Knights End------Film, Storyboards, Pixel Art and General Geekery

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-25T04:15:00.001-08:00

and Merry Christmas!

Excuses Excuses, Muppets and Bones

2011-09-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I am lame. No posts for months. I can only assure you I have been creating artwork, but only for jobs that I cant share any cool pics from yet. June and July brought a few storyboard projects from a Burbank movie studio working on a new action thriller. I've no idea when the movie will be out, but I will be sure to plug it when it arrives.

The card series I have been working on is almost wrapping up. I think they will start shipping after the new year, but you will definitely know when they do. Its been a long time since I have been this excited about a project, so I hope it is received as well as I think it should be. Its educational, entertaining and involves lots of exquisitely rendered characters, so there is no reason it shouldn't be a great success. Again, once I can talk about it I am sure I will do nothing but.

The biggest news is I've got a gig working at Award winning visual effects studio, Look Effects. These guys put the shine on Green Lantern, shield throwing special effects in Captain America, as well as cool little bits and pieces on Avatar, The Life Aquatic, Little Miss Sunshine, the Kings Speech. Their biggest claim to faim is all of the awards and accolades they received for doing all of the effects work on Arranofsky's Black Swan. All of the mind bending goose flesh, swan feathers and sensuously shifting tattoos were done by the guys I am sharing desk space with. Its a very exciting time.

I am there as a digital compositor, working in AfterEffects and Nuke. Currently I am working on a few final shots for the upcoming muppet movie cleverly entitled 'The Muppets'. Its pretty awesome. My inner child gets excited every time I sit down to work on a shot with Kermit the Frog or Fozzie Bear.

The studio also does some effects for a few television series. One of my favorites was Pushing Daisies, but they also did the effects for Lost and currently Bones. This coming week I get to add Bones to my resume as they have me working on some exciting gun effects.

So, there it is. There will be some art up soon. Maybe even some of my writing. Who knows?!? I make no promises. I just got a new apartment in Sherman Oaks and next week my wife is finally joining me permanently out here in LA so I will be preoccupied for the upcoming week or two.

Godspeed fellow scribblers!

Xmen: First Class Movie Review

2011-06-04T00:25:00.000-07:00

As anyone who has spent 3 seconds looking at this blog can tell, I am a geek. One of the facets of the geek diamond Claunch would be my love for comic books.

When I was young I dug the spandex super powers, but these days its the character driven titles that draw me in. However, I have always read at least one X title. I love those multi-powered mutants. I was excited with all the other fanboys when the first Xmen movie came out, then slightly disappointed with the second (although Nightcrawler being in it helped) and only enjoyed the third because Beast said 'Oh my stars and garters', and Iceman went full glacier. My requirements to call a movie 'good' are fairly low by most standards. However, that cinematic abortion called Wolverine: Origins pushed low standards right off the edge of a roof.

At any rate, my biggest pet peeve with comic book films tend to be the studios unerring need to mess with the comic book history. Make this guy a woman or a different race to balance demographics. Delete characters, merge them with others or create all new team members. Anyone who has read an X-title for more than a month knows there is a character in there for every power, need or persuasion, so the only reason to make up someone new is because the creators were to lazy to do their research.

The X-men: First Class trailers hit and I swore a little. It seemed the most base fact for this team was ignored. The first class in the comic book throughout its 50 year history has always been as follows: Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), Beast, Angel and Iceman.

However, in the First Class Movie you get: Beast, Mystique, Havok, Angel Salvadore, Darwin, and Banshee. So, one out five.

To add to my nerd rage there was rumor early on that they establish Havok as Cyclops's dad (they are brothers). Then they make Mystique the same age as Professor X and Magneto. Why? So its not weird Magneto is sleeping with her I guess.

'Calm down, geek,' I can hear people say. 'Its just a movie.'

Quiet, you.

I was going to be watching the movie in the historic Chinese theater in the heart of Hollywood, and still I was prepared to be disappointed.

I was eating crow within the first 10 minutes.

It was like a James Bond film written by Stan Lee with a splash of the Cuban missile crisis thrown in for flavor. It was glorious.

The script was tight (I do not mean that in the way young kids do these days). All of the primary characters had a decent amount of development, the pacing was dead on and I was left hoping it wouldn't end.

There were no mustache twirling villains but fully realized motivation for every nefarious deed the black hats perpetrated. The good guys were valiant and the guys in the grey area in between were intriguing to watch as they labored over which path to take.

Kevin Bacon played an incredibly suave Sebastian Shaw. This really felt like it could be something of a comeback role for him as his presence filled the screen every time he stepped into frame. He was assisted by the red skinned teleporter and sword wielder Azazel (who in the books fathers Nightcrawler with Mystique). He had some of the most entertaining action scenes in the film. Emma Frost (sporting her diamond secondary mutation) along with her telepathy and constant lingerie wearing kept the Hellfire club from being a boys club, but in my mind was the least 3 dimensional of all of the primary characters. And then there was Riptide. Alright, he was the least 3 dimensional, but give a third stringer a chance.

The acting from the heroes was solid as well, but since there were more of them you didn't get enough of anyone beyond Xavier, Magneto and Mystique to call them primary. What little you get of them was good, funny without being ridiculous and endearing with the exception of Angel Salvadore. However, she was a weak character in the comics and I have a feeling putting a stripper with dragonfly wings in the movie was just to up the sex appeal quota. Tickets must be sold, after all.

The actors playing Mystique, Xavier and Magneto were nuanced and a joy to watch. Magneto was definitely my favorite, a man seeking revenge for the atrocities of the holocaust suffered by his family. The scene in an Argentinian cantina was amazing, I wanted to watch those few minutes again and again.

As a slight word of warning, considering an F-Bomb dropped and a lot of death I would make sure you're cool with your kids seeing that before bringing them in. The entire movie seemed incredibly grown up. Its hard to imagine a toy line going along with this film, but I am sure they will make them anyway.

The biggest surprise of the film for me was Mystique. Completely colored by my minimal time with her on the set of Winters Bone, Jennifer Lawrence just didn't strike me as the sort of actress to play the sexy future mercenary that I expect Mystique to be. I also was dubious of the her talents being able to match those of the likes of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. However, if you look at shear frame count I think she was on camera more than any one else and I'll be damned if she wasn't fantastic...and sexy. Like a fine wine she seems to be getting better with age. I look forward to future projects she graces with her talents.

Of course, there is one over arcing thing that made me happy with this film. Prior to First Class I was four degrees from Kevin Bacon.

Now I am only two.

I'm coming for you, Mr. Bacon.

Some incredible TMNT portrait art by Dave Rapoza

2011-05-19T23:19:00.000-07:00

The subject pretty much says it all. This guy has been cranking out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle portraits for a gallery showing in Philadelphia. If you hurry you can buy some pretty epic prints from his website. He is only making 25 prints of each character and considering how swank these are you will want to order them fast. If someone wanted to order me a Metalhead or Baxter Stockman for my birthday, I would love them forever.

The gallery page is here.

The artists page with ordering info is here.

The glory is below.

UI design

2011-05-18T23:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a recent UI menu screen I put together. Enjoy!

ManTech

2011-05-17T15:44:00.000-07:00

I spent months trying to figure out what line an action figure of mine belonged to. It was a favorite from childhood, but I don't think the line was very popular considering other than my cousin I never knew anyone who had any of them.

Anywho. It was ManTech.

Yup, this bald dude is known as LaserTech. Their creative department wasn't apparently all that creative. There was a short lived comic book line tied to these guys, and each figure came with a miniature comic that is somewhere in my mothers basement.

EDIT: Here is the commercial for Mantech!

In other toy news, I have spent a lot of time on the hunt for the perfect vintage smell/texture slime. Its an elusive creature for unknown reasons. I will post an update as soon as my last candidate comes in.

Smore-puft

2011-05-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

An incredible bit of sculpture, I want one.

Icollector sale of things I want but never would need.

2011-05-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

Once every couple of months I torture myself with thoughts of what I would do with an unlimited bank account and a large display room. This month has a ridiculous treasure trove of screen gems up for auction.

Road worthy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Cryptkeeper on his throne.

Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back Storyboard pages.

Tron Identity Disk

Tron Gladiator Costume

Full scale shuttlecraft from Star Trek Enterprise

This one seems like a bad idea to keep in your house. The golden Calf from the Ten Commandments.

Chamberlin Skessis head from Dark Crystal.

Gozer costume from the first Ghostbusters

Watcher from Big Trouble in Little China.

Hoverboard

Reanimation Syringe kit from Puppet Master.

Chain Saw victim from 2004 Dawn of the Dead.

Complete Raphael costume from TMNT Secret of the Ooze.

Gremlin Puppet.

Robocop Costume.

Star Trek TNG Phaser.

Plus it looks like Tim Burton and the Walking Dead special effects teams cleaned out their closets and put in lots of stop mstion puppets and zombie makeups. If you have the free time or the cash (most of the things I wanted started bidding at three grand) then check it out.
Icollector Auction Page

LA Literature festival

2011-04-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

One of the cool things I have discovered about life in LA is the constant number of events going on.

Today I went to the LA Times Literature Festival being hosted on the USC campus. There were several hundred authors in attendance, such as the guy who is currently writing the Madeline series, RL Stine, Ted Danson and Jamie Lee Curtis to name a few.

She will eat your children.

My main goal was to meet RL Stine, as his writing was one of my primary influences during my middle school years (although our school was enough behind the times it had no middle school, just elementary to jr. high). I had all of the first 50 books of the Goosebumps series, as well as several Fear Street and other such spin off books. Welcome to the Dead House is still a favorite of mine.

It featured a town of zombie like ghosts and a kid all on her own. I blame this book for my early fear and later fascination with the walking dead. Then there was The Dead Next Door (notice a naming trend?) which was another favorite, featuring a nice reversal of expectations.

After an hour in line I got my book signed and shook hands with Mr. Stine. I had to buy one of his newer books since all of my Goosebumps collection is sitting on a shelf back in Missouri, but it featured the evil ventriloquist dummy, Slappy, from the original Goosebumps line so it wasn't a terrible secondary option.

Definitely worth the wait.

There were several cool booths with a lot of authors and artists I need to look up when I get the chance. One of the more interesting booths was inhabited by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. They had several comic books and prints that could be purchased with a donation to the fund. There was a nifty autographed Lauren K Hamilton print from the comic adaptation of her first Anita Blake novel and several signed Scott Pilgrim books, but the one that got my cash was a Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes graphic novel signed by the great Neil Gaiman.

One day I am gonna shake that mans hand.

In closing, Geek Nation, I give you this glorious window decal sighted outside the Golden Apple comic store.

Mattel SDC comic con Exclusives announced!

2011-04-30T21:13:00.000-07:00

These comic con exclusives are always a big factor in my want to attend the San Diego comic con. This year Matty has outdone themselves with some swank ghostbusters and heman special figures. Check em out in the link below.

http://www.mattycollector.com/store/matty/ContentTheme/pbPage.2011_SDCC-Products

Busy Busy Busy

2011-04-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

Hello, Geek Nation.
  I am looking at you from tail end of the busiest week I have had since going full freelance. A storyboard art test over the weekend, an art test for a game studio (hopefully I get the gig so I feel safe to mention which one), more trading card artwork and a contract for another kids DS game. Its nice to have the work, but considering the past has taught me that they are usually followed by a long dry spell I just wish the jobs could pace themselves a bit.
  LA is still continually more interesting. I am couch surfing with a friend while looking for a steady job, which is currently the lynchpin on which a apartment and my wife moving out here hinges upon. So hopefully I will get that job ASAP.
  I came across a couple of interesting things today. One is that R.L. Stine, the author of the wildly successful Goosebumps series of my youth, will be signing at the LA Times Literature Festival. There will be over 100 authors there and admittance is free so I hope to get the hours free to check it out.
Read more about the event here:
http://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/program-schedule/

Also, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival is coming up and they have a nifty intro video up on vimeo. I recommend checking it out.

Lastly, I will be going back to Springfield for a week from May 6th through the 13th so hopefully I will see a few of you while I am in town.

Xmen: First Class Trailer

2011-04-22T15:50:00.001-07:00

The new trailer looks much better. Banshee and Sebastian Shaw, plus in the comic the red tailed Azareal as shown in the trailer is NightCrawlers dad and Mystique his mother so perhaps there will be some decent backstory there. But still, if Havok is Cyclops dad in the movie I am gonna punch a mutant.
http://geektyrant.com/news/2011/4/22/new-x-men-first-class-trailer-shows-off-sebastian-shaws-powe.html

The power is yours!

2011-04-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

In celebration of Earth Day, I give you Captain Planet (intro)!

find your place in the grey

2011-04-15T00:36:00.000-07:00

Hello Geek Nation! Sorry for the lack of worthwhile posts, still getting my bearings here in LA. Thankfully, I have found a cool comic shop nearby AND the nearest In-N-Out Burger, so I am close to being settled.

I found these pics when cleaning out my desk in preparation for the move. They were concept drawings for my second feature, Black and White. Obviously, it was a noir. These two are the stalwart detective and the femme fatale, played by actors Nathan Shelton and Lydia Mann respectively.

you blockhead!

2011-04-06T11:37:00.001-07:00

I just discovered a webcomic called Weapon Brown, that I wanted to share. Its Charlie Brown all grown up and set in a dystopian future where he is a mercenary. Yup. So wishy washy.

http://www.whatisdeepfried.com/2008/04/09/weapon-brown-2/

Something old and something ne---COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!

2011-04-05T11:07:00.000-07:00

I have two videos to share today. The first is a short from 1938 on how Walt Disney creates their animations.

The second is where animation is now, a new cartoon starring Arnold Swartzenegger called ' The Governator'. It promises to be very special. And no, its not a joke...well, it is, but not like that.

In La!

2011-04-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the recent radio silence. We have spent the past couple of weeks packing up and just arrived in LA yesterday. Now to find an apartment!

