A few weeks ago, I promised a few more images..

Back at Halloween I promised a few more images from an Egyptian underworld film pitch that I worked on. The film was never made but I think the these images look pretty cool. Pardon the rough bits. If you ever worked on a development team you know how quickly these paintings need to be made!

Happy Halloween!

As an illustrator known for chubby mice and tea drinking kitties it can be tough to find something to post for Halloween. I did however remember this last minute addition to a delivery on a film project. The film was never made but some of the art looked pretty cool and I will post some of it in the coming weeks. This sketch was created in the minutes before the meeting, and as it goes with these things, they loved it. Hope you do as well.

What It Feels Like To Be A Freelancer. Yup, it can happen to anyone.

Off to Burbank!

http://www.ctnanimationexpo.com/

CTNEXPO 2010

Its official! I will be in Burbank again this year for the CTNEXPO conference.

I have been asked to be part of a panel.

Animation Designers Who Illustrate and Vice Versa

Are you an illustrator and have been wondering if you should take your skill set into the world of animation design. Or maybe you are an animator or animation artist and have been wondering if you should take your skill set into the world of Children’s Book Illustration or art. What are the similarities and differences that these top artists who work both in animation and book illustration go through to create and stories visually.

Pretty cool. The panel will be moderated by the incredibly talented Carol Kieffer Police. Sitting on the panel are; Brain Ajar, Chris Appelhans, and myself. These folks are amazing so click on their names to check out their work or read about the discussion by clicking on this link;

http://www.CTNANIMATIONEXPO.com/animation-designers-who-illustrate-and-vice-versa/

Less IS in fact MORE. A Portfolio makeover.

Three weeks ago I was lucky enough to find myself at the CTN Expo taking in the forum discussions, catching up with friends, and toting my wares around to the studios. I was not able to show the recent film work because the movies have not yet been made or released but I had enough new stuff that it was time to freshen up my book. Thus began the task of designing a new portfolio. There are plenty of places on the web with great advice about putting together your book, most notably Escape from Illustration Island, and most are well worth the time it takes to read them even for someone that has been showing work for more than twenty years. Much of the advice is standard so I will not go into the details but will share a few observations that I had in this most recent go-round.

First off it was far more difficult than I remembered so your first stop should be to check your calendar. The day that you read about a conference like CTN or Siggraph that you may want to attend, you need to build time into your production schedule. Treat it like a job because your next one may depend upon it. Build in time for going through your images, designing the thing, editing, feedback, more editing, and finally printing and shipping. I used Blurb and was very happy once again with the results though I would recommend spending the extra money for the paper upgrade.

OK, so you have picked some recent images of work that you like. These are pieces that you enjoyed making and show the type work that you would like to get more of. I put together a contact sheet like this:

The portfolio that preceded this version, and there have been many, looked wonderful but as a friend of mine pointed out it was a bit of an embarrassment of riches. It was well received but clocked in at a hefty 34 pages. Even people that loved my work were stuffed by page 20.

I was a prime candidate for a radical intervention on Portfolios Biggest Losers. If you have a copy, I am sure that it looks very nice on your coffee table but my goal this time around was to make something a bit more user friendly. How? Simple. Edit until it hurts. I am good at critiquing, in fact I used to get paid to crit and edit while teaching at RISD but when it comes to your own book, we all need a fresh eye. So I sent it off to my friend Buck Lewis. I received something like this back.

Ouch! Thought this guy was my friend?-well he is. Buck was able to cut through the redundancy and the fluff and get me to show a range of work that highlighted my strengths in character design and visual development. Trust the process and make the cuts. You want to treat your art director, recruiter, or production designer to a nice cappuccino and fresh croissant not the open buffet at the Radisson. Don't get stuck in the trap of thinking that "if they only saw this piece then they would realize I am perfect for their project". You want to show them potential not every single decent piece that you have created in the past year. Give them a taste, let your work shine, save some trees, and get a gig. Trust me-it works. I am lean after shedding over 20 pages of portfolio fat and my friends, family and most importantly, my clients are amazed!

CTN EXPO 2010

Next week I am off to see the future! Hope to see some of you there.

http://www.ctnanimationexpo.com/

Think ideas are all original? Think again!Its all in the air ....

This is not one of those posts that accuse the big evil corporate entity of ripping off the little guy. This is a post about amazing coincidences where inspired artists working independently are pulling ideas from the ether.

