TFU Studios

Mandrake The Magician 2

2012-01-25T11:16:00.000-08:00

As I posted here a while back, this strip was a big deal for me. Not sure why, it might have been that this was only piece of American Culture living in a far off land. Or the fact that the entire book of strips I'd compiled got lost when I was about 7 years old.

Nevertheless, this before hard to find strips have been surfacing online. Mostly originating from an Indian Magazine from the 70-'s that also ran the strips in full blown magazine form. Check em out:

Marker Art!

2012-01-24T10:43:00.000-08:00

Some more marker art from the early days. These were mostly used as gifts for folks. I probably xerox'd these before I gave them away or something.

Prepare...

2012-01-18T01:51:00.000-08:00

In 1997, Kool Keith released the album 'Sex Style'. The record featured songs that were intended for the Dr. Octogan LP, his first solo effort since the split of Ultramagnetic, but ended up being part of an 'immediate follow up' solo record. It was really a chance for Keith (whose has about 10 different personas) to highlight his 'porn-rap' he champions as being the originator of.

Fast forward, 10 years, and it turns out there's about another albums worth of tracks that were never released. So I was thrilled when Kurt Matlin, the albums producer, and also known as the infamous Funky Redneck, had asked me to come up with some designs for this 'unreleased' record.

I had the idea of making a logo out of the Do Not Disturb hangers at motels, and went from there. We even stayed at a seedy motel in Palm Springs to get some pictures of some gaudy textures for the record cover.

The album liner notes include an exhaustive history of the making of this record. Kurt had moved from Santa Cruz (where we both grew up) and found himself living in a 2 bedroom apartment with Keith, TR Love, and members of the group Raw Breed. As far as I know, this was Kurts first experience with 'housemates'. After spending a weekend at the apartment, I knew it was a matter of time till Kurt wanted to get his own place.

James

The Art Of Pho- Motion Comic

2012-01-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

The Art of Pho - motion comic trailer

The Cover

2012-01-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

Basic colors done for this guy. Back cover in the works. Contents just about there...

Ronald Searle (1920-2011)

2012-01-04T12:02:00.000-08:00

Quest Love's Sampling Lesson.

2012-01-03T05:31:00.000-08:00

Whilst at the pop culture orgy known as Comic-Con, here's a re-post of ?uestLoves Sampling Lesson Mix from BBC1 Radio! Listen and learn!

Check it out here!

Vol 4, Page # 22

2011-12-23T09:30:00.000-08:00

Slowly entering the final lap of inks. This week has been a slow one considering all the holiday preparing, but I've still managed a few pages, including below:

Coon Skin

2011-12-20T00:24:00.000-08:00

Of all of Ralph Bakshi's work (Lord Of The Rings, American Pop, Fritz the Cat), Coon Skin was probably his most ambitious and risky. Being an inner New York City kid, Ralph saw a lot of the realities that he felt weren't being portrayed in regular film. Coon Skin was a blatant (not to mention the title itself) challenge to the status quo, and a very real take on racism.

Upon release, the film was pretty much shelved, and was released years later on limited VHS run under the name 'Street Fight'. The story delves in a cops and robbers storyline including purposely exaggerated sterotypes of african and italian-Americans and gays, etc. It pulled no punches. It can be found online, and a new Bakshi book thats been released discusses the movie in depth.

And here's Ralph himself at Comic-Con commenting on the current state of the animation industry.

Burton Kramer Trailer

2011-12-19T10:46:00.001-08:00

Burton Kramer Film Trailer

Pagan Babies

2011-12-15T10:51:00.000-08:00

I remember seeing this record in the stores in 1989. It was in the punk rock section, and I figured it was some hardcore band that knew a graffiti writer. It turned out to be by the drummer Bruce Boyd (who would later form the band Grotus).

It was first time I'd seen graffiti associated at all with punk, and figured it was a sign of things to come, as much of the NYC Hardcore scene would be made up of graff writes, skateboarders etc. Pagan Babies were around till about 1992, when all members split of into other directions.

Vol #4 Page 12

2011-12-14T11:12:00.000-08:00

Needling away at these inks. Just about at the halfway point, but, far enough to make it seem like it's going to take forever:

Hugo & Molly

2011-12-13T10:59:00.000-08:00

During my 2-year stint in Australia as a kid, there was some strange cultural adaptations that were happening. "Santa Claus" was known as 'Father Christmas'. Halloween didn't exist. Most Australian
kids actually thought Australia had gone to the moon instead of the US. There was a lot to make my head spin in confusion.

Another was fast food mascots. They DID have McDonalds and KFC (which to me were like old friends from back home!) KFC in particular had a strange set of overweight kids as their spokespeople named Hugo & Molly. I was fascinated by them and little did I know, my 7 year-old eyes were becoming susceptible to fast food marketing. They even had a comic/ coloring book (which I still have somewhere).

Looking back, it all seemed like a strange dream, till the Australian KFC marketing team decided to bring them back in 2005, though now they look a bit different.

Spat Character 2

2011-12-12T04:55:00.000-08:00

We went through a few versions of this guy before animation started. On the left is the original version the artist had given us. This was probably a bit too complicated to animate smoothly, so, we came back with the middle sketch there. After some back and forth revisions, we finally settled on the version to the right.

As all of this was taking place, an animatic was created, timing out action for the piece.

The mouths were going to be synched with the scratching noises from the song. And being it was an instrumental, that meant the whole song. Below is the mouth chart I'd started to put together for it:

Vol #4 Page 5 Inks!

2011-12-08T10:46:00.001-08:00

The STAF Project Part 2

2011-12-05T09:24:00.000-08:00

By now a couple of months and numerous meetings have passed. All sorts of ideas are being thrown around, and there's a general excitement. I've put together a small package of rough/concept artwork, to present visuals at the meetings.

Big names are being thrown around for voice-work, including Mos Def, KRS-1,Melvin Van Peebles among others. The main issue is still funding, which I've reminded everyone would need to be sizable and consistent due to the duration of production. It now turns out a major Hollywood actor has shown interest and could possibly supply the funding. When I find out who it is (think Middle-earth) it seems like things could get rolling.

