2011: New Year Updatery™

.... annnnnd we're back, people!  Sorry for neglecting to update in some time, I was too busy being lazy.  If there's one thing I've started appreciating more the older I get, it's managing to enjoy the rare moments of down-time.  Not only did I get to visit my old friend, Playstation 3®, but I managed to make it over to Chicago's Uptown for some holiday time with the fam & friends.  It was some much-needed relaxation.

How I Spent My Winter Vacation by Mark Phillips

Despite my best efforts, it wasn't all sleeping and being hungover and subsisting off of a candy & cheese diet!  Not counting how many people I helped/murdered in Fallout: New Vegas over the break, I finally managed to finish the oddisee music video that I've been working on and for the most part am very happy with it.  Unfortunately I can't post it and show you just yet, but once oddisee gives it a proper release you will be the FIRST (well technically second) to know about it.  I know a lot of people enjoy making trailers for their hip-hop videos nowadays but since the video only rounds out to be just over two minutes I'd be giving away most of what happens even if I kept it short (not that Hollywood doesn't do that already).  Sooooo you'll just have to sit tight and wait a month or two, brah.

I have a lot to catch up with this blog, so get ready to pretend I'm your mom and check in regularly, dear.  

... oh hey it's that thing I've been working on!

This is Part 1 of why I've been neglecting my friends and cat since October.



I designed the stop-motion characters, designed the car models, was director of animation and, most importantly, played the gorilla working out in the gym.

I have lots of pre-production and lots of animation that didn't make the cut that I'll be posting in the near future.

Part 2 of why I've been neglecting my friends and cat since October coming soon.*

* ... as soon as it's done.

Happy 100th Blog Post!!!™

'Finishing up a long day at work, but I wanted to get a chance to post this brand-new still for the new Oddisee "Ci'iy Life" music video... coming before 2011 hits.

Chinchilla, Meet Shake Weight®

I haven't done a lot of stopmotion since college but the year 2010 has proven to be a return to form for me in that regard.  From storyboarding to designing characters, props and sets to animating it all once it's ready they've been keeping me very very busy at work.  I won't say too much about what it all entails until I have a finished product to show but until then I'll post what I can when I have time.

To get things started, here's a chinchilla exercising with a shake weight. 

More to come!

Personable Animals

I drew these up for another work-related pitch.  Still waiting to see whether or not we got the job...

Rejected Concept Designs

I did these designs for a pitch package at work but we didn't get the job.  Ah well!  The client was a car-selling website and the idea was to tell the story of a buyer-seller relationship.  I designed the characters and backgrounds around the old UPA-style of animation since I had never really animated like that before and thought it'd be fun to do.  Maybe next time!

... and for those of you who aren't familiar with UPA (United Productions of America), here's one of their more famous cartoons "Gerald McBoing Boing" from 1951 that won them an Academy Award.

The Critics Have Spoken

Our music video for Kevin Rudolf's song "You Make the Rain Fall" has seen nothing but glowing reviews on Youtube:

Ocupado.

I apologize for no new posts recently, especially after I went on a ruthless spree of updates.  Lately I've been super busy filling in for Tara Reid's decrepit stomach.  New posts coming soon!

Translating to Illustrator

While I was sifting through a few hundred files trying to find a few templates I had lost in the Great Deletion of 2010, I came across some elements that I created for some concept boards last year for work.  While I use Illustrator on a daily basis, outside of some miscellaneous free-hand drawings I don't do a lot of pen tool-based illustration in my own style.  If you're not familiar with Illustrator, the pen tool is essentially a way to manipulate vector curves by hand, and usually looks a little something like this.

fun!

It's not nearly as intuitive as illustrating by hand but you do get a lot of control over each of your lines.  I think its uses are intended more for design and industrial elements, so when it comes to trying to make something look cartoony with the pen tool you usually get something a bit more stiff than loose.  Here's an example of some character work done with the help of Illustrator:

this show is quite good.

Personally I think a lot of this style is like the new animé in the sense that you see it EVERYWHERE and 80% of it looks the same.  With the advent and current widespread use of Flash, a vector-based animation program, this style isn't going away anytime soon -- plus it doesn't take a lot of illustration know-how to design some of the simpler characters.  Like I was saying earlier, I took a stab at it last year and here are three quick Illustrator illustrations:

I don't hate them but they look too clean to me.

Also if you're curious as to what the elements were made for, they were made for a pitch for this J.C. Penney/Van Heusen football promotion.  If you watch closely at the 5-second mark on the video embedded on the site, that was me making my national broadcast debut!  You may also notice that none of the elements I worked on made it into the final product (although I did end up animating the whole thing). 

Salesman Pete and The Amazing Stone from Outer Space

Salesman Pete from Salesman Pete on Vimeo.


If Saturday morning cartoons started looking like this I'd definitely start watching them again.  Props to the team that put this together... great work on everything (and I do mean everything)!