I had the great pleasure of finally seeing Toy Story 3 last night. I think we were the last to catch it, but if we were not, you really need to see this film. You will not be disappointed!

Last summer I was working around the clock creating the final images for my next book, Bella & Stella Come Home, by Anika Denise.

Publication was delayed for marketing reasons until this November. All of the final artwork was completed and sent to the publisher in September and October 0f 2009.If you like my work, don't forget, you can always pre-order the book at your favorite independent bookstore or Amazon.

Large pre-orders send a really strong positive message to my publisher!

I will preface the following with a few facts;

1. I have never been to Pixar....yet

2. No full time employee of Pixar has ever been to my studio.

3. I have not worked with or for Pixar.....yet.

4. I have exchanged emails and pleasantries with a few of the amazing artists that have worked on the Pixar films that I ad

mire, including Toy Story 3. No images were ever shared. Pixar runs a tight ship and at the cost of not showing my most recent work, I try to keep unpublished art under wraps.

5. Full disclaimer: I do have the good fortune to

count Carter Goodrich and Buck Lewis amongst my friends. Both are amazing artists who have contributed to Pixar films in the past.

6. I am a fan of Pixar films. The work that has come from that amazing group of artists, writers and filmmakers has been the driving inspiration for me to begin to venture out of the dusty but pleasant cocoon of books and into the world of animation.

As I watched the film last night, I was swept along with the mastery of story telling and film making. I was in that wonderful place of being completely in the film...until the last scene.

The last scene was not a disappointment in anyway shape or form! It was perfect but it was also strangely familiar. I was in awe. What I was watching was a more masterful rendition of a scene that I had created in my book just twelve months ago!

Remember: This is not one of those posts that accuse the big evil corporate entity of ripping off the little guy.

I have a healthy respect for copyright law so I will not post any pirated images from the final sequence of the film. However, the last scene is viewable at the sites where you would expect to find these things. I can post a few of my images from Bella & Stella Come Home and I would welcome any commentary from readers of this blog.

Please bear two things in mind:

1. I do not feel that I have been ripped off in any way shape or form.

2. Any similarity is purely coincidence. I could not have seen anything from the film nor could anyone making the film (which was already in the final stages of production) have seen my work.

I see that whole thing as an amazing coincidence and perhaps a message that my head is in the right place and my inspirational receiver is tuned into a very good station.

As I said.....I have not worked with or for Pixar..........yet.

This is our Bella..and Stella

Here she is meeting the neighbor.

I tried for the hand on the hip but it changed the body language expression of the mom too much.

There are other areas of similarity that just come with

the subject matter (tutus and stuff). But there was just something about seeing that kid in that environment that blew me away. See the film and look at the book and see what you think. No imitation on either end-it would have been impossible. I think the ideas are just out there floating around and sometimes we grab the same ones!

(detail from a larger scene)

SIGGRAPH 08

Siggraph 08 was a blast. Whirlwind of activity. Met with the folks from DreamWorks, Sony Imageworks, Disney, Blue Sky Studios, Laika, ILM, Lucasfilm animation, and many more.

Spent some real quality time with my old friend Buck Lewis and finally had a chance to meet my friend Sam Michlap in person. Caught a few lectures hosted by the incredible Kung Fu Panda team, attended a very cool DreamWorks party at the Edison and successfully braved the freeways! 

Throwing my hat in the ring.

A few years ago my wife and I decided that a nice date night would be to catch a film. At the time she was very pregnant with our first daughter so we decided it might be time to start familiarizing ourselves with "children's" entertainment. I had already been making books with Penguin and several other children's book publishers but the world of CG was, for the most part, unknown territory.

We purchased our tickets to Monsters Inc. and little did I know that my life was going to begin to change in every way!It was by far the best film we had seen in a long time but more importantly, it lit a small fire in the back of my mind....."they are doing what I do....could I do that?"

These ideas can be all to easy to ignore in the swirl of publishing deadlines, family, teaching at RISD and the pursuit of my personal studio work until the recent releases of films like Surfs Up and Ratatouille. That small flame had just been doused with gasoline and I found myself on an incredible team of artists working on visual development and character design for a future Blue Sky feature. So here I am, giving my career, my portfolio, my website a face lift and heading to Siggraph in August. Amazing! Here is a quick first post of many posts to come!