Also, Chris had now brought in Syd Garon, the man behind the legendary film 'Wave Twisters'. I was intimidated at first, but, Syd turned out to be a really genuine guy, and offered up some ideas on production, and I also could talk animation nerd stuff with him.

The story was really big by now, involving cannibals, CIA, doberman like, vinyl hunting skinheads among other things. I got about 6 CD's worth of 'beats' from Madlib. These consist of small 2 minute instrumentals, made up of rough samples. It was great stuff to write to.

All the while, we all had our day jobs, so, things were slow going. Chris had been playing tracks for me off of the new Quasimoto album. I'd loved the first record and had always wished I could have contributed a video. Then, Egon calls me and offers me the Quasimoto "Bullyshit" video from this upcoming album.

Along with that, and a dozen other projects that popped up soon after, the animated film idea took a back seat. I see Chris now from time to time, and we still talk about picking up where we left off, but, for now, the idea remains a dozen or so rough drawings.

James

The STAF Project Part 1

2011-12-02T05:49:00.000-08:00

In late 2004, I was asked to put together an idea for an animated feature. Chris Manak, who runs the label Stones Throw (see below post), and who's given us a fair share of work over the years, was interested in creating a film, in which then, Hip Hop producer Madlib, would create the soundtrack for.

For any animator, the prospect of an animated feature, much less being asked to direct, is a dream come true. It's also a huge, 2-3 year commitiment. We started weekly meetings along with Madlib and music supervisor Barry Cole. Off the bat, I wanted to establish a premise, and develop the germ for a story.

I showed the films Triplets of Belleville and Heavy Metal to the guys, to give them an idea of musical animated films which I thought had succeeded. We talked a lot about the movie La Planète sauvage as it was one of Madlibs favorites.

After about 2 months of getting together, and lots of Japanese food, I had a basic story outline, and artwork. I had imagined the story to be a medaphor for Hip Hop, as, almost a folk tale. The story involved a fictional carribean island, which, in a post apocalyptic world, would serve as a huge dumping ground for the first worlds trash. Basically a giant landfill surrounded by a ring of towns. These people would salvage the trash and create an economy out of it. One shop in particular made gigantic jukeboxes, and served as a record archive.

After a misunderstanding regarding the junk, a valuable piece of hardware gets sent back into the trash, into the center of the landfill which is inhospitable and dangerous for humans. A young shop clerk is forced to go on an hasty journey through hostile shanty towns into the middle of the island to literally find a needle in a haystack. He then stumbles on a dark secret of the island that no one seems to be aware of.

The guys seemed to be into the idea, though, Chris had concerns with the Jamaican-ness of the premise. I thought it would been a perfect fit alongside with Madlibs production style. I knew the story needed a lot of work and development, but, I also knew, this would be an idea we'd have to commit to, for at least the next couple of years. After a story was outlined, we had to look into funding. This seemed to invoke a lot of blank stares and was a bit tougher.

Continued...

Crowds!

2011-12-01T11:36:00.000-08:00

The cover for 1985 Vol 4 is coming along. Working with some weird angles here, and also working with some more crowd scenes. This is making the process SLOW. Crowd scenes can be a bit of a bane for illustrators, but, it must be a bit of sado-masochism for me. Who knows. Anyways, color schemes and rough attached as well.

Neal Adams!

2011-11-29T11:01:00.000-08:00

Since I was about 9 years old, the name Neal Adams has always had mythic proportions. I started to get serious about my comic book collecting at about that age, and all I knew was the particular issues that he had drawn were all about $30 in value. I didnt even have the ability to SEE the art close up, much less own any.

For Christmas a few years later, my brother Joe had bought the full X-Men/ Adams issues for me (these would the first work he'd done for Marvel, and would go on to become very valuable). I'm not sure how my brother knew to get those particular issues, but, it was surprise to me!

Over the years, I would start to accumulate more of Neals work, and ended up with a nice little collection (as I said, most of his books were a bit too expensive for me, but I managed to find some in relatively good condition). Little did I know, Neal had also become a huge proponent of 'Creators Rights' among the comics industry, and was solely responsible for some of the aging creators to see profits from they're characters (that were now being made into multi-million dollar movies/ properties).

Fast forward almost 20 years, and I was heading up the 'Animation' section of the newly formed 'Digital Entertainment Network'. We were having meetings with random content creators, and they told me I was to have a meeting with "Neal Adams' who was there to pitch us content. I wasn't sure it was the same guy, but, sure enough, here I am having a meeting with the man himself. Once our 'business' was over, I had him sign a few things. I was starstruck, even though most people in the office had no idea who he was.

“Ça Ça Mirlaquerr” by Nacho Rodriquez

2011-11-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

Mister Coo musicvideo: Ça Ça Mirlaquerr from nacho rodriguez.

Displays 2!

2011-11-23T11:14:00.000-08:00

A couple more displays in the works.Was hoping to get these up and out before the holiday, but considering 1985 Vol. 4 is about a month away from completion, this will have to wait a bit.

Jeff Jank

2011-11-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

Every picture has a story, and in this case, every album cover. I had a chance to sit down (ok, virtually sit down) with the art director of Stones Throw. The LA, via San Francisco, vanguard Hip Hop label. Home of artists the likes of Madlib (and his 5 personas), J Dilla, Mayer Hawthorne and a host of others.

We get together from time to time and talk album art, art, film, Herzog, GG Allin. This was one such conversation:

How long have you held design/direction duties at Stones Throw?
I joined Stones Throw as the first employee (just weeks before Egon, the second employee) in summer 2000. I had no duties to begin with, so I invented the job.

With ST moving it's music selling business online, how do you see the role of design/lp art changing, or continuing at all?
In the 70s I think that cover designers had to think about how the records looked when they were in record bins, and in the 90s they had to think about how the CD covers looked on the racks. Today I have to think about how it looks as a 100x100-pixel image on the web, plus those other things too since we still sell CDs and vinyl.

