Drawings!

So I'm trying to do a lot more on location sketching - these were all done either at a mall or the local Starbucks. There's always a great variety of people around, and I've gotten much more accustomed to doing sketches with locations (what a novel concept...) The first one I was attempting to nail down the pose and character with as few lines as possible (my dog is in there too). Hope you like them, comments and critiques are appreciated.
In other news - one of my favourite artists has his own blog - Alessandro Barbucci, creator of Skydoll - which Marvel is actually reprinting in a translated version, seemingly different from the earlier Heavy Metal.
Jim Hull of the on and off blog "Seward Street" has a blog devoted entirely to story called "StoryFanatic", definitely worth checking out.
AnimationMentor has a couple of articles about ergonomics that should be read if you are working at a desk all day, regardless if you're an animator or whatever. They can be found here and here.
Last and most definitely not least, I wanted to once again congratulate Vlad Kooperman, animator extraordinaire, on his winning "best animation" in the Toronto International Film Festival 2008 Student Showcase. His film "C-Block" kicks ass.
Kung Fu Panda is awesome. Go see it when it comes out.
That's all for now, be posting again soon. Comments are greatly appreciated.
R.

Better late than never...

The drawings above were for the Sheridan 2008 Flipbook/yearbook.

So, I'm a little late with this post, but here goes.

School is over, industry day has come and gone. Four long yet short years in animation and one VERY short year in Art Fundamentals later, it's all over. Time really does fly when you're having fun. It's been a great ride, wish everyone the best. It's kind of impossible not to stay in touch these days with all of the social networking tools we have at our disposal, so I'll definitely be seeing a large portion of people online. To the class of 2008, great job and all the best. Also, awesome job to Group D!
I'm still in the process of looking for work and will post up my film as soon as I figure out which festivals (if any) require you to not post your film on the internet. If anyone has any information about this, feel free to leave me a comment or e-mail me.

Now, some articles of interest...
The McKinsey Quarterly has an article/interview with Brad Bird entitled "Innovation lessons from Pixar" which is worth a read; this article in Fortune talks about how Apple design guru Johnny Ive influenced the design of EVE in Pixar's next film Wall-E. Also, if you (all 5 of you reading this blog) have a chance, make sure to get your hands on The Office (the American version) one way or another, it is brilliant. Last, but not least, one of my favourite bands, "Gorillaz" are coming out with a documentary, filmed over a few years called "Bananaz" about the creation and making of the first successful virtual band.
This, I'm pretty sure I've posted before, but for those who forgot about it or whatever, is the keynote address by Dr. Ed Catmull at Stanford University last year - if anyone is thinking of starting up a studio or running a business of any kind, you should listen to this. Unfortunately, it's in a format that few people use (realplayer) but you can download Media Player Classic which will play it without you having to deal with the actual RealPlayer.

That's all for now, been drawing a lot, so I'll be posting up some sketches and hopefully a portfolio later on this week.

R.