RIP Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs has died. He changed the world. Think Different.

Pigeon: Impossible

A curious pigeon gets trapped inside his multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase. Walter Beckett, rookie secret agent must figure out what to do. The music may have a lot to do with it, but this one seems self-consciously influenced by the Incredibles.

End of File.

It does not happen often, still sometimes one thing or another happens and I lose power on my computer in the middle of painting.

Like tonight.

Oh, The file icon is still there, but when I try to open it I get an "unexpected end-of-file" message.

The art I worked so hard on, simply ceases to exist. As though it were one of the paintings I have worked on in my dreams. (Yes, there have been many of those as well.)

Alma

A scary little "Twilight Zone" sort of short film. Perfect for the month of October. Scary,... like a doll's eyes.

John K. Couch Gag.

Seen last night....John Kricfalusi, of "Ren and Stimpy" fame created this opening for the Simpson's in his extreme style. John K. believes in funny drawings and rarely sticks to a model sheet, if it gets in the way of being funny. He has influenced an entire generation of animators, and many of the best modern cartoons feature a very watered down reflection of his style. 

Meet Buck

Bad enough when your girlfriend's Daddy has a gun. Worse still when he's a game hunter, and you're the game. I really like the inventive style of this short. It's 3d, but every frame looks like a painting.

Grave Digger: Old School Art

This is a good one to start October with. A long time ago I used to design T-shirts. 

I used seven different screens to create this design. I had to draw each color screen, in gray pencil, as a negative, on a separate vellum overlay, then shoot 14 x 17 halftone photos of each, on a camera the size of a refrigerator. These giant transparent films were then chemically developed by hand in a darkroom, before being used to expose the emulsion on the actual polyester "silk" screens.

 It was a labor intensive, technically demanding skill, now made obsolete by computers.