Also in recent news, I recently signed my first collectible trading card art deal. I am pretty excited about it as the product is entertaining and educational! I will give more details when the line goes public.

incredible animation for a comic book?

2011-03-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

Apparently created to promote a comic book, this is some of the most breathtaking hand drawn animation I have seen in a long while.

Inspector Cleuzo

2011-03-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

This guy is my hero. He started studying under Don Bluth when he was 15. I recommend checking his blog out on a regular basis for an artistic adrenalin injection.

http://inspectorcleuzo.blogspot.com/

Might Orbots, meet Count Duckula

2011-03-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

Two cartoons I never saw, yet somehow I am familiar with their toys.

It strikes me as entertaining how often you would see Donald Duck wanting to be more important than Mickey Mouse, but he was always beat down. Then looking through the last 30 years of cartoons there are a lot of Donald looking cartoon characters throughout a lot of Disney and non Disney animation. I think, in the end, Donald is winning by installing his clones throughout pop culture.

Filmations Real Ghostbusters

2011-03-09T20:44:00.000-08:00

As a very young child, nothing is more difficult than trying to explain the difference between the Ghostbusters and the Real Ghostbusters cartoons to other kids who know of nothing beyond the Harold Ramis franchise. Personally, I loved both Ghostbusters to the point where I remember hoping that there would be a cross over episode.

For those who don't know, filmations Ghostbusters was based off of a slightly goody 70's live action show and came complete with talking Ape, skele-phone and car with a talking face. It was awesome.

It was also brought around as a cartoon very shortly after the Ghostbusters film, which was completely unrelated. The cartoon based off the movie was called the Real Ghostbusters in order to not infringe upon the copyright of the cartoon based off of the old slpstick tv show. Now that I think about it, the Real Ghostbusters had a couple of problems getting started, between the name issue and none of the actors giving the cartoon likeness rights. This is why Egon is blonde with an ice cream swirl in his hair.

Like I said, both shows were awesome. Soak up a little here.

My editors demo reel and the journey to find the proper paradigm.

2011-03-08T21:36:00.000-08:00

  I have been a video editor in some professional manner or another since 2004. I am best buddies with Final Cut Pro, but I have spent my fair share of time hanging out with Avid and Premier. However, in the past seven years, I never had to create an editors demo reel. Most jobs were landed due to reputation and a few others due to an ability to interview well (I am convinced they never looked at the clips I gave them).

  Recently due to applying to a few jobs where my resume and online presence were my only introduction to the clients, I knew I needed to get a reel together. Thats when I realized I had no idea what one should include in a professional editors demo reel.

  Sure, in college we had covered what an animation or digital effects reel should include; cool shots set to catchy music (if you want to be unique, no techno please). But what does an employer look for in a film editors reel?

  Even when I was a Creative Director and had to hire editors, I had the good fortune to have a couple of extremely talented intern editors on hand so it was just a matter of saying, 'Hey, you're salary now. Get that car spot done. Yeah, the script runs 45 seconds, but you have to make it 30 seconds. Now sprinkle some fairy dust on the Mac and make it happen.'

  And they always did. (Thanks Dana, Delbert and Patrick!)

  Anyway, I had no idea what the 'professional' paradigm for a reel was. So I did what I always do when I need to learn something I should have learned ages ago. I hit the interwebs.

  I will save you hours of frustrated searching. To keep it short, every answer I read was a variation of the following three.

1. Music--Set a bunch of clips to music. Techno works well (seriously, it made a little sad to read that more than once). Show you can edit to a beat.

2. Clips of your work---Put together a series of short sequences from your various works that showcase your ability. Put your best work near the front because its likely that within the first 15 seconds they have either written your name down or ejected and trashed the dvd.

3. Reputation/resume---"What reel? People should just like, hear your name and think, 'Man, I want that guy to edit my documentary on the production of fair trade coffee."
   If you don't have a coast to coast style reputation built up yet then make sure you're resume looks as impressive as you want people to believe you are.

  The only agreement across the board was that your reel should never, ever be more than 5 minutes long. Also, make sure to put your contact information at the beginning, end and cover of your reel. Apparently a lot of people do not put their name on their work, which I was sure was mentioned in the third grade as a good idea.

To me, style number 1 makes no sense unless you want to edit music videos.

Number 3 doesn't work for me because none of the films I have edited are recognizable film titles and the thought someone would hire me just because I have X number of credits without watching them worries me. I have known too many unskilled people that had a good looking resume to think that in a professional world an employer will see I've edited 8 features and hire me sight unseen.

In my mind an editor is a good storyteller and has an innate sense of pacing. He can watch a scene and know intrinsically that shot number 3 lasts 6 frames to long. In my mind, the only way to display this is to have a series of clips showing off different editing styles and your basic skill set. So in the end, I chose option number 2.

Of the projects I have worked on, I was surprised my favorite editing was for a 48 hour film project (an entire movie from concept to completion in two days). Also, the two features I wrote, directed and edited myself I didn't feel worked well on a reel which made me rethink how I edited them to begin with. I did not include any of the commercials I have edited because, well, frankly I estimate I have edited almost 1000 of them and don't want to edit any more unless I am short to cover the mortgage....so maybe I should have tacked one on there.

Without further ado, here is my reel.

Darrell Claunch Editing Demo Reel from Knights End on Vimeo.

Ulysses flyin thru the galaxies!

2011-03-08T08:02:00.000-08:00

Another one from Gary, this is the intro to a cartoon I have never heard of. Ulysses 31. It either has the most incredible, or terrible, theme song ever. I'd say I don't know how I missed this one, but I somehow doubt it made it past a season or two.

Pole Position cartoon intro

2011-03-08T07:51:00.000-08:00

A repost from the fellow 80's geek, Gary Bedell. This is the intro animation to the cartoon Pole Position, based off of the Atari (or Namco in Japan) video game with the same name. Its like Speed Racer and M.A.S.K had a baby.

Sectaurs Commercial

2011-03-04T12:18:00.000-08:00

When I was 7 or 8, my Grandpa bought me the Sectaurs General Spydrax figure for christmas. He always ruled over all of my action figure minions of evil (partially because he had 8 eyes and fangs, partially because he was an inch taller than all of my other bad guy figures). Here is a commercial featuring him from the late 80's.

Now accepting all major credit cards!

2011-03-01T15:24:00.000-08:00

Because, it makes life easier I have gotten set up to be able to take credit card payments for all of my contract work. Lets see if its really as helpful as they say it is.

New toys announced at ToyFare 2011

2011-02-18T16:46:00.000-08:00

There were several interesting and incredible cool toy lines announced at the recent Toyfare convention in New York. Everything from Marvel/DC action figures to Twilight (if you're into that kinda thing).

However, the main thing I am interested in sharing are the new Gremlins figures from Necca. Easily some of the best action figure artwork outside of McFarlene toys, necca seems to have some of the coolest licenses out there.

A random ninja turtle setup as well.

Also, honorable mention to the Funko Pop Hero toys, which are a pretty cool take on some pop culture icons.

Check out all of the toy galleries at the Action Figure Insider page.

Winters Bone picks up four Academy Award Nominations!

2011-01-25T13:03:00.000-08:00

My first IMDB credit just picked up four Academy Award nominations! Its up for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (which in a perfect world it would win hands down), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actress. Congratulations to all who put in the hard work on Winters Bone and here is hoping a few of those golden statues go home with folks who have a little Ozark mud on their shoes!

Rain in Hell Effects shot

2011-01-24T22:06:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to show progress on the Rain in Hell short film. I've been up until the wee hours the past several nights trying to lock in color processing and effects on the film. This is one particular shot that is pretty simple, but carries a lot of power within the film. In the image you can see the original, untouched footage and then the processed final footage below.

Home Brew Game development---PrePlanning

2011-01-23T21:52:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week, Geek Nation. I just started editing a documentary film on Thursday that seems like it will be a good project. Its an incredible story, so I look forward to seeing in unravel in the Final Cut Pro timeline.

Our film project, Rain in Hell, is coming along nicely. I have over half of the effects done, and not surprisingly, have become a digital rain guru since half of our short film requires additional rain elements. The bulk of the remainder of the film will be done within the next few days as long as the renders don't begin to creep. The majority of the work remaining is digital blood effects, most of which has been hand painted/animated by yours truly.

The portions of the film that do not have a soundtrack under them are currently being scored by Mr. Justin Evangelista from Turning Records Entertainment. He has a packed schedule, so I am incredibly happy he was able to find time for us to work on the project. Check out his work here: http://www.trfps.com/

However, the point of this particular blog post is to document the progress of my first home-brew game.

I am constantly striving to be a more versatile storyteller, and I would be lying if I said I wanted to focus strictly within the traditional realms of film and literature in order to do that. Being outside the traditional studio structure for the past several months I have become more aware as to how many games are bound by their financial goals, which leave little time for developing a story. The majority of large success stories within the video game realm at their core are very similar to the success found within film and literature. Mainly, if you put your passion into the project and give the public an engaging story and well developed characters you will not fail.

That started to feel like a tangent beginning, so I will refocus. I do not like being hampered by a lack of knowledge in an area. In this case a program. Flash.

Its evil. I have shook hands with Flash before. We've chatted for a bit, but he seemed much more sophisticated than necessary and his accent was hard for me to understand, so we did not stay in touch. But, in my contacts with various game studios it is very clear that a 2D artist who is not fluent in Flash will only get so far. However, just sitting down and playing within the program would guarantee I would forget 90% of what I learned. I needed a project, and why not a game. I have been the art lead on enough web games now that I have seen my art moving and flashing on the PC screen, so its not as foreign of an idea as it once was. Several years ago I felt the same sort of magic when looking at Nintendo game art, so I knew it was something I could take command of. But until last week no game idea was coming to mind to focus my project around.

Then it popped in there. I was writing in my novel when it happened, so maybe my mind just needed to shift gears to let the kernel of an idea slip through. Its a simple idea that definitely speaks to a specialized segment of the world, but it seems like it would be fun.

So now, I am sketching and scribbling down ideas. Its going to be a basic platformer with three core game play levels. Perhaps a little of a challenge for my first flash project but why not. I am putting together my basic design, enemy list, power ups, and whatnot before I start to digitize any art, but I am excited.

Make it a good week, Geek Nation.

My top ten best films of 2010

2011-01-14T14:15:00.000-08:00

As a forewarning, I am an odd duck. I generally love a film not just for an incredible script, inspired direction or nuanced acting, but because it hits a spot in me that triggers emotions of youth, wonderment and nostalgia. Also, if a movie has a very clear goal and attains it perfectly, I delight in that. Especially with genre films. The movie could be terrible when viewed outside the genre, but as a genre disciple I will dig it. You have been warned.

  My ten in no particular order.

1. Black Swan--Natalie Portman and Darren Aronofsky are both always a sure bet. A complete head trip all the way through that I couldn't stop thinking about. This was also the first film I ever really thought of Mila Kunis as a serious actress. Plus, even the guy who thinks ballet is for sissies is going to enjoy a few key scenes between the two actresses that given the psychopathic undertones take all the lust right out of them.

2. Winters Bone--Yeah, I know, nepotism at its best. But in spite of the fact that several of my friends and I got to work on this one, it was a pretty powerful film that captured the true essence of life in some of the outlying communities not all that far from home if you live anywhere near the Ozarks. Plus, John Hawkes was incredible. He should get best supporting actor simply for the scene in the the beat up truck between the cop and himself. One look in a mirror and I was terrified of the man.

3. Toy story 3--As I mentioned to a friend earlier today, this was a kids movie that every adult was pulled into and wept during (at least a little). At one point near the end I found myself tearing up for the fate of one of the toys and said to myself, 'This is stupid, why am I crying, he is just a toy!'.
   And then I shook my head again and realized that toy or not, the whole thing was just a cartoon. But the quality of storytelling was so profound that those toys, animated or otherwise, were completely real to me while I was watching the film.

4. Inception-- A complete head trip. I never had any inkling where the film was going, although I did have a suspicion where it was going to end up and I enjoyed it anyway. Yes, Chris Nolan, you made me enjoy a film enough I didn't even care that it had Leo in the starring role. Bravo.

5. True Grit-- Admittedly, when I first watched this movie I didn't care for it a great deal. Mainly, I felt it had been over hyped. I was expecting epic and felt it delivered simply very well. However, the more I ruminated on it, the more it appealed to me. The acting was top notch, it was a really well done western (which are hard to come by) and never once did I question the reality of the movie. Plus, it had the Dude cross referenced with John Wayne which is pretty cool.

Okay, here is where a few of you will start to close your browser tab. Remember when I said I like a film that sets a goal and nails it? Well, here ya go.

6. Scott Pilgrim--I hate Micheal Cera...loathe him. Sure, in real life he is probably an alright guy, but his general character is a sniveling little underdog that isn't charming enough to overcome my immediate distaste for him.
   But in spite of that, this movie was fricking amazing. Right from the 8 bit Universal logo at the beginning I was hooked. People were flying thru the air with pixelated swords and random sound effects appeared as text on screen, but I never once doubted the world this movie took place in. Everything from the sound design, to the script, to the special effects all melded together perfectly to create a razor blade edge of cinematic enjoyment.

7. Tron Legacy-- This movie was gorgeous. True, having a heavy duty nerd component and being a childhood fan of the original helps the enjoyment factor on this a great deal. However, the art direction alone puts this one on my top ten. The Grid was an incredible reality, realized in minuscule detail. It felt epic and I wanted an identity disk just as bad as I did when I was a kid watching the original on vhs.

8. Legend of the Guardians--Firstly, I love Zack Snyder as a director and thought he did a brilliant job with this. Secondly, this is the only movie to date that I have seen that felt like it used the 3D gimmick and made it a useful tool within the narrative of the film. The mid air battles, flying thru canyons, were all gorgeous and made me happy that they were in 3D. Even last years top flick, Avatar, seemed like the 3D was used to only half of its possibility.