Proudest release you've designed to date?
My proudest release is J Dilla's Donuts, which is one of my worst covers. My proudest cover is Madvillain's Madvillainy because it's a classic album and has one of those classic headshots that every record label should have. Except the head has a mask on in this case.

You originally published a magazine called 'Jank'. Will there be any more issues planned for the future? Any on EBAY?
"Jank" was a one-page magazine/newsletter/flyer/newspaper before it was my name. It's only my name because I'm hiding my real name from the cops. The next issue of "Jank" has been only hold for 8 years while I try to secure my first-ever advertisement. I am charging $50,000 for a full page ad if
anyone is interested. "Jank" is only two pages.

Can you clear up the urban legend about your past residency in a laundromat?
This urban legend is fact. I lived in a laundromat in Oakland CA for one very interesting year with 4 hooligans. We had clean clothes all year, but everything else was a mess. On our last night at the laundromat we had a wild party. I fell through a plate glass window and suffered not even a scratch. I avoid laundromats now because I figure my luck has surely run out.

My Bloody Lad!

2011-11-21T11:26:00.001-08:00

My Bloody Lad - Dead Walter - WIZZprod° from WIZZprod° on Vimeo.

The Adventures Of Herge'

2011-11-18T13:02:00.000-08:00

This is amazing, and I'm surprised I've hadn't heard about it yet! With all of the popularity and attention Tin Tin is getting now, a European artist has created an adventure about Herge himself. Herge had a pretty incredible history, especially surviving 2 world wars and keeping his character relevant throuought the years. Below aree some sample pages thanks to Slate.com:

Ampersands Are Sexy

2011-11-16T08:16:00.000-08:00

Herb Lubalin's amazing ampersand.
Below are a few other images of his design work...

Color!

2011-11-15T12:58:00.000-08:00

On of my many ambitions regarding 1985 is someday to apply color. This isn't happening now mostly due to time constraints and printing costs (the latter being the bigger issue). Shelf price on a 32 page color book would probably have to rise to the triple digits. No dice. Some would argue that black and white suits the medium, but I'd like nothing better than to one day color these pages.

As far as running it online, it's a bit more practical (though I'm still one of those huge proponents of 'physical comics' over online). Till then, it's fun to dabble in.

Intermission

2011-11-14T04:44:00.000-08:00

I came across this great Intermission clip form the 1950's. My guess is that it was created by UPA,
which is United Productions America. Those guys were around since the 30's and produced numerous animated cartoons, safety, military, industrial shorts. They never really recovered form McCarthy's persecution in the 50's, and eventually folded.

That smorgasbord of media known as YouTube has tons of their stuff. Check it out.

A Brief Rant

2011-11-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

Bret Victor is a user experience guru. He worked at Apple for almost 10 years, in their UI, design department, which tries to answer the question 'what would users want'. And basically devise the new generation of 'tools', in the form of interface design, engineering etc.

He's written a 'rant' here explaining these ideas and where he thinks UI design is going and where it SHOULD be headed.

11 Iconic Images!

2011-11-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

Check it out!

The Windmill Farmer!

2011-11-08T10:38:00.001-08:00

Design Markers 2

2011-11-07T05:11:00.000-08:00

I still have my entire set, and still break em out from time to time. This pic below is back when I didn't even have my own computer yet. That blue fade was created using spray enamel of all things.

R. Crumb's Genesis

2011-11-03T03:17:00.000-07:00

If you havent had a chance to check out this exhibit at the Hammer Museum, I highly recommend it. Robert Crumb spent the last 4 odd years adapting the book of Genesis, and he does it with surprising accuracy and detail.

From 'Creation' all the way to Josephs burial, all of the events of the book as well as the depicting all of the different successions of relatives throughout the ages.

No rod is spared in this version and some of the brutal and graphic nature of the Bible is clearly represented.

Album Art

2011-11-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

The long lost art of the album cover. Ive noted my ideas here as far as what is the equivalent nowadays to album art, but, the LP still stands as the best format for the art covering it. Here are some favorites:

Come Play With Us!

2011-10-31T04:29:00.000-07:00

When I first saw the Shining in 1980 with my parents, I couldn't sleep for 1 week. It scared the shit out of m like nothing else had up until then (I was 9 years old). It wasn't so much because of what happened, but what DIDN'T happen. Kubricks rendition of the story was nothing like the book (which was great in it's own right), in that it was one of the great minimilast ghost stories. He focused on mood, rather than shock. And occasionally sprinkled in a little horror.

Happy Halloween!

Reggae Mix VOL.1

2011-10-29T05:24:00.000-07:00

Can Be Heard HERE!

Playlist:

Django Shoots First- Sir Lord Comic
Dollar In The Teeth- The Upsetters
Skylarking- Horace Andy
Ital Correction- Niney The Observer
Penny Reel- Justin Hines
That Girl- Dave & Ansil Collins
Lee Van Cleef- King Stitt
Open The Gate- The Ethiopians
Shine Eyed Girl- Vincent Foster
The Upsetting Station- Dave Barker
Wall Street- Jackie Mittoo
Barbwire- Nora Dean
Everything I Own- Ken Boothe
Blood & Fire- Niney The Observer
I Can't Stand it- The Specials
The Higher The Monkey Climbs- Justin Hines & The Dominos

Wild Hares

2011-10-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I was asked to develop and idea for series of skateboard wheels that were targeted toward the younger set. I was given the name Wild Hares, and decided to give it a very Warner Brothers style.

After I was given multiple wheels for the artwork to be printed on, I tried to get a little more elaborate. We were permitted only 4 colors on these, so, off the bat, I knew I'd go with a green and orange 'carrot color scheme.

The narrative I'd come up with dealt with a rabbit that had eaten radioactive carrots, and became the 'Wild Hare' From there, a cat and mouse story evolved featuring a farmer named 'Annie' who employed increasingly brutal, militaristc methods of dealing with the Wild Hare:

After about 2 years and about 10 or so wheel graphics and clothing had come out, Wild Hares was discontinued. It was a one of the funner projects I'd had a chance to work on, and great lesson in graphic identity and marketing.

