Update:

My friend Shiyoon Kim had one of his drawings posted by John K. on his blog here:

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/12/appeal-2-big-eyes.html

I think that's pretty cool. I'm glad to see John using Shiyoon's work as an example of appeal. Shiyoon has amazed me since we started as freshman at CalArts together.

I hadn't looked at John K's site for a while, even though I enjoy reading what he has to say and seeing all the cool artwork he posts, so I started reading through the past entries that I had missed. I saw that John had posted a youtube clip called "Ratatouille - Character Profiles - Target Bonus Disc" in a past entry to basically criticize the characters in the movie, and he's definitely entilted to his opinion.

But watching the clip when it came to the Ego character profile I was surprised to see there were some of my drawings from the sequence I story boarded in the movie. My story boards are shown right at the beginning of the Ego character profile where he is talking with his assistant. The profile starts at 6:26 on the clip. You can watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAroxSedM3A&eur



I had no idea there was a target bonus disc, but if you would like to see some more behind the scenes art on the movie, it looks like it's a DVD that's really worth buying. I'm assuming they sell it only at Target.

I also really have to thank Mark Andrews for his help and guidance as the head of story on this film. First of all, for allowing me to do this sequence, and then helping me to see it through.

Still Alive...

Work has been taking up quite a bit of my time recently. I've been having to burn the proverbial midnight oil quite a few nights over the past couple months. So unfortunately I don't have much to post in the way of artwork this month.

I can't go to Japan this year, which is a bummer. I have really enjoyed spending the past couple of New Years there and picking up all those lucky amulets, called Omamori, for the coming years at the Shinto shrines. The luck from those amulets has served me pretty well.

Here is the Shrine I went to last year. When I was thinking about moving back to Southern California after my car accident in 2007, I picked up a "job" amulet from here. I was hoping to get some luck finding a new gig closer to home in L.A. and it worked out!


Speaking of the new job...
This year I have to stick around L.A. for the holidays, just in case some work needs to be done. We are on a pretty tight schedule. I don't think I'll mind it too much though. Working with Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois on this project I'm on has been a fun experience so far. Our head of story, Alessandro Carloni, has been cool to work with as well. Congratulations to him on his Annie Nomination.

My office mate and fellow story crew member, Dave Derrick, has also been great to be around, and he has really helped me learn the ropes at the new studio. We went to school together at CalArts. He was in my class, so it's been nice to be around an old classmate and friend every day. Dave just recently published his own art book called African Diaries. It's filled with Dave's beautiful drawings and has some really insightful writing about his experiences in Africa. I highly recommend picking up a copy.

I don't know if I'll get to post anything else before the New Year, so Happy Holidays to everyone and have a great New Year!

To close out, here are some photos of the things I will miss about going to Japan this year, besides those lucky amulets.

1. Riding bikes through Takatsu-ku.



2. The Christmas decorations in Odaiba.



3. Street/Festival Food. I think these are Okonomiyaki...



4. Sleeping on the train after a long day of shopping....



5. ...and finally Tina, she is a good dog.

Boxer Life Drawings

We had a model dressed as a boxer in the gesture drawing class at work the other day. Here's a few drawings I did of him, most of them are one to two minute poses.


The goal here was just trying to draw with a lot more simplicity. I used a ball point pen so that I couldn't erase any lines. I have a tendency to really over work stuff and fuss with the shapes and forms too much, so here I was just trying to draw with some simpler shapes and do it with as much economy of line as I could. Hopefully the character comes through and the pose reads clearly. I realize the drawings could be pushed a lot more, but I felt like I made some degree of progess with these.

As for those finished pieces I promised in earlier posts, I've been trying to work on some things, but they just weren't turning out well. It's been damn' frustrating, I seem to be incapable of finishing a single drawing these days, let alone doing a painting in the computer...

I'll try to post more when I can.

There's no place like home...

Thanks to everyone who's been leaving comments on the few drawings I've posted so far. No artwork today, but I just wanted to give a little update on what I've been doing.

I recently moved from Northern California back to Southern California in July. It was something I had been thinking about doing for quite a while, and even though it wasn't easy, I decided now was the time I needed to do it.