9. Easy A--I can count on one hand the number of people who didn't like John Hughes films and I am pretty sure they were all Commies. Okay, not really, but they weren't the type of people I would go out and get a cup with. This movie set out to be a throwback of the 80's feel good teen movies of my youth and nailed it without it being a remake or beating you over the head with references to them. The script was great, the acting perfect and Emma Stone somehow manages to be goofy and gorgeous at the same time.

10. Bitchslap--This one...well, this one most people will hate or look at the cover art and discount my opinions forever more. Honestly, this movie was terrible...but I loved it anyway. As I said at the beginning, I love movies with two things. No, not that...pervert. I dig genre films that keep all the rules of the genre and still make something original and I love movies that set a goal and hit it on the head. This movie was designed to be a sex-ploitation film in the vein of Russ Meyer and honestly if it wasn't for the (bad) digital effects it would be unrecognizable from Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill. It combines strong female girl power style characters and makes them into pulp fiction stereotypes at the same time. It has guest appearances from Zoe Bell, Kevin Sorbo, Lucy Lawless and her Xena squeeze Renee O Conner (as nuns no less). Again, it was terrible, but I loved every ridiculous second of it.

Honorable mentions:
1. Red--Bruce Willis steps out of a cop car while it is in an uncontrolled spin and empties his 9mm FTW.
2. Defendor--Woody Harrelson is a schizophrenic superhero and it made me cry.
3. Micmacs--From the director of Amelie. French and beautiful tale of revenge and ex-circus freaks.
4. Secret of Kells--Beautiful 2D animation about the power of the perfect line.
5. Harry Brown--Micheal Caine, terrifying no matter how old he gets.
6. The Good, the Bad, the Weird---If Serge Leon was Manchurian this is the movie he would have made.

Movies that made me throw up a little.

1. The Kids are Alright---This movie was boring. The script was mundane and the acting was okay. The reason its gotten the exposure it has is because its about a lesbian couple with kids. Honestly, the best character was Mark Ruffalo and he was the villain simply because he was the outsider brought into the whole ordeal by this modern families issues. Annette Benning did nothing to deserve all of the awards she is being nominated for other than get a butch hair cut and kiss Julianne Moore. Ms. Moore at least had some nuances to her performance but can't catch an Oscar nod for anything. After watching this movie I could imagine an early discussion between the two writers.
  "So this is just a movie about a husband and wife and their kids from another dude? And then the kids contact the other dude when they are about to go to college?"
  "Yeah, its like...um...a slice of life."
  "Thats kinda boring. We need to spice it up a bit."
  "How bout we make them lesbians. At least people will go see it in hopes of seeing two women kiss."
  "I dunno, that sounds like a lot of work to change a name and make the lesbian angle a really integral part of the story.'
  " Nah, Nick can be a girl name too...we can just put in a throwaway line about it being short for Nicole, add an Academy-safe sex scene or two and make them say lesbian here or there when we shoot it. We can even have her wear the dude wardrobe and scrubs we already bought."
"Sweet...let the funding start rolling in."

2. Death at a Funeral--The original British movie was incredible. Why Hollywood feels that British comedy translates to black comedy simply by adding stereotypical phrases they saw on House Party 2 confounds me.

3. Little Fockers--This movie was number one in the nation for two weeks. America, this is why we can't have good films, you keep funding these steaming piles.

Movies that had I gotten to seen them may have altered my top ten list.
This is one of the few times living in Springfield, Mo isn't the ideal situation. Catching these super indies on the big screen is impossible or Netflix is held hostage by Blockbuster for a month after the titles come out on Dvd.

1. The Kings Speech
2. Buried
3. Paperman
4. The Social Network
5. 127 Hours
6. The Town
7. Biutiful

Film Festival Review--Queen City Cinema series at the Moxie (Ep1)

2011-01-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

I am slow to get this review out, but the contents of the first of the Queen City Cinema series gave me a pretty solid reason to reflect on its contents. But first, blatant exposition.

  The Queen City Cinema series is a collaboration between the newly minted non-for-profit Moxie Cinema and the Missouri Film Alliance of Springfield. The purpose of the project is two-fold. Firstly, it gives local filmmakers a venue to show their films to the public and up on the big screen (which always shows off mistakes you never noticed on your computer monitor). Secondly, it is designed to stir up interest in the local film making community and by extension the Missouri Film Alliance, which is dedicated to helping said film community grow and better utilize the local resources (which are abundant, just unorganized). The film series is to take place the first Tuesday from now thru May at 9:30 p.m. at the Moxie, which is located at 431 S. Jefferson Ave.

  At this point I will be perfectly honest with you, I did not really want to go to this event. The basic excuses: it had been a long day, it started too late, I didn't know but one of the film makers, yadda yadda yadda, whine, whine, whine. But, being on the board of the MFAS and being the only representative available that night, there was no way I could whine and stay at home.

  I am glad I went out. Ecstatic even. Let me give you a run down of the films and then I will explain why I left the showing so jazzed up about our local film makers.

The first film of the series was “This is the Orange Line,” a nine-minute black and white film by Nathan Maulorico that focuses on the Orange Line L Train in Chicago and the inherent beauty and majesty that trains posses. Set to the backdrop of the classical work Cello Concerto in E minor by Edward William Elgar, the movie had an almost French New Wave feel to it throughout as it displayed both the minutia and vistas that a person may experience from their train seat while travelling through Chicago. Nathan Maurolico was the only film maker of the series whose work I was familiar with and as I had seen both the trailer for the film as well as the list of festivals it had been accepted into, I knew going into the event that enjoying his work was a sure bet.

The second film of the series was 'One Piece at a Time', a ten minute film by Max Rosen. The film kept a balance of comedy and dramatic intensity that kept the viewer from having any idea where the final minutes of the film would take them. Featuring an almost solo performance by Ryan Bennett, the movie was about an average man who starts receiving very unusual packages on his front porch every morning. Within each package is a small gear or piece of metal that the viewer easily implies are parts to a much larger creation. The accrual of the various gears and screws gives a slowly building tension to the film that, when combined with an editing style similar to Chris Dickens, gave a surprising rush when the object is put together and its purpose, as well as the most memorable sequence of the film, is revealed.

Next up was 'Mill Man', a 12 minute film by Chris Beckman that at first seemed to explore the disconnect between the various strata of office and production life in the workplace, but quickly turned into a very silly and incredibly enjoyable buddy movie. The basic premise is an office worker decides to investigate to see why none of the production orders are being shipped and the head office is unreachable. Upon his arrival at the mill, the protagonist played perfectly by Matte Stowe, finds it abandoned but for a single worker (again, Ryan Bennett) who has kept at it in order to impress the higher-ups even though everyone else has left. While I am sure every actor hates to be out-shined by an inanimate object, it seemed the real star of this comedy was the set, Tindle Mills, which was bulldozed and turned into a parking lot the week after this film shot there.

  The second Chris Beckman film to be shown at the event was a 10 minute piece entitled 'oops'. 'oops' has not only won an award for experimental video with the Vimeo Awards, but has also been selected to compete in the shorts category at the 2011 Sundance film festival. Admittedly, considering how much I had heard about a local guy having his film accepted into Sundance, I came into the beginning of this film with a slightly overly analytical eye most likely looking for reasons to make myself feel better as a film maker. When the film started and the first sight to meet my eye was a youtube video clip the little prideful film guy in my head said 'What?!?!?! Are you kidding me?!?!? Youtube video fodder and it made it to Sundance!!!'

  And then the first transition happened and the little film guy went 'whoooaaaahhhh' and shut the hell up.

  The premise is simple. Take ten minutes worth of youtube videos where people destroy their cameras in a plethora of entertaining ways and join the clips. Not by simple cuts or fades or other such pedantic nonsense, but with an impressive audio video transition where the camera falls in one video and is picked up in another and you have absolutely no idea where one clip ended and the other began. The transitions were incredible and inspiring, and in the case of a transition from the thunderous staccato of a locomotive into the pounding of children's feet on the playground, somewhat haunting.

  The final film for the night was a twenty minute piece entitled 'Loose Cannon' by Brook Linder. To get a feel for what this movie was like, go out to your garage and pick out any three cop movies that you still have on VHS staring the talents of Willis, Gibson or Eastwood when they still had their hair and then run them through a blender. The 80's avenging cop goodness that oozes out and makes you question how this could have possibly been shot just this past year and why you don't already know all of the catch phrases is what watching this movie felt like.

  "Surely, you exaggerate", you say.

  "No", I counter, "this looks like it was shot in the 80's and you are watching it on a well loved VHS tape".

  The effect is impressive as it gives the film an undeniable sense of authenticity when viewed on the big screen, never mind that the movie itself had the perfect selection of actors, over the top gags, was well scripted and well directed. I spoke with the director afterwards to ask how they achieved the VHS look in this world of AfterEffects plug ins and got an answer far simpler than I expected. They shot it digitally, then dumped it down onto VHS (taping over an old Brian De Palma movie as a dub to a new VHS looked too clean), then back to digital.

  As you can tell by the reviews of these movies, I was so very happy I chose to not be an old man and go out to watch this series. Not only were all of the films pretty incredible, the event was free and all of the filmmakers were in attendance to take questions and congratulations well earned. Out in the lobby I overheard someone make mention of how Springfield felt like Austin did right before its big film revolution in the 90's. Its hard not to argue with them when seeing work like this. Its not just storytelling or messing around with a camera with friends for the fun of it, this was actual cinema innovation. These were original works that renewed my confidence in the talent and capabilities of the film makers in this town...now if we can only get organized and get funding.

  Dont just take my word for it, but check out this review of the series from the fine print blog.
  http://thefineprintsbj.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/moxie-local-filmmaker-series-worth-the-watch/

Again, Queen City Cinema series is taking place the first Tuesday from now thru May at 9:30 p.m. at the Moxie, located at 431 S. Jefferson Ave.   Go see it next month, you won't be disappointed.

Movie Review--Green Hornet

2011-01-11T22:49:00.000-08:00

  Tonight the wife and I went to see a sneak peek viewing of the new Green Hornet film. The whole affair was free, which was pretty much the main selling point considering I was not overly impressed by the trailers or the fact that Seth Rogen was the star. Don't get me wrong, I want the chubby, bearded, bespectacled guy to have the lead parts just as much as every other Kevin Smith lookalike. I have enjoyed a few of Rogen's films, even if he is the same character in every single one. Sometimes it works.

  Other times it is a terrible gamble made by executives to try to bring a younger crowd in to see a movie based off of a television show made in the late 60's (which was based off of a radio serial from the mid 30's). Basically, they wanted to bring in the expendable income, not the pensioners fixed payment.  I get it, I understand. You want your film to make a profit. However, at least TRY to make it somewhat like the original series beyond the character names and sweet 007 style ride. But this seemed as if the writers (one of whom was Rogen) had never seen an episode of the television show. Michel Gondry has done some exceptional work, most notably in my opinion being the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind, but this will not go down as one of his finer works. Actually, considering how bland, generic and frighteningly similar so many of these hero films are despite varied casts and crews, there must be a checklist or executive out there that all of these films are measured by or against. Homework assignment right there.
  As to the above the board actors...sigh. Seth Rogen was himself (the only time I have not seen him playing himself was in the epic and under-rated film Fanboys), Cameron Diaz could have been almost cut out of the movie entirely and the script could have remain untouched which is always a sign of doom. And the bad guy, Bloodnofsky, was a cartoon character complete with outdated suits, red leather coat, double barreled handgun and late in the film instituted catch phrase. Of the three unremarkable actors/characters, the bad guy makes me weep the most as Chris Waltz is an incredible talent and can do amazing things with a role given a chance, but he can only work with what he is given. Of course, it could have been worse. I had heard rumor that Nick Cage was originally the main villain, but he was removed and the scenes re-shot because he refused to deliver the lines without a Jamaican accent. His reasoning? Cuz I am friggin Nick Cage.

  There were a few highlights. James Franco as the random thug made an example of early on was an unexpected gem. Jay Chou gave us not only pretty kick ass fight sequences, but a surprisingly subtle and nuanced performance as the right hand man, Kato. Obviously, the car was cool but even that joy was taken down a notch by making it have a plethera of pointless accessories as well as crime fighting gear. Yes refrigerated seat compartment with three glasses of perfectly prepared ice for a scotch on the rocks I am looking at you.

  The closer the movie got to its end the more disappointing it became. The heroes killed without showing remorse or thinking twice. They didn't just leave one corpse, they had a good half a dozen. Some of them killed in a pretty gruesome manner. This made the hornet sting knockout gas gun completely pointless beyond having it as a setup for a weak joke that has been in every trailer (the terrifying thing was the audience still cackled like caffeinated baboons when it happened in the film). The first time Rogen uses the gas gun on a bad guy he puts the thugs eye out. Why? Because the thugs name was Popeye. Get it? Neither did I since I never heard the thugs name mentioned, I just caught it in the credits and looked it up.

  Additionally, there seemed to be a lot of unnecessary cussing. Now, don't look at me like that. I am a fan of Kevin Smith films, I have no problem with salty language when it feels right for the movie. This felt like they thought the only way they could get a laugh out of a joke was if they had Rogen tack '$h1t' in randomly during his dialogue.

  The largest kick in the teeth, near the end their car became magical. I am not lying. Okay, there weren't sparkles and fairy wings, but it did steal a trick from the Love Bug and have the front end drive around thru an office building after the elevator cut the car in half. Re-read that last sentence. Yeah, it made about that much sense while watching it as well.

  Oh, and having this film in 3D was completely pointless. Please, please, let this fad die quickly as I am tired of seeing it used for no other reason than to give a bullet point to the press kit and an extra two bucks to the ticket price.

  The salt in the wound was the fact I never heard the television shows theme song (which I love) referenced within the film score a single note until the credits rolled. Gangsters Paradise, sure, yeah. You've got to show the ride is hot. Theme songs are for wimps.