DJ Red Alert circa 1986

2011-10-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, a dear friend and colleague Kurt Matlin would spend his summers in New York City with family. He would come back loaded with tapes of radio shows which we would scour and play repeatedly. WKRS and WBLS were two of the premier Hip Hop stations of the day, and had an interesting rivalry that would erupt into on air insults and jabs.

This particular mix is one of those insults in the form of a 'Red Alert Mastermix'. This is DJ Red Alerts show, and a clip of one of his 'battle mixes' aimed toward Mr. Magic of WBLS.

Special thanks to Kurt!

Page 17

2011-10-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

Frustration!!

In order to get Issue #4 out in a timely fashion (end of year), and it's seemingly taking forever, I'm trying to stick by a page of pencils every 2 days. This particular page is proving to take MUCH longer. This is one of those cases where I want to pull all of my hair out, and smash things. But, forcing myself to settle for less and get the darn page done (thats almost taken a week!).

Hired Killer 5

2011-10-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

The video has finally be completed and delivered. The Guryan's (Darville Music Publishing) were happy with it, and have gone about getting it out into the world. Probably by first sending it to animation festivals and the like.

The whole process was interesting and I learned quite a bit. Notably the consequence of using large imagery in After Effects. The rendering of gigantic images that are being panned into, is extremely costly in regards to processer power, and for a time, looked like it wasn't going to work. I probably would have gone about the effects differently.

There was a lot I would have liked to do, but, I had a time frame I had to abide by. The culling and prepping of the imagery was one of the more time consuming as well as the actual animation tweaking (due to the strain on my computer). Below is the finished video, warts and all. A big thanks to Matt Patsel for being the model for the 'Hired Killer'!

Ben & Jerry's Bonnaroo!

2011-10-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

Just wrapped up a video ad unit for Ben & Jerry's for their Bonnaroo Flavor Ice Cream. I havn't tried it yet, but it sounds insane. These type of video header ads are being made by an 'ad templating system' that I'm also helping design. More on that later, but, here's a link to the live site with the ad:

Open state

Closed state:

Jack 'King' Kirby

2011-10-19T05:25:00.000-07:00

*UPDATE*

NPR's Fresh Air has a great interview with Mark Evanier whose penned the new 'Kirby Art' book. Included is a great quote from Kirby in 1973 saying 'Pretty soon, Hollywood studios will be trolling our books for character and story ideas'.

Probably one of the most influential comic artists of all time, Kirby was responsible for not only creating the ultra patriotic comics of the 40-50's (Capt. America, Bucky, etc.) but for most of the existing Marvel roster. It's debated whether or not he was given his due, as, Stan Lee would tour and parade about his role of Marvel spokesman and creator.

I'd say he's one of the most influential comics/graphics artists ever, even though as a kid I can remember not liking his stuff at all. I was always a much bigger fan of the softer 'clear line' style that guys like Byrne and Herge were doing, which was very European. Kirbys stuff was bold and loud.

I've copped his style for a few projects, probably most notably the 'All Caps' video. It was much harder to try and get inside his head than I thought it'd be. Ultimately, the animation ended up looking like a second rate Kirby attempt. I've really come to love his 70's era stuff, where, it seemed like he was being influenced by the psychedelic style of art that was trickling into the popular culture.

The Adventures Of Tin Tin

2011-10-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

The Adventures of Tintin

A fan made title sequence which I for one believe should be the in the running for the actual film (coming out this November). You hear that Speilberg?

Biz Markie Concept Art

2011-10-17T05:52:00.000-07:00

Upon the call to pull together an animated video promo for Biz, I started on some artwork in how I envisioned the look. I had thought of the cartoon Bebe's Kids, and also, some of the Fat Albert characters. Here's some art that was prepared for the first proposal.

Flyers Part 2

2011-10-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

Adobe MAX 2011 - Photoshop Image Deblurring sneak

2011-10-11T10:46:00.001-07:00

Check it out:

ZEUS

2011-10-10T05:35:00.000-07:00

For the past 20 years, London artist Zeus has been drawing inspiration from urban culture to create dynamic, experimental compositions that have re-defined graffiti art. Captivated by the hip-hop scene of the 80s, he began expressing his creative talents on the street when he was just 14, using walls, trains, and open spaces as his galleries.

Since then Zeus has continually pushed the boundaries of graffiti artistry, taking the form out of its traditional setting and into new, exciting and more legitimate places. His latest works represents an innovative fusion of graffiti techniques and typography, fine art and sculpture and reflect both his background on the streets and his formal training at Chelsea College of Art.

1985 Vol. 4 Page 8

2011-10-06T09:12:00.000-07:00

Ive been devoting some late night hours to progressing on pencils. Trying to stick by my 1 page every 2 days. Let s see how it turns out. The biggest fear I always seem to have is everything tends to seem rushed. But its the choice between rushed pencils, or never getting book finished.

This Amazing Printer IS Literally Too Good To Be True!

2011-10-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

A layout program, image printer all wrapped up in one? Probably not right now, but defenitley in the development stages. All we have now is this cool animated promo they've put together:

SWYP: See What You Print from Artefact on Vimeo.

Miami Man

2011-10-02T05:20:00.000-07:00

This was a character that was dreamed up a while back, based on my fascination with Miami Bass/Lowered Truck culture. I really started with this animatic below.

From there, I actually dreamed up a soundtrack, and worked with a friend of mine on a short script, and built out this 'intro' below. The whole story seemed to center around his 'hair', so we dreamed up a roster of characters based on that (Jerry Curl, Liberty Spike..etc). Pretty goofy stuff but a lot of fun.

Slow Death Funnies

2011-09-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

A couple of copies of this were lying around the office, and I never knew the story behind this title. Apparently, this was the first official publication from Last Gasp, who ended up being one of the larger underground publishers in the states. This book was started as a promo for one of the first enviromental centers up in Berkeley back in 1970. When the publisher, Ron Turner, had 20,000 copies left over that he couldn't give away, he decided to sell them in stores, and thus, the Last Gasp story began.

