When you're this Freezie, they call you "Mister"

So there's this kid on the bus wearing a green checkerboard snowboard suit that could have easily accommodated four other people. I wanted to see it inflated. Then I figured you'd need a bubble helmet to keep the air in. Then he morphed into Mr. Freeze and he got drawn with a freeze gun (that's what that is, yeah). End of anecdote. In other news Merry Christmas everybody! probably my last pre-Christmas post unless I get bored in Winnipeg which is unlikely because there's a lot of drinking to be done! Have one yourselves! Have a few and have a great holiday!

Portfolio online!

Well I've gotta start sending the new portfolio around and stuff but I was advised that it would be a good idea to have some kind of online version. And here it be! Look yonder to my links to see! There's a couple things missing from this version for copyright purposes but mostly it's all there. And I'm posting an updated version of my youtube reel with my windy door assignment on it and minus that last minute melting maid thing that I was never really thrilled with.

A new idea

We'll see this this lame-brained scheme gets further than the doodle phase.

Post Hallowe'en post

Well that was a hell of an October let me tell you. Pics to follow but my sister's wedding was beautiful and I'm so proud of her. Hallowe'en was great, haunted gallery was successful and I won an Ipod at the Blarney Stone for dressing up as Baba Yaga (Russian witch). It involved a fatsuit and great big ole droopy boobs. Fun times. Portfolio is on the move and this month has eased gently into what almost might be termed a "relaxing pace." Hope you all had a great Haunting season too!

More Hallowe'ening

She hasn't warmed up to him yet but sooner or later, she'll be hooked. Funny guy over here. I remember hearing about a scene in La Boheme where a character serenades his coat. I thought that was a really cool idea so, based on that line of thought, this is a vampire serenading a meathook. Also included are some more terrible and grainy photos from the Haunted Trolley Tour. Good times all in all. You can sort of see the ghost effect in the stone window scene. it's not that clear but the face of a ghostly bearded man appears behind the bars.

He like's 'em little, he like's 'em big, part in the middle or a wig...

One of my favorite Hallowe'en icons that I've never drawn because I'm terrible at drawing horses. Proud of the way this one turned out though. I might continue tweaking the colours because it's a little busier than I wanted it to be.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

So I'm reading the Avalanche Studio art blog, drooling slightly, and notice their new topic is "A Woggle of Witches" and I think to myself "Yay! Witches!"

October is so BUSY!!!

Well I am sick as a dog (that is also sick). But no time to rest because October is traditionally the month I am not allowed to sleep well. Ben and I are working on a haunted gallery for the Haunted Trolley Tour. So my weekend was spent making skulls. Don't get me wrong, that is possibly my favorite thing in the whole wide world, however doing it on very little sleep while slightly hung over and with a cold ain't the best place to be. So today when I got back from skull making I stayed in and watched 8 hours of Tales from the Crypt. Delightful evening. So anyhoo, here's two terrible phone-photos of a skull I made the other night (This one had more effort put into it than your average skull) and of the stone wall Sarah helped carve and paint. Oh and big thanks to Keith for helping out with the latexing and aging on Saturday! You're a trooper!

The Blood is the Life!

Wowee... So this is tentacle week. Where I animate scenes with tentacles. There's part of me that is very much enjoying that. Because association with tentacles brings us closer in our spiritual relationship with Great Cthulhu. But an angrier part of me wants to punch flash for making shape tweening so infuriatingly finnicky. Anyways... did this Elizabeth Bathory as a part of the watercolour experiments. In other news... Call of Duty haunts my dreams.

Ooky Spooky

In one of *those* moods.

At last!

I've been devoured by Pucca lately. Learning lots about flash and loving the show (I got to animate E.Honda's Hundred Hand Slap a couple days ago... *glee*) but it's put a crimp in my postfolio plans. I did finally have a chance on Sunday to run out and buy a new scanner! All shiny and.... functional! Anyways here's a few weeks worth of doodles and photoshop experiments.

Egypt painting was a speed painting brush experiment. I don't like the way the FG turned out. I like the colours though. And using lens flares make me giggle. And some life drawing fodder aaaaaand a drawing that I might finish up later with colour. He's meant to be running away from a big tentacley alien shadow. I have a specific way I want to do the BG though and it'll take some working out. Also a better scan of it wouldn't hurt (shakes fist at lousy scanner)

Live, little blog, LIVE!

Funny how the more time you have the less work you do, eh? Anyways, just a couple doodles from coffee shop drawing with Kelly and May. I'd spent the earlier part of the day trying to figure out how to draw horses... I actually got a couple drawings I don't mind and I got much closer to understanding the damn things but the finer points of quadrupeds still eludes me. I'll draw you yet, Horse!

In other news I figured some really cool stuff out with brushes in photoshop. Apparently some tutorials are very useful! Or at least they would be if my wacom tablet supported the tilt function. Boohoohoo.

