is no longer available, and thankfully he has started up his own Patch of Orange Blog.

You can check him and his student film HERE

Robin Joseph 2 

Robin Joseph