A slew of artists and writes made there way through the series, the likes of Gilbert Shelton, Jack Jackson and Ben Dicaprio (yeah, THAT DiCaprio). The series petered out in the late 70's, early 80's, the company would go on the publish some of the best underground titles since and remain on of the biggest independent publishers around.

Pixar's La Luna

2011-09-27T09:26:00.001-07:00

Ottawa Animation Festival 2011

2011-09-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

Some images attached from the Fest. Had a great time,and Ottawa was a great town! Was in town for maybe a total of 60 hours all together, but had a chance to check out about 3 screening, namely, the Shorts Competition.

Umbra, from the short film contest, had to be one of my favorites. A strange, simple, hand drwan animation, dealing with perception, really struck me.

Carpates Express was another interesting short from the student animation screening. While not too coherent on story, the design of this piece was great, and highlighted the importance of design of animation, over movement.

Saturday evening was the 'Hip Hop and Comic Book' panel, which I was part of. It was moderated by Canadian Rapper 'Jesse Dangerously' and featured myself, Monkmus, and Eric Calderon. Notable Monkmus, since I ve been a fan of his for years. A turly gifted guy. The panel went well, and the moderartion was a bit sporadic, but, in all it was great experience.

Sex Pistols- Silly Thing

2011-09-26T02:26:00.000-07:00

This is a clip from the Great Rock n Roll Swindle. Im not sure who did the animation but it reminds me of how much money Malcolm McLaren spent to get that film made!

Ottawa Animation Festival

2011-09-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

I'm heading off to Ottawa Canada for 2 days this weekend. It's a really quick trip (tough getting time off of work). There's an animation festival happening there, and Ive been asked to speak(!!!). I'm not sure what this entails, but it might be in front of 3 people. I'll be posting from the event, and try to include as much footage and imagery as possible!

The panel is called Ink and Colour: Cartoons and Comic Books in Hip Hop Culture

at the Museum of Civilization. Not sure what to expect, but, I'm very excited and it should be interesting.

Longboarding

2011-09-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

Propaganda

2011-09-12T07:37:00.000-07:00

The history of Public Relations and it's godfather 'Edward Bernays' have long fascinated me. Bernays was one of the first to utilize psychology(much of it from his uncle, Sigmund Freud) and work it into extensive campaigns for various clients. All the way from The White House to Proctor & Gamble.

He's credited at being the man who modified the idea of creating a consumer class. This was based on the belief that man was basically a savage that responded to primitive drives rather than intellect, and that the only way of truly managing society was to 'manufacture consent. He helped Herbert Hoover coin the term 'Happy Spending Machines'. Some of his notable campaigns are:

Working with the pork industry to create the 'Bacon & Egg' breakfast as the true American breakfast.

Helping the American Tobacco Company incraese their market to women by staging 'Liberty Torch' marches in New York City, as to make cigarettes a symbol of equality

His campaign for the United Fruit Company led to the overthrow of the Guatemalan Government in 1954
While a lot of his work was controversial, there's no doubt that modern firms such as Hill & Knowlton and Rendon Group would never have had the insight into modern PR if it weren't for him. So much of his work spanned advertising (which is how I became aware of him) and led into actual domestic and foreign policy making.

BBC did a great series about this called 'Century Of Self" Check it out here.

Photo Lettering!

2011-09-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

The fine folks at House Industries have developed a great new way to preview the type faces they release. Check it out over here:

Hired Killer 4

2011-09-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

Explosions! That's what's been consuming my late nights. Not how to illlustrate one, or even animate one properly, but create one that looks as though it's a collage. But at the same time follow the same principles an actual explosion has. It's a challenge, but at least an intresting one.

Finalizing up the last few shots of this, and then comes the hard part. Take all of these shots I've spent the last 2 months making and string them into something interesting to look at for 2 minutes....

Animated Soda Ad

2011-09-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

A local company called BUCK produced this, and did a great job mimic-ing 2D animation with what looks like some sort of motion-capture (I could be wrong about this).

Anyways, the results were great, here's some shots.

Hired Killer 3

2011-09-01T01:02:00.000-07:00

Almost coming to 1:40 minutes of finished motion/animation with this (not bad considering the whole piece clocks at 2:35). Ive broken these into 6 pieces, each being 20 seconds of animation. To put them into one big composition would've been a nightmare, considering even some of the 20 second pieces can't even render all the way through due to lack of memory (something I'll need tackle eventually).

Once all six compositions are completed, I plan to render out all six, and comp them together along with the audio for the final cut. It won't be the most flexible (if one particular part needs to be adjusted, I'll have to go back to original composition), but, hopefully, it'll all come together.

The main issue still is sheer size of all of the assets. Making a video HD, and having deep zoom shots, requires source PhotoShop files that are gigantic...

Syrian Humor

2011-08-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

Amidst the change and turmoil THAT country is going through, some artists are managing to editorialize:

The Red People

2011-08-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

The last time I was in Santa Cruz, I drove past the 'Red People' house on Mission Street. It's the place where followers of the Osho, Bagwhan Rajneesh lived. It was across the street from my Junior High, and we'd see them coming and going all day.

If you saw a group of folks wearing red outfits around town, in the days before gangs caught on, it usually meant they belonged to the Osho group. They would go onto form a giant commune in Oregon, and come under investigation for bio-terrorism, for poisoning salad bars in the area

I was inspired to work it into 1985 somehow, so, I put together this illustration of one of those encounters. Plus, the photo of the actual house now, which is a law office of some kind:

Brightwell

2011-08-29T10:55:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine is opening a shop in Silverlake catering to fine mens products and the like. I offered up to paint his sign for him, and it ended up being quite the adventure. I ended up NOT painting and actually used vinyl for the letters instead. I also reminded myself that I'd never done a vinyl sign before, so, I didnt forsee the pitfalls:

Applying vinyl to a window proved to somewhat disastarous. The first time, I tried to apply the entire sheet on the window, and the vinyl ended up buckling and forming air pockets. Big time amateur move. Putting vinyl on a window is more like applying tinting to a window. Very delicate and loose.

