Zebra Love

This is a work in progress, but I like where it's going.  I need to get my behind to the zoo and talk to the animals sometime soon.

a day out of exile

Time for something new.

Naval Dentistry

Decided it was time to see a dentist, since it had been, ummm, since I got out of the Navy. Haha, they said my mouth was in remarkable shape, scraped some stains away and sent me home without incident. It almost never works out that way, so I don't recommend delaying your appointments. I, like many people, dread the dentist. When I was seventeen, this old Navy dentist ripped the wisdom teeth out of my skull using just local anesthetic (Novocaine shots in the roof of my mouth). Anyway, I never forgot it.

Cats and Rabbits

They aren't that pretty, but it beats watching the scripts in the output window scroll as I wait for my Maya files to load.

Life Drawing Cartoons

Just Messing around waiting for Maya files to load

Planning my poses

Just planning some of my key poses for this little animation I'm putting together. My plans have changed a little bit over the past few days and I'm trying to organize my thoughts.

Two More weeks of Vilppu

Just to recap...

The top drawings are two minute poses completed on the first day of Vilppu's 2009 Life Drawing Class at The Animation Guild Office in Hollywood. People who have drawn with me know I like fast gestures (fifteen seconds and less). Sometimes I lack the patience to sit through the longer poses. The bottom drawings are the fourth class. The center drawing is a ten minute pose and the marker drawings are half hour. The ten minute pose and the two minute drawings aren't all that different- just a tad more built up. The goal is to have the initial gesture completed very loosely, very quickly- in about 10-15 seconds. Then you build using your shapes. You just keep building it like anything else. Then time runs out.

Drawing With Vilppu

Got up on Saturday morning and went to the guild office on Hollywood Way to draw with Glenn Vilppu. Hollywood from a distance sounds glamorous, and you mention Burbank on the street and immediately people connect with some mythical place, maybe liking it to Toon Town (Who Framed Roger Rabbit). It's very "brown" in Burbank. The place is rather dusty. It's a landscape combination of warehouses and older buildings set against the foothills. It was cool though, because when I got out of the car at the guild office, I looked down the street and could see the water tower at the classic entrance to the old Warner Bros cartoon studio. And since is was Saturday morning, there wasn't a lot of traffic. The new guild office actually has parking.
The class met and ten in a small drawing room in the back of the building. Vilppu met us at the door and welcomed up in. For the first hour or so, he talked about the method he wanted to teach us, mentioned how his drawing had changed since his trips abroad, and we did some warm up drawings. He draws in pen, and emptied his shirt pockets to showcase his pen collection. Some of the drawings he did for everyone he did on a tablet computer. After he talked for a while, he went around the room and looked at the way people were drawing as the model went through 2-3 minute poses. It was a new experience. I kept quiet and just watched. I guess the experience of getting to learn with the man who I've studied and emulated for the past few years made me a little nervous. I almost tripped over my horse when he hit the side of my arm and asked if he could sit down and show me something. The class time went by very quickly. He's easy to listen to, very well read, and he's very down to earth. Awesome. I can't wait for the next class.

I've been animating my life away. I've done a little of my own animation, but not enough to post yet. Some of the other stuff is protected right now and can't be released. Sorry. I would love to show you some of the animation I'm doing for ZOO FX, but you'll have to wait a little while. I have some drawings... may post those later.