SAN DIEGO OR BUST!

See you geeks at the Con! And if you ain't goin', then you're just a dork that can't admit that you're a geek. I've got news for you. You're a geek my friend. So admit it and get yourself on the road! Last one there buys the beer!

COMIC CON!

It's almost here! I'm pretty excited cause this is my first year where I have a table! I'll be at table #F3 (see map below).

I'm going to be selling a noir themed sketchbook that's being printed right now. I just got the comp last week and it looks great! I should've gotten a photo of it before I gave it back to the printer, but I was too excited to get the final printing going.

here's a preview...







If I can get away, I'm going to try and get some time to wander the floor. If you have a booth/table, let me know where you are!

See everyone in San Diego!

Drew Carey GREENSCREEN SHOW

Here's a short I worked on for Drew Carey's "Greenscreen Show". My buddy Chris Prynoski directed it and I pretty much animated it on my own over the course of two weeks (Mike Roush did help out a bit too!). Not a hilarious piece, but I had fun merging the worlds. Notice my kick ass shadow work!...

Adventure has a name...

He's back! Here's the first photo of old Indy.

DARK CRYSTAL

I think it's safe to say that this series will never be made (sadly). Here's some of the work I did in developing it. I'll post more if people are interested. Also check out some other work in a previous post (click here)


This was one of my favorites. Who doesn't love Skeksis?

UN-USED DESIGN

I just found this old design when I was cleaning out my computer. It was a design I did for a title sequence for a horrible Randal Kleiser film, "Red Riding Hood". I think I like this one better than the one they chose. But what do I know?Here's another version of it. Different art direction on the line work.

CARTOON NETWORK Alien Designs

CARTOON NETWORK just aired a stunt called "Invaded!", where 5 shows were all created with a common theme. Aliens are coming to earth and they want our cheese! They asked me to make a pass on a couple alien and ship designs that all the shows could use as a basis for their episodes. It was a lot of fun. Too bad I was never credited...



FINAL APPROVED ALIEN...

DISNEY SHORT

I didn't get a chance to post this earlier, but a short I storyboarded on aired on Disney the other day. "THE IMPERFECT DUPLICATES OF DODGER DARE" is a Disney short that was created by Andy Suriano (a CN vet and fellow 'midwesterner'). Luckily someone posted it up on 'YouTube". My section is the montage "date" sequence.

NEW HD CAMERA! WOO-HOO!

Well, I finally bit the bullet and got myself a camera. I got the Canon HV20. It's great so far. Shoots in HD and everything! It looks pretty amazing. See image above.

I shot a stupid little movie in my backyard to practice. I also got myself "FINAL CUT PRO" too, so I was also experimenting with getting something edited in that program. Here's the result. Nothing fancy. But hey, what do you care?!

No Trees Were Harmed...

I've been experimenting at work with an easier and faster way to do traditional animation and I think I've come up with a good option. The test above is an animation I did entirely on a Cintiq using Mirage. I think it looks pretty convincing as graphite. And plus, it was really easy and quick to do. Instant pencil testing. The "YouTube" version is obviously compressed, so here's a larger image so you can get a better look. No more paper. My flipping is done with the arrow keys now!

YUCK!

I just got my first good look at the designs for Michael Bay's "Transformers". What a mess! I'm sure he's got the best in the business, but man did something go wrong. All of them look so busy and void of any personality. The cars and ships they transform into convey more personality and emotion. Where is the eye supposed to look? You can tell that there's some Syd Mead in the designs, but even Syd Mead knew that you had to have a balance of simpilicy and complexity in a good design

Short Concept

I've always wanted to animate something to this particular piece by Ennio Morricone. Just last week, I came up with a little story about a boy on his big wheels. Here's a concept still frame and a bunch of designs of the little boy.

Fun With Brushes

I usually only use Mirage for storyboarding, but for some reason today I started to play around with some fun and experimental brushes. In Mirage when you want to type text, you have to first create a brush and then stamp it down. A very annoying feature, but kind of cool if you actually just draw and paint with it. This image was created entirely with a brush of my initials "KM".

Mr Rico

I finally got some time to sit down and take a sketch to a final rendered painting. Here's what I came up with. I also included the initial rough sketch and a sort of "inbetween" sample. Getting used to doing more Painter work. I think I may take the rough sketch in the previous post and render that too. I've been bitten by the rendering bug...

The Captain

Screaming Dude

Nucleus Seminar

I got a chance to get out today and see a seminar at Gallery Nucleus with the gents from the "Ancient Book of Myth and War" (Scott Morse, Don Shank, Nate Wragg, and Don Shank). They talked about their work process and how they came about making the art that's not only in the book but also in the gallery there at Nucleus. They did a great job inspiring all of us. Here's a little Painter experiment I did using the little pen sketches I did during the presentation. Check out the show if you can. It's really great!

Emmy Nomination!

The Daytime Emmy nominations were released today and a short I directed got nominated! It's under a new category for broadband material. Content made specifically for celphones, internet, or other handheld devices. A short we made for Adam Burton's "Billy and Mandy" got the honor. My friends Darrick Bachman wrote it and Nate Funaro was the production manager on it. Can't wait to hit the event with them on June 15th!

