Xmas II: Xmas Harder

Hi again.

Here's another Xmas drawing I did. It's me and my woman. I did it for her sister, who ended up splitting the image and making us matching shirts! Pretty awesome.



PS: This is post number 100! Wow!

Happy New Year!

Xmas

Merry Xmas!

Sorry it's been so long since my last update. I have been working a great freelance gig at Calabash Animation, and really only working on drawings for Xmas presents. Since I gave them away, I can post them now! Yay!

These are caricatures of some of my friends. Enjoy!

The Webcomic

Ah... The Webcomic. Big Tom to be exact. It's been a long time since I dropped it due to internet problems I couldn't be bothered to fix.

I started the comic in June of 2001, wanting to be a part of the webcomic community. It was a lot of trial and error, and of course, the results varied. The first two years alone were awful. I mean, I was inking with a ball point pen! Only after years of doing it did I realize, "Hey! a non-photo blue pencil and Micron pens work so much better!"

Anyway, it was never an attempt to make something amazing. I just wanted to play around with story ideas and characters. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. I still love the Evil Orb storyline and the Astro Zombies storyline. Sure I can do without the weird beginning stuff, but it's all part of a bigger thing.

Sometimes I wish I didn't just abandon it. Maybe I will go back to it one day. Or start it all over again! This time, with decent artwork! :)

So, to celebrate the life and limbo of the comic, I did this group picture. Most of the characters are in there... Even the few that died. Some are people I knew in real life. Some are made up. Some were influenced by movies or music.



Ah, nostalgia.

Tezuka Joe

So, some of you may know this, but I absolutely worship Osamu Tezuka. His stories, his artwork, everything. The man pumped out hundreds of stories and thousands of pages of comics, it would be nearly impossible to read them all.

Anyway, pronouciation in Japanese is different from that in English. For example, the name Sakura is prounouced SA-ku-RA in Japanese, with the "u" in ku almost ignored. In English, it would be sa-KUR-a. Hence, Tezuka in Japanese is TE-zu-KA, again, with the "u" barely pronounced. More like Tezka really. In English, it's te-ZU-ka, with the "zu" like "zoo".

So.

Tezuka pronounced in English sounds similar to Bazooka. And with that in mind, I did this little number.



The image is actually a go at Tezuka's own caricature of himself. Not sure if he chewed gum though.

Enjoy!

Stuff From An Old Notebook

Found this in one of my sketchbooks the other day. It's a quick sketch of a bust I saw at the Art Institute of Chicago. I dig it, so I slapped it into Photoshop and tweaked it a little. Enjoy!



And yes, the title of this post is a reference to The Minutemen.

Random Sketches

Heya.

Just a handful of sketches I did earlier today. The one in the middle is actually a character I used a LOOOOOOONG time ago in my old webcomic.



Enjoy.

Variations On A Theme

Hello! Just two drawings I did the other day. Two singers for hardcore bands. One seems a little more angry, the other one just looks tired.

Most Recent Demo Reel

Hello,

I just wanted to put my most recent demo reel up here, since the older ones have expired.



There she is! Enjoy!

Why I Shouldn't Have Kids

So here it is. A pilot, of sorts, for a new comic I thought of when I was half asleep. This one is very tame compared to some of the other ideas I have, so, we'll see what I do with it.



Enjoy!

Poppa Tom

Yo. So I had this idea that involves me being a father. I sketched up some comps of what I might look like. Here are some of the not awful ones.



I kinda dig them, but I pushed it a little bit more and got this one, which I think will be my final.



I'm still collecting ideas for things to happen in this new project, but rest assured, it will be terrible! Look forward to it!

Haro!

I usually hate cute "mascots" in anime but Haro is just too great. I think the world would be a better place if everyone had their own Haro. I'm talking about the original UC timeline Haro, not these weird little Gundam Seed ones.



You better believe this is going on a t-shirt!

Unused Tyking

Hello.

