brush pen part 2

Hey! I've been sick aaaaalll week! It sucks. I really thought I was better last night but after being in denial most of the day I finally took a Sudafed and passed out. At least I woke up breathing through my nose, which was a major improvement! I've been sucking down tea and hanging around my apartment for daaaaays and started reminiscing about last weekend when I thought I had beat my sore throat and went to brunch at Alcove, the favorite breakfast-at-noon spot in my neighborhood. It is full of characters, myself included. Here's a few that I encountered:

The lady on the right had a whole lot of look happening: a big woolly oversize sweater, a ripply tunic or dress (it's hard to tell which sometimes but this was supposed to be a dress since she wasn't wearing anything under it), giant chunky rock necklace, crazy gladiator sandals, and the ultimate accessory: a small dog. The dog was cute but ultra tiny! It looked fragile and fluffy. Her friend was tiny and had worlds largest handbag.



This girl is a cupcake. She was really working that romper. Except for the back, where the edge of her butt cheek kept peaking out...but I did you the courtesy of only drawing her from the front.



This was a tall, skinny, lanky couple. They looked like they just rolled out of bed to have a tall, skinny, lanky brunch together.




Also, I added a whoooooollle bunch of new prints to the shop this week. All stuff from my show last month. Lots of the originals are still available too, but I'm still considering whether to put them up in the store or not. I haven't had much luck selling OG's on etsy.

This will probably be my only post this week, since I've spent most of it laying around watching Grey Gardens and eating cough drops like candy.

drawings that I did from the balcony in the dark

I saw Camera Obscura last night at the Henry Fonda in Hollywood. They are sooooo great! The not great thing was that we had balcony seats. They are good for seeing the stage, but not so good for dancing around like you are supposed to do at a show. I tried to make the best of the situation by busting out my brush pen to doodle...but the only surface available to draw upon were cocktail napkins from the bar. So here are some doodles that I doodled out in the hot smelly balcony in the dark!

Anni Rossi opened. She plays the viola and sings and stomps on a suitcase wearing big boots for percussion. It took me a few minutes of watching her to realize that I went to CalArts with her! I think we had some classes together. People used to say she was awesome, but I never saw her perform until last night. Sean says I jacked her pretty hard in this drawing. Sorry Anni. You stomp out a song real good, though!



...THEN a band called Agent Ribbons played. They looked like a band of wind up dolls that played instruments! They had a great cello/violin player. She had a flower in her hair that was probably as big as her head.






I could not tell you what this bird guy was all about. He must have been over six feet tall, wearing a bright pink suit with a bird mask, and a moon shaped tambourine in one hand and a boxing glove on the other. If you are confused by these drawings, then imagine how I felt when this was actually happening in front of me.




Camera Obscura! They are a big band, and their lead singer has what I call a "cupcake" body: kinda thick, but not fat, but cute and appealing all over. Like a cupcake.






Yay!

screwing around with a brush pen

I just got a brush pen! I've never really messed around with one before, and I don't really understand how to use it. I understand that it makes whatever you draw look about 300x cooler instantly, but they are very sensitive instruments and I'm used to hammering away on paper with an unsharpened Ebony pencil, so it will take some getting used to. These are just some experiments from last week...



I saw this girl at Trader Joe's last week, when it was all weird/rainy/cold outside. It literally looked like she had just wrapped a tea towel around her shoulders and pulled on the most ridiculous, bright leg warmers she could find. I thought to myself, "Really?? Are pants really that hard to come by these days??" And flip flops, in the rain? What?



But that is why I love Trader Joe's in Silverlake. So much style, so many varieties of tortilla chips!

les demoiselles de rochefort

Obscure films, how I love you so.



I really failed to capture how beautiful these two ladies are, and how dreamy and vibrant the film looks...but I think it turned out kinda cool anyway.

sketch bits

Arrrgh I can't believe it's Sunday already! What! Here are some sketches for you. Just stuff from my sketchbook, really. Like this 18th century lady with trees for hair, and this 30's bathing beauty...



