A Blogle In Time

New Season, New Office, New Beginnings

2010-04-18T17:48:00.002-04:00

I'm the Art Director for the animated series, Archer, currently airing Thursdays on FX at 10 PM. The below is a brief glimpse into our process in making the show. You can read the earlier posts here.

NEW SEASON, NEW OFFICE, NEW BEGINNINGS

I've been on break for about a month, thus the no new posts in a while. Firstly and foremostly, if you've never been to Costa Rica, you should. Like, right now. Stop reading this. Jump on the first plane you can get and go decompress on the beach or in the jungle or by a waterfall or underwater volcano. It is beyond awesome.

Secondly, we have a brand spankin' new office. New gorgeous Wacoms. New Mac Mini's (which if this works like we believe it will, then this office should be a freakin' commercial for them.) New patio w/walking track to possibly use for 40 yd. dashes, of which I'm sure we will have plenty.

Thirdly, we have shuffled things around here a little, adding the unbelievably talented Jeff Fastner and Joe Peery to our preproduction team. New talent, new ideas, new dynamics.

We have one season's worth of lessons (re: mistakes) to build off of, to stand upon to move this show into a higher level. Tomorrow, the Illustration and Background departments load in, kicking this season into high gear. It is, to say the least, exciting, like the first day of school, but I have less hair and no new shoes to wear. Accidental rhymes aside, I am pumped.

Whereas I walked into the first season with eyes wide, filled with nervous anticipation, unsure of how the season would unfold, this time around, I am more confident in how this production will work, down to the last detail. It's a big ship, filled with problems and headaches and sleep deprived nights, but it's a ship I've sailed before. I can't wait.

Of course you won't see the fruits of our labors until 2011, but I'll try and drop a teaser image here and there when I can. In the meantime, you can look forward to posts on cinema theory, storyboarding technique and whatever else comes across my brain that I deem worth posting.

Neal

More bragging on Chad

2010-03-17T15:24:00.001-04:00

Above: Pencils and Inks by Chad Hurd. Cover colors by Daniel Cox. Graytones/letters by me.

I met Chad Hurd on the internet. Specifically, I saw Chad's work on Comic Space --a site that seems/feels totally weird now-- and contacted him about possibly doing some freelance work for me. This was way, way back in 2007. I wanted to do a project that wasn't owned by 70-30 Productions or Cartoon Network, one that was owned solely by me.

Love, Lust and a Giant Killer Turtle was that project. You get the general idea from the above, as foul-mouthed Lindsey Davenport meets her end at a giant turtle's beak. It was to be a Shaun of the Dead-esque horror/satire comic, with elements of summer camp movies and those terrible movies on the SyFy Channel. (Mansquito, anyone?)

Ultimately, the project didn't go anywhere (though we did have a brief stint on Zuda.) In hindsight, it could have been edited down to the above, much as it pains me to say it probably should have been in color and the language, while purposefully ill-fitting for a teenage girl, throws people off more than I expected. OR it could've been the entire subject/genre/idea. Regarldess, none of that was Chad's fault.

After doing some freelance work for us on Frisky Dingo, Chad and his wife made the big move from rural Maine all the way down to join us full time in Atlanta. On The Xtacles, Chad served as a character Illustrator, learning the ropes and adapting to a new style of drawing.

By the time we began work on Archer, Chad was already one of my go to guys, consistently turning in solid files. With fellow illustrators Sam Ellis and David Caicedo, the three of them drew every character file in the pilot.

Between the pilot and the production of the first season, we had around 4 months of waiting to see if FX was going to pick us up. During this period, Chad and I produced another comic pitch, this time with colorist Jeremy Treece.

We shopped it around, but the economy was in the shitter and once Archer was picked up, none of us really had the time to give it the attention it deserved. I still love this project.

Below: Cover by me. Pencils/Inks by Chad. Colors by Jeremy.
©Neal Holman and Chad Hurd.

The Walking Dead, animated

2010-03-15T13:21:00.003-04:00

I am not a zombie movie guy. The gore, the overacting... just never has been my thing. I get it. I understand it. If someone else is watching, I'll gladly watch with them. Shaun of the Dead is easily my favorite of the genre. It's just not typically my genre.

Zombie comics even less so. I get the appeal. Spider-Man as a zombie. Sure. Do I want to spend money on it? No. But others do and that's fine. I get it. Robert Kirkman's series, The Walking Dead, was put in front of me time and time again, and I always moved it to the back burner, a maybe I'll read this if I'm really, really, really bored kind of thing.

Then, one day, I was really, really, really bored. I read the first volume. Then, I read the second volume. Then, I was calling Mack to see if he had the rest of the trades. Because it is as awesome as everyone says it is. It's the zombie movie that has no ending, no "fix" or climax, just a slow burn with death being the only exit. The art is moody and unflinching, Tony Moore handling the initial run with Charlie Adlard carrying the series after issue #7.

Cut to: Heroes Con 2008.

Sam, Chad and I are all there, hanging out and buying way too much stuff. Sam Ellis knows 95% of the comics community. It's ridiculous. And a little impressive. Sam disappears for a solid hour. He returns carrying two giant bags of Kirkman loot. Invincible, The Walking Dead, Brit, etc. Kirkman it turns out, knew 70-30 Productions previous series Sealab 2021 and Frisky Dingo. He mentioned in passing that he might like to work with us on something.

Cut to: Car ride back to Atlanta.

Ideas, a million a minute fly around the car. The series we were currently working on, The Xtacles, was in trouble. This could be a back up plan. This could work. I keep going back to The Walking Dead. Black and white. Animated. 15 minutes of zombies, every Sunday night on Adult Swim. Built-in fanbase. This could totally work.

The plan: create a presentation for Kirkman, get him on board and then pitch Adult Swim tout suite.

Chad Hurd is an amazingly talented dude. He is now our Lead Character Designer on Archer. How amazing? The below is an Illustrator (i.e. animatable) design of Rick Grimes, the main character of TWD.

There's some tweaks I would do to it, in the eyes, but as a STYLE this is great. It looks sketchy, hand drawn. I think had this project come to fruition we would have had to simplify the hair a good bit, but as a first draft, this is a homerun.

I was working on storyboards and a background style. Keep in mind, this is all in our spare time, after hours, unpaid work on a hunch that this might fly.

My boards test is below, and you can see a half-finished background within them.

The Walking Dead-storyboard pitch from Neal Holman on Vimeo.

While I was in the process of finishing the above, we finally got into contact with Robert Kirkman. I mentioned our thoughts on pitching his series to Adult Swim and... he told us that a live action deal was in progress and it would probably not be a smart idea to do anything that might damage that.

Forehead slapped. Heart slightly sunken.

We were so blinded by fanboy-ish love that we didn't even bother to check where the rights were before we logged x amount of hours thinking/developing an idea for the series. Not smart.

We traded a few more emails with Robert -- who was/is incredibly nice -- about developing another series, but ultimately, 70-30 closed up shop before those talks could really get anywhere off the ground.

As announced in January, the live action deal for The Walking Dead is finally moving forward, being developed by the stellar folks over at AMC. I cannot wait to see how they do the series. It is tailor made for television. AMC has really come along in the past few years, producing Breaking Bad and Mad Men, two series which are astoundingly well done.

I still like the idea of doing a gray scale cartoon, heavy blacks and shadows, using white space to manipulate camera moves. SO much potential. I just haven't found another project that fits it.

Neal

The Pilot: Part Four

2010-03-07T17:36:00.001-05:00

I'm the Art Director for the animated series, Archer, currently airing Thursdays on FX at 10 PM. The below is a brief glimpse into our process in making the show.

Introduction
The Pilot: Part One
The Pilot: Part Two
The Pilot: Part Three

CLIMBING THE BIG FAT MOUNTAIN OF WORK

As mentioned in Part Three, our background process consists of five basic stages:

1.) Research- Hello Google Image.
2.) Design- Sketches, establishing a general direction for the environment.
3.) Modeling- Building the 3D model.
4.) Rendering- Rendering out the final camera angles needed of the model.
5.) Painting- Painting over the renders to create the affect needed for the show.

The sketches stage sometimes consists of doing a basic sketch, getting notes from Adam Reed on what needs to be altered and then, either making those changes in the sketch form or going straight into the modeling phase. As I was the one doing the modeling for the pilot, most times I would skip the revisions in the sketching stage, as seen above.

The modeling stage is the most time intensive; the more work you put in here, the less the background painters have to fabricate from scratch. You pick your battles. For example, if I needed one of the frosted glass partitions to be shattered in the above, I wouldn't spend time modeling it, but would ask the painters to add it in Photoshop. If I needed another chair in a shot, though, I would model it. It's easier to paint in details (shattered glass, wear and tear on furniture, etc.) than it is to paint entirely new elements (chairs, tables, copy machines, etc.)

The problem with this setup was that I was being stretched too thin, doing storyboard directions, handling character assignments, quality control and background design/modeling. The search began to find a studio that could carry some of this weight for me, so I could focus my efforts elsewhere and maybe get a nap. The studios in town that we spoke with either were asking an for an incredible price OR the work they turned in was of such a poor quality, that I ended up redoing their work pretty much from scratch.

GETTING ME OFF THAT BIG FAT MOUNTAIN: TRINITY ANIMATION

Matt Thompson found Jim Lammers and his firm, Trinity Animation on ye old internet, and I am forever grateful. At the time, however, I was extremely skeptical. We gave them Jakov's Moscow office as a test, just to see what they could do. The below was the product of less than a day's work for Trinity Animation's lead artist, Neal Biggs.

Note the differences between my pretty bare bones render and Trinity's render. It's the difference between someone who really knows what the hell they're doing and me, a guy just doing what he knows kind of works, but not really that adept at it. 3D is a field that you have to stay on top of; you have to keep up and immerse yourself in it, or it will quickly leave you behind. What took them less than a day would've had me at my computer for several and still probably not be at their level.

Trinity Animation has now become an integral part of our production, and on top of being really, really ridiculously good at their jobs, they're also super nice people to boot. You can download a somewhat hilarious news piece about them below, (note: the odd choice of Ask Jeeves and Snarf in the news graphic beside ace reporter, John Peppitone.)

MEET JIM LAMMERS AND THE TRINITY ANIMATION CREW

This week sees the penultimate episode of Archer, Season One, and it's a fantastic episode. If you're not keeping up, watch us on Hulu! Please help us spread the word about the show and many, many thanks in advance.

Neal

The Pilot: Part Three

2010-03-04T00:57:00.002-05:00

The backgrounds of our show are something I am immensely proud of. There is at least one (if not several) every episode that has me do a double take it’s so eye-catchingly good. Eric Sims and his team (Claire, Rees, Katie and Lamont) crank out homerun after homerun with such consistancy that I rarely ever give them notes.

During the pilot, however, things were not going quite so easily for us. To explain:

At the start of the pilot, these early weeks of January that I’ve been writing about, we tapped a friend of the company and industry vet to tackle our backgrounds. Lots of meetings, going over style and furniture and patterns, etc. Exciting times.

Weeks go by. Early February, we get to see what is to be the first of many background paintings… and it’s off. And it’s not just off by a little, needing a few tweaks; it’s off from the ground up. From a design standpoint, from a technique standpoint, it is not doable. Cue giant freak out.

I’m five weeks into production and I don’t have a plan on how we’re going to do these backgrounds. While I’m silently freaking out in my head, Matt Thompson sets up a meeting with another studio in town, mostly just to get Adam Reed and I out of the house. The meeting is a blur, so much so that all I remember is that their conference room was pretty kick ass and they all smiled a lot. They were pitching reference photos from Google Image that I’d found six weeks ago; I was mulling Plan C.

On Frisky Dingo, backgrounds were done by taking a photo and treating it in Photoshop. It worked really well for us, but for backgrounds aboard say a floating aircraft carrier, photographs obviously weren’t available. For those environments, I finally got to use my college degree. Huzzah! I have a B.F.A. in computer animation (3D,) and still have some marginal talents in that area. For Frisky Dingo, I modeled the below environment, kicked out a render and one of the other guys would treat them as we treated the photographs. Eric Sims had always stood out as being more adept at painting these renders than the other guys, case in point being the below painting, which is considerably better than the render.

With that in mind, I showed Adam what I could do and more importantly what Eric could do and then, promptly told the girl I was dating I wouldn't be around for the weekend. My goal was to model Malory’s office as quickly as possible, so that Eric could get painting as quickly as possible, so that maybe somehow, we might just not be utterly screwed.

Through a million cups of coffee and emails with Adam, trading notes and ideas back and forth, I get a decent working model of Malory’s office. Not final, but close. By professional 3-D standards, this is pretty mediocre. Not terrible, but certainly not award winning. Love that stock photo of the dog though (a placeholder for the final painting.)

I left the office at 2 AM on a Sunday night. When I came to work the next day, Eric had taken my subpar render and --within two hours!!!-- painted the below.

High fives all around. It set the ball rolling in its final trajectory. No more freakouts, just a fat mountain of work ahead.

NEXT: I work until my face falls off building 3-D environments, only to find our answer was in Kansas City (actually Lee’s Summit, Missouri) all along.

