If You're In The Los Angeles Area...

And free tomorrow night, a few of us will be DJ ing at the Hyperion Tavern in Silverlake. The night will be headlined by none other than Team Scrub!

Should be fun!

In the works...

Meet Fred

This was a promo for IFILM that we drummed up in 06. It feature s a 'User' named Fred (played by the legendary Ed Wood*). It was an instructional animation demosntrating the video sites new 'upload' feature.



The animation of 'Fred' is made up of series of still images we took. We didnt use video being that we wanted to keep the jittery look of old educational footage.

*Not relation to the b-movie director.

Kid Robot

About a year and a half ago, I found out that Kid Robot was planning to make an action figure out of the Doom character featured in 'All Caps' It was a surreal project, but, great to see something become 3 dimensional. I submitted some schematics of the character. Kind of like a 3-D turnaround.

I designed a box for them, and, 6 months later , saw the finished product. I was pretty pleased, though, I wish the figure would have done a little more. And, having the Madlib side case would have put it over the top. But, the figure was well rendered, and has since sold out, though. Some can be found on eBay.

Mike Hollingsworth

Another classic from the genuis known as Mike Hollingsworth.

Just cause...

I can't get enough of looking at this guys stuff. The master Herge from 'Prisoners Of The Sun'.

MUTO: An Ambiguous Animation Painted On Walls

Great animation here, though the the method here had a bit more to do with After Effects than breaking the law:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Danger Doom

In 2005 I was asked to create a video for an upcoming Danger Mouse/ MF Doom collaboration. The project was called Danger Doom, and was being released by Epitaph Records with a partnership from Cartoon Network. The record was also going to feature the cast of Aqua Teen Hunger Force from Adult Swim, CN's late night show lineup.

The project had a huge budget, but, no time. We had all of 5 weeks to make it happen. To add to the pressure, every bus bench in town was plastered with ads for the new record. We scheduled a meeting with some of the folks from the network, along with Brian Burton, who was producing the record. I showed up with just these two drawings, and we got the go ahead to start.

The results weren't too hot due to the quick tunraround, but they were happy, and it made the rounds for a bit.

I've since had the video up on YouTube, but, got asked to take it down a few weeks ago by Epitaph. Some kid has put it back up since here.

Bubbles 2

Now that bubbles are set up, now comes the time to fill them in with words. It's at once a thrill to see the script laid out in actual graphic form, and also daunting to see how short some of the conversations are, that, on the printed page seem much more in depth.

The font in use here is called Aside Bold. After a lot of searching and combing through the numerous fonts available through the publisher, this was the only one that resembled that hand written look.

Faith Of Graffiti

This book came out in 1972, and was the first publication to focus solely on graffiti which at the time was a new New York phenomenon. People didn't know what to make of it at first, though most found it unsightly. The New York Times even ran a mock graffiti contest.

The Faith Of Graffiti consisted mainly of photos taken around the city. Sights especially covered with graffiti. The only narrative is a 20 page middle section by Norman Mailer, offering up a sympathetic intellectual view of graffiti. I found the book while I was just starting to paint myself, and every now and then, come across some copies on Amazon and Ebay.

Design™ Markers

I came across a pretty big collection of these while I was in school. They're pretty much watercolor illustration markers, which you see used a lot in concept art. Especially car and exterior design like these.

Some of my favorite concept artists like Syd Mead and Ralph McQuarrie used these from time to time amidst some airbrush and digital touches. With the rise of PhotoShop and Painter, these markers probably don't come in as handy, but they're still great for getting a unique watercolor look like this.

Page 18

Shown here in rough draft, penciled and finally inked. The inking of these has been interesting. I've been looking at a lot of Osamu Tezuka's stuff lately, to get inspired. I still consider him to one the most amazing artist/inkers.

Rough Page 18
This page involves Ason and G in the club called the Executive (I imagined it to be a sort of Disco Fever type club). This is where they spot Beary Rafferty. A large 400 pound, notorious character. In panel 2, the Ason character is scrubbing his sneaker with a toothbrush.

Final penciled Page 18

Final Inked Page 18

Quest Love's Sampling Lesson.

Leave it to ?uest Love from the Roots to put together the ultimate sample smorgasboard of a mix for BBC1 radio.

Check it out here!

Bubbles

I've been laying out the bubbles in Adobe Illustrator. Having EPS elements to work with makes this a lot easier than say PhotoShop. This way, I can just get the font ready, and start laying the script into the pages. Once the workflow gets established, it should be a matter of days till this is completed.

Ultimate Breaks

Back in the early 80's, a man named Lenny Flores came out with a series of LP's called Ultimate Breaks. They were bootleg compilations of various genres like Rock, Latin, Funk and Salsa. All of the music was heavily break laden. In other words songs popularized by the early hip hop DJ's that had a specific drum break in the middle that the DJ would extend, using two copies, into it's own song. You've probably heard most of the songs on those records sampled a thousand time by now, as, these records also brought the whole legality of sampling to the limelight.

I first remember seeing one of these in a dollar bin at a record store. The label just had a cartoon octopus on it, and the songs were written with a typewriter on the label. A few years later, the artwork was a little more elaborate, and they re-released them in a 25 volume series. Here's a mix that features some of the best of that series:

Ultimate Breaks Mix

Stream HERE

Download HERE

1 JB's-Doing It To The Death
2. Billy Squier- The Big Beat
3. Bob James - Nautilis
4. Cameo- Rigor Mortis
5. Cerrone- Rocket In The Pocket
6. Chuck Brown & The Sould Searchers- Ashleys Roach Clip
7. Esther Williams- Last Night Changed It All
8. Incredible Bongo Band- Apache
9. Labi Siffre- I Got The Blues
10. Melvin Bliss- Synthetic Substitution
11. One Way- Pussy Footer
12. Thin Lizzy- Johnny The Fox
13. Vaugn Mason- Rock, Skate, Roll, Bounce
14. Babe Ruth- The Mexican