Season's greetings!

I started from drawing the sombrero boy, and as I started to have fun, got more ideas. Best Wishes everyone! And now for Canada's most popular Christmas song:

Caricatures

This is how cartoonists show mutual respect, welcome to our tribe.
This includes Mitch, who's always a part of our special klan no matter where in the world's he's goin'!

This Bites

Originally posted on Myspace, Here is a better scan.
Medium: watercolor

Happy Birthday Kaj Pindal!

In the picture above: Alessandro, Amir, Kaj and Ellen Bessen
In the picture below: Alessandro, Kaj and Annie Pindal

Yesterday was Kaj Pindal's 80th birthday tribute at the NFB store in downtown Toronto,
It was a wonderful celebration of Kaj's life and carreer so far, we got to see some of his NFB classics and rare footage of his brilliant animated films from Denmark.
My friend Alessandro Piedimonte contributed to it with very creative ideas: First, to give Kaj the caricature bust he had sculpted of him, and second a birthday card featuring a caricature by Pete Emslie, Alex asked me to help him with the text on the card, and for two weeks it was passed around the college for the students and teachers to sign.
Kaj was really moved, he appreciates creativty, just like Alessandro!

Thanks to Angela Piedimonte for taking the pictures!

Pete's expression assginment

Pete has provided us with models of his characters and assigned us to draw 4 distinctive expressions for each.


As usual, I started with getting the character on model with practice drawings.

Here they are...*drum roll*...

SCARED

SKEPTICAL

LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY

FLIRTATIOUS

I worked really hard on the top ones, they consist of several stages of roughs and cleanup, the latter was drawn once, all on one page, I guess it looks more spontaneous that way.

Tune in next week and see this guy in side splitting action.

FIN.

Baywolf

I went to my blog to see what was new and sank into a long depression when there was no update in site. Then it hit me...I'm the moderator. So I spent the rest of the afternoon coloring this drawing for posting. I drew it before Mayerson's class on Thursday, I haven't drawn anything purely for fun in a long time.
We actually got free tickets to see Baewoulf from one of our teachers, and I was about to go see it with Alex and King in Toronto, but I didn't want to miss the end of Pete's lecture.


The clean-up was done on tracing paper, which provides the creative texture for this scan, I decided not to remove the dirt, since I was going for the rough unshaven manly look, even though he's wearing a bra.

I used a limited pallete, for instance, Baywolf's toenails are the same color as his eyes. I learned a lot about using limited palletes from Nick Thornborrow, he did an excellent job color-styling his short "The Foolish Bet". Art students- I highly recommend apprenticing talented peers.

As for the tagline, I just merged a bunch of movies which I can't tell apart.

Caught on Camera: Pete Emslie Drawing

We've made a 10 minute video of Pete drawing and explaining his creative process

I convinced him that eager beavers world over can learn from his expertise, Nothing is more educational than seeing a pro at work!

Listen up, As Pete draws he explains his process in detail.
We're hosting it on both of our sites, click on the "Zoom" on the bar of the player to view in full sceen.

Video 1- Gesture and Construction

Video 2- Sculpting on paper

Video 3- Line Weight

Special thanks to Mitch Kennedy for his help and tripod!

Trick or Spam?

Late Halloween card, Drawn in Flash

Guest Speakers

Huww...Huww...

A-Hee-Hee....MmMm-Hee

15 years after their debut, and no show turns off your brain better than Beavis and Butthead.

Terry's Groceries

Earlier this year I went to visit my cousin Eliot in New Rochelle. I asked him if the Terry-Toons studio is still around, We drove over there, and took pictures of the original building, which is now a grocery store.

Contrasting Characters

Here's a sketch of characters in development, I'm trying to get more energy into my drawings.

Experimenting with ink wash

I need more practice with full color pictures, and I figure that before I can do decent color, I need to learn decent Black & White


I drew a layout and traced it on watercolor paper, I mixed India Ink with water to reach 3 variations- light/med/dark/

When applied to the paper, more variations can be reached. India ink dries fast, and doesn't re-ignite when you apply water on it, So you can mix Gouache and water to apply on the ink. Below are 2 tones of Gouache- brown and green, applied to an ink wash, I left the bird in ink, as a reference to how the tree looked like before the applying Gouache.

Now to color the busted living room scene, My first attempt included too many unrelated secondary colors, It chilled my blood just to look at it, So I put it to rest. Backgrounds made of opaque saturated colors set a barrier between the cartoon and the viewer, they hold a 3 year old's attention, but that's about it.

In my second attempt I wanted more contrast, and more muted colors, as if you could walk right in it. The result was mostly pee and poo colors, but it's a step in the right direction since they are earth tones, and you can imagine lying in your own filth.


Now I'm trying to copy one of kristy Gordon's amazing backgrounds from Ren Seeks Help, What will I think of next? It'll take many more tries to get it right, The benefit is-- copy studies train my eyes to see things I wouldn't have noticed otherwise.


Critiques Welcome

Btw...school starts on Tuesday!

Walk & Run Expression Change Bundle Bonanza

Here is a rough version
This is an experiment to combine three assignments (including the weight lift and toss) into a story, I hope it entertains. I'm going for a shorter, carefully planned and more tightly layed-out scene next time. critiques appreciated.

Hi Folks

I'm working on the final sequence,
meanwhile- here's a model sheet I drew for it.

C'mon! C'mon!

Flash CS3 for my Mac should deliver within the next few days, I'm eager to start animating the next scene!

Next year's homework: part 2

Weight lift & Toss assignment

Wanted to get a sense of effort into this one. Oh, How I love rubber hose animation!

Speaking of which, Check out the Fleischer cartoons posted on Dailymotion: "The Dancing Fool" , and "Betty Boop's Museum" are especially great. They are pure cartoons (A term I first heard from Mitch) with unrestrained humor, joy and imagination.

Btw, I will add a face of the Toss!

Time to give a lil' sumpin' back

Sharper scans are up!

Put these up for John who sent me a very thoughtful and generous letter back in 1998. In his recent posts he talks about why its important to construct a drawing, rather than draw straight ahead.

Next year's homework: Part 1

Waveboat Assignment

I've got some spare time now, and I'll have none when school starts. As always, my fingers are yearning for new projects, so naturally I started working on next year's homework.

To time the waves I studied Bob Clampett's masterpiece Horton Hatches the Egg. In my opinion, the best adaptation from storybook to cartoon.

Big Lips= Success?

Theoretically, If you have big lips, you can become an instant commercial success. Let us examine this argument carefully:

Big Lips+Talent=Rock Star. Talent gives Mick Jagger prestige among pop musicians, because it is quite rare among them today. As far as I know the stones wrote their own material which makes me nostalgic for yesterday's music and respectful for their ongoing popularity.
Notice the subject matter the stones chose for their logo, there has got to be a connection.

Goldilocks here was the hardest to draw, she's not easy to exaggerate since she's quite symmetrical...and...dare I say? Prettyful. Of course big lips can't be entirely the explanation for Scralet's success, she's very popular now, but it took her quite a few years in the business to get there. I've never seen any movie with Scarlet Johanson, but I've heard she's alright, and so I can put that in my critique.

--Comments & Criticism welcome