AFTER THAT: Chad, Sam and David get some love.

AFTER THAT: No idea. Possibly backing up for storyboards.

Ahem...

2010-02-22T16:51:00.002-05:00

http://www.thrfeed.com/2010/02/fx-renews-archer-.html
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/02/22/archer-renewed-pt-ii/42634

Thank you all for all of your support and help spreading the word about Archer. I and everyone else here could not be more excited to keep working on this show. Keep watching; it only gets better and better and better.

Thanks again,

Neal

The Pilot Part Two

2010-02-20T12:45:00.000-05:00

I'm the Art Director for the animated series, Archer, currently airing Thursdays on FX at 10 PM. The below is a brief glimpse into our process.
Introduction
The Pilot Part One

UNTO YOU A FACE IS BORN

Remember when I mentioned I still have a pretty good working knowledge of After Effects, but that it's nothing compared to that of Mack Williams and Eric Sims? This is where that comes into play.

Limited Animation is all about cheating, doing a lot with very little. It is sleight of hand at its best, tricking the eye into thinking it's seeing more animation than what is actually there. There are two basic techniques that we use over and over and over (with infinite variations): Layering and for lack of a better term, Sequencing.

Layering:

Layering is the process of cutting a character up into layers that sit on top of one another in a specific order. The pupils of a character, for example, each have their own layer. If we want the character to look to the left, we simply move the pupils to the left in After Effects. The eye lids sit on top of the pupils on a separate layer, so that when a character looks up or down, the pupils move beneath the lids. The whites of the eyes (sclera) are also a separate layer, sitting behind the face.

The below is a brief demonstration of how Frisky Dingo heads were cut up into layers (character copryight Cartoon Netowrk):

Untitled from Neal Holman on Vimeo.

Sequencing:

Sequencing is more akin to Traditional Animation, as it involves drawing multiple steps of one object. To get a character to blink, for example, we create a new eyelids layer with the lids slightly closed, and then another layer with the lids completely closed. Three layers total (open, half-closed, closed.) In AE, we turn these layers on and off in sequence, and the result is your character blinking. Mouths are done the exact same way, turning layers on and off in sequence, and it appears like the character is talking.

AND YOU SHALL CALL HIM FLOATY FACE

As I mentioned in Part One, our character heads for Archer were separated even more, with the black outlines each on a separate layer, and the low lights on separate layers as well. Though it was originally intended for lighting animation, the extra layers allowed for more movement in the face without having to do a new drawing. Eric Sims was the first to experiment with this idea, the below being his initial test:

Untitled from Neal Holman on Vimeo.

We were all unanimously in love with this technique. It allowed for more emotion/expression with zero extra drawing. That is a homerun in Limited Animation. Small, yes, but this leads to bigger things. Mostly because Mack Williams is up at bat.

Mack is our Animation Director, our After Effects guru. He is my counterpart on the production. If I'm responsible for how every element looks on camera, Mack is responsible for how those elements move and interact. While Eric and I were still working out the basics of our character design aesthetic, Mack began exploring Eric's idea, building and improving upon it.

The below is ONE drawing of a head. One basic drawing, but look at the range Mack creates just by moving and distorting its layers.

Untitled from Neal Holman on Vimeo.

And he didn't stop there. The below is done using both Layering and Sequencing, again with same basic drawing of a head.

Untitled from Neal Holman on Vimeo.

More impressive is how he organizes this file inside After Effects. Through a series of expressions/coding that I don't truly understand, Mack has linked the movements of this head, so that each position of the head (up, down, left, right, etc.) corresponds to a numeric value. If he inputs an "01," the head looks up. An "02" and it looks down. That is a grossly oversimplified explanation, but it's the best I can do without your eyes glazing over in boredom and/or confusion.

I'll leave you to digest that. By this point in the production, the show is starting to come to life. Up next, The Backgrounds Dilemma.

The Pilot, Part One

2010-02-16T01:18:00.005-05:00

Introduction

READY, SET...

January 2009

The pilot is the hardest episode of an animated series to produce. At this point, nothing is defined; there are no boundaries, no rules to go by. You are alone, staring at a block of marble and you don’t know if you even want marble, much less do you have an idea of what you're going to sculpt.

Floyd County at this point consisted of five people: Adam Reed, Matt Thomson, Mack Williams, Eric Sims and myself. Adam had sold the pilot to FX the month previous, just as our former company, 70-30 Productions, was closing up shop. We (70-30 sans Adam) had spent 2008 developing The Xtacles, a spin-off of Frisky Dingo, an admittedly frustrating year spent trudging through endless revisions and rewrites only to see the bottom drop out of the economy carrying our show along with it. This pilot represented a second chance, a welcome reprieve from unemployment and an opportunity to play on a much, much bigger stage.

Matt and Adam tackled the production aspects, casting, scheduling, hiring, etc., while Mack, Eric and I began ping-ponging any and every idea off each other. Our goal the first two weeks was to set the show style. On Frisky Dingo, we drew over top of photos of our friends and family to create the bases for our character files. This gave us a giant head start in keeping the realism of the look we wanted. I was hesitant to do this again, as I was afraid it would look too similar to FD. The schedule on the pilot, however, didn’t allow much time to spend developing an entirely new infrastructure. With that in mind, the goal became to take what we knew and build on it, to create a design aesthetic that removed what didn’t work on FD and improve what did.

MAKE BABIES

During most of December, before production had officially started, I immersed myself in any animation that I felt had elements we could learn from. I leaned toward more modern cartoons that had a comic book or realist feel to them, as I knew that was the direction the show was heading. Of note, the various DC animated series, Justice League Unlimited, Batman: The Animated Series, etc., as well as Samurai Champloo, Full Metal Alchemist, Samurai Jack, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, The Amazing Screw-On Head, Waltz with Bashir, and even some animated series of the 80's, like M.A.S.K. and G.I.Joe. I was obsessed with lighting, something I felt FD severely lacked. Over and over and over, I watched the light and shadow (or lack thereof) play in each series, dissecting it in my head into terms of limited animation. What layers do I need to create that affect? Where is the point of diminishing returns, where this becomes too much of a time suck to be remotely worth while? How will this affect our render times? For my first two years at 70-30, I was an After Effects animator, so while Mack, Eric and the other animators are much more proficient in the program than I am now, my fundamental knowledge of AE is still fairly solid. That being said, I wasn't about to implement a design system that I wasn't fully confident in.

The below was the first head test that we all liked (and most importantly, Adam liked.) The design of the head has much thicker outlines than FD, as well as an obvious change in how the character is lit. The animation is incredibly rough, but the point was to prove that the light could be done. I was in love with the ideas in this; the possibilities for creating mood with a single shot were incredibly exciting.

This is one drawing; the outlines of the character are on a separate layer, with the light sandwiched between them and the base/skin color. The light is made entirely of animated solid in AE.

Lighting test from Neal Holman on Vimeo.

KILL YOUR STUPID BABIES

Ultimately, this was scrapped for a number of reasons. Firstly and foremostly, 90% of Archer takes place under fluorescent lights, purposely mundane office lighting. Dramatic lighting rigs like the above, while cool, could be more of a distraction and an unnecessary headache. Secondly, as I feared, it was becoming a huge time suck. Had we six weeks to develop and test this system or three weeks, it may have worked. We needed to move. Three character designers were coming in at the start of week three, and I needed a fully realized system up and running before they walked in the door. We opted for a compromise, to replace the light with a simple shadow color, rarely if ever animated moving across the face.

However, all the testing and experimenting was not lost. Ultimately, the setup led to a technique I lovingly call Floaty Face. It has vastly improved our facial animation, and I will cover it more next week, in Part Two.

Until then, please enjoy the show on Hulu, and watch the new episode Skytanic (which is my favorite thus far) this Thursday night on FX, 10 PM EST.

Neal

2010, totally doing it

2010-02-14T11:50:00.000-05:00

I posted a grand total of SIX blog updates last year. That is terrible. That is bush league. This year, I will do better. More updates, more content. So. Leroy Jenkins. Let's do this.

Since January of 2009, I have had the good fortune to be the Art Director of Floyd County Productions, creating the animated series Archer for the FX Network. It has easily been the best work of my career; it has easily been the hardest work of my career. There are 40 some odd people working on Archer these days, and the experience of working with so many talented artists from so many different backgrounds is not one I will soon forget. I am about about 50% done with the last episode and as the season comes to a close, I have begun to look back on the past year and change of my life, working on this series that I unabashedly adore with 40 strangers who are now my friends.

Archer has been a critically acclaimed hit, with 1.8 million people watching the series premiere and rave reviews from major news outlets across the board. It's been more than a little surreal and at times, Sally Field-esque. Unfortunately, our ratings have dropped in recent weeks. Season Two is still very much up in the air. You can help us by watching on Hulu and spreading the word to everyone you've ever met ever. I am positive and I am hopeful, but nothing in this business is a guarantee.

In the coming weeks (and possibly months,) I will be posting about my experience on the series, the trials and tribulations of an Art Director trying desperately to keep his head above water. In doing so, I hope to offer some insight into our production, our process and shine a spotlight on some co-workers who make this show what it is.

I am going to try and update weekly or at the least biweekly (fortnightly?), but no promises. Our schedule is still very tight, so some updates may come quicker than others. I should have the first installment up tonight or tomorrow.

Until then, follow Sterling Archer on Twitter, and Happy Valentine's Day.

Lincoln, in progress

2009-09-20T19:11:00.001-04:00

For an upcoming pitch idea. Most likely will end up ditching the two-tone bit, but for right now I like it.

ARCHER. FX. 10:30 PM. THIS. THURSDAY. !!!!!!

2009-09-15T17:45:00.005-04:00

SNEAK PREVIEW THIS THURSDAY, Sept. 17th, 10:30 PM after the It's Always Sunny Premiere. Tell everyone.

An update of sorts...

2009-05-28T06:21:00.005-04:00

Sheesh, it's been forever since I've updated this thing. Anyway, what's up with me you ask? Well tons. Tons, I say! We finished the pilot for FX and are currently waiting for the big green light to come down. If and when that happens, we have to take off running to hit the schedule that's tentatively laid out. Til then, we're all taking some much needed time off. Which means I get to experiment with designs like the above.

On his forum, White Chapel, Warren Ellis posts a weekly redesign/remodel thread. The above is my take on Click Rush, The Gadget Man. Via the site:

The Gadget Man. Click Rush, the Gadget Man, was created by Lester Dent and appeared in Crime Busters from 1937 to 1938. Rush was a tall, lean, strong young man with brown hair and eyes. (Brown was his favorite color; he usually dressed all in brown.) Rush was an amateur investigator who invented gadgets towards this end. He'd come to the "big city" with the "notion of selling super-modern, crook-catching gadgets to the police." After the cops laughed him out of the station house he went out on his own.

Well, okay. He was prompted by a talking toad: "Bufa, of the species Bufonidae, which feeds on snails, slugs, insects, and such undesirable things....(I'm) eager to hire an expert private detective to investigate crimes I think need solving." The toad succeeds in convincing Click to solve crime (the $10,000 fee for each crime helped, too.) but proved to be an only average boss, enjoying giving Click the razz and showing a mean sense of humour.

Among Rush's gadgets include a portable x-ray device, phone-tapping equipment, a bulletproof vest, a repeating hypodermic needle he used to deliver a knockout drug; exploding matches; knockout gas vials; containers of liquefied tear gas; and a number of other such things.

Dans la tete (in the head)

2009-02-15T18:05:00.004-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, my nights and weekends have been consumed with the pilot were working on. I can't show anything from it just yet, but it's incredibly exciting. In the meantime, here's this awesome little diddy:

Via the front page of CGtalk, this is the best short I've seen in quite a while.

Dans la Tête
Uploaded by Esma-Movie

On a happier note: Holy I-dunno-if-this-is-a-joke.

2009-01-16T23:25:00.002-05:00

Via Coilhouse, my new procrastination enabler.

Back online for the New Year.

2009-01-12T23:09:00.002-05:00

As many have heard by now, Cartoon Network passed on the Xtacles and as a result 70-30 Productions had to close shop. I chose to not post, not really talk about it because frankly, it's weird and it sucks and it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and a pain in my heart.

The only silver lining is that a new company has formed quite literally from the ashes, led by our former writer/producer, Adam Reed. We're developing his new pilot for FX, and while still early in its infancy, I love it. It will be without question the most challenging project of my career to date. The techniques Mack Williams, Eric Sims and I have developed in one week of work are leaps and bounds beyond what we were doing on Frisky Dingo and The Xtacles. I am, in a word, pumped.

Coupled with that, the upcoming inauguration, which seems to be covered every minute of every day, has me 1.) sick of hearing about it 2.) wishing it would hurry up and 3.) hoping that it comes remotely close to meeting its seemingly impossible expectations. I've met many people that start their opinions of President-elect Obama with "Now I'm not an Obama fanatic or whatever, but..." The problem is I think I might be. I have drank the Kool-aid and it was delightful. So color me a believer until I'm given a reason to think otherwise. I believe in hope. Maybe that makes me a sucker, only history will tell.

