Television and Life

Back again! I decided to do some long overdue caricatures of two of my favourite shows which just started up again for their 5th seasons over the last two weeks. The Office's Dwight Schrute played by Rainn Wilson, and the amazing Dr. Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie. The House sketch still needs some work, and I'm going to keep attempting it - it's his smugness that I find hardest to capture. The third drawing is something I did while at a mall in Montreal over the weekend (went to visit some family) and I forgot my sketchbook in the car, so we were drinking coffee and I took that sleeve thing and just did a few quick sketches on there. Any crits (especially for the caricatures) are very welcome.

Just some stuff around the net I found interesting: James Robertson did a fantastic post about how he thinks about story as he dissected a short from a great film called "Paris, Je T'aime" - his passion for filmmaking and understanding of story and film structure really comes through. Go support him and comment so that he keeps doing them. Special congrats to my friends Vlad Kooperman and James Higuchi for placing first and second, respectively in the Most Promising category in the Teletoon Animation Scholarship which took place in Ottawa this past weekend. Last, but not least, is a little golden book that is now available on Amazon of Pixar's short PRESTO! and is illustrated by none other than the amazing Teddy Newton. That's all for now!
R.

Sorry...

Sorry for neglecting the blog for so long, I think this is the longest I've gone without posting since I started the thing, or maybe it was the stretch during the film. Thanks to all those who've been coming by, I really, really appreciate it. The above drawing was a quick drawing done just as I got off the subway.
Anyway, it's not like I haven't been drawing - I've been commuting downtown everyday, and as a result have been filling up a sketchbook a week, focusing on one aspect of a drawing that needs improving (read: all of them) at a time, be it faces/heads, hands, compositions, posing etc. Re-reading the Walt Stanchfield notes as well, and they're making a whole lot of new sense all of a sudden. Fantastic stuff. I've been spending the weekend getting around to scanning the sketchbooks and tying up some other loose ends, so hopefully by the end of the week I will do a large sketchdump.

Also, Ed Catmull is my hero, there's a new podcast of his that can be found here. Definitely worth a listen. Nick Sung, one of the most inspirational (to me) artists I've had the pleasure of speaking with, reminds us about the value of hard work something that's easy to forget, so a welcome reminder is always appreciated. There's been a lot going on, and once again I apologize for not being able to post more, but I'm back!! I promise! For a while, at least.
More on the way,
R.

Cintiq

So, there's much to report after coming back from ComicCon and L.A., I'll do a full comic con/L.A. entry with pictures soon, been really busy with a bunch of stuff. I've had the chance to play around with a Cintiq lately...and now I see what all the fuss is about. This little device is AWESOME. Here's a quick little doodle I did on it - will be posting more soon.
Also, if you haven't heard about it already, here's a lecture from the "Last Lecture" series run at Carnegie Mellon University by a professor named Randy Pausch who, at the time of this taping, was recently diagnosed with cancer with no more than 6 months to live. He passed away last week, and this lecture is amazing and definitely worth the time to watch it, or listen. Do yourself a favour and check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo


I'll be back real soon.
R.

Nerd Prom '08.

I've been off the radar for a while, due to applying for jobs (still looking) and prepping for the trip to San Diego and Los Angeles. I'll be gone for the week, but will report when I get back. Here's a little quick doodle I did at Starbucks while waiting for my friend Jon to show up.
R.

Sketchbook Dump: Subway & Starbucks

I finished off another sketchbook before I had time to scan in any of the drawings for a smaller update. Most of these drawings were done either at my local Starbucks or on the subway back and forth from Toronto. The monkeys however, were not on the subway or in the Starbucks, those were done in the zoo.
Lately, more so than before, I've been attempting to put more story into the sketches I do, as a result of a reminder from Kris. One of the funniest people I know and a super nice guy to boot. I've also been using the Signpen again a lot this summer after James told me about it two summers ago, it's almost like using a Sharpie, but with slightly more control. If you haven't seen James' work for some reason, head on over there right away, his stuff is fantastic and yet, somehow keeps getting better. His drawings have a great sense of story, design and shape/form - something I'm really striving to do myself.
In other news - Andrew Stanton has confirmed that he's writing the script for John Carter of Mars, an old sci-fi serial by Tarzan scribe Edgar Rice Burroughs. This could be awesome. Also, a few Dreamworks artists including David Pimentel, Ken Morrisey and Jenny Lerew are part of an anthology called Scrambled Ink published by Dark Horse, you can learn about it over at Jenny's blog.
AICN via The New York Licensing show has some sneak peeks at Dreamworks upcoming projects such as Monsters vs. Aliens and How to Train Your Dragon. The ultimate Wall-E Toy is now available.
Last but not least - the End Credits to Kung Fu Panda are available online on the website of the studio which animated them, Shine.

That's all for now, more later.
R.

Bye..

R.I.P. Sparky
May 18th, 2000-June 05, 2008

R.

Dog.

Here are some drawings I did of my dog Sparky (my brother and I were young when we came up with this oh-so-original name) around the house. When I get bored, I like following him around, the "problem" is that he then notices I'm following him around and wants me to play with him, which I inevitably end up doing.
No real news to report this time. More to come soon.
R.

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.

DONE!

So, 8 months of solid, hard work accumulated into 2 minutes worth of screen time, but the film is DONE. Now, working on portfolios and hoping I land a job on (or shortly before or after) the approaching industry day. I'll post more soon, but here are some screenshots.