Monday, June 28, 2010

"Ever Danced with An Angel?" Starring Rooney Fruits the Angel Dancer!






My bro-in-law Adam Kelley and I just finished our first animated short called "Ever Danced with an Angel? Starring Rooney Fruits the Angel Dancer! The above pictures are the stills from it. It's only a 20 sec. clip, pretty brief but hope you dig! Rooney's had a long day. Perhaps a special potion will PEP him up?

We entered it into a animation competition and need your vote(s) - a 5 star rating if you could! We have to advance to Round 2. Winners that advance to R2 will be announced on Tues night. Voting closes soon so please do so quickly if you are game. There are 3 Rounds in all. Final selections go to an awards ceremony in August at the Sydney Opera House in Australia!! Winner gets funding for future projects, plus state of the art computer programs! This is a big deal for us - Help!
Here is the link:

http://play.sydneyoperahouse.com/index.php/graphic/744.html

Would really appreciated FB shares and twitter shout-outs. Spread the word! Vote early, vote often - You can do so multiple times!!

And now for your viewing pleasure, here is the original watercolor rendition of Rooney Fruits the Angel Dancer, created by me and the NAMER Steve Sallese. Steve does the original abstraction, I create the visual character, then Steve bestows a name. Started back in 10th grade HS Chemistry class. The entire collection of SHAPES from 1992 to 2010 will be released as book this fall, along with a slew of other fun stuff. Stay tuned!






Sunday, June 20, 2010

Through the Years! Football, 2004 -2010



I first met Football aka Footy aka Footina at the end of 2003 when I started dating my lovely wife Daria. She's an awesome, special dog. Part chihuahua, part terrier? She was found under a car in San Diego over ten years ago. Small, but compact and muscled. I think she's half cat, or fox. Over the years I've done many versions of her in a couple different styles. Here's a rundown of them from the earliest to the newest at the bottom just finished today. I have a couple more somewhere. Will update when found and scanned.




















Did this one above back in 2006. Was never really happy with her expression though. Left it alone for a few years, but it always kinda bugged me. Finally, a couple months , almost 4 years later, I tweaked it digitally to give her smiling eyes and shortened tail. This illustration was the inspiration for the short story written by Daria called "Yennang Tennang" in MToEM V. 1 & 2 . Her expression now matches the intended emotion of the moment. Better late than never! Below is the altered version from 2010.











Going forward, I want to create a cartoon-y, simplified version of Footie, kinda like Snoopy. Gonna be a real challenge. She's deceptively simple, her "look" changes all the time I feel. As always, stay tuned!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Works in Progress



Exercises in Painter 11. Just horsing around but liking the results. Reminds me of the sketchbooks I kept and paintings I did back in the year 2000. Having fun with this style again! Doing them digitally is interesting. Still getting used to the programming capabilities.