02/14/12

V-Day

Happy V-Day!

08/3/11

Dorothy

An old turnaround, recently cleaned up. I was re-imagineing characters from The Wizard of Oz.. Soooo many things I would do differently in this turn now. But I still like the proportions and her attitude. I wanted to make her a little more innocent rather than the pain-in-the-butt that Judy Garland’s Dorothy is.

03/21/11

Tai-Jutsu Stress!

A couple of my coworkers (Fawn & Carrie) as well as Kris & Michael and other storyboarders have been posting little stories about adventures. I got inspired to write one about a recent experience…

One day a couple of weeks ago, one of the creators of the show I work on invited me to his Tai-Jutsu class. His name starts with a J too, so I’ll call him JToo.

He’s a black belt in a couple of martial arts (I think… don’t hurt me!) and has been doing it for many many maaaaany years. I’m a total n00b to the martial arts. I like going on adventures and making a fool of myself, so I thought “Why not!?”

Tuesday. I show up, and I’m one of the tallest in the class. It always makes me a little nervous to stick out, even though I’m not a giant (I’m only 6’3″!). But I decided to get over it in the spirit of adventure.

We tumbled, rumbled, trumbled, tussled… and I painfully rolled on my neck a couple of times. Generally it was fun though!

Thursday. I come again for another class. This time JToo is there. Again, he’s a black belt, and I’m kinda nervous. Cause… y’know… he employs me.

We bow, do our thing, and then Sensei tells me to try a particular move out on JToo. JToo grabs my wrist, and I’m supposed to do a little ditty of a move that results in taking him down. AHHHHHH I’m about to poop my Gi!

I always have this innate fear of hurting other people. JToo is completely supportive…

…but I leave the class terrified that I had hurt him.

Friday. At work, I can’t help but shake an innate fear somehow I’m gonna get punished for taking down a dude who helps sign my paychecks.

Luckily, Friday 6pm came & went without that little pink slip. Yay for still having a job!

02/2/11

Gone Fishin’

Timmy Bighand & Suzy Backwards go fishin’.

03/17/10

Introvert

Boy 3-point turn for the upcoming “Expressions” Art Show.

Coming in August.

03/16/10

Extrovert

Girl 3-point turn for the upcoming “Expressions” Art Show.

Coming in August.

12/14/09

Sympathy for the Exhausted

We did some private-room karaoke on Saturday night, which was an absolute blast. I had the brilliant idea to do the “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones.

Good Lord, I forgot how long that song is.

05/5/09

Pixel-polaroids for charity #2

There are a couple of funny things about my good friend Dan…

Number one is that, in every single formal picture that he’s in, he does this fake half-smile where he shows his top teeth, but only at the corners of his mouth. He looks like a passive aggressive Tiger, threatened but too timid to strike. It’s pretty silly.

Two is that he’s sensitive about his eyes. I originally had dark circles under his eyes as part of the caricature, but he asked me to make him look “less Night of the Living Dead”. Fine fine, requests requests…

Three is that he wanted to look less “like a douche”. I’m still not sure what that means. I fake-airbrushed his cheeks so he looks like a Hollywood star.

As a revenge for the “notes”, I put him in the shirt that I stole from him about 9 months ago. On his wedding day. And I was a groomsman.

Here’s lookin atcha, buddy!

05/1/09

pixel-polaroid for charity #1.

ASIFA East Exec. Board Member, animation artist, producer and all around awesome gal, Linda Beck! (whose website doesn’t seem to be working right now)

becklinda_framed

I’m still looking at making prints. Let me know if you’re interested.

04/26/09

pixel-polaroids for charity

I’ve really really been enjoying doing these pixel-portraits. Some of them have been successful, others notsomuch. But it’s all about the process of doing them for fun, right? So here’s what I’m gonna do: As a way of meeting different people and raising some money for charity, I’ll do your portrait in pixel-polaroid form for a minimum charity donation of $5. All of the money will go to charity; I’ma keepin’ nothin!

Right now the plan is for donations to go to Free Arts NYC, a non-profit that delivers creative arts programs directly to low income, homeless, abused and neglected children. I’ve done some volunteer work here in the LA area with similar programs (including one down in Compton), and I can tell you that Art & Animation are incredibly powerful tools in establishing bonds with kids. I’m open to other charity suggestions, however.

The technical details: Send me an email at pixelpolaroids@gmail.com with…

– A picture (or multiple pictures) and an idea for a background. For instance, I put my friend Phil on a picturesque Jersey Turnpike background, my lovely girlfriend Errrca on a UCLA court, and my Schoolism prof. and recent UK transplant Kris Pearn in London on a typically lovely day. Of course, some of them don’t read perfectly, so the simpler the idea the better.
– The dimensions you need. The portrait window is 23px x 22px, and the Polaroid as a whole is 30×35 including the drop shadow. I can export any format you need at whatever size you need, as long as it’s larger than 30 x 35 and in the 30:35 ratio. The portaits you see below are 300×350. I can also export with or without the Polaroid frame. your choice.
– What name you want on the bottom. Please keep it short; I’m working with limited space here! 🙂

Once it’s done, I’ll email you back a screenshot with a watermark so you know it’s done. After that, Paypal me the money, and I’ll send you back a donation receipt from Free Arts NYC so you know right where the money went.

I’ll totally do group portraits. We’ll arrange something special for that, so email me!

If anyone could let me know if there’s an easier transaction process, I’d love to hear it. I’m doing this completely on the fly, so any help is appreciated. Here are some portraits that I’ve done…