This is a rejected design for one of the Tykings, but I really like it. Maybe I will do something with it another time. I think a cleaned up version would look awesome on a t-shirt!



Peace out!

Quick Tykings Sketch

Hi!

Here's a quick sketch of one of the Tykings. I'm still banging out final designs, so this one is a little off. Also, my great eraser makes it look like he has a black eye.



Enjoy!

New Tykings

Hey!

So thanks to Joe's input, I got some new designs for the Tykings. These are not final, but very close to it. This particular image was just a rough I colored.



I am pleased as to how its coming along! See ya!

Couple O' Sketches

Heya, I've been doing a lot of sketches and drawings lately. Here are just a couple. I'll post more later on, as I wouldn't want to give it all away up front! :)







This last one ended up too close to the center of my sketchbook, so it's not as clean as the others. Too bad, I really like it!

Water Text

Hello. Another text animation type deal. Enjoy!

Laser Text

Hiya.

Here is something I banged out yesterday, thanks to Pat and Joe. Enjoy!



I guess this is animated text and / or motion graphics. I just leveled up my skill set!

Titans

So, many of you know I have a sick obsession with Gundam. I'm talking about the original series, and the following series based in the Universal Century timeline. Not this Gundam Wing or Gundam SEED or Gundam 00 or Gundam X or.... Well you get the idea.

So I am rewatching Zeta Gundam and I am just flabbergasted at how cruel the Titans are. In fact, they just destroyed a colony just as a show of force! Geez. Anyway, I hate the Titans, but not enough to not draw myself in a Titans uniform.



God I am a nerd. Next thing you know, I'll draw myself as a colony. That would be SWEET!

Carpenters

So I was asked to maybe come up with some designs to paint on some drywall partitions during construction at this place, and here are a few designs I toyed with today. Yay.

Tree Monster

I was looking at this awesome website and found a picture of a tree. It looked like a monster, so I drew it. Not as a monster, but as a tree.... Monster. Enjoy!

Hunched Guy

Ok, I love this sketch. There, I said it.

Zoo

So I finally was able to attend a sketchcrawl with some of the members of WIA Chicago. It was really cool. We went to the zoo and partied with the animals. Here are a few of my sketches. Also, stuff I made up.



Hurrah!

Cowboy!

Yo! Actual drawings this time! This is a cowboy character I was toying around with. I'm still finalizing the design, trying to figure out some things before I throw him into Flash for a run cycle. Enjoy!

More ActionScript

So, like I said, I have been working on learning ActionScript. It's very cool, but it can be so insanely frustrating! Below are a couple little things I did. Actually, it's just two variations of the same thing.

It is basically things sliding in and out of the window when you click on the buttons. The first one just slides stuff in, but the second slides them in invisibly, then fades them in. I don't know which one I like better.







Yay coding!

Memory Game

So, as some of you know, I have recently been picking up Action Script. While it takes me a bit away from animation, it's really interesting and it opens up door to do things that I can combine with animation. Games, for instance.

Here is one. Try to get the cards to match!



I'll post another one up tomorrow, perhaps!

Action Scene!

Yo,

Here's an action scene I boarded out for kicks the other day. Enjoy! Sorry if it's a bit violent!

Got Ink?

So....

This isn't really anything animation related but I wanted to post it up here. Back in high school I was at the Warped Tour, which is an all day punk rock concert. I had my hair up in this weird psuedo-mohawk ponytail type of a thing, and this woman approached me.

She said she liked my hair and wanted to take a picture. She then mentioned she worked for Ink 19 magazine and that they were putting out a CD compiliation of local music, and that they were looking for a cover model for the album.

Well, you can probably put the rest together and here is the end result.



Of course, this album is out of print, but that's ok, it was pretty terrible anyway!

Storyboards

Hey hey,

I wanted to upload a complete episode's worth of boards for folks to look at. This was one of the last sets of boards I did at work, and it was part 5 of a 10 part serial. The finished episode can be found here.