I haven't drawn from life much recently, because honestly, it bores me. How many images of people in a coffee shop do I ever want to look at? Not very many. Animals in a zoo mostly just stand around. I do love Sean to pieces though, so drawing him lying in the grass reading Walter Benjamin (a smart person book of some kind) is pretty fun.



I've been thinking about mythology a lot lately.



I tried to personify Hollywood, but I don't think she'd really be this trashy/stupid.



I'm gonna color this in and it's going to be pretty. These girls are from "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort", a very beautiful and melancholy French movie with Catherine Deneuve and her sister, whose name escapes me. The art direction is soooo cool!



Check back for it later this week!

after 100 years...

...the project that I worked on for Swarovski is FINALLY online!

I don't know why it took them so long to put it up on their site, but it's THERE, and you can watch it now!

RIGHT HERE!

Up to 2:53 is the part I worked on.



And now to answer any questions you might have, I've written a little FAQ:

You: "Wait, what did you do on this??"

Me: I designed the characters based on the crystial figures (which already existed...I had nothing to do with how they look) and did model sheets, and I also painted the backgrounds.


Y: "Wait, what is this for?"

M: It's basically a commercial for crystal figures. They don't have much personality on their own, so they needed a little help from good old animation know-how.


Y: "Did you do that whole thing???"

M: Nope. I just designed the characters and painted the backgrounds. Courtland Lomax directed/produced the whole shebang, Sean Jimenez drew the layouts and did story boards, Ethan Metzger after-effects-ted it (with help from lots of others!), and just about every animator I know animated a few seconds here and there. Unfortunately a whole lot of the folks who worked on it don't have a blog or website or any other kind of presence on the inter-webs, or else I'd link to them right now. Get with it, guys!


Y: "What did you do the backgrounds in? Is it paint?"

M: They're digital, 100%. I have like a hundred photoshop brushes.


Y: "What's Swarovski?"

M: They make crystals. Or, more appropriately, I should say that they manufacture crystals. They don't dig them out of the earth, they melt quartz and sand and colors together and then grind them down to make them amazingly shiny and pretty. They are very expensive. I've been to Austria twice and visited Swarovski HQ and stolen their markers and abused their espresso machines, and I love them for giving me the opportunity to do so.


Y: "Are you going to work with them again?"

M: Yep! I'm working on the designs for the next round of figures right now. It's fun.


Y: "Which one is your favorite?"

M: I really love how Emily turned out. Animation wise, Jen Hager hit the nail on the head with Marie and Pierre...they are PERFECT: they're on model, they move beautifully, and their acting is spot on. Camille is pretty cute too...I'm impressed with how she spins around on the lazy susan. Props to P.Vose for painting that slice of cake over and over again.

Y: "Where is this playing? On TV?"

M: No, it won't be on TV. It'll be on the website and probably in some Swarovski stores. Notice how there's no dialogue/talking/writing except for the cats' names. Swarovski is way international, so this could be playing in a store in Japan or Italy or somewhere right now for all we know.


Y: "Who did the music?? It's so charming."

M: My friend Brian! Check him out!


Okay guys, I know that the lack of images on this blog lately is way lame. I promise that NEXT TIME I post, there will be images aplenty!

uuugh friday

I spent a good chunk of this week working on a new portfolio to send out to some folks. I hate how portfolios always seem so innocent, easy, simple, and then end up taking forever because of getting things the right sizes/the right color/cutting the edges cleanly/the right order/best format or whatever. Ick! Anyway, the new portfolio has been sent, and I took the opportunity to update my online portfolio at the same time.

Other things I've been up to:

-cleaning my studio
-getting my hair done
-seeing movies at Grauman's Chinese
-sitting around coffee shops with my favorite guy and watching the cute dogs walk by
-working on secret stuff that I can't show you!

And here it is Friday already and I've got nothing blog-worthy. Maybe I'll post some yucky sketches later.