THE SIMPSONS NEWS

This week and last week I worked on next year’s Halloween special.  There is a board game story in it, but I won’t say anymore than that.  I stayed late working on the show since Thanksgiving was going to take away a few days of work from that show.

On Wednesday  I moved to the crew I’m going to be working for, for the next few weeks.  I enjoy working for these directors, so it seems like it’s going to be a fun show to work on.

ART

I continued working on my sister’s logo designs this week.  Here’s what I did and why:

I started by reworking the rough silhouette from last time so that the girl would be in a lotus position. My sister had given me some more ideas for items and I put them in the drawing.  I cleaned up the circle also, mainly because I wanted to see what it would look like. I got rid of the laptop frame and used it as one of the interior items.

I thought that it we time to start defining the exterior of the design.  my first approach was to do it with color. I took the colors I thought I would use and started defining the drawing better.  I got stuck though. I wasn’t really sure where I was going and what was what.  It was too confusing for me to work this way so I changed my mind and decided to use lines to define the details.

I used white lines and decided to just draw inside the silhouette, using the same shapes I had already defined with the color pass. I added a temporary background because I found that I when the white line hit the “paper” it got lost.  I had chosen to draw a really squished  rectangular head for the girl.  This gave her a very big chunk of hair on top.  The reason was mostly to create contrast between the too parts (face and hair) which creates interest. Then I drew the face. The details of the figure where taken from what I saw my sister wear in some pictures on her her site.  The girl is suppose to represent my sister without being a direct caricature of her.

I was happy with the rough white line pass but I couldn’t quite clean up the line without doing a slightly more defined rough of certain areas.  Such as, her legs and feet, as well as, her hands in prayer position.  The red line is the clean up line while the blue line is my rough, definition drawing.

Once I was done, I turned the red line black and got rid of all the roughs and silhouette.  I sent the drawing to my sister and she gave me some suggestions that I will add next.  I will also begin to color it and add detail to the items.  I hope to be done with this logo next week.

MY WEEK

I went to the CNT Animation Expo last Sunday. In order to not pay for parking, I parked at the Simpsons’ Studio (which was  two blocks away) and rode my skateboard to the Convention Center.  As I was doing so, I did the idiotic thing of trying to text my wife something as I rode my skateboard.  The following event occurred shortly after:

The board’s front wheels got caught on an upturned chunk of sidewalk and I totally bailed.  My phone went flying out of my hands, the battery flew out,  my phone slid face down on the cement away from me as I lay face down on the side walk. Comedy gold. After I got myself up and unsuccessfully tried to recover my dignity, I put my phone back together and discovered, to my great relief, that it still worked.  I continued my ride feeling stupid.  As I approached the Convention Center, I stopped at a light and suddenly discovered that I was in pain in two places.  I checked those two place.  My elbow was very scratched up and looked bad, but wasn’t bleeding.  I then checked my knee. My pants where ripped and when I lifted up my pants leg I discovered it was bleeding.  That’s when  I thanked God that all I had gotten was a scratched knee.

First thing I did, when I got to the Convention Center was find a bathroom and cleaned the wound. I now have a nice scab to show as a souvenir.   Then I bought a ticket and went in to the Vendor’s Hall. It was small but full of great vendors and artists.  It was worth looking walking through.  Lots of great books there. The were also a ton of students and pros walking around with portfolios, looking for work and asking about the state of the industry from other pros. In the center of the Hall was a stage with where two artists did demos for all to see.  The artists were very accessible and were rotated every hour.  At the time I had walked in, J. Scott Campbell was on stage drawing and talking to a handful of people about his art and influences.

I quickly got bored after walking around the hall for an hour.  It was small and I had seen everything by then. If I had gone to a panel, I wouldn’t have been bored but I hadn’t bought a ticket that allowed me to go to any panels.  They were too expensive.  The real reason I was there was to talk to friends I hadn’t seen in a while as well as meet up with new artists a didn’t know.  This didn’t really happen.

I left the Convention Center and went to lunch.  On my way back from lunch, I told myself that if I couldn’t find anyone to talk to, I would just leave.

Walking back into the Vendor’s Hall, I instantly regretted having gone to lunch. On the stage in the Hall was none other that Marcelo Vignali. He had been talking and giving a demo there the whole time I had been at lunch.  He’s one of my favorite artists and one of the top Development Artist in the business. Since I’m interested in doing Development Art, I would have loved to have been there through out this whole demo.  As it was, I caught the last fifteen minutes.  There were  a ton of people around him asking him really good questions.  I just sat there and soaked it all in. Afterward, he got down off he stage and a small group of students, followed him out of the Hall where he sat down and drew for them.  I followed and gawked at Marcelo‘s skill, trying to soak up everything he did as he drew.  There is nothing like observing how a Master artist approaches drawing. I learn a ton, just watching.

One of the students was smart enough to have Marcelo, look at his a piece of work he had done, so that he could give him his take on it.  Marcelo did, and as he did so, explained his process. It was amazing.  I couldn’t believe it. He blew my mind.

Later, when all the students where gone, I reintroduced myself to him. I reminded him I had had lunch with him, my friend Paul, and a few other people some years ago when he was still working at Sony. I talked with him about his process a bit more and about sketching for fun.  He gave  me some advice on how to include my kids when I sketched, so they could do it too.  It was great.

I left the Expo right after that. I felt the expo was time well spent.

ART

Last week I wrote about Jim Lujan‘s latest short film. Jim does what he dubs “Ghettomation“. It’s do it yourself (DIY) animation. He strives for clear storytelling without all the time consuming billions of drawings it takes to make a fully animated film. Many people in the animation industry might scoff at this idea because it’s not “well animated”.

I’m a trained animator. Once upon a time, I thought that if a movie was poorly animated, it wasn’t worth my while. This opinion has changed a lot since then, I’ve come to the conclusion that “well animated” films, are not necessarily good films. I think it’s far more important to have an animated “good story, well told”  even if the animation isn’t the best.

Ghettomation is no exception. There is a such thing as great Ghettomation.  Case in point, behold, what Jim Lujan calls “Pixar Ghettomation“:

For more on Ghettomation, visit Jim Lujan and Kevin Cross‘ Ghettomation podcast.

And speaking of podcasts…

PODCAST

I joined the motley crew of cartoonists on the JAVILAND podcast (episode 28) this weekend.  It’s the first time that I’ve been on a podcast and not only NOT been interviewed, but my job as an artist is actually taken for granted while we talk about art. Check it out:

Directly from Talkshoe,

or

The JAVILAND Podcast.

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