chunks

Wallstreet Animation at NYT

2008-09-16T10:27:33+00:00

It has been said that timing is everything. Dumb luck never hurt either. I've been working since June on the next installment to my New York Times on-line series Concrete Jumble. The latest installment is Wallstreet posted yesterday when the Dow dumped downward by over 500 points, yow.
Music again by top Genius Mike Hashim,everything else by yours truly.

Heres a link video.on.nytimes.com/ and I hope it works since I seem to be having trouble linking to these NYT pieces. If its bad just search it up n the site, maybe Zina will post one that works like she kindly did last time.

I hope a little cartoon amusement will distract everyone the new economic climate. The seventies may be coming back for NYC, no CBGB's sadly but you cant have it all.
Next installment in the series will be The Bowery, so get out your squeegee's seventies fans.

New York Times Animation

2008-06-01T17:53:42+00:00

Today on the New York Times website is the premiere presentation of
my newest animated series. I have been engaged to do original shorts
about New York city neighborhoods to appear under the op-ed
banner of the Times on-line. Three more will roll out this summer, and
if the powers that be agree maybe more.

David Shipley, the Op-Ed editor was familiar with my stuff and contacted me directly
about doing some original animation for the Op-Ed section. I got very little art direction and
no editorial restraint to speak of. It was my idea to do NY neighborhoods and the NYT staff was
incredibly open to my ideas. The Chrysler building crapping out a neighborhood and
cartoon tranny hookers did not get edited out! This is a real fun gig.

The original music is by top jazz genius Mike Hashim. At my request Mike composed
four new tunes guided by four moods I described to him. The tracks were recorded direct
to digital disk with a three piece in Manhattan, each one about two minutes long. I wanted a very live feel
to compliment the directness of the drawings. Jazz and cartoons always go together for me like the old
Fleischer Studios stuff. I then cut and edited the music along with the drawings until I got what I wanted.
I love this organic way of making animation and music work together.

Almost all the animation was directly drawn on the computer w a Wacom and my beloved
Plastic Animation Paper software that Ive posted about here before.
I assembled and edited the music and SFX in Adobe After Effects and
delivered the whole deal as a hi-res quicktime that the Times IT folk compressed for web delivery.

Im hard at work on the second installment, Wall Street Gothic, and feeling emboldened by
how much freedom they gave me on the first animation.

Halloween Imagery

2007-10-31T04:09:43+00:00

Always my favorite time of year, I wish all at Drawger a happy halloween.
These are cardboard cutouts painted up with Fluorescent acrylics and photographed
by ace photo-genius Geoff Spear.

Making black light halloween art has been something Ive wanted to play with since
visiting "Madison Scare Garden" many years ago and loving all the great
and tacky effects on display. Not very scary but some kind of hillbilly psychedelic
pleasure was to be had from all the black light artistry. A trip to Canal Lighting
got me started with a couple of black lights.

dancing with the idiots

2007-03-20T03:43:50+00:00

Ive been working on a bunch of straight ahead (unplanned, improvisational) animations for about 9 months now. Its fun to discover connections within drawings and build on them movin thru time. Plus I just love to doodle my brains out.

Adding a music track and sound effects to these really makes them come alive.
Alive ha ha ha ha

Klick See ta SEE

Autodesk is looking for people who like to draw.

2007-02-26T00:32:12+00:00

Since my scanning assistant fell into a woodchipper, I have had to
patiently endure the scanning process. Now, what if I told you
hi-tech wacom tablet using artists about a fun way to draw on
yer computer. I have never liked drawing on a computer, I hate "Painter", its too complex, and Photoshop is awful for drawing IMO.

BUT, Autodesk Sketchbook pro is fun, fast and EZ to learn

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=6848332

I have turned on Drawger Stephen Kroninger to this soft and he loves it.
If you have a Tablet PC or Cintiq you are probably already using Sketchbook.
How much does it cost? 179.00 US, the free trial costs you nothing.
You cant say know ta that.

These are some of my doodles with this soft, studies for a documentary about Memory Athletes
I am doing animation and titles for. More about this project later.

Robots!!

2007-02-25T22:58:04+00:00

Amazing Robot sculpture link at Boing Boing.
http://bennettrobotworks.com/

I have a sizeable collection of Toy Robots that I have schlepped around with me since "college" (RISD). I started buying vintage bots cheap in Pawtucket Rhode Island from Morris Novelty.
Morris was called the novelty king in mid-century RI, he had a business selling holiday and seasonal toys and games wholesale to discount stores.

Morris Novelty occupied an ancient warehouse full of vintage toys and games The building had been badly damaged in a fire, alot of merch got soaked but much was still in good shape.

Rather than toss the old stuff away, they just left it in filthy piles, perfect for low budget art school vultures. The gatekeeper
to this gothic mess was Mrs. Morris. If you chatted her up enough
she would let you take a few shopping bags up the scary elevator into the dark where the prizes lay. We got all manner of great old toys and novelties, stuff datting back to the thirties. Tintoys, plastic crap on nicely illustrated cards and my fave, space toys. After picking over the piles they charged us pennies per item. Chatting up Mrs, Morris was easy because her daughter had been married to Abbie Hoffman, and she could dig young people.

hello drawger

2007-02-25T22:21:13+00:00

Totally awesome to be here at Drawger with you all and a Big thanks to JD King for inviting me.There are some links on the right that can clue you in on my past.

Its been a long time since I did any editorial illustration, I have been doing titles, animation and visual effects for films and TV the last 8 years or so. Lately I am only looking for work that involves drawing, and I have shifted my focus to drawing animation and comics once again.