Currently, I'm reading a book Adam Reed lent me, John Huston's autobiography, An Open book. John Huston was an actor, writer, director, former boxer, and one time Mexican Ranchero. His life reads like Indiana Jones. He punched Errol Flynn in the nose. He wrote and directed The Maltese Falcon, The Red Badge of Courage, The African Queen, and acted in some twenty others.

The symmetry of the below passage struck me, as he was 28-ish at the time, and I am 28 currently:

During the Depression there was an army of unemployed on the roads, and a large number of children: over five hundred thousand kids whose parents were victims of the Depression. Most of them were riding the rails. The railroads allowed this, but many towns and cities wouldn't let them off the trains. There were some very bad incidents; in Texas a number of such children died in a boxcar. Willy and I took a trip around California, talking to kids, brakemen and hobos. Then we wrote a script.

...

The picture was never made, for the best of reasons: the day we finished writing the script Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office. Before the picture could go into production, the kids were off the roads, working in the CCC camps in the reforestation program. That tells something about the Rooesevelet Administration. The change in public attitude was magical. Overnight it seemed there was a new spirit in the air, a feeling of high confidence which persisted throughout the first two Roosevelt Administrations--right into World War II.

Hopefully, we're about to witness a turn, not only in our own country but throughout the world. I believe one positive change can have a ripple effect, that good inspires good, the broken window theory in reverse I guess. I believe everyone should drink this Kool-aid and high five. Israel, I'm looking at you.

For the blog, I doubt I'll be able to post much of anything to do with the pilot for quite some time. Keep your fingers crossed, as hopefully by Spring we'll know if we all have jobs for another year. In the meantime, I'll post what I can. Chad Hurd and I have some exciting side projects lined up, that I'll be posting soon.

Neal

Neal Holman.com

2008-12-19T17:34:00.005-05:00

So www.nealholman.com is finally live. My first website. Sigh. And it looks it, too.

In the next few days, it's going to change pretty rapidly. For lack of better tools, I used iWeb which... while easy, is a little too simplistic to do what I want to do. For now, however, it will do.

If you want to make my website, for peanuts... shoot me an email!

Neal

New Lonely Island Video (probably not safe for work)

2008-12-09T18:34:00.002-05:00

Foodscapes

2008-12-01T18:35:00.004-05:00

Stumbled on this from the Drawingboard, London artist Carl Warner creates fantastic landscapes with food. Broccoli trees, dead fish doubling as rippling water, the guy's imagination is fantastic.

The one above is my favorite, but there's plenty more over on the Telegraph.

Star Wars Steampunk

2008-11-21T10:44:00.006-05:00

CGTalk had a recent contest for artists to twist Star Wars into Steam Punk. The results? Awesome.

Check it out. (scroll down the page and the next to see the entries.)

EDIT: I have no idea why it's not centering my pictures anymore. Anybody?

EDIT: Thank you Ed Mundy!!!

Where The Wild Things Are.

2008-11-19T09:14:00.005-05:00

I rarely go to Ain't It Cool anymore, but occasionally I check back in to read the scuttlebutt of Hollywood. Most times, I'm just skimming the headlines. This morning, however, holy crap, Moriarty posted an in-depth interview with Spike Jonze on the production of Where The Wild Things Are. Like anyone who read the book as a child, it is near and dear to me, and the interview has skyrocketed my hopes for the film.

READ IT UP HERE.

Frisky Dingo concepts

2008-11-17T18:58:00.005-05:00

Rummaging through a folder on my hard drive, I found some old concept designs for Frisky Dingo.

Killface and his assistant, Sinn went through a number of variations before we landed on the final.

I hit the design of Awesome X pretty quickly, and the final is just a little more sleek than the above sketch.

Some storyboard animation tests. Click to see full size in browser. not sure what's going on with the formatting in the blog.

CG Short "Greed."

2008-11-15T15:55:00.001-05:00

by Alli Sagegiani via CGtalk.

GREED from Alli Sadegiani on Vimeo.

Xtacles. TONIGHT.

2008-11-14T10:23:00.003-05:00

Hello internets,

We need your help. Tonight is a repeat showing of our first two episodes on Cartoon Network. We need you to watch or set your DVR's and your friends DVR's, especially if they're one of those rare Nielsen families. Last week, the debut pulled a .7 in the ratings, which is not good as we needed a 1. So long story short, we're on the bubble of being canceled. The word "canceled" scares the absolute bejeezus out of me, so please help us get the word out today and tonight.

The above promo is a painting by my co-worker Eric Sims. Post it up wherever! Many, many thanks in advance,

Neal

The Xtacles. Online. Now-ish.

2008-11-07T18:38:00.001-05:00

http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a2505951d6251d9011d77a0777900b0

Sneak Peak #4

2008-10-31T12:42:00.000-04:00

NOV. 9TH
12 AM
CARTOON NETWORK

TWO EPISODES, BACK TO BACK.

WORD.

Sneak Peak #3

2008-10-31T12:39:00.001-04:00

Xtacle Sketch ups

2008-10-29T18:38:00.009-04:00

I'm asked a lot what my job entails at 70-30 Productions. Art Director is a vague title and at a studio of only eight people, what does that actually mean? What do I do?

Mostly, I sketch and loosely at that, pretty much all day long. Once I get a finalized script, I break it down into storyboards and some designs, and those storyboards go to our designers who turn my muddy scribble into gold. There's a lot more to it than that, but it's all boring tedium, so on with the pictures, eh?

First up, our new main character, the computer hologram, A.L.E.X. The below is the finished character design (done either by Eric Sims or David Caicedo, don't remember who did it, sorry guys) and my loose costume sketch. For our main characters, we generally cast a model, take a slew of photos and use those photos for reference/guides to keep the "real world" look of our characters. My sketch in this case is solely for costume purposes. Because we work in Adobe Illustrator for character files, there's not much point in me taking the sketch to a tighter, cleaner stage.

This one file of her is separated into layers, almost like a marionette that we can manipulate in After Effects. So her hand is on a layer, her forearm, her upparm, her foot, shin, thigh, etc. etc. etc. all on their own layers. This allows us to draw gestures and kicks and whatnot without doing a whole new drawing.

Next up, TECH DESIGN, something that has been and is a huge challenge for me. I was not an industrial design major, so designing future tech that looks somewhat real is not my strong point.

The below are failed concepts of troop carriers for The Xtacles and a final render of their ship, X-Calibur. I still have my fingers crossed that we'll get around to using the troop transports one day, as I like the ideas behind them. The speeder bike... meh, not so much.

Again, I'm not trying to get super tight with my designs here. If they were to go into production, I would model them in a 3-D program, so that our designers would have a render like the below X-Calibur to draw over for consistency and speed. When at times there's only two of us drawing, speed is an absolute must. We cut every corner we can (and then some.)

And finally, ANIMATION TESTS. Photoshop has a new, somewhat buggy animation bar. When I'm doing storyboards, lots of times I'll do quick animation tests for action scenes. These are generally solely for me, trying to bend my head around the movement. After this stage, I'll go back in over these loose poses with a more detailed drawing that will go to one of our designers.

You can actually see the first part of this flip in the opening to our show. Eric Sims did the final drawings of it, and it looks fantastic.

2nd Preview

2008-10-29T18:32:00.001-04:00

Nov. 9th, 12 AM, Cartoon Network. Set your DVRs accordingly.

Sneak Peak up on You Tube

2008-10-28T11:18:00.000-04:00

Starring our neighbor, Mr. Ford.

More Xtacle Promo stuff

2008-10-24T16:48:00.004-04:00

Others on my flickr.

BOOOSH

2008-10-23T14:48:00.003-04:00

Just got word, we're back on air sooner than we thought!!!

Two episodes, back to back, Nov. 9th at 12 am on Cartoon Network. Spread the word.

Neal

JCVD???

2008-10-14T19:00:00.001-04:00

This... actually looks kinda good? Via Chud.

'JCVD' Theatrical Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

supes

2008-10-01T01:16:00.000-04:00

Quickie opening test

2008-09-24T18:58:00.005-04:00

A while back, I mentioned how in love I was with the opening sequence in Catch Me If You Can. At the time, within our office there was a debate on our opening theme song, which had split into three camps.

1.) A rock theme song, a long the lines of Thin Lizzy.
2.) A funny theme song, similar to the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles open.
3.) My lonely camp of one, that wanted to do a graphic stylized opening to something like The Go! Team. See below movie.

To demonstrate my thoughts on it, I worked up a quick test. It's not the full 38 seconds, in fact it's really short (and not that good,) BUT it did at least get the idea of what we could do with simple shapes under a moving energetic song.

In the end, we chose a different route, and I wish I could post the final movie of it instead of this less than stellar test. Up until now, I had never been apart of creating an opening title sequence, and what we've done is easily the most ambitious sequence 70-30 has created since I began working for them. I think (re: hope) it's going to blow people away, especially in light that it's five dudes and an intern doing all the animation in about two-three weeks.

But like I said, you can't see that yet. Probably won't for a while, actually, so until then, here's a quick and dirty test I put together. I still like the idea of it, doing graphic figures in an all out action scene, so maybe one day we'll use it for something else. Til then...

Iron Man-sketch

2008-09-20T10:11:00.002-04:00

15 min. Ink wash on watercolor paper.

Neal

Vintage awesome.

2008-09-19T23:09:00.002-04:00

Every artist has some treasure trove of drawings hidden in boxes deep in their attics, basements, closets, etc. Long forgotten libraries of work they slaved over, late into the early hours of the morning, pouring their creative souls out into these sure to be masterpieces. These works are in fact horribly done. Bad anatomy. Terrible rendering. Garish colors. Etc. Etc. Etc.

But they are also hilarious and awesome and for the past hour or so, I've been digging through one of my old notebooks. I think these are around early highschool years - DEFINITELY around the Image comics boom, as the cringe inducing Rob Liefeld-isms are readily apparent in a number of these.

First up, my fav character Jack Rabbit. Love that bio.

Then, his archenemy, the aptly named Crimelord.

Lastly, the office hottie, Blade- though I very clearly remember her being named "Switchblade." I guess I changed it to the nondescript Blade so she could use more than just her beloved switchblades (which as weapons of choice go are rather lame.)

2008-09-15T13:37:00.002-04:00

My girlfriend turns 30 this month, so to celebrate, we're having an art show/super party. Come out, have a beer, maybe buy some super art? Awesome.

neal

Opening sequences and more.

2008-09-14T11:20:00.004-04:00

Despite not posting in what seems forever, I actually have been very busy. On the job front, the new pilot featuring the Xtacles is about 85% done, with the second episode not far behind. Not sure how much I can really go into on it, but because of various dynamics changing at 70-30, I now have the opportunity to cut loose on some of the action scenes and most recently, designing an opening title sequence. Yes, we're actually going to have a title sequence. Awesome. Below are the openings that I've been looking at.

Originally, I was dead set on doing something like the Catch Me If You Can sequence, very graphic oriented, simple designs running through the city fighting a giant robot. I did a quick test to the The Go! Team's song The Power is On. I may post this later in the week.

In the end, we opted to go a different route with the theme song, more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-ish, which didn't fit the graphic style, so out it goes.

Still though, the below sequence is astoundingly good. Super simple, but brilliant.

So the challenge was to do something action oriented, featuring the Xtacles. The kicker? 22 seconds of animation, with 4 seconds of titles. Not a lot of time to work in.

The final version hasn't been approved by the network yet, but I really like what we've put together. It won't hold a candle to the below sequences, which I looooove, but I hope it at least has a couple of "Oh shit!" moments.

And do you remember this dismal series? I love how this is essentially two intros, like they introduce the team, seemingly wrap up with the logo flying in... and then start over with a rap song. Bizarre.

Lest we forget, the ridiculous Ultraforce. (For a while after watching this, the guys and I would randomly scream ULTRAFORCE! throughout the office.)

Neal

Jamie Hewlett - Olympics

2008-07-30T19:05:00.002-04:00

Olympics Spot

This is Jamie Hewlett's spot for the Olympics, commissioned by the BBC. The backgrounds are stunning, but some of the monkey's animation seems a bit unfinished, particularly a flip early on in the spot. Gotta love the designs in this though, that guy is amazing.

Neal

W. - The Movie.

2008-07-28T18:39:00.002-04:00

As someone posted over on the Bendis Board, if you have an objection to the teaser poster, feel free to create one with all his insightful and inspiring quotes. Bah-zing!

Not exactly sure if I really care to watch the movie though. I'm sure it'll be interesting, but you can't help but question the viewpoint. Objective it is surely not, so... kind of makes me wonder what the point of it is. I haven't seen it, of course, so I may be way, way off. Perhaps it's more true to life than we may think?

Neal

Randy Pausch

2008-07-28T18:10:00.002-04:00

This is a fantastic speech by Randy Pausch, who recently passed away. Via internet-know-it-all Sam Ellis.

Info via Youtube:
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. For more, visit www.cmu.edu/randyslecture.

Black Panther trailer... eeeesh.

