Cut Chemist- 'Spat' (2005) Part 1

Once upon a time I submitted an idea for a Jurassic 5 video. It was a Schoolhouse Rock/Rap educational video , and I'd sketched all the guys out. I got no response, but a year or so later, a mutual friend introduced me to Lucas McFadden (Cut Chemist) who was looking for a video for his upcoming album.

He had the idea to have two 'turntable people' having an argument, as the song itself was an instrumental, with scratched noises and exclamations. I came up with a bit of a treatment and animatic, including the two characters, but involving a lot of arbitrary animated elements and scenes, that would offer up a 'jazz' sort of approach. Luke was pretty adamant to sticking to just the two characters on screen. We met halfway, by allowing me to keep some of these elements at the beginning of the video.

Settling on a character design for the Turntable Guy was a whole different matter. Luke submitted a design (upper left), and I'd come back with something a bit more streamlined, and 'animatable'(middle). We went back and forth on this for a while until other projects came up, and Luke wasn't happy with the designs thus far. We'd decided to stop the project...(continued).

Making It Rain

A current project has me adding some rain to otherwise sunny exterior shots. A bit of a challenge, as, rain and fire are 2 of the hardest elements to animate.

This one...

Probably needs no introduction. This came from the development drawer.

Joshua Hoffine

A series of great actual art-directed photos, using no digital effects, are making the rounds. Joshua is a photographer from Kansas City, who speciallizes in the especially macabre. Check out HERE for more.

Figurine art

An upcoming project has me rendering a 3D version of notable performer. Pretty interesting, as I'll be taking initial skecthes and transferring them into actual 3D schematics. Sort of like a virtual sculpture.

Layouts

One of my favorite subjects to feature on this blog , and in general as well, is a good rough layout. For me, that's where you see the finished piece starting to come together, and even sometimes, just wish it would stay at that 'rough stage'.

Herge


I know, especially since my foray into the graphic novel realm, seeing my pencils get inked can be disheartening. Seeing all of those rough sketches and doodles and lines, reveal the train of thought that goes into any piece, all to be rubbed away forever when the final inks are put on paper.

Chris Ware

But, with the beauty of the digital age we can marvel at some of these roughs in all of their glory. Here's some of my favorites I've picked up along the way:

Terry Gilliam

Scratchy Seal's Rescue

About 8 years ago, I produced a show called Hip Hop Massive, and, on a weekly basis, we updated a website full of content. Everything from interviews, to mixes, anything relating to a weekly guest.



We had DJ QBert on one week, and, we knew he was a huge Atari fan, so, I put together a Flash game for him based on his mascot, Scratchy Seal (a seal puppet he wears on his hand which should demonstrate his insane silliness). So, I layed out a few 2600 style, 8-Bit, frames of artwork, and rigged some simple coding, and was left with this.

James

BTW there are 3 levels to this game. Whoever out there can get past the third level (and send me a screenshot), a free Simpsons Season 10 DVD will be yours.