Fingertips

This is a trailer for a show at Dad's Garage called Fingertips. This is pretty much the first major animated thing I have done so far and though it is pretty "dinky" as I like to say, it still has a charm that I'm happy with. I also did the music, which is just as dinky. Below is the poster for the show that I illustrated.

Human Nature

In this day and age when it might seem silly to pay so much attention to the passing of a celebrity when there is so much other more pressing and important world issues, I still can't help but feel sad about the passing of Michael Jackson. Like many people my age, he was an important part of my childhood. I was obsessed with him. The above picture was taken in 1989 and I wanted to be him for Halloween. I was sick as a dog and my mom tried desperately to get my hair in gerry curl(and failed triumphantly, as illustrated by my bowl cut.) I would perform Dirty Diana, based on the video concert footage, for my neighbors at my parents request. I saw him in concert in 1988, when my sister bought me tickets to his concert for my birthday. I still have the giant, full color, embossed ticket and the t-shirt from the concert.

It was supposed to be just me and my sister but my parents bought tickets as well just so we would be safe. We tailgated for hours before the concert and it was awesome. We didn't have the best seats, but it was still amazing. Kim Wilde opened for him. My other sister mailed me a tape of Off The Wall when I told her how much I loved Michael Jackson, and I listened to it constantly. Human Nature was my theme song for awhile. It's easy to be ironic about his passing and make silly jokes, but the truth is I got really down about it. The 8 year old in me would be inconsolable. So it is a weird feeling when a hero of your childhood dies. I know I wont feel this way when David Justice dies(yes, I know, Dave Justice, get over it), or when Spielberg dies, based on his age. Typing in the date when the above picture of me was taken shocked me a little at how 20 years has passed. I think I'm more sad about a part of me being a kid has really taken a hit. But it was also a part of the lengths my family went to to do cool things for me. So today has made me sad. Or maybe it's just the wine.

Hardy Arty

XXX

A little over a month ago I participated in a little animation project sponsored by ASIFA Atlanta where a handful of artists sat down and animated something for a couple hours or minutes or whatever and then all the animations were strung together to make a little short. I drew about 60 or so frames for a very rudimentary animation. After seeing it it reminded of what Walt Disney must have felt like after seeing Steamboat Willy for the first time. Just replace Mickey Mouse with Beard Man and his Steamboat with a bottle of Moonshine and I think this is about the same thing. My section starts the animation. My friend Jean also participated and his section involves a little man swallowing a bug and getting electrocuted. 

Tiger Pancakes!

When I was little one of my favorite books was Little Black Sambo. It is now pretty much out of print and banned everywhere because of its title and some versions of the book had reeeaaaalllly racist caricatures. The version I had was nothing like this and featured characters with more traditional Indian features. It is such a great little story though. The one thing I loved so much about it is that at the end these tigers run around a tree that Sambo has crawled up and they run so fast around it that they turn to butter. Sambo's mother then makes pancakes out of the tiger butter and they are orange with black stripes across them. I always wanted to eat tiger pancakes. So Amanda made me some tiger pancakes, out of acrylic on canvas.

Here is an illustration from the book I had:

Family Circus

From time to time I design and illustrate posters and flyers for local events. Here is the latest "contracted" work that I did. It's for Scandal at Dad's Garage. So far, I have designed 3 posters for various shows at Dad's Garage and I hope to continue doing it. Before I knew anyone at Dad's Garage, I always wanted to be involved in some way and since I don't do improv or act(act well anyway), I figured I wouldn't be able to contribute to what they do. Now, I am friends with a great deal of the people there and have weaseled my way into drawing stuff for them, so that's pretty neat.

Here's another one I did for them:

If you have seen the original poster for Blood Car, I used the same blood splat for this poster. I have actually used that blood splat for multiple things, but Blood Car was the first.

Another poster I did recently was for the Catch 23 Comedy Deathmatch, that my friend Rene organizes. Even though it only took about an hour to do, I still really like it. I am working on another one for the May show.

The main thing I am concentrating on right now is a short film I am making. It is animated, which I have never done before, but I am really excited about it. It's the first time I am combining two things that I really enjoy doing. It is still in the early stages, but so far I am very confident that it is gonna be pretty cool. Here is a still of some of the test footage:

I will probably be using this space to update my progress with the short as well as share stuff I have learned about animation in future posts, so hopefully that will be interesting.

Jack Cardiff Is Dead

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