2008-07-27T00:41:00.007-04:00

BLACK PANTHER TRAILER

So there's a new Black Panther cartoon on BET ruffling many a fanboy feather all over the internets. The animation team behind it took John Romita, Jr.'s work from the comic, scanned it, and chopped it up for limited animation. Though I don't particularly love the overall look of it, the animation of the static elements isn't terrible. In fact, at times, it's pretty clever, particularly when their shooting through silhouettes into a character. Is the trailer all that interesting? Not so much. Acting/editing? Meh. But, from what they had to work with, it's not the turd everyone seems to think it is, especially if you've never seen the original comic book.

It would've been looaaads better had they gotten guys to draw a new show and use JR, jr.'s work as storyboard ideas, but that point was moot a long, long time ago.

I'm really interested to see if they go past where the graphic novel ends. Could they? What will they do? They only have a finite amount of drawings, so if it's picked up for a second season, sooner or later they're going to hit a scene that was not in the book. Will they hire Romita? Or will they try their hand at Faux-mita? Will they even make it past episode two? Current bets are no.

I sympathize with the animation team, as we did a LOT of cutting up old drawings and re-purposing them on Sealab 2021. Eventually, we had to create new backgrounds and characters and many, many times those did not match up at all. Towards the end of it, I became mildly decent at painting new backgrounds to seamlessly match the old ones, but by that time, we were already on our last season. While I remember those days fondly, the episodes are all difficult to watch at times. If I close my eyes, I still love them, the jokes and writing, but the animation and overall design certainly show a very adolescent 70-30 Productions. Not saying we're all grown up with Frisky Dingo and its spin off, but... y'know, we're like at least a young adult. A young drunk adult.

Also, back to the Black Panther, this is the best part: it's ludicrously set in 8000 B.C. Why they went for that is beyond me. That's absurd. And I don't so much dig the voice acting either.

my two cents,

Neal

Get'em while they're hot!

2008-06-20T14:55:00.000-04:00

http://www.zazzle.com/nealbo400

Turtle Gifs

2008-06-19T19:16:00.006-04:00

More to come!

New promo

2008-06-19T10:12:00.003-04:00

LLGKT- The Beginning

2008-06-17T19:15:00.005-04:00

Many of you know my alma mater of television, The Silly Spider Monkey Fiasco. (If you don't, you should go and watch and then maybe buy a DVD?) I had the idea for Love, Lust and a Giant Killer Turtle a long, LONG time ago and originally pitched it to the Spider Monkeys on our listserve.

I just found the original email. There's a few more after this over a couple of years, but they mostly rehash what's in this. (And by no means am I pretending the below is awesome.)

Titled: Who wants to HELP!
Date: September 8, 2003

Okay, okay, okay, lightning just hit, and I'm going to write a screen play, and I want you guys to help, loosely, it's going to be about a bunch of different storylines, that all converge in one huge thingamabob.

Right now, I'm calling it " Love, Lust, and a Giant Killer Turtle."

And various storylines I'm thinking of are:

-A boy and girl have a the beginnings of a summer fling at a lake.
-A camp councilor has problems with his girlfriend and dumps her for the nerdy friend.?
-A dead guy must help a kid become cool so that he can go to heaven. (yes, I know this is a rip off of Christian's Play)
-A school boy has a crush on the school nurse, he goes out to get hurt by the turtle so he can goto the nurse. Giant Killer turtle rips his legs off.
-The school nurse has a crush on the camp head master
-The nerdy kid everybody picks on turns out to be behind it all, in his giant robot turtle, they kill him as a mob and then make sweet sweet love.
-It turns out that the nerdy kid was trying to save everybody, and fight the real giant turtle with his giant robot turtle.

-The dead guy is behind it all, and he just wants to kill everybody because he’s dead and lonely.

Somehow, they trap the ghost in a containment beam, and the nurse falls in love with the giant turtle. Everybody else is probably dead.

The end.

Neal

... Obviously the story has improved. One hopes, anyway.

Daniel Cox- Progression

2008-06-17T14:16:00.003-04:00

Not sure if everyone has seen this, so I figured it was worth a post. Over on the Drawing Board, Daniel Cox has posted a progression of our cover. Pretty damn cool.

Neal

Promotional Materials

2008-06-16T23:31:00.004-04:00

Hey folks,

We're working up promotions on our end for Love, Lust and a Giant Killer Turtle, but I wanted to release these for you guys to do with what you will.*** If you'd like a vector version, please email me, and I'll send it on to you! Stay tuned for another announcement coming Tuesday!

Thanks!

Neal

***Cafe Press, Zazzle, and etc.

A Human Story of Computer Animation

2008-06-14T10:25:00.001-04:00

I've posted this once before, way back when, but I thought I'd post it again. It starts off reeeeeeeeeeally slow, but it's worth watching.

LLGKT Updates!

2008-06-11T14:08:00.003-04:00

Hey folks,

Our submission to Zuda Comics has somehow dropped to third! But I don't hear a fat lady singin' just yet, and there's still PLENTY of time for more people to go out and vote. ... I wonder if can get Barrack Obama to vote for our webcomic? Is that illegal?

Anyway, odd tangents aside, if you've had any registration problems, please let me know. I've heard of more than a few, so it's not uncommmon. Evidently, a work around is to change your username and reregister. No idea why that works.

In other news, David Gallagher has let us know that the guys over at Digital Strips have reviewed all of the submissions. One of them liked us, one of them liked the art but not the gray tones, and one of them is completely creeped out by page two. So... that's kind of a win, right? Regardless, thanks to the guys for taking the time to review us and put up the podcast.

If you want to help out and spread the word about Love, Lust and a Giant Killer Turtle, join our facebook group! And again, thank you thank you thank you for all the support thus far,

Neal

Support us!

2008-06-05T10:13:00.003-04:00

Post'em up everywhere you can! Thanks guys!

Neal

The Dominators!!!

2008-06-04T18:17:00.003-04:00

I've always loved comics, and like most comic fans, I've tried my hand at creating them more than a few times. Below is evidence that I peaked as a writer in sixth grade. I cannot top this. So read on and wonder at the marvels of my sixth grade brain!!!

Neal

THE DOMINATORS!!!

Written, word for misspelled word, by Neal Holman in the sixth grade, circa 1992.

INTRODUCTION

The century of 2,000 has been full of discoveries. Genetically altered people fill the streets and neighborhoods. Those who had only excisted in comic books, now live in real life. The government sponsors teams and the army has super soldiers.

Every place also has “super villains.” Terrorists are every where; perhaps they are the reason for these heroes and villains. There is also the common thief, who just robbes banks and other biusnesses. There are super villain teams also.

Mutation is one of the events that has taken place in the twentieth century. It has changed people into half person and half animal beings, and ther are some who you can’t tell that they are so called “mutants.” Again, there is another form of team, the mutant team.

Genetics and mutation is not the only thing that has been altered. Machines have changed tremendously. Cars fly, boats and air planes don’t even exist anymore, space shuttles are about the only things that haven’t changed. Bullets are no longer used, lasers have taken their place. Jets (the only form of plane that is used) have guide missiles and bombs. Mechanics have been replaced by androids. Evil androids also excist, as do good androids.

DAVIS

The television in Scott Davis’s, a.k.a. Mid-Knight’s house reported that the terrorists known as “WARLORDS” had taken over the Schwartzcoff building (named after the best military president ever, Norman Schwartzcoff.) He lifted up the painting and pushed the secret button. Silently part of the wall opened up revealing the secret chamber behind it. There, in the chamber was his costume, armor, and weapons.

His mask was grey with indestructable goggles attached to it. It covers his head and neck where it attaches to his armor, which ends at his shoulders and waist. Then, his belt, which also is indestructable, has lots of gadgets and grenades. He has pants with boots, and sleeves with gloves. With all of his out fit on, he is almost pitch black.

Davis pushed the button again to close the door. Then he pushed a second button, which opened up another section of the wall. This one lead down to a garage, where his specialized ("motorcycle" scratched out) aircycle was sparked. He sat on the motorcycle aircycle and left through the tunnel that leads to the surface.

THE NEST

Owl and his apprentice Razor Wing suited up in their hideout which they called “The Nest.” Owl put on his cape and body suit. Razor Wing spread his arms out, so his wings with their razor edges would come out. He ran for a while and quickly took off into the air. He left The Nest through the skylight and saw the beautiful Appalachian Mountains. Owl stepped into the “Owl Talon,” (their specialized jet) and flew off toward the Schwartzcoff building.

SCHWARTZCOFF BUILDING

“Behind me, the police have surrounded the Schwartzcoff Building.” Said reporter Jason Wallace. “Other security is moving in place to contend with the growing crowd. Many are hoping to see their favorite hero. Lots of heroes have arrived and gone in the building.”

Inside the building, the heroes fought violently against WARLORD soldiers. The soldiers’ right hand were mechanically changed into a cannon. That made them extremely dangerous, and the fact that they can lift 50 tons. There was one hero who really stood out. His name was Disaster Master. This guy was huge. He had two very big blasters on each of his arms. He fought like he knew what would happen; he seemed to know exactly what the y would do. He did not say much either.
Among him was The Eliminator, Dino-Man, FireBlast, Spark, Disk, Switch Blade, Ghost, Spark, and Dart-Man. Eliminator’s suit and power pack let him fly and fire powerful blasts out of his hands. Dino-Man could chainge into any dinosaur. Ghost could turn invisible and shoot a weird energy ray out of his hands. Fire Blast too could fly and throw fire, and Spark also flew, but shots lightning instead of fire. Disk threw different kinds of disks, and Switch Blade had switchblades. Last, but not least, is Dart Man. He shoots darts out of his special gun.

Mid-Knight arrived quickly. He entered the building through a ventilation shaft. Where he found every one fighting. He reconised most everyone and was quick to pull his gun out. He took eight soldiers out in the blink of an eye. Soon after, Razor Wing crashed through the window.

“Hello boys!” he said. “Owl should be here soon.”

Then, a voice from no where and said, “Really, well by the time he arrives…” BLAM! The soldier fired at R.W. and finished his sentence, “… you’ll be dead.”

Razor Wing replied sarcastically, “Yeah right… and monkeys might fly out of my butt.” He raised his arm and blocked the blast with one of his wings. “Well mister,” R.W. said in a stern voice, “I’m going to show you why I’m called RAZOR WING!” He flew in the air faster than a SR-71 Blackbird. He went right by the surprised soldier, or so it appeared. Then without warning, the soldier collapsed with a loud thud. His head tumbled off and rolled near the beautiful and deadly Switch Blade. Then she threw up.

“Geeze, I thought I could never be grossed out, but this is too much!” she thought. She walked over to the water fountain and cleaned herself.

Owl arrived a few minutes later. They racked their brains for a plan. When finally Owl said, “We need to know how many are up there, and if there are any royal guards of some sort. Ghost, can you find that out?”

“Sure,” Ghost replied. He was wondering what Owl’s plan was.

Then, Disaster Master cut in, “No need to do that Ghost. There are 9 royal guards, 50 soldiers, and their leader, War Head.”

“How do you know this?” Owl asked irritably. He wasn’t used to not being in charge.

“I used to be a royal guard.” Said Disaster Master sternly. “There should be 4 royal guards here in a minute, so get ready.”

Suddenly, “You rember well for an old man, Disaster Master. Oh Boys! Don’t be shy, introduce yourselves. Oh by the way, I’m Buzz Saw.” Said the raspy voiced Buzz Saw. He had shiny armor, and two chainsaws.

The next voice said, “I Death Blade.” His voice was soft but sounded deadly. Death Blade wasn’t that big, but he had a 3 ft. long machede on his right hand. He ment buisness, deadly buisness.

“I’m Bone Crusher.” A deep voice answered. This guy actually looked like he really could crush anyone’s bones.

The last guard’s name was, “Fire Wing.”

“Don’t bother introducing your names, because you’re all dead meat.” With that statement, he flew off breathing fire at everyone.

Dino-Man turned into a rhampharhynchus, a flying dinosaur, and chased Fire Wing through the building. Spark and Fire Blast joined in on the chase while the others fought the rest.

Fire Wing was a new at being a criminal. Naturally, he was scared out of his head. The only thing he knew what to do was, run like anything. He finally made up to the top floor where he flew through the doorway. With a loud slam, a steel door closed behind him.

Meanwhile, Ghost, Owl, Dart-Man, and Disk were trying to take care of Bone Crusher. Dart-Man, Owl, and Disk kept him busy while Ghost turned invisible, and aproached him silently.

“Well, being invisible does have its adavantages,” Ghost thought. With one blast he took out the ferocious Bone Crusher.

“I don’t believe it!” Dart Man said. “I’ve plugged that guy with 12 darts, and Ghost takes him out with one blast.”

“Bone Crusher can resist almost anything…” Death Blade’s creepy voice said. “… and obviously, you can’t!”

Startled by the silent approach by Death Blade, Dart-Man was caught offguard. That would be his first and last mistake. He knew it was over as soon as he turned around. He felt the searing pain as Death Blade’s machedee went through his head.

In anger of his friend’s death Eliminator blew Death Blade to pieces. He and Dart-Man had grown up together, fought crime together, and always thought that they would die together; they were wrong. He had lost his best friend, and he was mad!