Overall I give the new Green Hornet film two out of five Cine-philes (officially licensed graphic coming soon).  Wait to watch this one until you can get a free rental from Redbox.

Obsession of the Month ---Mini Tabletop Arcade Games

2011-01-10T21:38:00.000-08:00

Those of you who know me know I tend to obsess over certain geek relics until I have thoroughly researched or purchase a few of them from ebay or the local dirt malls. Past examples of this include MadBalls, Slurpee character cups, Promotional Character Glasses from fast food chains, and Garbage Pail Kids. The majority of these items are all linked to childhood memories.

My current obsession are Mini Tabletop Arcade games. You see, I have a special place in my heart for Arcade games. My dad was a fan of video games and pinball machines. My earliest memory of him was him smiling ear to ear, still dressed in a dark blue tshirt fresh from work at the sheet metal shop, setting down an Atari 5200 box on the kitchen table. By extension, the majority of my early memories involving him include shoving handfuls of quarters into the arcade cabinets at the local greasy spoons and Pizza Huts. The original Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr and a cocktail table version of Pacman are specific titles I remember standing on a stool in front of in order to reach the joystick and play two players with Pops.

So, since keeping a few of arcade cabinets in your basement was both spatially and financially cumbersome, one of my favorite childhood toys was the Donkey Kong Jr mini arcade game that my grandpa (my dads dad, so he knew the score) gave to me on the Christmas of 1984.

  It followed the same basic premise of the larger version. That despot Mario has kidnapped Poppa Kong and is going to torture him in retribution for Kong's earlier dalliance with the Princess and Jr must save him.

  Honestly, considering how often the Princess ends up in the hands of some large, hulking creature, I think maybe she is just into the XXL sized bad boys. Mario having a career and all, plus the ability to bring home the coins, probably makes him the safer relationship material. Always the moth, never the flame poor Mario. But, I digress.

  I played this game for hours for years and can still remember the music. It even had an alarm clock function which I would use from time to time. Donkey Kong Jr is listed as a CLCD (Color Liquid Crystal Display), which necessitated playing under a light as the screen was lit via a translucent panel at the top.

The tabletop mini arcade was incredibly popular during the early 80's and hundreds of titles were created. Coleco was the main forerunner of the genre and thru a special distribution deal created several mini versions of soon to be popular Nintendo characters.

Over the several years of youth I picked up a couple of other mini arcades, exclusively purchased at garage sales stocked with playthings that my cousin, who seemed to have every cool toy ever, had gotten bored with.

Q*bert is a solid piece of entertainment even if the storyline is lacking and fairly is difficult.

This title, along with other classics such as Pacman, Frogger, Zaxxon and Galaxian had incredibly bright VFD (vacuum flourescent display) style game play screens. I had to look up why they were so bright as well as what the acronym stood for once I discovered what it was so don't be impressed by my geek badge on that one.

Cosmic Clash was shockingly cool considering it seemed like a knockoff title.

Its animation came from transparent ships on moving tape that would light up when they were available to shoot. The audio was fantastic and incredibly loud, which meant this one was primarily played while on the opposite side of the house from the adults.

My sister had Ms. Pacman, which was one of the few toys of her I still covet to this day (her Madballs and Green Lantern Super Powers figure being the others).

This too was a shockingly accurate and playable version of the larger game cabinet, and like the Q*bert game featured exceptionally bright screen graphics via a VFD.

One of the things that impresses me still is the playability of these games despite their simple design and mechanics. You could play forever, as the level simply repeated with faster enemy speeds until your lives were used up, but since you never had to worry about finding another quarter that wasn't such a bad thing.

One of the holy grails of these mini tabletop arcade games was Tron.

Considering that the full sized arcade cabinets are equally hard to find and thus highly sought after this makes sense. As an additional plus, apparently the game play on this title was pretty fantastic considering the limited technology the toy utilized.

There were a surprising number of titles within the tabletop arcade genre, and they are really hard to come by outside of ebay. If you see one in the wild then let me know! Considering the majority of them are almost hitting their 30 year mark their rarity is understandable, your modern playstations/xbox/wii's start dying off after 2 years. If you have one I recommend taking care of it, keeping it out of direct sun and making sure the batteries aren't left inside of it. Nothing will kill vintage electronics faster than a corroded battery.

Here are a couple worthwhile sites for Geek-search if you are so inclined. The first link features those stupid bright VFD displays...which I guess is kind of redundant now that I think about it. VFD display. Its like calling an ATM an ATM machine. Anyway, enjoy.

http://www.videogamecritic.net/cp.htm

http://www.miniarcade.com/miniarcade.htm

Random Toy Pic--Food Fighters

2011-01-07T19:31:00.001-08:00

$.50 for the 3. Too bizarre to pass up. Called food fighters. Yes, that is sergeant short stack, lieutenant leg and major munch. Does anyone have any of these guys that they want to part with?

Filler....again.

2010-12-28T21:21:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know. Its getting redundant. Holidays and whatnot. I apologize, Geek Nation. I will be posting frequently soon.

I just finished up a contract with a swank group of folks out in Santa Monica that goes by the name of Moyo Studios. They were a great group to work with and I got to work in 3D, which was a nice break from my usual schedule of Photoshop. I will give more info as soon as the game is officially announced.

I have a couple movie reviews to toss at you soon, so look forward to or wince in anticipation of depending on your disposition toward film critiques.

My good buddy Tyler Rhoads has given his pet project, the web comic Looking for More, a shot in the arm and has been blogging regularly the past several weeks. If you notice the familiar Knights End logo on Kirks shirt or recognize the name from earlier blogs its because I worked on it initially but due to a habit of keeping to many irons in the fire wasn't able to give the project the attention it deserved. Although, I have to thank Tyler a great deal because it was this web comic project that spurned me on to work/hone my skills beyond simple professional interest, renewed my passion for art and set me on my quest for the perfect line (and caused the birth of this blog). Sorry, tangent. LFM. The scripts are fantastic and the initial art designs with the new artist looks great, so get excited about seeing it online soon.

Christmas was excellent this year. Lots of quality time with all of the family and everyone seemed to be full of holiday cheer despite a hard economy and high unemployment. I got some incredible swag that just impressed the heck out of me.

A few of the highlights. A Stay Puft piggy bank, Tron Legacy ornament, blade runner umbrella, some great Dr who related stuff (yes that is a Tardis drawn on a page from a 160 yr old Austrian dictionary), a tea set (shut up), duct tape wallet, charlie brown nativity scene, self gifted vintage Madballs and a signed copy of Clive Cusslers newest novel. The Cussler book was a big surprise considering the person who purchased it for me didn't realize that I liked autographed books, nor that he was my favorite author up until I graduated college and discovered Neil Gaiman and Jim Butcher (Cussler is still pretty high on the list).

And last, because this is an art blog after all, here are a few items from recent art tests for your viewing pleasure. They were all to be done in the styles of other online games. I would tell you the games, but if you can't tell at least two of them just by looking at them then I didn't do a very good job.

And, last last, random website that I stumbled upon today which belongs to a gent whose pixel artwork just blows me away.
http://www.foolstown.com/

Keep on having a great holiday week, fellow scribblers.

White noise

2010-11-08T20:37:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of content lately, ladies and germs. I have been pretty booked up with Halloween happenings, contract work on a couple of Nintendo titles and a few art tests for a couple of studios in LA. I've also had three new titles that I worked on hit the streets. Two Sesame Street learning games hosted by Elmo and Cookie Monster and a Diego Mega Bloks title that I was the lead artist on. Keep on sending those positive vibes my way, they are very much appreciated.

I recently set up a twitter account in order to increase my online visibility, so check me out @KnightsEndFilms. Also, today I found out that the Ex-High Geek of the blog Geek Orthadox, the man responsible for me embracing my inner nostalgia geek, has started a couple of new blogs. Hey, check out my Art and Hey, check out my toys. Check em out!

I have been taking much to long getting the purchase order together for the Missouri Film Alliance of Springfield gear purchase. They have some grant money they are putting to spectacular use by getting enough gear to make sure the local indie and semi professional film makers never have an excuse for not having the right tools for the job. A pair of Canon 7Ds with the works will make sure anyone can have the look of a million dollar movie for the low low price of a membership to the Alliance. Check out their website here. Membership and hourly rental fee for a week combined still wont cost you what it would take to rent this gear from any studio.

Well wishes to any of those fellow scribblers who are participating in National Novel month! The challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel by midnight on November 30th. Unfortunately I have only been able to sit still long enough to put in about 200 words on mine, so I am hoping the last half of the month will have my muse pouring himself out via my keyboard. Which reminds me, he has been tinkering with the idea of a video blog entry here. I haven't decided yet if I want to free him on the populace of the internet.

A random note of pride. This past Wednesday my mother finally got to watch Winters Bone. I was unable to answer the phone when she called, but according to her message when she saw my name in the credits she was so giddy that she didn't realize she was crying until several moments after the fact when she noticed the tears tickling her cheeks. Apparently seeing your son's name on a movie that came from Netflix instead of one of the ones he has burned himself makes the whole event far more real. Either way mom, much love and thanks for the support.

I leave you with this image, True Believers. Follow its heed whatever your creative outlet may be. If you don't, Batman will get you.

Tentacle Monster

2010-10-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

A quick monster for Halloween I painted while waiting for a phone call.

Girls of 80's Animation Piece 1----Janine from the Real Ghostbusters!

2010-10-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

Considering this is my second work ever in Painter I am incredibly happy with the results. As I mentioned before I wanted to combine two things that I love, the classy Gil Elvgren style pin-up girls and the animation that I grew up with. Let me know what you think!

Also, a couple of quick sketches. A suddenly fearful flamingo, and a scribble of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory (which I will argue is the best sitcom currently on television).

Blackwing 2.0 Test Drive Results

2010-10-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

I am pretty sure I was one of the first, if not the first, to get in an order of the new Palomino Blackwings. I shouldn't be proud of this considering it meant I was on their website at 1am hitting refresh every minute or two until they became available at 1:15. Naturally for all of my eagerness to get a box of them it then took me several days before I had a chance to sit down and give them a decent test drive.

First off, the temporary gift box packaging they are currently shipping with is awfully pretty. Simple and sleek, it wouldn't jump off the shelf at anyone who didn't know it was a Blackwing without reading the gold band, but for online orders I would keep the pencils in this package.

*the smurfs unload the first pencil under the watchful eyes of their Azure Overlords.*

Upon opening the box, the scent of cedar hit me and I admit to a little nerdish twinge of glee. I sharpened one of the Blackwings with my old school pencil sharpener and proceeded to create a quick sketch that involved lots of random pencil strokes just to see how smooth the lead was on the paper. I was surprised at how well the point did glide across the paper, not miraculously so but more than I can remember from any other pencil I have used. The eraser performed remarkably as well, completely erasing all but the deepest gouge. Also, as to their claims of no crumbling graphite I found that even when pressing so hard as to worry about breaking my lead (leaving the aforementioned gouge) there were almost no errant flecks of lead to smear my work. Living up to promises, I am impressed.

Still living off of my Legend of the Guardians high, I drew a grumpy old horned owl as my first Blackwing artwork.

Really, the only cons are stylistic and financial. $20 for 12 pencils seems a little on the high side. I am too much of a Missouri boy to see spending $1.66 on a single pencil as a deal. Of course, that said I just purchased a single original Blackwing from an exceptionally talented writer for the New Yorker at almost the same price as a box of the new pencils, so perhaps I am a hypocrite.

The stylistic issue could be considered minor if not for being so closely associated with the Blackwing name. I am referring to the motto that used to be stamped onto the side of every Blackwing. 'Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed.' It just doesn't feel quite like the real deal without it. The owner of California Cedar posted something about their reasoning having to do with it not being scientifically accurate, you cannot physically get something at twice the speed with half the pressure. And half the pressure as compared to what? How would they measure such a thing? Personally, I think someone messed up in the trademark department and they weren't able to successfully get the old motto and now they are putting out some silly jibber-jabber explanation as to why. I hope that future runs of the pencil end up with the golden motto, if for nothing else to ensure the new pencils carry on the long tradition without being a mere 2nd best replacement.

The Boston Globe did a great article on the Blackwing which you can see here.

Micheal Leddy did a review of his Blackwings as well.

My overall review is a A- with high hopes that a simple change or two could put them at the head of the class.

Don't you...forget about me....

2010-10-07T23:47:00.000-07:00

Rachel and I celebrated our two year anniversary this year the same as we did last year which is the same as how we celebrated surviving the stress that is a wedding day, by going to see a bunch of movies back to back. The first years movies were almost all terrible. The 3D misfire Igor is the only one I can even vaguely remember. Last years movies were almost all awesome, Whip it, ZombieLand and Where the Wild Things Are. Wild Things was the lemon of the three, I thought it was terrible. Okay, it was visually intriguing but I felt like I was being doused in Emo the entire time and came out feeling slightly suicidal.

This year we hit two movies, Easy A and the Legend of the Guardians. I hadn't really noticed a decline in the number of people attending the movies until that night as both of the theaters were completely empty save for us. True, it was a Monday night but one of those suckers was a 500 seat auditorium. You would think there would at least be a bored concession worker in there.

Easy A stars Emma Stone as a girl who lets a lie about loosing her virginity help out a gentleman friends popularity. However, things get out of hand and she quickly becomes the school harlot via rumor alone. She handles it as any sassy teen would. Inspired by the English Lit class reading assignment The Scarlet Letter, she sews a red A onto all of her wardrobe.

Okay, from that description alone it doesn't sound like that incredible of a film. I can't argue it. Honestly, the main selling point for me was Emma Stone as I have an undefinable crush on her (see Zombieland the year before). Look at her, can you blame me?

