Gordon & Chell Fanart

I've always wondered what it would be like if they met...

Jaks & Alex

There was more downtime at work so I drew some characters from a webcomic I used to draw.

I used to draw a webcomic named "Jaks Tales," which was about a Star Wars fanboy who ends up in a medieval fantasy universe, specifically the one from my friend Nicholas Killewald's comic, "The Dementia of Magic." On the right is his character, a mage named Alex, and on the left is my character, named Jaks.

The comics are no longer online, which is very sad. I should put them back up somewhere. I had a whole story planned, but I ran out of free time. I'd still like to finish it, maybe just pump out roughs/black and whites, not dissimilar from what I drew.

Clone High fanart

Downtime at work, found time to put this dumb pun in JFK's mouth.

I liked Clone High, but I wish they did more history jokes instead of teen drama/MTV parodies.

Regular Show fanart

Not sure why, but I had this in my head for a while. Finally had a chance to do it. Worth it? Maybe.

Regular Show's great, everyone watch it.

Writeup: FuelTV commercial spots

In 2010 I boarded some commercial spots for Fuel TV under the direction of Jeff Gardner. I think this was my second paid job- before that I was brought in for some reboards for the first season of Frankenhole, and before that I was a lowly intern on Titan Maximum.

These were a lot of fun to make, and thank goodness for YouTube as a reference source!

"Acupuncture"

"Avalanche"

"Skate Rock"

Monster Girl #3: "Slime Girl"

A return to monster girls! You'd think unemployment would give me plenty of time to draw these, but somehow I lose the days to chores, errands, and other boring grown up stuff. But less talk, more monsters!

#3: Slime Girl

This one was tough, but I think I'm just a little rusty. I'm not satisfied with the transparency effect I was going for, but I've never tried anything like it before. But oh well, onto the next one!

Also, compulsory progress compilation:

1. Harpy
2. Centaur
3. Slime
4. Naga
5. Mermaid
6. Spider Girl
7. Plant Girl
8. Octomaid
9. Demon
10. Succubus
11. True Monster
12. Zombie
13. Insect Girl
14. Dullahan
15. Dragon/Reptile Girl
16. Ghost
17. Robot
18. Alien
19. Cyclops
20. Satyr
21. Canine Girl
22. Feline Girl
23. Yokai
24. Multiple Limbs
25. Favorite Monster Girl
26. Favorite Monster Girl Character
27. A Truly Gruesome Girl
28. A Group of Monster Girls Together
29. A Monster Girl and Her Significant Other
30. Celebrate Monster Girls!

Snake Girl progress compilation

Pony writeup

When I first moved to Los Angeles to find a job in animation in '08, I had a lot of time on my hands. You can only cold-call so many companies in a day. So, I decided to make an animation out of a comic I liked. That comic was "MORE SHETLAND PONY ADVENTURES!!" by Kate Beaton:

First I recorded myself doing funny voices for the characters,  broke the comic into panels, then timed out the panels in Flash to what I had recorded. However, before I went any further I actually e-mailed Kate and asked for permission. She graciously said yes, and I could begin.

A big reason I chose a Beaton comic was because she has no consistent style. At least, not a strictly consistent style- characters change proportions from panel to panel. For me, having just completed an animation education, being "on-model" was supposed to be the most important thing, and here was an artist that simply drew and didn't worry about that stuff. It was invigorating.

Trouble is, I wasn't a very good artist then. Here are some of my pitiful '08 attempts:

The project went well, until I found a job. I pretty much stopped working on it from then on. Fast forward to 2012 and I was working at Animal Logic on the LEGO movie. One of our editors, Doug Nicholas, had the idea to have a crew film fest where we could showcase our ideas. I had no idea what to do, but then I remembered my Pony animation. I dusted off the old files and began again.

Starting again after 4 years was pretty surreal. At that point I had been storyboarding for about three-quarters of that time and I noticed my draftsmanship had really improved. I also employed habits I picked up along the way. I adjusted the frame ratio from 4:3 to 16:9, and I even made a few model sheets, despite my earlier idea to go without

Having model sheets really helped, and as I drew I didn't worry about staying perfectly on-model anyways, so I felt I sort of matched that Beaton-style in essence:

Eventually I was able to draw an approximate Pony that looked close enough:

After 12 hours of labor spread over a couple of weeks, the animation was completed. Here's a compilation video showing the work at different stages:

And, finally, here's the completed video:

The video was received very well at the crew film fest (and everyone else's videos were great too). It felt awesome to be done with the project after four years of "development," and I'm very glad that Kate Beaton was ok with me making it.

"The Locals" episode 6 write up

In August 2012 my friend Ben asked me to animate for his YouTube show, "The Locals," where they capture audio from TF2 matches, cut it down into a mostly coherent conversation between players, and then hand out sections to animators to bring to life.

I wasn't able to complete it until January 2013- a shameful delay, I know! But, keep in mind I was  working on the LEGO movie at the time, as well as a Sonic Bunny animation, and a side project for an inner-studio Film Festival. But complete it I did, and I'm happy with what came out.

Here's the video:

Here's the bits I animated:

Here's an animation breakdown of that fight sequence:

And here are some Pentagram doodles, doodled tonight to cap off this blog post:

Robot Chicken DC Special Write Up

In January 2012 I was offered a freelance story job for the Robot Chicken DC Special. The show had moved to a different studio and reached out to me since I had worked with them before. Like a moron, I took the job despite already working full time as a story artist on the LEGO movie at Animal Logic.

I met with the director and he walked me through the first 20 pages (of a 60 page script), which was all that I could feasibly do in the time I had, since I could only work weekends, and a few hours after working a full day on LEGO. But, I somehow managed to complete what I promised, and here's some of the stuff I boarded:

RCDC, "Opening"

 

RCDC, "Aquaman and the Invisible Jet":

RCDC, "Deadman Waits for No One" (not made):

RCDC, "That's Bane! #2":

And that's that!

EDIT: Sweet, looks like Adult Swim has the whole episode on their channel.