I opted instead to attempt apply the vinyl in pieces (one for each letter). This went a little easier, but I ended up running out of room, and ran into the edge of the window. One a 3rd attempt I spaced the pieces correctly and got them all on the window.

With that painful and arduous process over, I then did the 'transfer' of the image onto the vinyl. That went ok, I juts had to make sure the letters didnt overlap, and each letter stayed on it's designated piece of vinyl. This way a letter wouldn't stretch onto a separate piece.

Finally the letters are on the actual vinyl, and I can juts cut with the exacto blade. This was after 3 hours, and was relieved to have this done. Though my head was a bit loopy at that point from the heat.

As the letters peeled, it started to come together, aside from a few glitches on the round parts (the G was the toughest). But nevertheless, it's a classy store and I knew it needed to be a classy sign.

If you're in the Silverlake area, amke sure you stop on by and check the shop out. And say hi to Eric!

Brightwell

2876 Rowena Ave
Los Angeles , CA 90039

Monomania

2011-08-25T01:58:00.000-07:00

This was one of the first signs I was commissioned to do. I was interning at a sign shop at the time, and got a chance to put this one together myself. It was for a boutique in downtown San Jose that I'd made bus. cards and business materials for. The sign shop let me use all their tools including an overhead projector which let me project the design onto the boards, and paint.

Installation was interesting, but, got it up with no problems.

Hired Killer 2

2011-08-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

The project is coming along nicely, and new ideas keep popping into my head all the time. It's about 70% there, but a problem I keep running into is processor strain. It goes to show, no matter how powerful a machine you have, you'll push it to the limit as soon as you can.

This one involves large, multi-plane imagery, that's panning and zooming at different rates. Lots of tweaking and jiggerring of artwork. The possiblities with this sort of thing are endless, as there's an endless sea of imagery out there, most of which I bought or took myself around town or using friends as models.

MIT Media Lab's New Logo

2011-08-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

And it has Has 40,000 Permutations!!

MIT Media Lab Identity, 2011

via Surfstation!

Memoirs of Quaddafi

2011-08-22T07:48:00.000-07:00

With the insane, lightning fast change that 's sweeping through North Africa, Libya's Quaddafi has to be one of the more notably infamous. And he seems to have inspired some great caricatures. Check these out:

Title Design 101

2011-08-19T08:11:00.000-07:00

I just came across this tribute of sorts, a websitededicated to the art of Title Design. God knows I've listed plenty of examples on here, but this seems to be the end-all resource for this type of thing.

Check out some of these classics, and they just keep getting better and better:

This Is England (2006)

Sita Sings The Blues (2007)

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Team Extreme Part 3

2011-08-17T07:52:00.000-07:00

By now the shoot was 2 weeks in, with a total of 6 weeks allotted. On some of the key days, I made sure I was there for the entire day. The crew was mostly pretty seasoned, it turned out the DP had just wrapped working camera for one of the Mummy movies. We were total amateurs, and it doesnt take long for the pros to figure that out. Things got a lot more tense as tempers started to flare, romances started to happen on set, and certain keyshots ended up not happening. By this time, Jeff was happy with whatever he could get on camera.

After shooting ended, which also happened to coincide with some of the hottest heat wave days the city had had in a while, we set out to start on post. We were excited about this part, as, it didnt require herding cats so much, and was something we felt a little more adept to. We decided to make an somewhat animated title sequence, along with some interstitials.

At about this point, I had just gotten another video job, that looking back, I probably should have turned down. It was the perfect example how agreeing to do consecutive projects ends up just hurting both.

We cut the entire movie together and were ready to deliver it to FUEL. By now, we couldnt even watch the thing, and, it turned out looking a bit mor amateur than we'd hoped, but looking back, we pulled off a complete feature length with a small amount of money, and ended up getting to take it to Sundance that January (even if it did play in a very small theater). A short cut can be seen here:

Too Much Pleasure

2011-08-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

New animated intro for an upcoming Cut Chemist project. Still tweaking this guy, but, simple, fun stuff

Japanese Letters

2011-08-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

This was a mini production Tosh (Cansr) and I did way back 1993. He just sent the actual sketches we'd used. Who knew that this one would change everything :

Zines!

2011-08-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

Can't say enough about them, and I've always had a penchant for picking up someones zine in just about every town I've traveled to. Got some great ones in the collection, and even some that have gone on to become bonified regular publications (Rockrgirl, Big Time, etc.) I heard a theory that blogs are the new zines, and I'm thinking I might halfway agree with that.

Some of the more notables are listed below:

Dishwasher- 'Dishwasher Pete's' account of holding dishwashing jobs in all 50 states:

Punk- This was published back in 1974, and is credited as coining the term 'Punk' for the young genre at the time. Legs McNeil and John Holstrom published this 4 times a year, and featured interviews, reviews, cartoons, photos. This issue I own even has a 'Deborah Harry' centerfold (clothed...).

IGT Magazine- Though Ive written this up on these blog pages, I still find myself amazed at this one. For myself, this was one of the first graffiti magazines I'd ever come across. The format was like a newspaper, full color cover, inserts, and featured awesome pics mostly from Vulcan and Phase II's collection. If you can get past some of the well intentioned rantings printed, this was a true piece of art.

Fresh! Magazine This one holds a place in my heart as it's one of the original Santa Cruz zines. And being in the spirit of Santa Cruz productivity, the magazine took 4 YEARS to make. That wins the award of laziest publishers on Earth! Funny articles, reviews, write-ups and the like.

1985 Vol. 4 Page 7 1/2

2011-08-09T09:26:00.000-07:00

About midway through this guy. Coming along slo-w-ly

Taste It by Ronda (Argentina)

2011-08-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

taste it from Ronda on Vimeo.

Terry Gilliam's Do It Yourself Animation Show!!