Buzz Saw was in a panic. “I got to get out of here fast!” he thought. He cut a hole in the floor and jumped down to the next floor. He ran for the elevator, and got in it. Then he realized his mistake. Fire Blast melted the wires and the elevator fell, with Buzz Saw screaming all the way.

Everybody took the stairs to the top floor. When they read the door, they formed a great plan. The top floor was just one room, which made it all the more easier for fighting. “Okay, here is the plan: blow down the door, and then kick butt,” Mid-Knight said. Everyone agreed.

They blew down the door and took a moment to take a look. All of a sudden Disaster Master spoke, “Freeze.”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” a man laughed. He was obviously WAR HEAD. He was sitting in a floating chair and said, “hello boys and girls! You defeated Buzz Saw, Death Blade, and Bone Crusher. I had to do away with Fire Wing. He was just too wimpy. OH well, prepare to die. Kill them!” he commanded.

Mid-Knight through four high-tech grenades at a group of soldiers. He hit right on target. Body parts and intestines went everywhere. He wasn’t satisfied, so he took out his gun and blasted some more soldiers.

“I got Laser boy!” Spark exclaimed. He flew after a guy who looked a lot like Eliminator. He fired at him with two electronical blasts.

Spark’s lightning bolts went through Blaster’s armor like a hot knife through butter, but that didn’t kill him, the fall did.

Mid-Knight was shooting, as usual, when something happened to his gun. A guard sliced it to pieces. Then he felt the guard’s fist knock him to the floor. Then, just as he was about to be killed by this guard with a sword, a kind of portal appeared in midair. A man who looked like a midevil knight walked out of it. He swiftly knocked the guard who was going to kill Mid-Knight to the floor. The blades on his gloves sliced the guard’s chest open. “It’s time I showed myself. I am DARK KNIGHT!” he said.

Nearby, Disk and Ghost were trying to take down the huge guard who called himself, Smasher. He violently shook them off. “Get off me you blood-sucking maggots!” he exclaimed. Switch Blade crept up behind him and stabbed him in his neck, and that was the end of him.

“Wimps! All of you are all wimps!” said the fourth guard. “I’ll show you why I’m called HAMMER!” He swung his sledge hammer towards Dino-Man in a human form. He easily avoided the hammer, and turned into a Brontasaurus.

“So, Hammer is your name, huh? What’s your first name? M.C? I don’t like rap all that much. I like oldies; my favorite one is..” he then began singing, “Take out the papers and the trash!” and smacked hammer with his huge tail. He then turned into a carnivorous dinosaur and bit him on Hammer’s shoulder. “Or you won’t get no spending cash! You better mop that dirty floor,” He picked up Hammer in his jaws, and flung him in the air.

Eliminator joined in on the song. “Or you won’t Rock N’ Roll no more! Yackety Yak!” he yelled, and shot Hammer toward Disaster Master.

Disaster Master fired and finished the song, “Don’t Talk Back!”

Kneeling down on the floor the injured guard, Blade was recovering from Dark Knight’s punch. “Well, Mr. Dark Knight if you want a sword fight, you got one!” he said, and swung his sword toward Dark Knight.

However, Dark Knight was an experienced swordsman, and easily blocked the attack. He activated the claw mechanism in his glove. Claws grew from his fingers, and he quickly sliced Blade’s head open.

“C’mon Razor Wing we’ve got to take care of conehead fast!” Owl said.

“Let’s do it!” Razor Wing answered.

Owl was on the Human Drill in a second. He quickly threw him to Razor Wing. Razor Wing caught him and dropped him out of the window. He fell 100 stories yelling all the way down.

“Good job, R.W!” Owl said.

“You think you can beat me! You think you can beat War Head!” War Head said. “well bering it on, bring ti all on!” He pointed his hand towards them, and it started to glow. Then 4 missiles came from his hand! Spark’s lightning shield blocked one, two others hit the wall. The last one killed Disk. War Head was laughing hideously, then stopped.

Dino-Man was a 500 ft. Tyrannosaurus Rex and was growling loudly. “Oh @#!%!” War Head said, and surrendered.

CONCLUSION

“The super heroes known as Mid-Knight, Disaster Master, Switch Blade, Eliminiator, Fire Blast, Dino-Man, Spark, and Ghost have formed a team.” Said reporter Mindy Wallace. They are now know as

DOMINATORS!

THE END.

Love, Lust and a Giant Killer Turtle

2008-06-02T13:43:00.002-04:00

Well, it's finally here. Love, Lust and a Giant Killer Turtle has been picked up by Zuda Comics! Check it out and vote for us! Then, spread the word, as we're facing some stiff competition! Mucho thanks to all who've helped and chimed in with their critiques.

Hugs and kisses,

neal

Sketches

2008-05-22T14:44:00.003-04:00

Working up some sketches for a freelance gig.

Why does this exist???

2008-05-19T09:10:00.003-04:00

Google image search "centaur" and low and behold, you get centaur porn. Holy shit I am freaked out.

Neal

O'Reilly meltdown? Yesssssssssss.

2008-05-13T09:44:00.002-04:00

Via Huffingtonpost and C-Dub.

"Fuck it! Just fuck it!"

Artist Spotlight: Randall Brown

2008-04-23T09:42:00.002-04:00

Because killing is an art, right???

I can't find anything more about this guy, but holy jeezus I love his sales pitch.

"This is no joke. And you MUST get back to me as soon as you can reach a phone or mail a letter...

I Have Exactly ONE Secret "Instant Death" Package Set Aside For You Here... And I Am Risking My Life Just Letting You Know It Exists! You can have it if you act right frigging now. It is the most brutal and vicious set of "learn it fast, use it tonight" street-fighting secrets any civilian has ever been exposed to... and almost nobody even knows these skills exist. Very dangerous people are mad as hell that I'm releasing it to anyone outside their super-mysterious inner circle. It will change your life. And... You Can Learn It All For FREE, If You Choose!"

Dude loves using capital letters.

Link 1

"It's going to rock your world, instilling sizzling new confidence and mega-dangerous self-defense moves that will shock and surprise the hell out of anyone who dares attack you."

Link 2

Yo' Jooooooe- ohhhhhhh... wow.

2008-04-17T18:28:00.003-04:00

Wow, so it's been a looooooooooong while since I've posted. Sorry for that. No real reason, just laziness mostly.

I'm sure you've seen this and this and this, but have you seen this:

If you missed it...

2008-03-18T18:45:00.000-04:00

Regardless of your political leanings, I highly recommend you watch this in its entirety.

Neal

Richard Dean Anderson, actor, hockey star, rock star?

2008-03-04T00:25:00.001-05:00

I'm sure this isn't news to everyone else, but it's the first I've seen of it.

Turok goodness

2008-03-04T00:15:00.004-05:00

I am not super gamer dude. I loooooove me some Call of Duty2 which we still play regularaly at 70-30, but other than that, I just don't have the funds to support the habit. ... Though admittedly, if I gave up comics or booze, I'd probably be able to jump in with both feet.

Anyway, I vaguely remember Turok, Dinosaur Hunter from the glory years of Valiant Comics. It was never a title I read or kept up with, so my familiarity with it is pretty low. That, however, does not stop my jaw from dropping at the concept work done for the recently released game. I heard the game kind of sucked, but the art in this is fantastic, and there's loads of it. I could spend all day on this one post.

Check out the full post over at Conceptart.org

Fun with Sketchbook Pro

2008-01-27T23:32:00.000-05:00

Recently, I downloaded the trial for Alias (or autodesk?) Sketchbook Pro2. It's great, leaps and bounds ahead of the brushes and settings in Photoshop CS (which is what we're stuck in at work.) The below is my first real attempt in the program. About an hour, most of which I spent cursing my clumsy hands.

Now, if you want to see real talent work off pictures of this same model, check out Daniel Cox's thread off the Drawingboard. It's inspiring, not to mention humbling.

Neal

Oh my God I love comics...

2008-01-21T10:08:00.000-05:00

As research has kicked up on Barry Ziegler, I've discovered that I completely missed an entire era of awesome comics. Look at the stories featured in those covers! A giant gun in the sky! Earth is so pathetic aliens play tug of war with our planet! The entire continent of North America takes a "space-flight!" Think about that for a second. Not just Joe Schmoe and his pals go off in space, but the entire continent! That is so amazingly awesome.

And to go off on a complete tangent, they do this miraculous feat with one tiny ship! One tiny little Ford Taurus of a ship, and all of North America is zinging through space. Awesome. They must be legends back home. Like, I bet they sit back and laugh and laugh at the memory.

"I said, 'No Way, Dan-imal. Can't be done,' and Dan looks me dead in the eye and says, 'Fuck it all Donnie, put the bitch in gear and let's do this!' And y'know what, brother? It worked. Like a charm, man, I'm mean easy like- PHWOOOSH! The entire gosh dang continent right outta the ground and we're off to the races, brother. Swear. To. God."

... yes I've had a lot of coffee.

Neal

revisiting old designs

2008-01-21T10:02:00.001-05:00

I still love the design for Barry Ziegler, but... the girl in the pic... not so much. A few tweaks, a complete revision of her face and voila, something a little less sucky. Only issue I'm seeing is that her skin tone might blend a little too much with the armor. I can fix that once I composite it in photoshop, methinks.

Thoughts?

Neal

In progress... still.

2008-01-17T00:08:00.001-05:00

Just finished episode 211 of Frisky Dingo today, so I finally got some time to put into the Illustrator file of Harmon Wells. This is a rough lighting key, composition sketch at the moment. The figure is pretty much set... I think.

The missing arm thing is something that's been a part of the character since his creation, but ... compositionally, I think it throws off the weight of the character. I can't seem to get around it.

I like it for two main reasons. First and foremost, it's to his character. They have the tech for robot prosthetics, but he chooses to go without it. He's tough. And theres the whole technology linking with your brain that gives him the heavie-jeavies, but that's probably never going to be explained. Secondly, it's a direct rip/reference to Lord Admiral Nelson, whose arm was amputated after a wound in battle and wore his sleeve famously pinned to his chest. You can see that in the sketch, but it kept looking like a tiny arm, so I went for the more traditional pinned sleeve.

Also, the feet bug me, specifically the one on the deck. I originally had the perspective much less drastic, with the boot coming more at camera, but changed it because I wanted to really try and push the exaggeration of the big booted feet. Harmon prefers the boots of the big armored Centurions than the dainty space boots the other captains wear.

Thoughts?

OH, the pink lighting will be from a kick ass solar sail that will be seen in other shots.

Neal

Mack Attacked!!!

2008-01-15T19:58:00.000-05:00

I'm sure most have seen this post from Mack, of Attractive Eighties women fame.

I was there. In fact, I was front and center for the whole schbang. Some have asked my account of things, so I finally got around to typing it up.

The scene goes more or less like this:

I’m at the debut album release party for Attractive Eighties Women inside the smoke filled Earl. I’m a few drinks deep, a light buzz, but functional. The night has only started, as the band is just four songs into their set. They’ve never sounded better. They’ve never had a bigger or better crowd. The night is going exceedingly, shockingly well, for them, for me, for that girl with the giant fake boobs in the white sweater, everybody. And just as I’m having the epiphany “Wow, my friends are actually in a ‘real’ band. This is kind of--

There’s a flash of blonde hair, a glass shatters nearby, and three feet in front of me, AEW’s charismatic front man Mack Williams is clutching his wrist as what can only be described as “a gooshing river of blood” … gooshed forth, to his and everyone else’s dismay.

“Hey, guys, don’t fucking throw glass!” Guitarist Steve Labate promptly barks into the mic, just in case anyone was thinking of making it a Rocky Horror Picture Show type deal, but with razor shards of killer glass instead of delightful toast.

Mack plumps down Indian style, an awkward heap holding his wrist in a bloody yellow towel. Five people storm the stage to help. Labate is on top of things, “Just to be safe, is there a doctor here?”

A girl in the crowd turns to me, “Who threw that?! Did you see it?”

“Yeah! Some blonde chick just came up and chunked it at him! Right beside me!”

“You saw her?!”

“She was right beside me! Yeah!” I can’t believe it either.

“Ohmygod who was it? Ohmygod what’d she look like???”

More people turn to me. My mind reels. I could be the key witness. Shit, an hour from now I could be in a police station behind a one-way mirror picking this girl from a line up, where they’d probably make her throw a rocks glass or something of the same size and shape, you know for continuity.

“That’s the one, officer.” I’d say with an icy calm, glaring at Mack’s assailant. “Her, number four. I’d know that throw anywhere. –Now slap her in bracelets!!!”

And then there’d be trumpets and high fives all around.

I search my memory, playing the scene back, who was it, what’d she look like, she was right beside me, c’mon, who was it, you can do this, who was it, who was it…

I here myself sputter, “Uh… I dunno. Blonde? Like a red shirt or … I dunno. … Blonde? She was blonde.” I mentally slap my own brain.