Maul

I was initially going to put oodles of effort into making some kind of cool flat-colour bg for him but I done got lazy. So there ya go.

Poe and Company. And a flash experiment.

I like that scribbly pen thing of Edgar Allen Poe. The coloured one was a particularly frustrating flash experiment wherein I discovered that there is apparently no flash-equivalent of "lock transparency" or "magic wand" which is lame. If anyone happens to know about these things feel free to fill me in =)

From Friday

Doodled a lot on Friday and decided to do some colour experimentation. I want to go for a water-coloury indistinct look without it becoming... blurry I guess is the term. Kind of furious at my scanner. I know my line ain't the best in the world but the my scanner isn't helping the problem at all with it's choppy lameness. Consumers beware. Never buy a printer/scanner 2-in-one. It ain't the bargain it seems!

Collected doodles

Collected doodles. The fat guy started out as a drawing of Slughorn from Harry Potter but kind of snowballed into something else entirely.

The Sad Death of the Vinyl Winston

Was doodling with May the other day and doing some "design challenge" style stuff and I handed him a note that said "What is the Sad Death of the Vinyl Winston?" It's not a reference to anything I just thought the words sounded cool together. So I had some time today to doodle something that I thought might be The Sad Death of the Vinyl Winston

PainterX

What I learned about painter: painter doesn't like to paint small. It appears to be large filesizes or nothing. Tried another painting of a fat guy eating popcorn and as far as I can figure it's impossible to detail anything that I zoomed in to. Small brushes don't seem to affect the painting. Big brushes do. Go figure. I'm sure there's some function that lets me do itty bitty stuff but darned if I can find it.

Also the Devil May Cry fansub is available online. It looks really cool but the writing is terrible which is not helped by the comically incorrect translation.

yet ANOTHER post

I'm a posting maniac. I haven't had a lot of work to do lately so I've been doodling.... lots. I also recently discovered that french "plague doctors" from the 1600's (I think) have ridiculously cool costumes. That's the little vulture-looking doodle on the doodle page. I wanna do a trio of them.

Stuff from work.

Gotta watch Willow tomorrow. Watching the Mask of Satan tonight which, so far, is an AWESOME movie.

experimenting

I was going to experiment more with painterX but Ole Chuggy here can't quite get up to speed so it'll have to wait for this upgrade I keep telling myself I'm going to get. In the meantime here's some stuff I've been fiddling with. I'm horror binging this weekend so my colour offerings are in exclusively Ring-through-Dead Silence blue and red tones. Mainly I was trying to get something approaching wood texture on the ghost one. It's one of those moments where I would have had a better time of it if I'd put a little more into the original sketch because it's hard to put certain details back in with the wacom tablet. The other is an illustration I've been wanting to do for ages... it didn't turn out how I wanted so maybe I'll take another run at it later. Also there are some sketches of some characters I was playing with. Way too titans-y at the moment but I kinda like 'em anyway.

HAUNTED MANSION CLOSES

A sign outside the Orlando Haunted Mansions reads "Closed for Renovations." What are they doing to the mansion? The HM in Anaheim had some extensive effect renovations done a year or so ago. I assume the Florida HM is getting a similar, perhaps more extensive overhaul. There was mention of some references to the awful Haunted Mansion movie. *Cringe*. If I find an animatronic Eddie Murphy in the Haunted Mansion....... That's it. Anyways, here's hoping that they don't change too much but only upgrade the stuff that could really use it. The new Bride effect in the DL HM is really quite good. Though I've only seen youtube vids of it.

Good luck Brad!

Brad Goodchild; director extrordinaire has left Studio B as of today for the metaphorically greener pastures of Disney Studios in LA. Good luck Brad!

Drawings are mostly me playing around. The dragon was drawn because today at lunch I suddenly realized that I hadn't drawn a beastie in ages and I *am* a geek after all.

Griswold

Ever have one of those days where you're seized by a thought like "Cowboys are cool!" and you can't rest until you've done something about it? Well that was my Friday.

Also My teacher/co-worker Lyn Hart retired today from the cartoon biz. Gonna miss you Lyn!

Happy Layout

So the gloomy layout took a couple hours. The happy layout took a couple days. Happiness is clearly too much effort. Might go and touch this up a lot more in the next couple days but I feel the need to post it or I'll be up fiddling all night. Posting gives me a sense of closure. The other drawings are me fiddling around with markers and watercolour pencils (the watercolour of cowards) Hurray for the photocopier, which allowed me a couple attempts at each idea. The girl was vaguely inspired by flipping through the Ring Circus comics and the fat lady is inspired by a song called "The Fat Lady of Limburgh" which is an awesome song with some very confusing lyrics. What the hell is a "jellyfish kiss"?!?!?!