However, shock of all shocks was when I caught a John Hughes reference...and then another, and another. Then there was a flat out discussion about how love in real life isn't like a John Hughes movie. The whole film turned out to be an homage to the 80's brat pack films from John Hughes, right down to the redhead lady in the lead. Not only that, but it was a good homage! I'm not kidding. It had interesting characters, compelling story and the characters grew over the course of the film. The characters had an arc! I know, wild right?

Seeing this sort of character arc shouldn't be so shocking in its rarity, but it seems that more often than not studios are cutting out character development for more explosions and breasts...although, thankfully, not for exploding breasts. More often than not in popcorn cinema the character is witness to an event or a 'truth' and either instantly or over the course of a fifteen second montage walks away a changed person. See the film Knocked Up for an easy example. However, I am a sucker for a well rendered character and will gladly watch a plotless film for interesting characters. For instance, I loved the Big Chill.

An added rarity is that the film was made for a mere 8 million even though it had no less than a half dozen above the line actors/actresses in it. It was also a spec script, meaning someone wrote it simply for the want of writing a good story and then sold it when a studio read it and despite it not being based on a book or a foreign film or having Redemption, Return, Resurrection or even a simple 2 at the end thought it would be a good bet. It paid off, their 8 million has already brought in 45 million and counting.

So, Easy A gets an A+ in my book. Need more convincing then check out the trailer below.

Easy A Trailer

Go into the Story has an excellent write up on Easy A and why they believe it has done so well.

As I said, the second film we watched was the Legend of the Guardians. How cool can a movie be about a bunch of owls? Pretty flippin cool is the answer. The average 'hey mom, bring your kids to a movie' poster is below.

However, the image they should be promoting is this one.

The aerial battles in this film were mind blowing! Also, this is the first 'in 3D' film I have seen where the 3D didn't seem tacked on as an after thought. You know what I mean, that one shot in these movies where an axe or coin goes flying at the camera in an attempt to make the hour and a half you wore those uncomfortable glasses worth it. Legends uses 3D as an artistic measure, not a bullet point. They use the third dimension to make you feel claustrophobic, the thrill of flying through a thunderstorm over a boiling ocean, or the chaos of a hundred owl mid air knife fight. I would expect nothing less than this sort of artistic forethought from the films director, Zack Snyder who brought us exceptional films in the new Dawn of the Dead, 300 and the Watchmen.

Parents bring your kids to see this flick, but expect to enjoy the movie as much as they do. My only complaint is that I wanted to go out immediately afterward and buy up some battle owl action figures and there were none to be found.

Check out the Legend trailer below.

Legend of the Guardians Trailer

New TMNT

2010-10-03T17:26:00.000-07:00

I had to share these. A guy doing the redesign for a new Nickelodeon TMNT posted a design for krang on his blog. He has several other character designs for TMNT on there, I highly recommend any fellow shell-heads to check them out.

http://www.alexdeligiannis.com/search/label/TMNT

Blackwing-ing their way to me

2010-09-30T23:42:00.000-07:00

For those interested, the new Palomino Blackwing pencils just came available to order about 5 minutes ago. Yes, I already have some on their way to me.
http://www.pencils.com/palomino-blackwing-12-pk
The first time a Blackwing has been available in stores since 1998. I hope I am not the only nerd excited.

Morpheus, why hast thou forsaken me?!

2010-09-29T23:46:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason the more I am creative and productive, the less easily I fall asleep at night. Its a snide little punishment my mind plays on me. When I need to be productive I feel drowsy. When I have no want to be productive I am wired. Of course, if I were to try to be productive at 1am, then I would be awake till dawn then my next day is ruined. Bah.

Currently I am rereading Stephen Kings, On Writing. I cannot stress how important this book is to the aspiring novelist. Half of the book is an autobiography of King, from his first memory all the way up 1997 when he wrote the book. By the time you get around to the portion where he discusses the basic tools of the trade, your newfound insight into who he is allows you to accept his recommendations on writing as a suggestion from a dear friend . His discussion of his methods are surprisingly real, which sounds cliche but I can think of no better way to describe it. There is no superfluous language, no putting the 'craft' on a pedestal. Its work, habit, practice and the ability to accept a negative critique. His thought experiment of writing as telepathy is worth the price of the book.

“All the arts depend upon telepathy to some degree, but I believe that writing offers the purest distillation”

It seems ridiculous; however I cannot argue his hypothesis. He says to picture a table, covered in a red tablecloth. Upon the table rests a cage, and in that cage contentedly munching on a carrot is a white rabbit. The number 8 is dyed in blue upon the rabbits fur.

There. He had an image, I passed it on to you, now you have the same image. A bunny in a cage dyed with a blue 8. The specifics of each object is moot, the point is you thought his minds image even through my poor translation. Don't take my word for it, read his book. If you need further urging (and this sort of thing does it for you) apparently they had an homage to this blue numbered white rabbit in an episode of Lost.

As I said, its a pretty fantastic read even if you don't care for his fiction. Point of fact, I had never read any of his fiction until after I read On Writing. Then I pretty much had to.

Recently, I've also been oogling a great number of pencil tests from various 2D animations. The sheer artistry is always incredible to see in this world of poorly done 3D and flash animation. The best example of exquisite line work comes from Sandro Cleuzo, a gentleman lucky enough to be trained by Don Bluth and Milt Kahl. On his blog he linked to a vimeo page with some fantastic pencil tests.

Another good site to hit is http://www.penciltestdepot.com/ . Its got bits and pieces of all sorts of different artists and genres.

Also worth a watch is a Mickey Mouse cartoon from the 50's series Make Mine Music that was shelved before it was finished. Its called Plight of the Bumble Bee. Disney keeps taking the videos of it down because they got tired of people asking them to finish it, but if you hunt for it I am sure its out there in the vastness of the interweb somewhere.

With Halloween right around the corner start expecting to see reviews of horror films that have been reviewed a hundred times before discussed by me. Hopefully there will be one or two you haven't seen that I can introduce to you.

Sleep well. I am off to chase ewes with a pot of blue dye and a paintbrush.

Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed

2010-09-26T20:32:00.000-07:00

In every profession, at least when dealing with people who have a love for what they do, it seems there are those who are extremely passionate about a certain physical representation of their obsession. A voice over artist or musician may have a certain type of mic they refuse to record without, a chef a certain type of skillet, a doctor a special stethoscope. These items often take on mythical qualities and become akin to a secret password to identify our true brethren from within the crowded auditorium of our respective fields. For animators and writers, one such item is the Blackwing Pencil. While it has scores of blog pages devoted to it, my personal favorites are those of the Blackwing Diaries and Andy Wefle (who is also the first person who introduced me to the term scribomechanica so I thank him for that).

Now, for those that may be reading this blog for its art content you are probably familiar with the Blackwing pencil. Please be quiet, don't ruin it for the rest of the class and skip ahead a few paragraphs. However, for those who are not familiar I will expound (plus I like to hear the sound of my own keys clacking).

The Blackwing is an odd looking pencil. Sporting a slate grey paint job that resisted the normal dulling a pencil gets inside of a pencil bag, it has a squared off shape to keep it from rolling off your desk. Its most noticeable feature was the eraser which was designed to be removed and flipped around when one end was used up in order to extend the life of the pencil. From what I have read it became common practice to push the frugality of the instrument even further by putting cut off portions of drawing erasers in as replacement when both ends had been wore down. Its lead was a graphite wax combination that kept the quality of the line consistent, did not smudge and did not crumble, meaning as you wrote/drew you had a smooth, even line without little flakes of sooty debris messing up your pretty white space. The waxy consistency of the graphite was what gave the pencil its slogan, 'Half the pressure, twice the speed' stamped with gold foil along its length.

The Blackwing was originally manufactured by Eberhard Faber. I couldn't find any reference as to when the Blackwing pencil began production, which strikes me as odd considering the ridiculous amount of devotion pages I was able to find. Judging by the earliest packaging I would guess sometime in the twenties. If they were new near that time period, this would make some degree of sense as to why they were so popular with the original Disney animators. Glen Keene, Ward Kimball, Fred Moore and many other animators of the time were said to always have a couple on hand. Cecil B. Demille, Raymond Chandeler, and Ernie Kovacs all were known to prefer them. John Steinbeck, who claimed to go through 20 pencils in a given day, claimed they were the best pencil in existence. He said they "floated over the paper just wonderfully."

The Blackwing Pages has an in-depth review of the various iterations of the pencil here.

As they were primarily popular with writers and artist, the Blackwing was never a big seller. Honestly, what percentage of the population has been made up of scribblers over the past century? In the 1990s, the company that produced the pencils was bought by Sanford Corp (owner of the Paper*Mate brand as well as many others). Then in late 1997, the machine that manufactured the pencils broke. Specifically, the portion of the machine that failed was the bit that created the unusual ferrule that held the eraser into the end.

Considering their average annual production during its later years was 1100 pencils it didn't strike them as a profitable line to keep manufacturing. So 1998 was the final year you could go out and buy a Blackwing off the store shelf for $.50.

When word of the cancellation traveled around, artists and writers started buying up the pencil as fast as they could. I have read accounts of some people who would ONLY create with a Blackwing buying up arm-loads of them and storing them in a hall closet. This created a Tickle-Me-Elmo effect, and what you could buy two for a buck suddenly shot up to $10 bucks a pencil.

Cut to now. Currently, a single unused Blackwing is going for $40 on ebay (don't go look right now, I don't want you outbidding me on the one I am trying to get). This means that unless you are Stephen King and your pencil shavings make you money, you have to be a ridiculous scribomechanica enthusiast for this purchase to begin to make sense. Of course, that said there are plenty of us out there.

Thankfully for my pocketbook, the Blackwing brand has recently been purchased by California Cedar and there is a revival in the works. I first heard about it on the Blackwing Diaries, and then subsequently BoingBoing. According to the blog of the owner of the company (or at the very least the blogosphere spokesperson) they will have the new Blackwing available this coming week. There have been a few changes, most notably the lack of the old slogan stamped into the pencil and the color of the eraser. Reports from beta testers of the new product swear while a great pencil, the new just doesn't quite match up to the quality of the old. However, there is a lot to be said about the effects nostalgia can have upon the quality of a product. I mean, I don't even care for Pepsi but when Throwback Pepsi came out I bought up cases of the stuff, only drinking it when watching Goonies or Gremlins and swear nothing is as tasty these days.

Whether as good as the original or the next best thing, I intend to buy a box or two of the new Blackwings just to say I have them. It will make me feel like part of a special club and foster the delusion that using them will help me be a better scribbler. It wont be out of the ordinary for me considering I just purchased a reporter style Moleskin and new bottle of ink for my fountain pen just so I could feel more like a 'real' writer*. Now I just need to sit down and actually use them.

*Note: scale of delusion may not equal scale of actual talent.

For the curious out there (I had no idea) here is a video detailing how a standard pencil is produced.

Go out there and scribble like the wind, True Believers.

Chances in Heaven

2010-09-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

After taking far to long to get it put together, I finally have a trailer for the short film Rain in Hell ready for viewing. Its a gritty mobster movie written by the talented Mickey Stone. I directed, shot, edited and special effected the short film...what I lack in production speed I make up for in end credits. :)
  In all seriousness though, it has turned into a pretty spectacular short film. it had top notch acting talents all the way through. Mickey and Nathan Shelton play the Hayes Brothers, enforcers for a local mob kingpin (played perfectly by Arlin Somers) who has recently passed away. They know without the fear of the mob boss protecting them, the brothers are about to be in the cross-hairs of every mook out to make a name for themselves. Also giving incredible performances were the exquisite Rachel Scott, the indomitable Allen Marsh, the brooding Shaun Young and an awe inspiring cast of supporting talent.
  I have to hand it to Mr. Stone for rounding up a superb group of musicians for the soundtrack. Theolynn Carpenter and The Wardrobe Cathedral lent a couple of songs to our soundtrack. Without a doubt her vocals have to be some of the most imposing I have heard in a very long time and the texture of their music adds an exceptional quality to the film.
  Beth Thompson also was kind enough to let us use a few of her works, providing an incredibly emotional undertone during a couple of key moments during the film. You can check out the music video of one of the songs we used here.
  Last but not least Todd Anthony Mandieta lent us use of some powerful guitar work that sounds so natural and pervasive its hard to believe we shot the scenes without his music already in them.
  We are speaking with a gentleman in LA who regularly lends his talent to a few Fox television shows and feature films to compose the score for our feature. I have been wanting to work on a project with him quite some time, but unfortunately I have never had a project get close enough to completion to get the chance.

There blogspot version of the trailer is only for those who want to scan it quickly, as the quality is terrible. For a higher resolution and far more watchable version check it out on vimeo.

For a full list of credits, check out the website raininhell.com.

So, its on me to finish up the feature so we can share that as well. I have a few special effects scenes to wrap up and then we can send it out into the world. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks of it.

Glad to see the back of August

2010-09-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

August was not a great month. Work was slow, then it up and stopped for a bit. September feels like its starting off well though, so I am excited for the possible progress the month holds. Plus, its raining today for the first time in what seems like at least a month and rain always makes me feel like there is a clean slate.

Anyhow, as far as progress! I have my portfolio website mostly updated for the first time in a year. I am going to add some sprites from the Garfield game that I worked on back in the day and then it will be solid. Also, I have made quite a bit of headway on the feature film that I shot a couple of years ago. I finished the rough edit and I am halfway through the final edit. I am impressed with how well it is flowing considering it was the first feature for everyone involved. But, even with having worked on several features since then, my first still seems like it was one of the best sets I've been on. Winter's Bone is a close second. Organized, on deadline, on budget and an incredible feeling of comradery from all involved. In thinking about promoting it I may start putting snippets of the behind the scenes video that my good friends, Juan Diaz and Nathan Shelton (the producer and one of the actors of the film), shot during their downtime on set. They have about 5 hours of footage and I think it will go a long way to show the dedication and talent the cast and crew had on that pic.