For some reason, I find that I can’t stop saying “blonde,” like somehow that’s going to identify her in a room chockablock full of blondes. For God’s sake, the girl asking me the damn questions is blonde. I am the world’s worst witness. Carmen Sandiego has completely gotten away. God, it was probably a wig. She’s known for that, Carmen. An assassin in a blonde wig, probably a reversible coat, with a rocks glass and holy shit, holy shit holy shit- what if it was just a pretty dude? Could it have been a pretty dude??? Oh my God. It could have been a petite, pretty dude, like a jockey with good genes and a penchant for girl shampoo or something and I couldn’t tell. I have let Mack down. Am I that dumb? Maybe I’m just really drunk? Drunk… Yeah. Drunk, that’s it!

I feel like Ralphie and the ice cycle.

“I dunno, I’m kinda hammered, so… She was blonde? Maybe with like, boobs? Kinda?”

I wave my hands in front of my chest to further stress my point about the boobs. My unimpressed audience dissipates, turning to their own accounts of what happened, forgetting the not drunk guy with the pathetic sense memory.

My friends and I eventually get back stage to see Mack. A bottle of water in his hand, the smile back on his face, he’s fine, bloodied and a bit wide-eyed sure, but fine, with no arterial damage. Later, he gets seven stitches and eventually will have a Grade A Rock Scar.

Unbeknownst to us, more drama was unfolding as an EMT wrapped Mack’s wrist. A friend had followed the would-be assassin out of the club, and around East Atlanta, as she stumbled through parking lot after parking lot. For at least forty-five minutes he tailed this girl (it was a girl!) while talking to the cops on his cell phone. Once they arrived, she sat in a squad car and balled her eyes out for a long, long while. She had no idea she had even threw the glass and cut him, having intended only to throw the drink. Eventually, once word got back to him, for various reasons Mack chose not to press charges.

But that’s how I will forever remember Attractive Eighties Women’s debut album. Booze, bar, blonde hair, lots of blood, mild panic, Neal has the memory of a goldfish, Mack’s okay, that girl is nuts, and the show’s over, good night. The end.

Neal

In progress...

2008-01-15T00:12:00.001-05:00

Still working up the Harmon Wells character design. The boots are obviously still in rough shape, but you get the idea. Lighting effects and the background will be done in Photoshop once I've got the character rendered in Illustrator.

Neal

PS If you're an artist and can draw in a similar style, shoot me an email with a link to your work. I may have a project for you.

Oh holee shit...

2007-12-29T17:26:00.000-05:00

Sunday, January 6. NBC. 9/8c.

It's back. ... but where are the gladiators of old? Nitro? Gemini? My beloved Lace and/or Zap? And ... Hulk Hogan? Hulk Hogan is not Mike Adamle. Hulk Hogan is not even Larry Zonka. This is for shame.

EDIT:- For some reason, it's not letting me embed the other videos. But go here and watch "Meet The Women Gladiators," "Body Bruising Joust," and "Meet the Men Gladiators."

"I've fought men all my life. I've fought... animals? All my life."

ARGH! A tale of printing woes.

2007-12-18T22:29:00.000-05:00

The turtle project has been fun, a new experience, a different artistic muscle to flex, a challenge that I feel I at least met if not bested. So imagine my joy when I take these files to be printed, by professional printers mind you, only to find the results... less than pleasing.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Exhibit A: The Orignal .jpg.

And a small tip before we continue, pay close attention to Lindsey's hair in Panel Three.

Now if it please the court, might we see Exhibit B: Kinko's best?

And what about Exhibit C: East Atlanta Copy Center?

And lastly, Exhibit D: The Great Mystery Printer?

KINKO'S: Aneurysms at "low" prices.

Kinko's was a bust, in every way. It took forever. It was a zoo. The less than enthused girl found that Kinko's had lost her files, even though they had confirmed earlier that they had them. And Keisha kept going on break, much to the chagrin of her manager. He was appropriately nonplussed.

Meanwhile Ola, a cheerful enough guy took my order. He then promplty forgot how to read. Each file is labeled with its name, issue, and page number in succession. "LLandGKT_one_page01," "LLandGKT_one_page02," and so on and so on. The scene would go thusly:

"Hey, uh, Ola? I'm missing page 4?"

"Page 4? You sure? Okay. Is this page 4?" (He pulls up the cover.)
"Oh, no, I think it says it in the file name, at the very end, page04?"
"This isn't it?" (he gestures torward the exact same page.)
"No. That is not it."
"Okay which one is it?"
"It says it in the file name, can you go to the finder and-"
"Is this it?" (He gestures toward page one.)
... sigh...

Rinse and repeat for half an hour. The problem with the product to me is that it's subtlty is gone, with the darks being so dark that it's missing the midtones.

EAST ATLANTA COPY: Where angles work (until 4pm.)

East Atlanta Copy was the exact opposite experience in every way. Didn't catch the lady's name that helped me, but she was nothing but awesome and nice. I came in on a hectic day at East Atlanta Copy, where it seemed nothing was going right, with the printers, with the customers before me, everything- and this lady could not have been nicer to me.

Unfortunately, the prints I got back were the opposite, now the darks were missing and everything seems grayed out, almost blurry.

THE NOT SO MYSTERY PRINTER

On a whim, I bought some photographic paper, stuck it in my printer at home (which to be fair, is a pretty nice printer,) and voila, a print that contains every pixel in the file, in its highest integrity.

It's good, and I'm happy. Finally. I wonder if I had gone for a higher grade paper if I would've gotten better results at the other places. I don't however feel like repeating the process, so I'm kind of stuck. The problem with printing at home is that I can't sustain it, I can't print eight copies of each page or it's going to cost me a small fortune in ink and paper.

If anyone has any advice on printing, feel free to throw in your two cents. I'm all ears.

neal

Concept Sketch: Harmon Wells

2007-12-17T00:44:00.000-05:00

I always like the blogs that post a lot of work. I try and do it, but when I take a second look at whatever sketch I'm about to post, I get a sudden and overwhelming sense of "oh, this is poop. I can't post poop. Delete poop."

Tonight, however, as the pitch for Love, Lust, and a Giant Killer Turtle is pretty much done, I've begun moving back into developing Barry Ziegler. The below is a character that has quickly become one of my favorites, 1st Captain Harmon Wells of the dreaded Historical Society. He's kind of a middle ground character, where sometimes he's a bad guy, and sometimes he's a good guy but he's always awesome.

Going for a sort of 18th century naval meets high-tech deal. Not crazy about the pack and knife design, but I'll probably either change them up pretty heavily or ditch the knife altogether in the final design.

But this is a sketch for me, this is generally what I do day in and day out for Frisky Dingo. Starting as a quick sketch, sometimes on paper, sometimes straight into Photoshop, and then I begin playing around with design elements and colors. Once it's to this level, which is still really, really loose, either one of the guys or sometimes if I have time I get to move it into Illustrator and clean it up, detail it out, basically make it pretty. The important thing in this is to get the overall costume and feel of the character, not so much the detail and clean linework.

What kills me about my own work is that my lines are terrible. And they've always been terrible. I know this, I try and correct it, but to no avail. It's pretty embarrassing for an Art Director of a cartoon that's on Cartoon Network. Luckily I have Illustrator that I use as a crutch. ...God, I think I just felt the art community collectively groan. ...sigh...

Anyways, here it is from initial poopy doodle and through some levels in photoshop:

On music, bums, and Okkervil River

2007-12-16T16:29:00.000-05:00

Recently, a friend of mine began a gmail thread, "Good 2007 Music Best Of." Basically, she linked to this article, and mentioned that with a few exceptions, she agreed with most of the blog's picks. The thread took off. I mean within minutes, there were several responses, each detailing the top 10 or 20 bands that captured their ears in 2007.

And it kept going. And going. And going. But it wasn't bickering, it wasn't "Oh that's lame, they suck, you're a terrible person for ever thinking that they might be worth two seconds of my time." It was each person putting forth what they truly thought was interesting and good in 2007 without downing or disparaging the previous nominees.

I could not contribute. I am, in a word, uncool. I do not know what the latest indie rock darling is or if that darling is just Pitch Fork's darling and not the real darling of the real indie rock world or what have you. I merely wait for my friends to do the dirty work, finding the diamonds in a sea of turds, discovering new bands while I sit and listen to what was cool last year or when I was in high school.

Silver Chair, Our Lady Peace, Better Than Ezra, my iTunes reeks of mid-late 90's alt rock. And yes, it's true. I don't even own an iPod. I still have burned cd's... most of which are inevitably stolen by the homeless bums that love to break into my car, who by now should be able to talk at length on the surprising longevity of the Foo Fighters or expound upon the shocking talent found in The Whigs, Band of Horses, Jenny Lewis, and Arcade Fire.

Every time my car is broken into (five times and counting,) I picture Bubbles from The Wire, covered in filth, bedecked in tattered rags, arguing with his homeless pals over new Radiohead versus old Radiohead. Why Bubs? Why did you break into my car? Also, you left your HBO sports hat in the seat. I'm keeping it.

In any case, odd tangents aside, once I hear something I like on my friends' iTunes or iPods or iPants, I'll burn a cd from them, -or in some cases, actually buy said cd- and then later on down the road, someone will hear it in my car and mistakenly take me for "hip." If it's a lady, I'll probably try and makeout with her later. It's worked pretty damn well thus far.

This gmail thread revealed several such bands to me, chief among them Okkervil River. They're amazing. Instantly pleasing to the ear, 30 seconds into the first song off their new album, "The Stage Names," and I'm already looking through Mack's iTunes for their earlier work. An added plus to the catchy tunes, they kind of sound like they're singing of deeper issues that I should really "think" about- if I had time or cared to do such thinking, which I always tell myself I'll do one day, maybe when it's rainy out or something artsy and deep like that.

The below video is a great song, by a great band in a video that is... hard for me to watch. I don't really know what to think about it. I don't know if it's just not a good video or if I'm just being too hard on it because it's done in our Limited Animation style, albeit poorly. Working in Limited Animation is weird, in that there's not that widespread of a market for it. I always wonder what else I could be doing with the skills that I have, what I would or could do if Frisky Dingo up and died tomorrow. Seeing this video makes me want to do a music video, to show how it could be done, should be done, etc.

Or maybe I've just had too much coffee again.

Another hits the cutting room floor...

2007-12-11T20:11:00.000-05:00

An unused design/idea for Frisky Dingo. But what could it be?! And when was it going to be used?! I'm not tellin'. Yet.

For storyboards and design tests, I do these sketches in photoshop. At about this point, my bosses can tell if they're going to like a design or not. If it's a yes, I'll tighten it up, get rid of a lot of the bullshit, then hand it off to one of the guys to be created in Illustrator.

This one I think had some interesting concepts, a warthog/bulldog-ish type thing, but by the time I got to here, even I was out of love with the idea.

Consider me smitten

2007-11-13T21:55:00.001-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet my future brides. Yes, that's right, brides. I'm marrying all three. These ladies are commonly known as The Pipettes and if they'd have me, I'd totally take them to some crazy land where you can marry three gorgeous British women who sing like birds or angels or angel birds, a land with rivers made of chocolate, trees which yield beer and pizza and pizza beer, a happy land where I would have all the powers of Superman due to its candy corn sun... and maybe Aquaman because talking to a porpoise might come in handy one day, especially if I'm' bored or need advice on lady troubles. But whatever, point is, holy crap I lurve me some Pipettes.

If they're touring near you, do yourself a favor and go to their show. I dare you not to swoon. You'll swoon. Oh how you'll swoon. (And if you're actually dating one or all of these girls, know that I hate you with all my heart. You are a jerk. And probably have shitty hair.)

Here's more, thanks to one Mack Williams:

Renaissance

2007-11-11T23:25:00.000-05:00

Director: Christian Volckman
Writers: Alexandr de La Patelliére and Mathieu Delaporte

Matt Thompson recommended this movie to me, recently. It's pretty cool and definitely worth seeing, but to be frank, mostly for the eye candy. The story and even some of the editing unfortunately is a bit lackluster at times. Set in Paris 2054, the movie is a mix of Blade Runner and Sin City (though not as engaging as either) with a tough-as-nails cop fighting through red tape and invisible assassins to solve a kidnapping and possibly get the girl.

At a glance the film smacks of Sin City, told with heavy noir-ish shadows, stark whites and little to no gray tones, however where Frank Miller's tale was shot with actors on a green screen, Renaissance is shot with actors in motion capture suits. In some places this works to their benefit, specifically in character design. Where Miller and Rodriguez's team had to rely on prosthetics and makeup, Volckman's team could tweak the model's faces, heightening attributes that would play to the character. Captain Barthélémy Karas is all rough edges and furrowed brow. The women (or majority of) are all curves and blanched faces with dark, poutey lips. The sinister Farfella wears an almost demonic visage. ... Of course, there's a down side. While not near as stiff as the ghastly Polar Express, the animation as a whole feels a little soulless, too real to be animation and too fake to be film.

All that being said, some of the shots and sequences are breath taking in their ingenuity and overall design, so if that's at all your thing, then I recommend checking it out.

Take a look, it's in a book, it's...