It's really nice to be back "home". I put home in quotes because technically I grew up in San Diego, but after having gone to school here for 4 years, Los Angeles is pretty much my second home. Thankfully San Diego is so much closer now that I can actually drive down there more often to visit my real home and family on the weekends. No more 9 hour drives! Woo hoo! I really missed so many people and places down here, so it's been really great to hang out at the cool spots with all my old friends again.

Meanwhile, I'll be patiently waiting for the entire Southern California region to eventually become San Angeles a la Demolition Man.

I also just recently got back from a trip to visit my girlfriend, who is studying abroad in the United Kingdom. My first stop was Glasgow in Scotland, where I saw a few NEDS. After a week there we headed to Palma de Mallorca off the coast of Spain and then hopped on a cruise to Casablanca in Morocco. We also stopped around to quite a few other places off the coast of North Africa and Spain along the way.

So that's it. It's been a pretty nice summer for me so far. I just started a cool new job on Monday, working with some pretty awesome people, and once I get more settled in I'll start working on this blog again.

I apologize for all the lame youtube links, but I left all the photos of my recent trip in Scotland. So to make up for that, here's a random travel photo of Darth Maul in a barber shop that I took in Japan last year.

Birds

From my sketchbook.
Still kind of rough, but I wanted to post them.
Thanks to Nate Wragg for showing me how to post the images at the correct size.

Cocktail Girl Doodle

I know I said I was going to post more finished work, and I promise I will at some point. That was actually one of the points of me starting this blog; to kind of have an outlet to experiment with a more finished, illustrative style.

However, I think I'm going to be pretty busy for a while, and I wanted to get a cartoon girl up here. I scanned this one in from my sketchbook, and kind of reworked it in the computer. It still could use a lot more work, but I just couldn't let those Life Sketches sit there forever.

I actually drew it in my sketchbook facing the other way, and then flipped her in the computer. I like to do that sometimes, just to see if the drawing holds up as a mirror image. The danger is that working it from both ways can even out your drawings too much. But I've found that drawings with great variation, like Ed Benedict's or Tom Oreb's hold up great when flipped. My theory is that when you flip your drawing or look at it in a mirror, you are seeing it as you will see it 2 years from now. It gives you a fresh eye, and hopefully seeing that mirror image will allow you to catch all that stuff about your work that will make you cringe 2 years in the future and allow you to correct it all right now.

That being said, I still feel like my drawings are too even, but I think using a mirror or flipping a drawing in the computer is something other artists might enjoy trying out.

I was also wondering does anyone know why my images are so huge when you click on them to open it in a new window?

Life Sketches

Most of them were done at a coffee shop by UC Berkeley. 

I just remembered I might have done some of these there with Austin, or maybe even Hwang. The others were done while hanging out with Shiyoon at the Glendale Galleria and at SFO while waiting by myself to board a flight to Japan. 

They're probably a bit too much on the realistic side, but I felt like these were the best of what I have in my current sketchbook so far. I guess I still haven't quite figured out what direction I really want to go in with this type of drawing yet, but I think it's good thing to get out there and draw the people and places around you, even if the drawings don't turn out amazing.

Well, I got my cafe sketching post out of the way now for what it's worth. I'm hoping to post some more finished stuff as things move forward here. I was just going through my sketchbook tonight in order to scan in some rough drawings that I'm planning to develop further and I came across these life sketches, so I decided to post them now.

If all goes well I'll post the other stuff I'm working on a little later.

Justin Wright 1981-2008

My first real post.

A caricature of my friend, fellow student, and coworker Justin Wright. It's a strange and sad way to start this blog, but I just wanted to share this drawing I did as part of a tribute to Justin we had at work. It took quite a few hours and about 80 or 90 really awful drawings to get this one out, but I was really determined to do something for him and his family. It was important for me to do this drawing.

I feel like I should say something really significant now but there are so many people online, who were much closer to Justin than I was, that have already written about him in a far more meaningful and articulate way than I could ever hope to do.

Goodbye Justin.

Thank you for all those fun times at school, and thank you for inspiring me about life and art.

Coming Soon...