Also, I have made some headway on the effects work for Mickey Stone's film, Rain in Hell . Its a gritty gangster type of movie with a samurai twist. I storyboard'd, DP'd, directed and edited the short. It has some incredible music in it from Theolynn Carpenter and the Wardrobe Cathedral, Beth Thompson and the Shway, and Todd Anthony Mendieta. Also, the acting was top notch. I need to get a trailer together ASAP to put up on the website to start promoting that work as well.

An unfortunate side note, at one point there were four or five Geek blogs that I checked daily for empowering and in depth articles on toys, comics, sci-fi and general geek culture. However, over the past several months the majority of those guys have had to either slow down their posts or close their blogs entirely due to new babies, new jobs or commercial success ( I know, priorities, right?). So, I need someone to recommend some new geek/nerd type blogs for me to get my creative juices flowing first thing in the morning.

One blog I recommend folks checking out is a friend of mine who makes delightful hand sewn household items. She discusses her exploits on her blog, then sells the items on etsy. As an additional aside, she is one of the best video game producers around.

Before I go, just to show I am doing some real artwork I leave a teasing thumbnail of a series of paintings I am working on inspired by Gil Elvgren (you know, from back when pin-ups were still classy) and the ladies of 80's cartoons. This journey into Corel Painter has already shown to have better results, so I look forward to showing off the final work.

3G's Show at 1988

2010-08-21T14:34:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post. The gallery 1988 is having a show entitled, the 3G's. Its an art show where everything has to do with my all time favorite three films, the Goonies, Gremlins and Ghostbusters. You can check out some of the art at the link below or a few of the artists in my inspiration well have posted a few of their pieces on their personal blogs.

Check it out!
http://www.theautumnsociety.com/

Scroll down a bit to see this guys poster for the event.
http://albinoraven7.blogspot.com/

First painter artwork

2010-08-02T14:10:00.000-07:00

Below is my first attempt at using Corel Painter. The learning curve is a little bigger than I expected, but it does look a lot like my early acrylic paintings used to, so its accuracy to the medium is pretty close.

Finally, art on an art blog!

2010-08-02T10:55:00.000-07:00

I realize that for an artists blog there has been an awful lot of " words " lately. I apologize for that, I just haven't had a lot of Non-Disclosure Agreement art that I could share recently. However, that is all about to change! Bring on the sketchbook art dump!

The next pic is a drawing of myself as an old man, done for an art blog.

Then this is a character concept for my buddy, Tyler Rhoads, web strip LFM. This kat is Neal.

Yeah, that was a little anti-climatic. So, in an effort to promote more content check out some of my links on the right. They are the blogs and websites of writers and artists of various mediums and styles that I find inspirational and check on a regular basis.

Also, the past couple of days I have been trying to pull together a collection of vintage Garbage Pail Kids. So far I have won about 400+ of them on ebay for about 15 bucks including shipping (so much for resale value). While disgusting, a lot of the artwork on some of the earlier cards is pretty impressive stylistically and shows how lacking the current run of Garbage Pail Kids is in artistic quality. So with that in mind, click here for your moment of Zen.

Babies Babies everywhere and Steve Martin with a Banjo

2010-07-31T21:07:00.000-07:00

Being about 9 months in from the beginning of last years winter, its babytime in springfield. Of Rachel's sisters, one has a fresh baby girl named Avalon and the other is about to have a baby girl named Hartley (thats my vote anyway). Then our good friends the Darst's are about to have a baby boy, whom I hope remains to be called Catfish although I am sure he will eventually be called John or William or something less fish related. With all of these little ones around I think back to my childhood and wonder if I had been born a couple decades later how much different my life would be. I feel sad for the modern child, growing up in a disposable, Politically Correct, me me me society. Self respect and more importantly, responsibility for ones own actions seem to have fallen by the wayside. So many of the little joys seem to be coming obsolete or considered inappropriate. Kids are having to be forced to play outside rather than going on their own, but you can't travel to far from the yard because you never know who is using facebook to keep an eye on your folks so they know when they can snatch you up. There are legal groups trying to get toys taken out of Happy meals and childrens cereals. Their reasoning (and I am not joking), 'Kids arent bright enough to make informed marketing and nutritional decisions and will pester their parents until they buy them.' Pretty much saying todays parents are completely controlled by their kids and have no say in what their children eat or play with. Again, an odd state of constantly shifting arguments of 'I don't want to take responsibility for the actions of myself or my children' and 'Don't tell me what to do or how to raise my kids.' Its mind boggling.

Plus, I couldn't imagine being nostalgic for the toys, cartoons and video games todays kids have. I know I sound like an old man at the ripe age of 29, but I can look at my toys I still have and easily remember my childhood with remarkable clarity. Todays youth culture doesn't seem to be given any type of property that will have any retention value. All of the toys are either rip offs of some decade old japanese cartoons whose entire philosophy is creating as many variants as possible and then making the catch phrase 'gotta buy them all', or anime reimagined versions of toys I had as a kid. The cartoons are more Japanese redubs or crappy flash or 3D animations that have no soul to them. Not to mention, there are almost no Saturday morning cartoons anymore. Used to be you would get up at 730 and have back to back cartoons until noon. Now you have a 8-930 window if you are lucky. And the video games? I somehow cant see being misty eyed remembering an xbox or ps3. The 80's were a time where girls toys celebrated being a girl, hearts and flowers, and all of the toys boys would ask for christmas had a certain gross out factor. Madballs, Garbage Pail kids, My pet Monster, Boglins and mutants. And all of them came with a can of ooze, whether it was Ghostbuster, Ninja Turtle, or He-man. There was one rule to live by, never put Moss Man or Grizzlor in the Slime Pit...ever.

At any rate, cool thing this past week. Steve Martin, yes that Steve Martin, was in Lampe, Missouri as part of his banjo tour. The only reason I can think he ended up at an outdoor ampitheater in Lampe was that when he began his standup career 40 years ago he played there (he mentioned this fact at the beginning of his set) and wanted a certain symetry. Otherwise, there is no reason an intelligent manager would put a place that far out in the middle of nowhere on a tour. Of the 4000-ish seats in the joint, I think they maybe had 1100 full. It was sad. But as Steve said, if all goes well I will only loose $12,000 on this tour. I suppose when you have had his type of success, you can do big things for fun and not profit.

The show in its 3 and a half hour entirety was glorious. Rhonda Vincent played for an hour, then the legendary Earl Scruggs, then Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers. They were all incredibly talented, but Martin's combination of comedy and super slick banjo pickin completely blew me away. Also, he gave me a new favorite song that you haven't lived until you have heard, a bluegrass version of 'King Tut.' Although, his song Atheists got no songs was also pretty spectacular. Yes, be jealous that you missed out. Below are some pics from the event. Also, buy the CD if you even think you may like banjo.

http://www.stevemartin.com/

May and June were slow months

2010-07-31T20:11:00.000-07:00

The majority of May and June were spent with me in bed or easy chair in a crotchety mood popping pain meds due to my back so there was very little of note to be spoken of. I turned 29 in June, which was cool because Rachel threw me a surprise party. However, it was not cool because I spent a celebration of being older using a cane to get around. Bah.

At the beginning of May I did get to see Winter's Bone at the MSU student Union with some of my fellow crew and cast members. This was the first time I had got to see it and I was blown away. It was a remarkable film with some incredibly stunning performances (they are talking oscar worthy) by John Hawkes, Jenn Lawrence and my good friend, Lauren Sweetzer. I could definitely get used to seeing my name roll by in the credits. Its most likely at a theater near you right now, so go and catch it.

As far as professional life, I had one new DS game I was art lead on hit store shelves and (as of last week) another was wrapped up. The one on the shelves is Chuck E Cheese, a shockingly fun and addictive game. For the price, its replay value is completely worth it if you enjoy classic arcade games. I spent a couple weeks of preproduction on this guy researching old video game cabinet designs and layouts to try to make the visual style appeal a little more to parents my age as well as their kids. You can see a video of some of the gameplay here.

The game we just shipped to nintendo's approval department is Nickelodeons Go Diego Go, Mega Bloks Build and Rescue. You can find it on amazon as well, but despite being art lead I want you to know I had nothing to do with the cover art shown on there. I am hoping its just placeholder until they can get some better stuff up, but you never know. It is a pretty fun play, and despite being the 7th or 8th Nickeloden title I have worked on/lead its my favorite thus far. Its a mega man style side scrolling platformer type game where Diego has to go thru mega blok style habitats to gather rescue badges and lost animals. Two of the guys that did the bulk of the sprite animations that really make the game shine were James Rutherford and Zoey Engell. I've never seen either of these guys do anything less than stellar pixel work and they were on their A game for this title.

Almost caught up!

Zombie Survival, a lecture by Max Brooks

2010-07-31T14:53:00.000-07:00

April went by with very little to report, outside of the aforementioned injuries. The one very note-worthy event was getting to meet Max Brooks, the son of Mel and the author of the two zombie-phile bibles The zombie survival guide and World War Z. You cant call yourself a zombie lover if you do not own at least one of these books. The zombie survival guide is one of the few books I have owned multiple copies of, because I kept giving mine away.

For those of you who read this blog yet somehow aren't familiar with the zombie lore, The Zombie Survival Guide (from here on referred to as ZSG) is crafted like a traditional survival guide; however, instead of how to survive in the woods its how to survive a zombie uprising. Which, lets face it, is way more handy than learning how to pitch a tent.

World War Z (WWZ) is written as if the zombie apocalypse has occurred and it is years later during societies reconstruction. A military correspondent is gathering reports from various eyewitnesses and survivors in order to craft a comprehensive guide of the world wide disaster for the United States government. I highly recommend the audio book for WWZ as its incredibly well produced, with the actors adding an extra weight to the stories narrative. During my first sampling of the audio book, I have a very scary memory of a road trip where I found myself on a bridge over a lake right around 11pm. About 50 yards from shore, there was a fire burning in the woods. I couldn't see the flames but the smoke was glowing with a dull orange light, illuminating cedar trees from behind, casting them in shadow so they looked like cloaked and hooded giants. On my ipod I had just reached the point in the story detailing how Cuban refugees were being pushed into a shipyard, the living being chased into the ocean by zombies of their families and friends. Trying to reach the relative safety of a few barges and ocean liners a hundred yards offshore, the eyewitness spoke of how the water was deep enough that a zombie could stand on the ocean floor unseen and grab the legs of the people swimming overhead. He spoke with a tremble in his voice that all around him people swimming toward their perceived safety were suddenly jerked out of sight under the crimson waves, never to resurface. The combination of the bizarre destruction I was seeing along this midwestern lake and his incredible testimony left me in a nervous mood for a good 40 miles.

Before I speak about Max Brook's lecture at Missouri State, it is worthwhile knowledge for this story to know that I idolize Kevin Smith and Sam Raimi and based the production style of my first two films after their example. The reason for this necessary exposition will soon be apparent.

Apparently Missouri State University was having a zombie week. How my nerd alarm didnt go off with this happening so close I have no idea. It was simply a matter of luck that I noticed a friend on facebook had posted he was going to see Max Brooks at the student union that very night (a thursday). I thought surely not, I would have instinctually have known the moment Mr. Brooks had bought his tickets to Springfield. But sure enough, he was going to be there that night.

I got a little excited.

And then disappointed when I found that due to this or that only one of my friends was free to see him with me, not even my wife was available. Seats were free, and after his lecture he would sign his books. How could this be passed up?!

I assumed that there would be a ridiculous line considering how awesome he was. I should have recalled that this is the Show Me state, and people only show up early for events when there is a chance they may win a year of smokes or a lawnmower or something. My friend, David Lee, and I got to the union an hour and a half early expecting to be a fair distance back in the line even at that point. However, when we got to the union doors there was no line. Even the majority of the tables near the theater entrance were mostly empty, save one couple seated near the door who when I tossed down my books on an empty table in confusion and dismay simply said, 'You too huh?'

'Yeah, I was sure there would be a line. I'm disappointed in my fellow nerds.'

'Dont feel too bad, we've been here two hours already.'

The doors were locked, so Dave and I sat and read, visited with the slowly collecting group of zomb-geeks and waited for a line to form. After about 45 minutes I saw Max Brooks walking toward the union speaking with who I assumed was the show organizer and being basically ignored by everyone he walked past. The two walked past our table, but stopped within earshot. The show organizer was telling him how after the show would go down.

'We will have a table set up in front of the book store over there for you to sign at. Someone will escort you from back stage to the-'

'Will you excuse me for just one moment?' He interupted her.

He then turned around, walked over to me, put his hand on my left shoulder and with a smile said, 'Kevin Smith, I love all of your movies.'

Then with a wink he turned on his heels and walked into the union theater with the girl.

This proved without a doubt in my mind he was a cool guy. True, I get told I look like Kevin Smith often as most bearded, be-speckled and overweight filmmakers are apt to be, but coming from him somehow it seemed grander. I could have left at that point and still considered the night a good one.

Once they finally opened the doors for the show and he got onstage...well, the lecture was amazing. His wit was astounding as was his grip on the subject matter. This wasn't a how to write a book talk, or my process of writing or even my dad was Mel Brooks ego speech. It was an incredible deadpan lecture on how to survive in a zombie apocalypse. Never once did he even remotely let on as if the content of the book wasn't based in pure fact. A personal favorite line was 'Return of the living dead did for zombies what Adam West did for Batman.' I don't recall ever laughing so hard or being so impressed with someone's speaking ability. It was glorious.

After the show I waited in line for an hour to get him to sign my two books. Luckily I was near the date of a good friend of mine, Nathan Shelton, and he showed up half an hour into our wait. He too is a zombie enthusiast and he brought his copy of WWZ that I had bought him as a birthday gift (along with a short handle crowbar) when it first came out. I had inscribed it with 'Its only funny until its true. Happy Bday." He was somewhat concerned that Mr. Brooks would be annoyed someone else had already signed it.