UPDATE: Hollywood Reporter article

Fairfield goodies

Leftovers

Just a little leftover design I didn't post on the Fairfield blog. I'll probably continue to post more. I did a lot of work for it. This particular one is one I did at work on my Cintiq. A 100% digital sketch (Photoshop).

Fairfield Short

Due to many circumstances, I've decided to "officially" close the book on the short I was making with a few friends. The film just caused more stress than it relieved. A short like "Fairfield" can't be made the way we were making it. I learned a lot from this venture and know better how to get something like this made. But none the less, a lot of KICK ASS work was done for it and the people who worked on it deserve their credit. Follow the link below

FAIRFIELD BLOG

Magazine Article

I've been published! Well, sort of... A magazine called "Digital Content Producer" was doing an article on doing storyboards digitally and they contacted me at Cartoon Network to ask about Mirage. We supplied them with some art samples from one of the "My Gym Partner's a Monkey" shorts I directed and storyboarded. I guess that image is on the cover. They also have an article on-line about it. Check it out

Fosters Debut

I've been burning the midnight (and weekend) oil on some Foster's freelance and I can finally get the rewards of all my hard work (well, besides the paycheck...) The first episode I storyboarded is going to air this Saturday at 2 and again on Monday at 6:30 (PST). I guess it premiered on Thanksgiving (before the "Good Wilt Hunting" movie), but I missed it! If you are as impatient as I am, then check out the you tube version. Gotta love those hard core fans...

When you storyboard you often don't have any designs to work off of, so sometimes you need to make a pass to have an idea. Below are my roughs for a gang of thugs in this particular episode. After I board the show, then someone much more talented than myself (in this case, it's the amazing Ben Balistreri) takes over and designs the final look for production.

More backs

Elevator Action

Sketchbook entry

CNS storyboard notes

I jump from show to show at work making these shorts, so I really need to be on the ball with a show's style. I end up doing a lot of work at the start so that it makes things go smoother later in the process. I spent some time today studying the storyboarding style of a show here called, "Squirrel Boy". Here's a page of studies I made from watching some episodes.

"The Uninvited" animatic

Darrick Bachman and I wrote the Dracula short that's in the previous post. This here is an animatic of the storyboards I did for it (done entirely in Mirage)...

Billy & Mandy:"Uninvited" & "Party" shorts

Here are the last two Billy birthday shorts! I thought these worked the best of the six.

Billy & Mandy:"Cake" & "Makeover" shorts

They played two of the shorts in a row tonight. Only two more to show! Tune in tomorrow. Those two are my favorite.

Billy & Mandy:"Macaroni Man" short

This guy is making my job easy. He's posted the second short too! It's the POV of Billy's birthday thru his parents.

Billy & Mandy: "Super Myron Brothers" short

Someone posted the first short on You Tube! Here's the first one. Keep an ear out for the monster named Myron, I did the voice...not that you can really tell.

Billy & Mandy Shorts Premiere

Billy Shorts Promo:

THEY'RE ON TV! Finally some of the shorts that I've been directing here at Cartoon Network are seeing the light of day. Apparently CN is showing the first batch of "Billy and Mandy" shorts I directed during a Halloween stunt this week. I guess they're playing a short each night this week at 7pm (I missed tonight's sadly, but I did get the promo).

I thought it would be cool to have all 6 of the shorts centered around one day and each short would be a different perspective on that one event. Darrick Bachman came up with the great idea that it would be on Billy's birthday. They turned out pretty good. Check 'em out if you get a chance.

Comic Con

Why post comic con sketches when everyone else does? I prefer to wait months later to post mine. This dude screams Comic Con. He's got the look down. He was heading to the train, COVERED in various bags full of the weekend's spoils.

Another Train Sketch

Concept Design

Burbank sketches

I need to get out more and do some environment studies. I get too caught up with work and all the rest of life's bullsh*t that I don't take enough time to slow down. These are a couple sketches of me doing just that. Just looking for cool compostions and interesting subjects.

Fosters Thumbnails

I was just cleaning up from finishing a board for Fosters and came across a couple pages of thumbnail studies that I thought would be fun to post up. Nothing amazing, but kind of fun all together.

Storyboard Comparison

I've decided that I should really redirect my blog here to more of a storyboard/directing focus. I've noticed that it's beginning to meander a bit away from what I like to do, so in an attempt to kick it in the right direction, I've put together a quicktime of a board I did a while ago. It's from a Mike Mingola project called "The Amazing Screw-On Head". Chris Prynoski over at Titmouse Studios asked if I'd board the 2nd act. I did the entire board digitally in Photoshop...a tedious program to do boards. I now use Mirage, but I digress... I really tried to make it feel like the comic (hence all the tone). The final show looks great. I just wish the script was as good, but I digress...I put together a movie that has the final show on the top and my boards at the bottom. I've been meaning to try this out for a while. I thought it could be a fun way to show storyboards. I'm still trying to figure out You Tube's limitations, so excuse the streched image.