2011-08-05T15:08:00.001-07:00

Team Extreme Part 2

2011-08-04T08:22:00.000-07:00

By June we'd finished getting the cast together. So far, we had, about a 20 person crew, half of which were working for next to nothing. Most of the actors were pretty new, with a few seasoned veterans who just wanted to work on something 'small'. I had hired an Art Director, and we started to put together a list of props. The story involved police, so we needed to rent 'cop props'. One spot waaay out tin the valley had just about everything needed for a full scale invasion, including AK-47's, bazooka, small tanks..you name it.

Out trip to the Universal Prop House was about as close to surreal as the project would get. Imagine a 5 story thrift store that had everything. With our tedious list of props almost ready to go, day 1 of the shoot was here. I was working a full-time job at the time, so I was limited to weekend shoots, with an occasional weekday visit on set.

The biggest irony of all was the Producer we'd hired to oversee the movie was also my boss at work. He didnt seem to mind me taking impromptu days off. I'd been there the first day of shooting to see that we were right under the flight path of a nearby airpot. Almost every shot we too that day had airplane sounds in the back. The shoot was off to an exhaustive start. (cont.)

Sketchbook 4

2011-08-03T06:02:00.000-07:00

Some more sketchbook examples. Some of these are reach back to about 10 years! A great thing about having one of these is to give yourself a chance to draw things and subjects you normally never would, (as demonstrated below!)

Hired Killer 1

2011-08-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

The majority of this project so far has involved compositing in one way or another. Taking dozens of disparate elements and trying to give them a 'same world' look. Mostly tweaking light source. It can be a challenge and somewhat frustrating, but, often times you can get some unexpected results.

The latest piece of animation is involving 'train smoke' that has 'collage' style patterns inside of it:

Eggs Paint & Chaos 2

2011-08-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

I came across a few more pages of an old comic I put together as a youngster some time ago. It was one of my first attempts at a complete comic (this one was 25 pages), and it was a bit of a learning experience.

The story is silly and a bit incoherent, but, it gave my hands some very much needed practice:

The Legend Of Korra

2011-07-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

Avatar: The Last Airbender was a very successful anime-inspired seies for Nickelodeon. Unfortunately the franchise took a hit last year with the M. Night Shyamalan live action feature. Undeterred, Avatar creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are supervising 26 episodes of a new spin-off limited series, The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra, which is scheduled to debut next year. Last week at Comic Con Nick released this first taste:

Thanks to Cartoon Brew:

Maurice Binder

2011-07-27T02:12:00.000-07:00

One of the unsung heroes of 'Title Design' (before it was even considered noteworthy) was Maurice Binder. Like Saul Bass and Pablo Ferro, he belonged to small group of people who made the title sequences to films.

Maurice was asked to create a 'modern' montage of sorts for the upcoming 'James Bond' movie 'Dr. No in 1961. Little did he know how iconic that opening couple of seconds would become. He went on to design the sequences on all of the Bond films, all the way until 'View To A Kill' (or, when the movies started to suck).

Comic-Con 2011

2011-07-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, another year of insanity and nerd-dom in San Diego! It MIGHT have been slightly less crowded than previous years, but, that didn't stop 100,000 guests from attending! All sorts of sights to behold at this one, plus the regular haggling for old 50-60's comics and random finds. Still on the waiting list for the 1985 booth, but, it's always interesting to see what people come up with, and build some ideas for when the times comes.

Copyright Infringment®

2011-07-18T08:32:00.000-07:00

A while ago I got slapped with an Infringement Notice sent by Warner Music. The dispute was that a music video I'd created for an artist was illegally using the music . This seemed like a strange issue considering I've always thought of the music videos I've created as being mere ads for the artists themselves, who's purpose is to sell records.

This Infringement Notice notice gave me a few options. I could a). Take the clip down. b). I could challenge it with Warners Lawyers (not the recommended option.) c). Or, have the option to manually on YouTube, switch out the audio track, and keep the video up. I chose option "C" and picked, of all things, a spiritual Norma Fraser track.

The artist wasn't very happy about this, and contacted me right away, wondering what happened. He went through the channels at Warner Music and got it settled.

This got me thinking, what on earth is Warner Music doing? They just made the video into a Norma Fraser music video, that isnt even on their label. It goes to show how the large music companies just don't get it. It almost seems like they're analog radio enthusiasts showing up at a cable television conference. After the whole incident, I finally got the idea that there are no more artists in these companies. Warner Music is pretty much a building filled with lawyers.

Bay Bronx Bridge

2011-07-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

This was originally intended as art for the 12" single release of the track, from the Masters of Illusion LP (2000). The inspiration from this came from the 'Sleeping Bag' singles done by GNOME CWK. The art was clearly graffiti inspired with a heavy dose of anime style characters, which at the time, were like nothing I'd ever seen.

The GNOME art was made using markers, and airbrush. The result was unique and made the LP covers look like pages out of someones blackbook.

Team Extreme Part 1

2011-07-13T03:04:00.000-07:00

In late 2004,a friend Jeff Burkett and I put together a one sheet pitch for a contest on FUEL TV. The contest was for an 'extreme sports' based feature/ or documentary film. The winner would then get a modest budget to create the film they pitched.

A few months later, a co-worker of ours (IFILM) mentioned that she'd read that Jeff and I were among of the finalists. The contest granted 10 finalists a modest budget to make their film and show it at Sundance Festival. The winner within those final 10 films would then get 1 million dollars to make their film for wide release.

Upon finding this out, and being surprised when we received our first check from FUEL, we set out to get started. Jeff by now had quit his job, and was slated to write the final screenplay. I'd suggested that he direct as well, and I'd stick to Art Direction/ Production Design duties. We assembled a crew, and got started.

The story we'd written was about a cop who patrolled on roller skates. A simple enough premise, but, we had to come up with a caper, as well as a host of characters. The setting would be Venice Beach, and after the final script was written, we started casting. Finding actors who suited the characters on the page was entirely different matter. I never figured how tough it'd be. The main character, Calvin Castleberry, was to have been a famous roller skater back in the 1970's. Jeff and I would explain the he wasn't 'roller disco', in fact , we'd say, Calvin hated disco in the 1970's, and was much more akin to The Eagles or Bread.

