APE Card 3: Mistletoe

Awwww.

Also, I added in the fire to the fireplace card:

Purr-Casso Call For Entries!

Hey Artists! 

Last year I participated in a a great art event that benefits cats (and dogs) at the East Bay Humane Society here in Berkeley, CA. I found out about it through Bill Presing's blog and since then have ended up volunteering at the Humane Society with the cats and providing caricatures at different fund raising events they've had. This year I volunteered to join the planning committee and we have a great show in the works. It's a great way to meet area artists and help out a good cause. Announcing the new and improved:

Purr-casso Art and Craft Gala

Sunday, Nov. 9, 2008

12-4 PM

Hollis Street Project
5900 Hollis Street, Emeryville, CA

This event consists of a silent art auction (yes!) in addition to a normal craft fair. There will be some great art to be had here, as long as all you artists out there are willing to contribute!

Official info from the Purr-Casso blog:

We are looking for artists to donate their crafts or fine art for the 2008 Purr-casso Art and Craft Gala. All art must include cat or a dog somewhere in the piece. Crafts that are wearable items for dogs or cats are OK too.

Your donation will be formally acknowledged by the BEBHS. In addition, you will be recognized through our website and bi-annual magazine distributed to over 12,000 Bay Area households . We hope that you are able to support this exciting event. Thank you for your consideration of this request. If you have any questions, please contact Jane Stutfield, stutfield@yahoo.com , or Julia Clayton, claytonja@sbcglobal.net. Or call Cindy Shelby at 510-845-7735 ext. 13.

DEADLINE FOR ARTWORK:  October 25, 2008

Submission details:

Step 1: Email: stutfield@yahoo.com or claytonja@sbcglobal.net
Include the following information:
1. Name/Phone Number
2. Medium (painting, photo, quilt, etc.)
3. Size – approximate
4. Number of items
5. How it will be displayed

Step 2: Mail or deliver artwork to BEBHS--October 25, 2008
Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society
Attn: Cindy Shelby
2700 Ninth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710 

Attach to your art work:
1. Your Name
2. Company Name (if applies)
3. Phone Number
4. Address (if applies)
5. Email Address
6. Website
7. Title of piece (if applies)
8. Price of artwork(s) 

Portfolio Book:
1 page – 8 ½ x 11
Bio and Photo of artwork
Contact info.
Attach business cards 

PLEASE NOTE:
1. Send artwork framed, or in a manner we can easily display to the public.
2. Your art work will be stored in a safe and secured warehouse near the Hollis Street Project.



Go ahead and start those beautiful artworks and keep an eye on the Purr-Casso blog for updates! We will even be posting art there as it is submitted, so you will have a good idea of what treasures await you at the auction in November. 


Last year I had these pieces in the show:

Bill Presing contributed this beauty:

Brittney Lee had some terrific pieces:

Feel free to contact me or the folks from the humane society mentioned above for more info on this event. Looking forward to seeing all the art come flooding in...think of the lonely kitties!

My ComicCon cherry has been popped.

So this was my first San Diego Comic Con. I had some preparation for it back in February when I attended WonderCon in San Francisco. ComicCon was like Wondercon on crack. Estimates put over 165,000 people at the con this year and I certainly believe it.

I mostly stuck to the exhibit floor, meeting tons of amazing artists as well as new and old friends. I found that putting your portfolio on an iPhone is a great way to show people your work. (Thanks for the idea, Steph!) I attended a few panels (I got to see Joss Whedon AND the cast of Battelstar Galactica...what more could a nerd ask for?!). I also spent waaaaaaay too much money on this stuff:

There's even a Bill Presing print that isn't pictured. One of the coolest things in that pile is the poster in the upper left corner...here's a better look at it:

That's right - an Eric Tan poster for UP! There were only 50 copies printed and I got the last one! And it was on sale, half off! Amazing. I love it, can't wait to get it framed. And if I'm lucky some day I will get Eric and Pete Docter to sign it.

Other neat things in that pile up there: Chris Sanders' poster and Kiskaloo book, Ben Balistrieri's SEAWEED, Who is Rocket Johnson, Art of Israel Sanchez, three Doug TenNapel books, a Penny Arcade anthology, and a Liz Ito creature (his name is "Bean"!) for my soon-to-be born niece or nephew.

Let me thrill you with some more fun pics from the con:

One of many Poison Ivies on the floor.

Freakin' sweet steampunk Weta ray gun.

It's the bad guy from Iron Man!! (Saw it again on Saturday night - still great, but not quite as amazing after seeing Dark Knight.)

Look! A real live furry!

I don't know who these guys are...the one on the right is Cyclops I guess.

Bumblebee in the houuuuse!

Dumbledore checks his messages.

Edward Scissorhands made an appearance. Sweet homebrewed costume!

Overall it was a great time. (Minus the 16 hours in the car.) I look forward to spending not nearly as much money at APE in the fall.

Bay to Barkers

Brittney and I helped out the Berkeley Humane Society today by providing caricatures at an event they held at Cesar Chavez Park. It was freezing cold (in July!) and the dogs were restless and these were done very quickly...but they're kinda fun. (Dog names only shown below pics.)

