Happy Birthday, Penelope ♥

We’ve been enjoying the benefits of having a cat for one year now. 

ps. I figured out how to make GIFs! 

Suriya

This is "Suriya", one of my paintings for Ladies of Animation show at GRspace. It is 13x13 in., gouache on paper.

I started this one first out of my five pieces, but didn't finish it until later toward the end of the set. I usually sketched my composition as tiny thumbnails, then correcting &finalizing it in computer. But somehow this one took a traditional route all the way to a finished piece. So I thought it might be fun to post the previous sketches along with it.

The image below is about 5x5 inches. I did this on animation paper. I was surprised it took water-based medium pretty well.

When I doubled the size of the piece, I also changed the appearance of the figure. I went with a nude figure instead since the theme is about figures being suspended in their moments under water.

Then it was transfered and painted, but I felt something was missing. I went away to work on other pieces in the meantime. I wasn't sure what I thought was missing from the picture.

Over a week, I tried echoing the shape of her hair and the ripple pattern started forming. And I'd never been as excited about water ripples until now. The ripples eventually beat out the bubbles.

When I arrived at this conclusion, I switched the palette back to warmer red. Gouache has its mysterious way of appearing like one color when it was wet and switching into another color when it got dried. So while dealing with that, I didn't take process photos of this piece.

I have a process photo set coming up for another painting, though. Stay tuned!

There are Lots of Ladies in Animation

Super excited to be part of this show! (And super tired from painting non stop since New Year - Hey, Happy New Year, everyone!) 

Come by to check it out on Feb 9th at GRspace in Downtown LA.

Also, there will be a postcard series made by the contributing artists of this show. The postcards pack go on sale early Feb. HERE.

Where is Dead Zero?

"Where is Dead Zero", an anthology book I've been working on with my coworkers at Disney, is coming out this weekend at CTN expo, in Burbank.

There are limited runs of 1000 copies. Come by and give us a high five at booth T13!

Ryan and I will also be reviewing storyboard portfolios at Disney Animation booth on Sunday Nov.18th at 10-11am.

Fall is finally here, so I figured I should just post a bunch of beach related paintings I've done before the season's past.

Godzilla VS. Mothra

So I've been working on Gouache stencil technique lately. Just to make it more fun, I decided to photograph the process.

This is a piece for Tokusatsu Art Show at Q Pop Shop in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. More info of the piece here!

Super Sculpey!

Last night I found an unopened box of Super Sculpey in the office, so I put the iPod stereo on shuffle and worked some of the clay into this chunky bust.  He's only a few inches tall, but as I stared directly into his eyes in the middle of the night, he effectively made me feel guilty for not sculpting the rest of his body.  Sorry, dude.

Shirts

On the way to work last week, I drove past this woman:

Her shirt had bright, gaudy colors and a generic font that could only come from one of those "do it yourself" t-shirt printing kiosks at the mall. I wondered if she had specifically made this shirt to match her morning activity or if it was just a coincidence.

Maybe she had some obsessive compulsion to ONLY wear shirts that labeled what she was doing...



"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..."

 

Or...

Or...



"Excuse me, Ma'am."




"Are you..."



"...shoplifting??"

"No."

  

Bear-Tender Boost

How to Have a Snowball Fight

Last year I boarded "How to Have a Snowball Fight" as part of the marketing for the next Tinker Bell movie, Secret of the Wings. We were going for a broad, comedic tone in line with the classic Goofy "How To" shorts.

Below is my first draft of the short. You can see some gags and shots that got cut as we refined the story...and you'll find ways that we plussed the action and pacing in later drafts for the animation.