We finally found our lead, and started drafting up a schedule. By now the crew was at about 20 of us, and we we're looking at a summer 2005 shoot (cont).

1985 Vol #4 Page 5

2011-07-11T08:56:00.001-07:00

Detective Thornsbury

2011-07-08T07:37:00.000-07:00

I just uncovered this short lived series of comics I'd sketched up around the time of my 10th birthday. I'm not sure what the inspiration was, but, it looks to have a bit of James Bond influence with some sort of a caper plot added. Sad to say, the Detective Thornsbury series didnt make it past 6 pages.

Bay Bronx Bridge

2011-07-07T05:58:00.000-07:00

A cover for a Masters Of Illusion single that went unused. Turned out, the artwork didnt get finished in time, so, this ended up becoming a birthday gift for the artist!

Big inspiration here from the 'Kev' artwork on the Ultimate Breaks and Beats series.

Genius Of Love

2011-07-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

1985 Sticker - Update

2011-06-29T11:40:00.001-07:00

Freights!

2011-06-29T01:01:00.000-07:00

On a recent road trip, we passed a series of parked freight cars, over by Camp Roberts on HWY 101.

It brought back old memories as I was once one of these culprits who adorned train cars with such scribbling (but, yes, always felt a bit bad about it!).

Tempt One

2011-06-27T01:45:00.000-07:00

I first met Tony Quan about 18 years ago after seeing his art around town. He was a student at UCSC where I grew up in Santa Cruz. His stuff would pop up, and, the quality of the work was amazingly clean. Almost as if it'd been painted by a sign maker:

It turned out he was one of the original Los Angeles graffiti artists who'd started back in the early 80's. He belonged to a crew named STN (Stomping The Nation), and had a vast knowledge of graffiti and street art. I finally met him at a party, and, went on to tell me how he was a 'bomber'. In other words , a graffiti artist who's intention was to get his name everywhere.

The more of his work I saw, the more I noticed that, while having great letters and outlines, his 'fill' techniques were like nothing I'd ever seen before. He would employ methods of 'misting' paints together while painting and even go as far as create his own custom colors mixing the paint in the cans. The local kids even tried to copy his stuff, which pale in comparison.

Original

Copy

Tony has since been stricken with an illness that keeps him pretty stationary and doesnt allow him to paint much anymore. While there've been fund raisers and the like for him, he still fights on day to day. He's been working with technological means in which to able him to paint again, and, hopefully soon I'll be able to post some of his new work.

Flip Book™

2011-06-24T05:10:00.000-07:00

One of my first introductions to the science of animation was this flip book I bought when I was about 7-8 years old. I'm not sure with whose credited with creating this art, but, I think by the time this came out, Disney had one of their 'animation army' put this together. I originally held some hope that maybe this was some Milt Kahl artwork.

“Cars 2″ is Already a Hit Whether You Like the Film Or Not

2011-06-23T08:55:00.000-07:00

(via Cartoon Brew) An article in Monday’s Wall Street Journal deemed Cars 2 a Hit Already—in Stores. The article made it clear that the franchise earns an obscene amount of money for Pixar’s parent company, Disney, and that basically means they’re going to continue making sequels and spin-offs until the cows come home (or until kids stop buying crap related to the film, whichever comes first).
Below are some of the key facts and financial figures from the WSJ piece:

North Korea's Comics

2011-06-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

Recently caught these from a Slate article. Pretty interesting stuff, and a sad peek into that torn countries isolation. The comics hero is Gen. Mighty Wing, who pops up in most of them, and is a true son of the People Republic.

Korean comics were printed on the cheapest of all recycled paper stock—"shit paper"—and yet they were still were too expensive for a typical person to buy. Most stories were printed in multivolume sets of a dozen or so, or at least in ha (low) and sang (high) sets designating part 1 and part 2. The ink used for the interior printing was probably recycled from the mixed waste of colored inks from other press runs—it was never quite black, but usually a shade of blue ranging from a dark navy to a baby blue.

Nineteen Eighty Five #4- Thumbnails

2011-06-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

Thumbnails of a couple pages. This stage involves translating the script to shorthand/ thumbnail form. This helps pace the scenes and give a blueprint of how much to dwell on a scene or allow more or less page space. Once this set is finished, the pencils to page start.

Mike Mills- Beginners

2011-06-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

The new Mike Mills movie, Beginners involves a young illustrator (Ewan McGregor), whose mother has recently died. His father (Christopher Plummer) decides to come out of the closet as a result. Haven't seen the movie yet, but, hear it's gotten great reviews.

I recently checked out the illustration exhibit Mike had at the Los Angeles book store 'Family'. Ewan McGregor's character is somewhat based on Mike (an illustrator/ Filmmaker), and Mike as displaying all of the illustrations he'd created for the movie: Check em out.

Wheels

2011-06-17T04:07:00.000-07:00

During my tenure at NHS (Santa Cruz Skateboards, Snowboards, Independent, etc) I worked on a ton of hard and soft goods. Most of it sadly was given away or made into gifts. There's about 2 dozen skateboards, but also a bunch of wheels that were designed. Some were one-off's that were just a name on paper, that a graphic had to be created for (like "Scapegoats"). These were fun little projects to come up with:

Also, some of these belonged to a series, or, ongoing theme that we'd come up with. This particular series 'Wild Hares' were a great project in that each set we'd release would continue the 'story' of the character.

Rough Designs

2011-06-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

There's a few music video projects in the works, in particularly an animated one that's letting me revisit some old Flash and hand drawn techniques. Atill doing a bit of the back n forth dance on approvals but here's some of what's been drafted so far:

Gullivers Travels

2011-06-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

Some pretty amazing photos have been floating around recently. These are of a dormant theme park outside of Tokyo called Sleepy Town. The park has a Gullivers Travels theme, complete with a gigantic Gulliver. Since it's closing it's been overrun by wear and vandalism: