Ups and downs
These sketches are probably better than my typed words tonight. It’s getting late and I should get to bed.
Basically we went to Portland for the Stumptown Comics Fest this weekend, which was pretty amazing and inspiring. I picked up a lot of great new stuff, and I’ll probably elaborate more on it later.
But when we got back last night I found Sam, one of my little gerbils, had died over the weekend. I’m still pretty upset over it. I know he was just a gerbil but he was like one of my kids and every time I think about him I start crying.
Sesquipedalian
So, I finally finished Big Word Bird #3 as you can see above. Thought I’d try out Flickr’s new video ability. Looks a lot nicer than YouTube, but seems pretty simliar to Vimeo. Anyways, YAY. I’m glad I finally got that done. There are quite a bit of things I could polish up on it (timing, color, and end bit probably), but I really just wanted to get it out because I’ve had sketches and stuff for it for so long.
It’s not quite what I was expecting to end up with but that’s the fun part of experimenting. And I have to remember the main point of these things is to just get me to mess around with stuff for fun. I liked my little characters, it’s kinda sad they have such a small part. It’d be fun to use them for something else too, but I’m not sure what they’d be good for.
Ideas are a brewing for the next ones. I bought some clay last week that I really want to use so I foresee a clay based idea next…
Bloody Skittles & work stuff
For those who wonder what I do
Apparently the Global Warming Reeses spot I made on was Ad of the Day on April 8th, which I think is pretty silly. Looking at it (esp in that tiny 2 inch player) you’d never guess how much pixel fucking it took to get that thing out the door. The concept was from the agency. My main job was making it look hot and wiggly. At least I got an amazing dinner out of it from Nishino, which is now probably my FAVORITE sushi place in Seattle now.
Luckily I’m getting to do more than just make things wiggly lately. The past week has been pretty fun, although I guess the project is all like top secret. But I can say I spent a lot of time watching cartoon network and drawing characters. It seems that every time I have an opportunity to draw things for work I’m amazed that I’m getting paid to do it. Sometimes I wonder if I should switch jobs and just drawing things all day. But then I think maybe the novelty would wear off and I’d get jaded.
Also, watch out for the SIFF trailer and bumpers coming up. We worked on it this year and Angelo stars in one of them too! His 8 seconds of bigscreen glory.
Advertising etc
I don’t watch a ton of tv but when I do I have this bad habit of scrutinizing all the ads. It’s hard not to now that I sort of make them. I don’t inherently hate ads or being advertised to, in fact if they’re done well I rather enjoy them. Motionographer is full of mostly stuff done for advertising, and I watch those willingly. No, what really bothers me about most of the stuff I see on TV is the collective impression I get about being part of certain target audiences.
For instance, watching True Life (one of the only things I watch on MTV anymore) I get the feeling that advertisers think I’m a reckless redneck idiot. According to them I’m probably: dumb enough to pay 10 bucks a month for shitty cellphone wall paper and ring tones, probably a good candidate for working in construction, into suburban angst punk bands covering crunk songs, like destroying thing, and a fan of ninjas. (I guess the last one isn’t too far fetched.)
Watching Top Chef on Bravo I get the feeling that I’m suppose to be an insecure and lonely fat chick. Because all those ads are about getting a date, looking at wedding dresses, looking tanner, being less wrinkley, losing weight, and buying furniture. Watching them together and taking them in collectively I sometimes wonder what me watching certain shows says about my particular highly studied targeted demographic. And what it says about me.
The April Series?
I’m going to try and draw this month. Hopefully I can keep it up for the whole month. We’ll see what happens I guess. I don’t know why I get these sudden urges to do these in phases, it’s weird. Anyways, this time around I’m trying the only-using-pen route since the past couple have been only pencil, which apparently doesn’t reproduce very well. Also hoping that the pen-only route would make these faster, but I don’t think it’s working out like that. Anyways, here is one of four right now. Check the flickr if you wanna see more, thought it would be silly to post them on both.
Side note
I’ve realized one of my constant internal issues revolves around finding a balance between time spent consuming and time spent producing.