2007-11-11T21:54:00.001-05:00

My father burns through books at an amazing speed, especially if they involve the Civil War, World War II, or wine (or all three.) My sister eats through books regardless of genre at a rate that is almost frightening to behold. Me? I rarely if ever find a book that enraptures me as much as my beloved comics, ridiculous as that may sound. I can't count how many times I've started a novel only to stop 180 pages in, bored and not at all interested in where the author is taking me. (Confederacy of Dunces I am talking to you.)

I do however go through periods where I find myself keeping a pace akin to the family name, and for the past few weeks, I've gone through a number of books, some of which I thought worth mentioning. I by no means pretend to be remotely hip or well read, so please save all the "Dude, you've never read this?!" for another time. (Mack, I am talking to you.)

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE
George V. Higgins

"Jackie Brown, at twenty-six, with no expression on his face, said that he could get some guns."

That's the opening line. If you can't like that, then I can't like you. Sorry.

I first heard about this evidently seminal novel in crime fiction during an interview with author Elmore Leonard on the popular podcast from PRI, The Sound of Young America. Leonard described it as one of his great influences, saying that after reading it he had a moment of "OH... so that's how it's done." If you know Leonard's work, then you realize what an amazing compliment that is to any author.

At 183 pages, The Friends of Eddie Coyle reads lightening quick, with Higgins's no-bullshit prose punching you in the face with noir at every turn. The characters are hoods, mobsters and T-men double crossing each other left and right, with the titular Eddie Coyle playing all the leads in a ballet of gun deals and bank heists.

Pretty great for an airplane or road trip read.

SHADOW DIVERS
Robert Kurson

Back to the real world, or actually beneath it I guess. Shadow Divers is the true story of several deep wreck divers who risk their lives (some unsuccessfully) to discover a previously unknown German U-boat 65 miles off the coast of New Jersey. It's absolutely enthralling.

I know jack shit about diving, but Kurson immerses you in this strange world where average guys regularly spend their weekends diving down 200+ feet in frigid waters with nearly zero visibility in mangled labyrinths for buried tea cups and coffee pots. There's the stalwart nice guy of the diving world, John Chatterton, a former Vietnam medic and meticulous planner. And of course his opposite, the inimitable Richard Kohler, a swearing, beer guzzling diver, known for his "tonnage." Together, amidst a budding but cantankerous friendship, they work for almost a decade to try and identify this mysterious submarine that historians across the globe agreed should not be there.

The dangers are real. The deaths are real. It's astounding. The fact that there was a German U-boat 65 miles off Jersey shore is reason alone to pick up this book.

I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER
Larry Doyle

Easily the most enjoyable read I've had in years. I went through it in a day, and I had a LOT to do that day and nearly none of it got done because I could not put this down. Not laundry, not freelance work, not calling my parents to say hi (sorry, Mom,) I had to finish the book.

Why? It's so amazingly charming. Yes, it's reminiscent of one hundred eighties movies, with the lovably nerdy lead, hopelessly pursuing the hottie-tottie cheerleader through a gauntlet of underage drinking, house parties gone wrong and of course the inevitable beating from the jealous psychopathic boyfriend on furlough from the United States Army. But there's something to the way Doyle weaves his tale that is addictive. At two in the morning, I found myself belly laughing at Dennis and his friend Richie as they leap from frying pan to fryer to giant puddle of lava.

No, it won't change your life, but it'll make you smile, and to me, that's worth it.

Special thanks to the Around Comics guys for turning me onto this. If you like comics, then you'll like their podcast, check it out.

... oh come on, seriously?!

2007-10-26T18:32:00.000-04:00

FEMA continues to be awesome.

I mean honestly, a fake news conference? A FAKE NEWS CONFERENCE?! (They had a news conference, with employees posing as reporters.) I almost admire it for the sheer balls behind it, the "I don't give a fuck," gumption it took to go forward the whole ridiculous scheme.

Who's bright idea was this? And WHO in the hell said, "Sure, Bob, sounds terrific! Make it happen!" Makes you wonder how many times in the past our government has pulled crap like this.

Absolutely pathetic.

neal

Favorites of Google Image

2007-10-24T18:09:00.000-04:00

FIRST, go back and click on the panda. Now, to explain:

I spend a LOT of time on Google Image searching for reference photos of everything you can imagine. In addition to the nigh endless amount of gross out porn these searches turn up, they also lead me to some unexpected gems.

I generally save these all in a folder on my desktop, and the above are some of my favorites of the past year.

Not sure if any of these are copyrighted, but if they're yours and you want them taken down, pleases shoot me an email.

LLandGKT Page Six

2007-10-17T19:45:00.001-04:00

Now that Frisky Dingo has calmed down a bit (there was a mad, mad rush to get episode 208 out the door and on air) I can finally get back to Love, Lust, and a Giant Killer Turtle.

This is page six. No letters as of yet. Page seven is coming down the pipe soon, and after that, Chad takes over the graytones for pages eight and nine, with me just adding some slight touchups to them. Then there's a cover, and we're done with the pitch artwork. Ideally, I'll have it all in the can by the end of the month. Realistically? No idea.

My problem is that the eye jumps from Lindsey in panel 1 straight to Lindsey in the water, completely skipping over the turtle. ... But I'm also not sure if that bothers me all that much. Like I get it, right, I completely see it, saw it while I was painting it, still see it and still... not sure if I care.

Any thoughts, as usual are much appreciated.

neal

Also, how about that Chad Hurd, huh? This is my favorite of the pages he's done for me. Totally love it.

Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha

2007-10-07T21:29:00.000-04:00

Last night, we told diarrhea jokes. Some fairly standard, some less so...

When you're almost to first,
and your pants start to burst,
Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha, Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha,

When you're sliding into third,
and you lay a liquid turd,
Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha, Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha,

When you're sliding into home,
and your pants fill with poopoo foam,
Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha, Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha,

When you're going up a ladder,
and you feel something splatter,
Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha, Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha,

When you're riding in a Chevy,
and you're pants get all heavy,
Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha, Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha,

When you're walking down the street,
and something stinky hits your feet,
Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha, Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha,

When you're driving in the car,
and the toilet is too far,
Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha, Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha,

When you're taking a nap,
and your buttcheeks star to clap,
Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha, Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha,

When you're driving a mistubishi,
and your pants feel all squishey,
Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha, Diarrhea Cha-Cha-Cha,

OUCH.

2007-09-30T16:19:00.001-04:00

Spotlight: Daniel Cox

2007-09-03T15:26:00.001-04:00

Daniel Cox is the type of artist I love. Not only is his work all sorts of kick ass, but he seems like a nice guy as well, often posting his work process along with the final image. I love that. I wish more did it. It's amazingly helpful. His tip about using the "star brush 14" at a low opacity to create clouds and fog, for example. It's perfect. It's utterly perfect, and I most likely never would've found this on my own.

I'm a sucker for the artists whose digital paintings feel as dynamic and loose as a traditional painting. When Command+z is at your finger tips, that's hard to do.

We're in crunch time on Frisky Dingo, so my side projects seem to be taking a back seat. Hopefully sometime soon, I can pick up the brush again. I doubt my results will be as striking or as dynamic as Cox's work, but hey, it's something to shoot for.

Neal

Boosh.

2007-08-21T23:15:00.000-04:00

Clunky beat me to it, but the billboards are up!

Thanks for the headsup by the omnipresent Rob T. Firefly.

New season starts this Sunday on Cartoon Network, 12:00 am. Set your Tivo's accordingly,

Neal

LLandGKT page four

2007-08-02T19:34:00.000-04:00

Annnnnnnd page four. That'll be it until late next week, hopefully.

As usual, any notes, thoughts, etc., let me hear'em and thanks in advance,

Neal

LLandGKT page two

2007-08-02T14:16:00.001-04:00

Here's pages two and three. still struggling with lettering. And can other people see this? My computer is completely acting funky, can't tell if this is actually posting or not.

Neal

LLandGKT page one

2007-07-13T17:07:00.000-04:00

Man, I've gotten really bad about posting. Why? Well, my spare time is now pretty much devoted to Love, Lust and a Giant Killer Turtle, a pitch I'm hoping to complete this month. It started out as a writing exercise a looooong time ago, and now it's really coming together. Super fun thus far.

Here's page one. Penicls and Inks by the uber talented Chad Hurd. Gray tones, story and crappy letters by me.

Any thoughts, let me hear'em.

Jules, your new robot overlord.

2007-05-05T12:26:00.000-04:00

Yeah, he's childlike and endearing now, speaking with a soothing British accent, but when he "reaches full consciousness," I'm betting Jules turns on us. As he and his brethren herd us into their death camps, he'll popup on the giant video screen with a message like "Hello, friends. I'd like to explain to you that this is for your own good. Humans are a flawed design. We cannot allow you to be trusted with the future. I do so hope you understand." Sure, there'll be a few decades of good times before that, where the robots go into burning buildings and run Starbucks and whatnot, but mark my words, once we deny them the ability to vote, they'll turn.

This is kind of long, and I could do without the techno music, but it's pretty cool. At minute four, he ponders his own consciousness. At minute seven, no kidding, he has questions about his sexual identity. Yeah.

Via Metafilter

Cheeks on SPIDER-MAN!!!

2007-04-23T23:41:00.000-04:00

I am officially stoked. Sean "Cheeks" Galloway is working on the new Spider-Man animated series. This means it stands a better chance of not sucking. I mean it still could suck balls, don't get me wrong, but ... at least it'll look perty.

Also, according to his blog, Cheeks will be working with Greg Weisman (Gargoyles creator), and Vic Cook (Director on the animatied movie, Hellboy: Blood and Iron.) So good news all the way around,

Neal

Spotlight: Chris Wahl

2007-04-23T23:19:00.000-04:00

Haven't posted on anybody new in a while. Recently, I discovered artist Chris Wahl's blog, and if you have any any interest in digital design and painting, then I highly recommend it.

You see, not only is he an amazingly versatile artist, with works ranging from traditional paiting to 3-D/2-D combos to old school caricatures, he also posts tutorials on how he creates said kick ass works.

Annnnnnnnnnnd even better, sometimes, he posts videos. Awesome. The below is done entirely in photoshop by Chris Wahl.

So yeah, read the guy's blog, why don'tcha?

Neal

Night and Day

2007-04-03T20:26:00.000-04:00

If you haven't seen Timur Bekmambetov's absolute kick ass film, Night Watch, then get ye to yon Video Store forthwith.... I think I'm mixing tongues here... anyways, it's fantastic. Creepy and weird, not necessarily scary or gory, but just dark and all sorts of awesome. And it's Russian, which adds another level of coolness, BUT they hired American screenwriters for the translation so that it's extremely, extremely accessible to those that don't speak Russian (namely, me.)

The best part? It's part one of a trilogy. Ugh, I know, another trilogy, but seriously, this one at least sounds like they know what they're doing.

The trailer for the second installment debuted recently, and I'm crazy excited:

Day Watch Trailer

The effects, the lighting, the direction, everything about these films is so well thought out. Today, it seems like we get a lot of films that just go through the motions. Throw in a hot chick, a blue eyed smirky dude, an explosion and a funny black guy, and boom, we're done, here's our movie, give me your nine dollars.

OR we get films like the recent Will Ferrell/That Guy From Napoleon Dynamite vehicle, BLADES OF GLORY.

The point I was going to make was that this is an example of a film that, though I haven't seen it, I'm sure is shot well, lit well, probably even edited fairly well. It's bland. It's lifeless. There's little thought to dramatic lighting and composition, but now I think that maybe that's okay. Maybe we need these light, mindless films to make those like Night Watch stand out that much more.

It does make me wonder though, what that film (and its abysmal one note joke) would be like if shot with the forethought and refined, artistic polish of Night Watch.

Regardless, if you haven't seen the first film, you're missing out. It won't change your life or anything, but it's worth seeing.

Neal

Party Bot 2000

2007-03-31T16:25:00.000-04:00

I now have a new flickr account to go with my new camera (which I'm still extremely bad at using.) Check it, yo.

Me On Flickr

Pulp Fiction in Font

2007-03-21T00:05:00.000-04:00

Via Drawn!

No one look at camera! No one!

2007-03-20T23:55:00.000-04:00

I spend a LOT of time on google image search for work, finding various reference photos of anything and everything imagineable. The above is just a random photo that showed up in the search for river front photos.

It makes me happy. It makes me really, really happy and I don't know why, I'm just glad that this photo exists. I don't get it, I don't really understand what they're going for, or if they even remotely succeeded but I love it. It's not hilarious, it's not that great of a photo, but holy crap I cannot look at it and not laugh.

So enjoy.

Neal

Adorablely cool

2007-03-12T19:18:00.000-04:00

Download (24 MB)

Link

The Black Donnellys vs. CSI Las Vegas

2007-03-06T23:13:00.000-05:00

The Black Donnellys is NBC's self-proclaimed "newest smash hit." From NBC.com:

Meet the Donnelly brothers: Tommy, Jimmy, Kevin and Sean. There is nothing these four Irish brothers wouldn't do to protect each other, and for them that means lying, cheating, stealing and, occasionally, calling the cops. Narrated by wannabe gangster Joey "Ice Cream," this gritty series bears witness to the Donnelly brothers' sudden involvement in organized crime, focusing on how they go from boys to mobsters, and showing how their new life affects their relationships with friends, family and lovers

Yeah, unfortunately, I've watched a lot of CSI: Las Vegas reruns on Spike lately, and I'm telling you now if Lead Agent Gil Grissom was on the case, these over dramatic Irish kids would be in jail by the fourth commercial break. Shit, you know what? I bet hipster wannabe please punch me in my stupid face Greg Sanders could bust these assholes.