When I worked my way up in line Mr. Brooks saw me and with arms held wide said, 'Kevin! Its good to see you again!' He signed one book 'Thanks for being a good sport' and the other one 'Survival writing is easy, actual survival is hard' (I had thanked him for writing these survival books for our reference). We spoke breifly about how the WWZ film was coming along. It wasnt coming along at all at the time and he was rightly annoyed at the studio for dragging their feet. Brad Pitt (another Springfield Mo boy) had bought the rights to the books some time back, but the studio had stalled on putting them into production. However, this past week at comic-con it was officially announced production would start in the fall, so hopefully it will be in theaters before you know it.

After I got my books signed Nathan stepped up to give his book to Mr. Brooks to autograph. Once he had seen it, Nathan was quick to point at me to tell Mr. Brooks who had inked the inner page first. However, Mr. Brooks just nodded, smiled and wrote in 'I couldn't agree more' followed by his signature underneath what I had wrote years ago.

Afterwards we got the blurry pic below with Mr Brooks and another of Nathan's friends. I am in focus, as is Mr. Brooks, so I am satisfied with the resulting image.

All in all a terrific night that I will remember forever. I would do everything I could to catch his show if you can, you wont regret it. Unless, of course, you hate zombies in which case you shouldn't be reading this blog.

The long overdue Planet Comicon post

2010-07-26T12:42:00.000-07:00

The KC con was indeed awesome. Considering news is still coming from the San Diego Con that ended yesterday, it seems a little silly to even talk about another con, but I have photos and I want to post em. So there.

Like I had said, this year had a pretty decent spread of celebrities from screen and comic book fame. Its rare I go with any intent to spend any large amount of cash on merchandise, but I always have a pocket full of $20s (ie a couple of bills) for autographs. I dunno why, but I dig autographs. Photos, books, comics, whatever. I love meeting the folks that helped create the stories that I love (especially those from my childhood). My prized autograph is from Bruce Campbell and is on my Canon XL2, the camera I used to shoot my first two movies (in eternal post-production). I idolized the Evil Dead films (as well as Kevin Smiths movies) throughout my collegiate career, so having Bruce bless the camcorder I was using to start my film-making career was an amazing moment. But I digress.

The booths were the standard fare of comics and random toys that I had seen 100 times before. No rare figures, nothing from Dr. Who, Dexter, Firefly and almost nothing related to the Big Bang Theory; all things I was really into at the time and wanted some swag to show my interest off. Having fully embraced my inner geek this year, I was hoping to find some figures and toys from my youth, but there was nothing. Not even random MUSCLE men, Ninja Turtles, or Ghostbusters. There were however a couple of really nifty local artist booths, most notably a woman by the name of Anne Quinn from Overland Park who creates pixel images from beads. Considering most of my work in video games has been on the DS, I have spent a lot of time pondering the pixel and how best to get everything I want from a 256 color palette (or even *gasp* a 16 color palette). This gal had some really incredible work, not just video game characters brought to life 10 inches tall in brightly colored beads, but full on portraits of friends, family and beloved pets. Her website, pixelportrayal.com, has a few examples of her work.

After a quick pass around the merch booths, I swung past the artist booths. I was a little disappointed to find that a couple of the bigger names were D-bags. I suppose it could be argued that they earned it, but it seems to me if you have found enough success that fans want to come by and say hi and get a book signed the least you could do would be to give a smile and a couple autographs. There was one gentleman (I wont say who, but he'd been in the industry since the 70's) who would only allow guests to approach his table during two half hour periods each day. During the rest of the time he would work on commissioned pieces only.

I ended up grabbing some art from zombie legend, Arthur Suydam, a bender drawing from Bill Morrison of Bongo Comics and a sketchbook from a Frank Cho style pin up artist, Chad Spilker. There were lots of other artists but most of them I had dropped coin previous years on getting their autographs, so wasnt as keen to get fresh ones. They have the whole list of guests here if you want to peruse em. I also grabbed a few random comics to fill in my collection and the full spectrum of the Light Corps rings from the Green Lantern series, Blackest Night.

I got into a weird moment during the day where all of the celebrities had absolutely no one in line for an autograph. Lou Farrigno was quiet but extremely nice and still could throw the green makeup on and look the part. With Mira Furlan I got flustered talking to her when I first stepped up to get an autograph so kept quiet other than a thank you until she finished signing my Babylon 5 swag to keep from making a (bigger) fool of myself. She had an aura of class that you could feel when you approached her and you couldn't help but know she belonged on the stage.

I had considered not getting Helen Slater's autograph as I hardly remembered Supergirl and had only the slightest recollection of Billie Jean. However, I long ago learned to hit any celebrity panels that went on during my time at a convention (learned by being amazed by the then unknown to me Tura Santana and Dee Wallace at a horror Con years ago), so I swung into Helen's to see what she was about. To say she was an impressive lady would be an understatement. Also, she was shockingly aloof as to her success and popularity (she had a room full of folks in Supergirl costumes) and spoke of some incredibly interesting moments with Peter O'Toole. She seemed genuinely surprised she was seen as a very strong female roll model for girls of the 80s, what with Supergirl and Billie Jean. I had read an article just a couple of days prior discussing how Billie Jean was one of the first films to feature a strong female lead that didn't rely on beauty or sexuality to attain her goals. After the panel I went back and had her autograph a photo for me and was able to talk with her for a delightful few minutes, making her the highlight of the Con for me.

It was a good time and worth making the drive for. Of course, next year I hope to make it to San Diego.

I have a bunch of photos below, mainly cosplay folks (its not a good con without a Zatanna or Power Girl). As I am horrible for not remembering to bring a camera to conventions, I have swiped all of these photos from friends or fellow nerds who attended, let me know if they belong to you and I will credit you as such.

2010-07-26T09:26:00.000-07:00

So my first script reads like Anne Rice. Its a horror, so thats good.

I write like
Anne Rice

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

My second script reads like HP Lovecraft. Its a noir, so I suppose I will go along with that.

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Soon, I will quit playing and get to writing a real blog post.

Apparently I write like Stephen King...

2010-07-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

At least, my blog. I havent put in one of my short stories yet. I have a feeling old Stephen is the most common answer, especially when dropping in blog entries due to his way of writing exactly like people think. But still, a pretty nifty deal. I suggest everyone try it.

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

The end of the Pity Parade

2010-07-21T16:39:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so....um...I have a great excuse for not posting. It's true. I didn't want to be Debbie Downer on the interwebs where the proof of the occurrence would last forever and a day. I shall explain.

*Insert wavy flashback effect here*

Mid-April my back went out. It was a re-occurance of a weight lifting injury that was my own fault. Then a week after that my Mom fell and broke her arm. The upper bit, near the shoulder in what the doc called a spiral fracture. There was a big how-do-you do where the ER doc was stoned or just plain dumb, because he sent her home and said it wasn't life threatening so she would have to wait a couple weeks till surgery. Please note, he told my 50 plus year old mother whose arm broke bad enough it had flipped around backwards to just chill with some advil. Oh, and no changing out of those clothes either, we dont want to aggravate it.

After many calls to family and friends, some of them in the medical field, a medical type swung by her house to check her out and scheduled a doctor visit/surgery. A metal plate, 14 screws and a week later she was finally taken care of. Left a nasty scar on her upper arm.

Add onto my mothers injury my own angry back and the fact that May 01, 2001 (nine years and a couple of days to when my mom broke her arm) my father was killed in an accident at his place of work. This delightful emotional cocktail meant I wasnt in a mood to chat with anyone and leave them better than depressed until a couple weeks into May. And that was when my back really got angry.

Apparently when it had went out in April a disk had slipped. Well, around May 15th as I put on my tennis shoes, the disk ruptured. Of course, I didnt know this at the time. All I knew then was by the end of the day I had trouble walking to my car after work. Then the next morning I couldnt get dressed. I went to see my doctor and he set up an MRI, but it was a couple weeks away. I thought I could manage.

I couldn't sleep more than a couple hours at a time due to random spasms of intense pain. Then after a couple days of that I woke up with a spasm that lasted 45 minutes. I've never felt anything like it. Pain so intense I was seeing colors, screaming, gritting my teeth. My poor wife must have thought I was dying. Of course, this was a Sunday and I couldn't get ahold of any of the medical professionals I rely on. For some reason I thought it could wait and no trip to the ER was necessary.

Thankfully on Monday I got the doc to prescribe some intense pain killers over the phone. This numbed the pain to a dull roar, kept the spasms to short and random and made sitting in the easy chair (where I would sleep and spend most of my next several days) tolerable.

June 8th I got to go in for an MRI. Apparently this was the earliest anyone could see me. A month of pain and my free-fall of faith in the medical bureaucracy that started with my moms ordeal continued the entire time. When the results of my MRI came back it showed that my disk had ruptured with such enthusiasm it pinned my spinal cord against the back wall of my spinal canal, setting off every pain receptor I had from the waist down. A handy wikipedia image of what my MRI looked similar too is below.

So, as you can imagine, I was a very crabby kid for about two months. My wife is a saint for putting up with me as well as she did, putting up with the responsibility of all of the household chores that I could no longer handle along with my sterling demeanor. The neurosurgeons and spinal specialists (very nice and capable folks once I was finally able to get in to see them) told me to wait a couple weeks to see if the pain improved. If it did, no surgery. If not then they'd make a pop top out of my L5 vertebrae and remove that disk (an option someone of my young years should want to avoid).

Thankfully around late June the pain started to fade a little and I could walk more than 10 yards without having to stop and catch my breath. By mid July it had faded to a mild discomfort that the doctors said meant I could avoid surgery. Now a couple ibuprofen every few hours keeps the pain at bay, and I can do most things again.

IE, I am finally a decent person to be around and no longer the model of depression and discomfort. Plus, I got all the pity party out of me in one post. Now to catch up on what happened since march, including a recap of Planet Comicon.

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN!!!!

2010-03-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the kansas city comic book convention. I am flippin excited, hence the scream of CON at the top of the page...okay, so thats not con, thats khan. However, if I had spelt con scream phonetically it would have looked like I was screaming coon, and thats just wierd.

At any rate, I am excited. This year their media guests will be Lou Farigno of incredible hulk fame, Helen Slater from the 1984 film SuperGirl, and Mira Furlon who was one of my favorite characters from one of my all time favorite Scifi series, Babylon 5. She was ambassador D'Linn. There are some other folks there, mainly voices from star wars the cartoon, but as I have never been a very big Star wars kid, people that do voices for the cartoons don't have a great deal of appeal to me other than professional respect.

I was up way to late last night working on some freelance animations for a couple of infomercials, so I am dragging today. Luckily, today at work its kind of a company holiday, Game Day, where we all bring in different games and game systems and spend the whole day playing them and expanding out game knowledge. Its actually pretty helpful as a game artist to see some of the stuff thats out there that I normally wouldnt have caught if left to my own scrupples. Most of my interest lies with the old games I played as a kid; Atari 5200 (Joust rules!), Nintendo and Sega Genesis. Thankfully, almost all of these can play on emulators that a person could download to their Nintendo DS should they feel so inclined so don't have to hook up my old systems for a refresher blast of nostalgia.

While waiting for animations to render the last two nights, I have been sorting my comic book collection in preparation for the con. Every time I go I end up wishing I would have remembered to brought such and such book for an artist to sign, or refreshed my memory so I dont end up buying a duplicate of a book I already own. So I've got a stack of comics for some artists to sign, mainly Arthur Sudaym who painted all of the Marvel Zombies covers. This is pretty much one of the most amazing crossovers of two of my favorite geek addictions. Comics and zombies. The art is phenomenal, so I am very excited to get to shake the hand of the artist. This year I also did a little research on each artist to make sure I was familiar with their work so I knew who i would want to check out to see if they had sketchbooks. I have found with most comic book artists, their personal art blogs and sketchbooks are far more interesting and nuanced than the work that they have in the comics. I can understand, they have to fit the pre-existing canon and general style and format of the book and that sort of funneling of creative energy can dampen the artists flexibility a little.

I have been drawing, but havent been scanning them in, so desperately need to add an art update soon. Until then, I leave you with this beauty. As a child I had this battlecat bouncy toy, and never thought I would see another (mine is still in my basement back home). Apparently they are on ebay every so often. Huzzah BattleCat!!!

The boogeyman

2010-03-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

Today while I watch some episodes from the 2002 version of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe I thought I would post a few boards from the pitch for the film, Bump. Its premise is that the Boogeyman is actually a reference to an immortal monster hunter, not the monster it has come to represent today. Bump is what he calls his young padawan learner.

I'd recommend watching the 2002 He-man. Some great character designs, and the voice cast is a who's who of cartoon voices from my childhood. Adam/Heman is voiced by the same kat who gave Leonardo his pipes back in the day. Optimus Primal is Man at Arms. The rest of the cast is filled out with folks from Transformers, Beast Wars, Ninja Turtles, Dragon Ball Z and Reboot. Tasty stuff.

A weekend in Wine Country...with Zombies!

2010-02-26T13:05:00.000-08:00

This past weekend the wife and I, along with two other filmmaker couples that are great friends of ours, all went to Hermann, Mo for their Wine and Chocolate tour. Now, I realize that when you think of Missouri, wine is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. However, due to the ridiculously heavy german populations that settled along the Missouri river in Herman back in the day, that area is a veritible cornicopia of vineyards. The self guided tour itself consisted of 7 of the areas largest vineyards, with a free glass of wine and chocolate delight at each. Then, as is the marketing genius, once you have finished with your gratis goodies, then you can go on to sample all of the other wines they have to offer.

Now, I am generally far more of a beer connoisseur, give me a micro-brewed stout or doppel bock and I am a happy guy. But after a weekend where I sampled over a hundred different types of wine, I definitely developed a taste for it and, as they surely wisely expected, we came home with ten bottles of the stuff.