Brodie

Berkeley

Douglas the Puglas

Kara

Kenobi

Tessie and Bambi

Woodford County Vineyard

Artrage and Photoshop...trying something a little different. Though I think I worked it a little too much. Also, wow, this looks completely different in my browser than it does in PS...

Where'd the Cheese Go?

I made this random little cut-out film my freshman year of college. Actual paper on an actual animation stand! I should do this again some day.

My Thesis: Love at First Roach

Well it only took a year, but I finally posted my thesis on Youtube. "Love at First Roach" is the result of over 9 months of grueling work. My advisor on the project was Disney vet Nancy Beiman, and I have to say I learned an incredible amount working with her. Rigging was done by Greg Smith, who now works at Laika. The original idea for this film was very different, but I do like how it turned out. I needed about a year to distance myself from it, and now I can watch it without cringing so much, haha. I haven't spent too much time on sending it out to festivals, though I probably should. It did screen at Tony White's "2D or Not 2D
Festival in Washington state. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Thesis & Website Update!

So the massive overhaul of my website is finally done. It was actually finished around Siggraph, but I thought it deserved some mention here on my blog. Not only is there all new art (character design, layout, life drawing, etc), there are two demo reels (animation and concept design) and my finished thesis, "Love at First Roach," is available to download. (Just go to the animation page and choose your format.) The address is www.liamrobinson.com (or just click on either of the images.) Enjoy!

Hansel and Gretel Witches

Here's something that will be up on my new website in the character design section. Thought I would share it here too. Who knows, maybe someday I will animate one of these lovely ladies...

Rendering!

Here's a teaser of what's to come in 7 weeks...

Thesis Color Script

I just returned from NYC and the Pixar exhibit at MOMA. If you have a chance to see it, I highly recommend it. There was SO much art to see including maquettes, texture designs, animation studies, color scripts, etc...so inspiring to see! They were also showing Pixar's new short, One Man Band, the day I went...but unfortunately we missed seeing it by an hour or so. It was so packed in the MOMA...the line for tickets stretched out the door and down almost a whole block! (Thankfully it moved pretty fast.) Anyway, I came back in the mood to create some visual development type art, so here is a full color script for my thesis, Love at First Roach. The colors you see here are general ideas for lighting and texturing, but will likely look a bit different when fully realized in 3D...feedback welcome as always.



By the way, if you can't get to the exhibit, I highly recommend the book they've released which can be purchased for just $30 at MOMA's website. While there you can also listen to the audio tour with some of the work from the show.

Thesis Update

Here's a new render of my characters after I tweaked the textures a bit.

Thesis: Textured Models

Here are Suzette and Pierre all textured up! Had to do the UV's on these guys twice, but now they're okay. Settled on just a fur-ish texture for Suzette, which in the long run will save me a lot of headaches. Rigs should be ready soon and that means animation time! WOOO!

Dance of the Seasons

I recently worked on a very interesting project titled Dance of the Seasons. It is a 2 minute animated film that was (mostly) made in just 24 hours. Two fellow RIT animators, Joe Daniels and Jed Mitchell, have put together two similar 24 hour challenges in the past, but both were done in CG. Dance of the Seasons is unique because it is entirely hand drawn (over 1,000 frames from 5 animators in 24 hours.) Dave Suroviec was an animator on the piece and kindly lent us the basement of his apartment to go crazy in. We began the 24 hour period with no idea of what we were doing, but we did have the music handed to us by Joe and Jed. (Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Hours.) We began at 10 AM on a Saturday and spent a few hours brainstorming and sketching until we came up with some sort of coherent idea. This led to storyboarding and listening to Dance of the Hours on repeat for the entire day and night. Brittney Lee did the character design for "Petey" our main squirrel (I suggested the name we gave to the squirrel inside our apt cieling) and she cranked out some nice model sheets. While the animators began their work I sat down with Joe and the storyboards and figured out all the layouts we were going to need. (Thirteen total.) They went surprisingly smoothly, but somewhere around 2 AM I began working with Photoshop to color them. And apparently Photoshop loves me so much that it decided to crash on almost every background I worked on, often multiple times. I was drinking coffee (which I don't often do) and feeling jittery and crazy, but it was fun! We had a video camera on and off throughout the night...I'm interested to see some of that footage. And it should also be said here that all of the people who worked on this film are students of Nancy Beiman, who inspired us to create a hand-drawn collaborative film. (I don't know what she thinks of it yet, but hopefully good things.) Anyway, I've posted a few of my favorite layouts from Dance of the Seasons here:










Now! Go watch the entire film (Large or Small, Quicktime 7, H.264 codec) which Joe has kindly posted for everyone to see. And visit his blog to see the other two 24-hour films that have been made at RIT.

And here are some pictures from the making of Dance of the Seaons!

Jed and Joe survey story ideas. And yes, Joe wore the Goofy hat for the full 24 hours.

Brittney at the boards!

We're messy.

Brittney animates!

Nathaniel works diligently.

Our pencil testing station.

This is where I worked all night. (I had a comfy chair too.)

RJ and Dave passed out around 9 AM.

Check out the blogs/sites of the other folks that worked on the film:

Brittney Lee
Dave Suroviec
Jed Mitchell
Joe Daniels
Nathaniel Hubbell

And that's it! Hope you enjoy the film.

Thesis Color Keys

Here are some color keys for my thesis...they need some work