Demo Reel 2013

At last, I have it. Something to show for all the effort. When you repeatedly get asked to do jobs, you don't make a demo reel. But after years of doing some pretty demanding shows (with lots of FX) I had to do one.  There's things I omitted because I couldn't find them (i.e. Perfectland), but what remains looks pretty good. You'll see clips from Transformers Rescue Bots, Chaotic, Bob's Burgers, Neighbors From Hell, Wow Wow Wubbzy (yes I kept some of that) and maybe some others. It's pretty FX-heavy, but if you know me, that is what you'd expect.

Bob's Burgers

I write from a tropical bungaloo in Arizona, expressing my fondness for the end of my job on Bob's Burgers. And it's not because I didn't like the job, nay, it's because my family was strained from all the work I did. I was the lone FX artist on the show, (except for Daniel, the compositor. As a team, we ruled) and it was a great experience, being responsible for all the elemental animation for a world. When you do it well, no one notices it. I'll share a reel when Fox forgets all about the show and doesn't want to sue me.

Yo yo. Why we so not here?

We're so lazy, it's awesome. Look at these kids chillin' in the wagon. Not a care in the world. Everest refuses to update his blog. He prefers talking about back hoes or slurping yogurt or howling like a wolf. You can blame him for our internet inactivity. His fault. Or you can blame our computer.

Our iMac hard drive died. So we lost all our photos. The Everest blog now is the primary compendium of the first year and a half of of Everest's life. Our computer is back now, and we have an iPhone to help with instantaneous stories. I work horribly long hours on Neighbors From Hell, which is going to be a really popular show on TBS (June 7th it begins; just a month away!). Be sure to watch, so I can feel justified as Everest forgets who his father is. (kidding) It's a really well designed and funny show, but working 60 hours a week for regular pay is really grating on the soul. At least it's fun to work on. If the quota was lower, this would be the best job ever. It's really really cool. I just don't see my family.Not that this is a valid excuse for keeping the rest of the world out of the loop of our lives, no. Everest is still to blame. His insistance on eating beans, beans and more beans when there's a perfectly good stirfry available is just odious. He hasn't even caught any of the mice that are roaming freely in our ducts. Or fixed our electricity. And he always walks around naked. Blog, you toddler!

a trailer for Neighbors From Hell

I am animating on this new show, to be shown at prime time on TBS. I am working SO MANY HOURS. Hours I have never seen in my life. Hours I will never see again. At least this show is actually fun. The quota is not fun. Thank god there are only ten episodes (I'm on # 6)

Neighbors from Hell at IGN.com

1001 Nights Opening Titles

Here are the opening titles to the show I've been working in since June 2009. I'm scene staging, so I have almost no animation done on this. BUMMER. But it was worth it since animators were coming in on the weekends pretty much every week. DOUBLE BUMMER. I'll take scene staging. I did animate on the opening titles though. The shots with the mermaid are mine!

eXpungement 2012: the Nothing Is epic

At last I have found enough time to finish all the drawing of my first big comic book, starring the eXpungement 2012 Flag-fizzle crew! I am very excited to be done, and not because it was an exhausting ride, but because it was something I began back in the year 2000. It sat unfinished for eight years, picked back up in 2009, so this was a long time coming. It was very fun going back into that world with the eyes of my latest, responsible, gardening, fatherly Nayt. And yet, the spirit underlying it all remains intact. I had the great fortune of having four of the main characters in my house last weekend, for the great unveiling.

Here is the cover:And a sample page:I will have it available for fairly inexpensive purchase through MagCloud very shortly. You gotta see it.

Latest Demo Reel

eXpungement2012 reduX

My old comic from the NAU college years is being revisited, and I will be publishing a book of all the strips along with the latest epic story for a comprehensive retrospective. The long comic is taking some time, so I can't say when the book will be ready. Give it a month or two. Stay tuned...

Bison Baby

An image I created for the latest Once Human magazine. The B&W drawing just looked the best, though I did some color versions, one of which that ain't bad. It's just not great, z'all. I wish it could have been better. I really do. I am sorry for wasting your time. I am sad to play a crucial role in this Internet dead end you are experiencing. If only there was a way to make it up to you. Is there? No, no. I'd only mess that up, too. It's best to just move on. Let's be friends. Just friends. And then, who knows!? Maybe we'll find something better elsewhere. Right on! Good talk.

Be Smart...High Resolution

The film Julia and I finished this summer is now up on the net as a high-res version. Observe here.

Malcolm Stickers

Look! Design in action:

Be Smart . . . Don't Choke

As it is with all animation projects, it's a relief to actually finish. This one was no different, and a special kind of relief was felt when I pressed "render" for the final time, as this film was meant to be done almost two months ago. Our client is an Audo-Laryngologist (throat and ears specialist) and is using this film to promote choking awareness in schools. Past attempts at choking education have had no affect on the number of children who choke each year (nor the number of fatalities).

So, Julia and I got to work on this project from the ground-up, designing all characters, storyboards, all the way down to the audio mix. The only thing we didn't do was the voices or the music. Our friend Sarah is a closet composer, so we got her the gig (her first!). The voices were performed by the doctor's 12-year old son and a surgeon colleague of his who normally sounds like he does in the film. Julia did all the backgrounds and a bunch of the prop building and character design. I did a majority of the work since she was busy growing a baby...

Overall, it was very fun, and despite a constant barrage of pickiness on the doctor's part (thus extending this project far longer than it should have been) we still got to work from home, have a lot of creative control and work on our first start-to-finish film since Film School. Plus the doctor is our neighbor and even helped my ears out at one point. We have a great rapport with him and his family, and will be barbecuing with them again before this summer is over. The website won't be up for another month or two...

View Hi-Res Version

More Art for Malcolm

I was completely swamped with work this past month working on a film for the BC Children's Hospital, but I squeaked out a couple designs for Malcolm Rollick's recent campaign (check the news post from June 22) to become an "established" musical entity. Very exciting and nerve-racking for her. The first is the design she chose to create stickers with. The second design I did for a tee shirt, but it won't be used, as it's not quite her style. I still like it.

Perfectland

Over a year ago I worked with my friend Ben on his original animated shorts known as "Perfectland." MTV paid for it and then sat on these beautiful cartoons for a year, doing nothing with them. We were ready to believe that no one would ever see them. What was MTV doing? For the last year, none of us who worked on the cartoons were allowed to even SPEAK of them. Now, here they are, all of a sudden, released on Earth Day on an MTV website. If you live in Canada, however, you CAN'T view this website. Lame. But there is another site where they exist, and in low resolution (lower resolution = environmentally friendly? We don't know why). Anyways, here they are for the Canadians, finally; a strange, bittersweet sigh of relief can be heard.

Malcolm Rollick Website

I did this drawing and redid all the artwork and layout for Malcolm Rollick's website. She is a stripped down indie folk singer and a long time friend. The site is très simple, and I learned a few more tricks in the HTML department. Be sure to listen to at least one of her songs. She is absolutely genuine and loves telling stories through song.

A couple drawings

Did a bunch of life drawing last week. Now I draw a lot more. Here's a few results, one being the logo for Small Animal Sounds, my friend Jim's recording business. The other is an 'old aunt' version of my musician friend Malcolm Rollick, whose website I am currently redesigning.
As you can see, it currently is bland and needs help.