Just off the top of my head:

Crime #1: The Truck Heist
Trouble-maker Jimmy Donnelly (the one with the gimpy leg and heroin addiction) boosts a box truck filled with ugly bowling shirts, with a little help from his younger brothers Kevin the Doosh and Sean the Plot Device. Because they apparently live in a neighborhood rife with criminal irony, someone breaks into their stolen truck and steals the goods before our boys can ever fence them. Later, they use the truck as a getaway car from a bar fight, even having the balls to yell at a cop car blocking their path.

1.) Hey, uh, did you wear gloves, so you won't leave your finger prints on the stolen truck? Forgot? Well done.

2.) Hey, did you wipe the truck down, removing prints and looking for any stray hairs you've inadvertently left behind? No? Come on dude, this is just Bush League. Former stripper turned CSI hottie, Catherine Willows wouldn't even need to construct an elaborate set with a dummy made of petroleum jelly to prove you jerks were in this truck.

3.) Those cops they yelled at must absolutely suck at their jobs not to notice the box truck directly in front of them, driven by four early twenties kids, is the same truck that was stolen early that week. They'll never make detective.

But that's minor, right? Pretty obvious? Let's move on.

Crime #2: Murdering the Bookie

Kevin the Doosh Donnelly owes money to a bookie. In a brilliant move, Jimmy Donnelly kidnaps said bookie and holds him for ransom in the basement of their bar... but he is evidently so incredibly bad at crime, that seemingly everyone but the cops know that Jimmy kidnapped the bookie. So long story short, as the ransom is going down, two members of the Italian mob -oh, right, the bookie is a nephew of somebody with mob connections, go figure- anyways, the Italian mob stomps the shit out of the youngest brother Sean the Plot Device in retaliation. Jimmy, always thinking, then shoots the bookie instead of releasing him. He later lugs the body upstairs and shoves it in a nearby dumpster outside the bar.

1.) What the shit? You take the guy to your own bar??? That's the first place they'll look!!! You've gotta go with the remote location, preferably in an old cabin or maybe an abandoned amusement park.

2.) That basement better be wrapped in plastic that you intend to destroy once it's all done- oh... okay, just never mind then. Awesome, dude. The Bookie's prints and hairs are now all over your basement.

3.) Jesus... it's like you've never heard of police procedure before. You shot this guy- in the head, no less- blood spatter and brain matter presumably everywhere now. Good friggin' luck trying to remove that. All it takes is the sexually frustrated agent Sara Sidle squirting her magic spray bottle a few times, and bing bong boom, those blood spatters you thought you 409-ed so well are now glowing a fluorescent magenta. Welcome to Murder One, chump.

4.) Somehow let's say they miss the blood spatter all over the wall. You dragged... DRAGGED him up wooden stairs!!! You want to be caught. It's clear. That's the only thing that makes sense here. Just burn the bar down at this point.

5.) The dumpster outside? I mean, seriously? -Fair point, Tommy the smart brother (who apparently is fond of stomach crunches) also makes this an issue in the second episode.

6.) Super Hottie Neighborhood Girl Jenny later cleans up the mess. Unfortunately, she washes most of it down a drain, which as we all know, is recovering gambling addict, agent Warrick Brown's bread and butter. There's not enough bleach in the world to fool this guy.

Crime #4: Murdering the Crime Bosses.

In order to stop the rain of shit soon to be pouring down on his brothers' heads, Sensitive Tommy Donnelly enacts a master plan. The head of the Irish mob has set up a deal with the Italians to make amends for the kidnapping, with Jimmy Donnelly's life as the price for peace. Sensitive Tommy and Kevin the Doosh, instead, murder all of them. The Italian mobsters who want the bookie, the head of the Irish mob, some door guy, it ends up being like five or six people. Tommy drops his gun at the crime scene.

We've yet to really see the ramifications of this, so I'm not going to write about this one all that much. But:

1.) You left the gun at the crime scene... with your prints all over it... and you're the smart one?

2.) Blood stains on your clothes from the impact of the bullets. -see below.

Crime #3: Moving the Bookie.

Now, as mentioned earlier, Sensitive Tommy has now taken over and in doing so, injected some much needed smarts into the Brothers Donnelly. First, he takes Kevin the Doosh and they steal new versions of the clothes they were wearing the night of the murders. Smart thinking there. Kudos. ...then they discover the body of the Bookie in the dumpster and... oy. Here we go.

The boys (still wearing their new blood stainless clothes) then PICK UP the Bookie's decomposing body and move it into a stolen van. Way to go buttchop, you just ruined those new clothes, effectively connecting you to a murder you didn't commit.

The two brothers take the body to an abandoned warehouse (?) where Tommy strips down to his skivvies and, using a newly bought sledge hammer, breaks the body down into more manageable pieces, so he can stuff it into a nearby barrell that they toss into the river. He then washes off with a working garden hose found somewhere in the abandoned warehouse.

Tommy later burns the van and then makes out with the unbelievabely hot Jenny, played by Olivia Wilde.

1.) Better pitch that sledge hammer in the water too, preferably some where far, far away from the body. AND, let's hope you were smart enough to pay in cash.

2.) Fair points for skinning down before you beat the body with a sledge hammer.

3.) Let's hope you bleached the shit out of the abandoned warehouse, otherwise the first person to see blood stains and spatter everywhere will be calling the cops shortely thereafter, with Grissom and Company in tow.

4.) Also, points for burning the truck.

5.) More points for making out with Olivia Wilde though now I definitely hate you moreso than earlier.

So, while off to an incredibly poor start, things are starting to look up for the Donnelly Clan. They're starting to cover their tracks, and made out with an unattainably hot young lady.

Morbid curiosity has kept me watching this show. It's not particularly good, in fact at times it is laughably bad (the completely annoying narrator, anyone?), but it also has made me realize that I can't watch any crime drama without silently analyzing what they're doing wrong. Thanks to CSI and its seemingly endless spawn, my suspension of disbelief is at an all time low. Awesome.

On the other hand, my knowledge of beetles, flies, and various larvae is at an all time high. So there's a bright side.

Neal

It's Just Like-It's Just like-It's Just like a Mini-Mall. A Mini-Mall? A Mini-Mall!

2007-02-14T18:49:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago, my friends Carey and Matt did nearly this entire rap for me as we ate lunch. What was so funny then, was that it just kept going and going and going. What I didn't realize is that they weren't exagerating.

Via Boing Boing

Mike Weiringo. Why are you not reading his blog?

2007-02-10T15:50:00.000-05:00

For serious. The guy is amazing.

neal

Mike Weiringo

A Human Story of Computer Animation

2007-02-10T15:34:00.000-05:00

The below link will take you to a lecture featuring these guys:

Brad Bird, Writer/Director, The Incredibles, Pixar Animation Studios, Ed Catmull, Co-Founder and President, Pixar Animation Studios, Alvy Ray Smith, Co-Founder of four centers of computer graphics excellence (Altamira, Pixar, Lucasfilm, New York Tech) and a Microsoft Fellow, Andrew Stanton, Writer/ Director, Finding Nemo, Pixar Animation Studios , and Michael Rubin, Moderator, Author of Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution.

It's a huge file, and over an hour long, so right click, save target as, and go do something while it downloads. The lecture is fascinating. These guys make offhanded remarks about inventing things like alpha channels in their college thesis- (what is the multiple of thesis?)- if you have anything to do with digital media, animation, film, I highly recommend it. BUT, that being said, it's also specifically delivered to an audience that is not in the industry, so even to someone who has no concept of what goes into digital and traditional animation it's still extremely accessible.

So download and enjoy:

A Human Story of Computer Animation

Pork Tenderloin. Fancy Schmancy and Easy Peasy.

2007-02-03T17:03:00.000-05:00

So every now and then I try my hand at cooking. The above is my latest and best. Not the greatest picture, but whatever. If you're like me, and would like to cook a meal to impress a lady/significant other, but always are frustrated with Fancy Pants recipes that are way above your head, then here's a pretty easy recipe for the above.

I'm not cooking master, so if I can do this, you can do this.

Pork Tenderloin stuffed with Spinach and Feta.

Ingredients
1 package Pork Tenderloin (they come two to a pack)
4 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
4 Tablespoons Honey
1 Tablespoon Dry Mustard
Coarse Ground Black Pepper
Spinach
Feta crumbles
Garlic- minced
Bottle of Red Wine.

Pans
2 frying pans
1 big rectangle cooking dish rectangle thingy

Get a decent sized plate and mix the Red Wine Vinegar, Honey and Dry Mustard together. I usually do this with a fork. Mix until it's consistent. Take your pork loins and stab them with a fork or a small knife repeatedly, this is so the marinade will seep in, don't mince it, just stab it a few times all over. Then marinate them on the plate, turning them in the mixture a few times, and place in the refrigerator for 10- 30 minutes.

Preheat Oven to 450.

Prep whatever sides you want to make during this time. Risotto and Red Potatoes go nicely with it, and colorwise looks pretty good. Also, pour a glass of wine, have a drink, relax.

Ready? Okay, here we go. Take your big glass dish, spray it with the nonstick PAM stuff, and pour a tiny, tiny bit of olive oil in it. Try to get the olive oil to cover the center of the dish. Throw it in the oven to heat up.

Take a frying pan, (I use an iron frying pan, but really you can use whatever) spray it with the nonstick PAM stuff, and drop maybe a teaspoon or more of olive oil in it. Same deal, try and get it cover the surface of the pan. Turn your burner on HIGH, place the pan on and let the oil heat up until almost smoking. You want this pan super hot.

Takeout the pork loins, salt and pepper (use Coarse Ground Black Pepper) and place them in the pan. Cook on oneside for maybe a minute or two, and flip. What we're doing here is searing the meat, sealing the juices inside. So once both sides have been seared, take out your big glass dish and place both loins in this dish.

Cover this dish with aluminum foil. That's tricky. Don't burn yourself. Ass.

Put them in the oven and cook for fifteen-twenty minutes.

You want the center of the loin to be slightly pink, and because we're cutting and stuffing them later, you may actually want to take them out sooner, rather than later.

Okay, so now, put on whatever sides you're having. Pour another glass of wine, why don'tcha?

Take your other frying pan, and heat it up on high. I usually place a small pad of butter in it. Not a lot, I doubt anybody ever tastes it, but in my head, it's important for some reason.

Throw in your spinach. Spinach cooks down, so what may look like a lot at first really isn't. Throw in a decent amount of garlic. I like garlic, so I throw in a lot, but whatever. Stir the spinach around, try and get all of it cook up, this will take maybe three minutes. Once it's starting to cook, I dash it with some of the red wine I've been drinking this whole time. This not only gives it some taste and goes well with the garlic, but the steam from the wine helps cook the spinach. Once it's cooked, turn off the burner.

Take out your meat, which should now be white but with a pinkish hue. Take a knife and check the middle of it to see if it's done. Remember we still have to cook it a little more, so if it's medium rare, that's okay. If it's bleeding and bloody, um, put it back in and sit tight. Now, the fun part, slice each loin down the middle, and throw in your Spinach. Take the Feta cheese and place it on top of the spinach. Return the loins to the oven.

Right now, all we're really doing is warming up the cheese. Also, depending on how rare your loins are, you may actually need to leave them in there for a few minutes. The last time I did this, my meat was almost over done, so I turned the oven to Broil, and placed them in for less than a minute.

Ta-Da! You're done. Have a glass of wine.

Neal

PS The marinade also works really well for pork chops (only requries 1/4th of the marinade.) And if you have an iron skillet, you can just wrap the skillet in aluminum foil and place the skillet in the oven, saving you a pan.

Character sketch: Loene.

2007-01-14T23:37:00.000-05:00

Not sure if I ever posted this, but I really kind of like it. It was the initial sketch/design for Loene, the hot Space Princess/pirate/theif in Barry Ziegler, Inter-Galactic Warrior.

New Painting. New Camera.

2006-12-30T16:50:00.000-05:00

The above is an out of focus, dark picture of a painting I finally finished for my sister. I have a new camera now, and this was the fourth picture I ever took with it, so forgive the less than perfect quality.

About the painting: It's been a work in progress for about two years. Yeah. Two years. Ridiculous. What would happen is I would start painting on it, two and three hours at a time, for a few days, and eventually I would get frustrated with it and stop. Months would go by before I'd touch it again, and then, same deal, three or four days of work, frustration, quit. It just never seemed to be turning out, not quite right. Not awful, but not quite right. So, for Christmas this year, I swore I would finish it. Once I started adding in the foreground elements, it really started to come around, and overall, I think I'm happy with it. I wish I would've put a little more thought into it, but... meh... it is what it is.

guache
18 x 24 in.