The town itself is pretty amazing. Lots of old world charm mixed with turn of the century architecture. While the eateries leave a heckuva lot to be desired (avoid the 'oldest continually operating bar west of the Mississippi' unless you like steak that tastes like cigarette ash), the bed and breakfasts were beyond belief. The one we stayed at was absolutely incredible. The Inn at Hermannhof was in a reasonable price range and the cottage we rented with our friends was as cozy and romantic as you could get. We were in Weinert Haus, Teresas Room as the rooms all had names and not numbers. Gas fireplaces in every room, four post beds, incredible showers and free wine. A Glorious nights sleep and highly recommended.

The weekend was finished up with the drive home during which we watched Zombieland in the vans little flip down lcd. Aint technology grand.

Movies, games and awards!

2010-02-22T14:26:00.000-08:00

Lots of good news coming from knights end!

We are wrapping up the most recent Nintendo DS game that I was art lead on and I am getting prepped for the next project. As is standard for the type of titles Black Lantern develops, both are games aimed at the youth market. The one that is shipping soon is my all time fav that I have worked on thus far, Chuck E Cheese! Its a goofy property, and when I first heard I was gonna be the lead on the project I was a little disappointed (I had never been to Chuck E Cheese in my life, so only knew them from the commercials). However, thanks to good team communication, a solid gameplay design and a lot of artistic freedom from the publisher, UFO Interactive , I am extremely happy with the playability and overall look of this game.

Art was ahead of the curve for almost the entire dev cycle so I actually got to add in some swank ambient animations, a lot of flashing lights, character animations and random energy one could expect to find at your local Mouse run pizza parlor. In a nod to my own preferences as a classic gamer, all of the mini games are decked out to look like classic arcade cabinets with lots of references to classics such as Galaga, Super Sprint and Joust. I had a blast doing the visual research because it meant I could spend hours looking at and playing old arcade games. Thankfully, the arcade is just up the street from the office so I could go log some research time whenever I needed it. Due out on store shelves in late June, I look forward to see the reviews on this title. Its all entirely possible that it will beat out my old favorite game I worked on, Garfield's Fun Fest. Of course, that one was mainly my fav because I got to do some character design and get it approved by Jim Davis himself! Plus, he signed my copy of the game when it was all said and done. Hard to beat that!

Other big news! Last March the Ozarks were all a-buzz with a feature film that was shooting in our backyard, down in Forsythe, Mo. The flick was Winter's Bone, based off of a novel of the same name. The story follows a 16 year old girl, Ree, who has just found out that her Meth-cooking father has put their family farm up for bail and then disappeared. Either she finds him, or her siblings and half comatose mother are all going to be homeless deep in the Ozarks woods. The book was a great piece of country noir, incredibly well written by Daniel Woodrell. It wasn't an uplifting tale, but one a Missouri boy could definitely relate to and understand. The first couple of drafts of the film script that came across my desk via friends involved in early casting/location scouting were very rough indeed, but you could tell there was promise in the pages. The main failing of the early revisions were that those who had written the script hadn't had a lot of experience with the Ozark folks and their way of speech, so they went back to the way it was handled in the Beverly Hillbillies. However, by the time that filming started the cast and crew had spent a lot of time with some of the natives and when it came to roll sound they had it nailed! It was a pretty amazing process to see how the project developed and became more and more accurate to the way of life, regional vernacular and dialogue one could expect from Deliverance country.

The film had great talent both in front of the camera and behind. Past Sundance best director winner, Debra Granik, was helming the project, with Michael McDonough as DP, and Affonso Gonçalves taking care of the editing. In front of the camera were Jennifer Lawrence (and indie film favorite and actress from the Bill Engvall show), the incredible character actor John Hawkes (I guarantee you have seen him in something), and a Springfield local and good friend of mine, the beautiful and talented Lauren Sweetser. Lauren is the best actress in town (except for my wife, of course) and I am willing to bet she will be a household name within the next few years.

As for myself, I was only able to get away from the Nintendo projects I was working on long enough to be on set for a week. It was a great experience. The teamwork, respect for their fellow artists and talent that I saw on that set was staggering and set a very high standard I will set future productions too. As you can tell I am very happy that I got to be a part of the production.

Plus, Winter's Bone won the Grand Jury Prize at this years Sundance! Yup, the top prize at 2010 Sundance went to the one with the smallest budget that shot in the Missouri hallows. Not only that, but as I said by the time the cast started shooting, the script was pure literary honey, so naturally the film also won the best screenplay award. It was HUGE! Stupid amounts of excitement coming from the Ozark hills!

Look for Winter's Bone at theaters everywhere this summer and congrats to all those involved!

freeze frame

2010-01-05T15:51:00.000-08:00

45 minute speed painting in photoshop, taken from a frame of the film RedCliff.

Scribbles and mouse ears

2009-11-12T20:35:00.001-08:00

I've got some character design sheets for a character of mine called PF Bunny for you all today. PF is a pink furry bunny from the land of snugs and hugs that is used for King Velveteen's wetwork ops against the black hearted Grumps. Overall idea is carebears with guns.

Also, a random character in the style of the Dora brand.

Here in a couple weeks I have a new game coming to shelves that i get to announce that I am stupid excited about because instead of pixel work, I was a 3d artist for the first time in my gaming career. My degree was in 3d, but I've risen through the ranks of video game development as a 2d artist so havent gotten to add much to my 3d portfolio. As soon as the title is officially announced I will post some renders.

And, because I havent put them on here yet, a few samples of editing. The posts below are old submissions to the SATO48 hour film competition. Basically, you get the theme and a prop friday night, and you have to write, shoot and edit a 5 minute film to be turned in 48 hours later. The results are always silly, but its a great time.

2007

2008

2009

And then finally a film I served on as editor and DP that will be a great indie zombie film when it finally wraps post production, the Dead Shall Rise, a film by the great director Matt Darst who also led up the Sato projects.

New Nickelodeon DS Games on shelf!

2009-11-04T12:28:00.001-08:00

The last batch of games I was lead artist on just hit store shelves this past week. Dora the Explorer Puppy, Backyardigans and Ni Hao Kai Lan all consumed a good 8 months of my life last year and I am proud to see them in stores. These make six titles I have worked together with the Nickelodeon team to develop and it never fails to be a good experience...plus, its Nickelodeon so how could you go wrong?

http://www.amazon.com/Dora-Explorer-Puppy-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002F87WG0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1257366105&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.com/Backyardigans-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002F87WGK/ref=pd_bxgy_vg_img_b

http://www.amazon.com/Ni-Hao-Kai-Lan-Celebration-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002F87WGA/ref=pd_bxgy_vg_img_c

Random copies...

2009-10-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

As I stated with my first post, the logic behind starting this blog was to see if its casual atmosphere would prompt me to post more work...which would mean I would have to work more to have something to post. The second reason to start it would be to centralize all of my favorite blogs so I didn't have to constantly update work or home computers so I could have access to them all whenever.

Well, the one blog I hit one blog more than any other. He has a passion for cartooning and the artistry behind it, he is a cartoon historian of sorts and the references and images he posts are beyond amazing. With the quick and easy styles a lot of cartoons have drifted toward, it is increasingly difficult to find a place to pick up tips and tricks from the original innovators of the craft rather than watered down fortune cookie sized standards that are easier to pass on.

Generally using classic references, there would be breakdowns and examples of how to make interesting and functional characters, not to mention little exercises to help ones general cartooning skill. I only found the cartoon class two weeks ago and the Preston Blair studies that I took from his site have already noticeably helped out my drawing skill.

So anyway, below are some of the Preston Blair drawings I did, plus a few other studies of various artist works. I can give names of the original artists of any of the work for those interested.

Sweet holy halloween season!

2009-10-20T19:39:00.000-07:00

Every October I try to watch at least one horror flick a day, with weekends generally averaging out to 3-5 movies. I try to alternate movies I have never seen before with ones that are old favorites. Tonight I watched 30 Days of Night with Rachel, my wife. I had seen it before, but remembered the visuals being spectacular so wanted to refresh my memory. Indeed, the vampire aesthetic was very near to Templesmith's original artwork, and therefore amazingly creepy in all sorts of subtle ways. The bone structure of the vamps faces all resembling sharks was a great change from the slick and sexy vampires one is used to seeing. The story...meh.

Watched Gingersnaps this weekend. Werewolf movies seem so hard to get right for some unfathomable reason, but this one was pretty decent. Of course I say that with the caveat of liking bad horror movies, so sometimes discerning the ones that I like because I am I and ones that are actually good can be a difficult line to keep in focus. However, I would say this one straddled the line between mainstream good and Claunch good. Dog Soldiers and (of course) American Werewolf in London would be the guiding line of good werewolf flicks.

Caught Trick R Treat last weekend. Awesome, awesome flick. I know that it was shelved for three years because Warner Bros didn't want it to compete with any of their Saw movies, but this gem was better than any of those torture porns. It had a pretty strong resemblance to the old tales from the crypt and Vault of Horror flicks, just a modern creep edge to it. Great actors, 4 interwoven story-lines, just an overall great Halloween flick. Was it scary? Had its moments, but is definitely more of a seasonal movie.

Also picked up Fido, one of my all time favorite zombie flicks and thats saying something. Zombie flicks are my favorite genre. One year I tried to watch every zombie movie I saw on the box store shelf or Netflix. I think I made it just past 100 before I realized that of those 100 only 10 or so were actually watch-able and I was just eating up my life by watching some pretty craptacular films. Again, I like bad movies so maybe 10 is being a little optimistic. Its about the characters, not the carnage. I don't understand why its so hard to get. My list of favorite zombie flicks (no order) for those bored enough to be reading this blog in the first place. (Hi mom!)

1. Shaun of the Dead
2. Zombieland
3. Fido
4. Dawn of the Dead (original)
5. Dawn of the Dead (new)
6. Undead
7. Night of the Creeps
8. Return of the Living Dead
9. Hide and Creep
10. Night of the Living Dead (original and Savini)
11. 28 Days later
12. Dead Alive
13. Dead Shall Rise

Thats a good starter list if you are wanting to break into the Zombie genre. They tend to skew a little to the Zomedy (zombie comedy) so bare that in mind.

After spending several hours getting into makeup the past three years in a row (Hellboy, the Goon and Marvels Beast) I am gonna take it easy this year and just paint my face so I can spend more time handing out candy and having fun.

After all that rambling, here is some art! An idea I came up with, a bunch of folk at a costume party dying and becoming ghosts. I sketched out the general halloween pub crawl types, the Playboy bunny, Emo vampire, Chubby guy in the silly full body outfit (you've seen him, he is the one that is either a cow, horse, bunny or teddy bear), The slasher, the frat boy greek type, and the drunk guy wearing nothing but beer stains and a slightly vulgar tshirt. Of the ones I put together I like the ones below well enough to splash some color on.

Also finished up a Shaolin Frog and Grasshopper I had been working on for awhile. Got the final and a step by step below.

I've been drawing at least 30 min a day, so I shall upload more soon.

False Promises

2009-10-13T20:02:00.000-07:00

I owe my reader an apology for not getting anything on here in the past few months. I promise a big 'I'm sorry, still love me' post full of oodles of drawings and such tomorrow. For tonight I just want to post the most recent Nintendo DS game I worked on that just hits store shelves. Wizards of Waverly Place. It is a really awesome game and working with the folks at Disney Interactive was a great experience. They are dedicated to getting a gorgeous game and dont mind spending a lot of time on polish to get it right. The Nickelodeon games for the DS that I worked on should be out later this month, so look forward to excited links for Backyardigans, Ni Hao, Kai Lan and Dora the Explorer and her new puppy.

Portfolio Update!

2009-07-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

I have been sending out my work to different film studios looking to see what interest/critiques I can hook. Even if I barely get a nibble, it feels nice to have an updated portfolio. I am focusing on the storyboard side, but everyone likes to know you can draw realistically so I put in some traditional style work as well (as shown below). Now to figure out this new lightbox application so I can make my website presentable!

Random appeal

2009-07-15T08:07:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last couple of weeks working on a few storyboards for a One Act play that I was a cast member in when it had a short run off Broadway a couple years ago. We had talked about doing an animated version of it back in the day, but the time never presented itself. Now the time still isnt there for a full fledged version, but I busted out the first page and a half into boxes. A couple below:

Also, mainly for color, I am posting a couple of digital paintings that I have done somewhat recently.

Ringtail Private Eye

2009-06-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

Some random sketches I did a couple months ago as warmups and just got around to scanning in. Definitely a nod to the Black Sad comics.

Crunch

2009-06-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

Another week, another battle to try to make sure I only have to crunch if the logic behind it is valid...which almost never works.

For the uninitiated, Crunch is what the producers call it when they want you to work 60+ hours a week to hit a milestone. Its something that is very rarely mentioned when people talk about how cool working in the video game industry is. I've been on crunch for 3 out of 4 weeks for the past year. Its rough.

The last batch of games I crunched on were the Popcap seek and finds on the Nintendo DS, Amazing Adventures and Mystery PI; both of which can be found at reputable retailers worldwide. They turned out pretty swank and for them being my first and second credits as Lead artist, I have little complaint over the final product.

In theory the current titles I am working on should be ready to have their release candidates sent to Nintendo by the end of the month. I'm lead artist on all three of these puppies as well. I assume I did well enough handling two concurrent titles with Popcap that they choose me to be art lead on three concurrent titles this time. But, with that said, I hope that my next lead credit is on a single game. Managing a dozen artists and making sure that they are each sticking to the completely different style of each sku means I don't get to produce very much art myself, and I kinda miss it.

Maybe?

2009-06-06T18:59:00.000-07:00

I wanna see if I will be more apt to keep this updated than I do my website. Mainly slap sketches and works inprogress up here....probably. Hopefully. Thats the general idea anyway. While I am sure only family and friends will check this thing out...ever...i can hope that one day upwards of 11 or 12 people might check the page with semi-regularity on a yearly basis.

Not to mention this will hopefully let me link the ridiculous number of illustration guru blogs all in one place so I can find their pages when I need the inspiration.

Hi Mom!