Dr Horrible's Stolen Ostinato

When I started this blog, I vowed it would be professional and sober and not a place for dorky fanart and stupid gags, but dangit, I just really like how this turned out:


This started out as a doodle when I realized the ostinato guitar behind that first song in Act II sounded a lot like the bit in 'The Island' by the Decemberists. That's Colin Meloy, see? Oh, my sides split with laughter! Well because it was that part I imagined it lit like that and the bare pencil sketch just looked bare. So, four hours later ...

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, if you haven't seen it, is available on iTunes ($4, bargains galore!) and is some Whedon kind of awesome.

Golden Silent

I've been told since starting animation school that you have to watch silent films. I'd seen bits and pieces here and there, we watched some Chaplin in class and I once caught a documentary on Mary Pickford on The Knowledge Network*, but while they were entertaining and excellent examples of pantomime, I never took more than a professional interest in them. I was never one of those people who professed that all the best films were made before 1930. The acting was stilted, the film sped up, the dialogue cards too intrusive and plentiful, the stories and gags intended for an unsophisticated audience** and it was all accompanied by some canned ragtime piano music that tinkled on irrespective of what was happening onscreen – not my idea of entertainment.

That was all changed by THIS MAN.

My sister and I went to see the annual Silent Film Gala put on by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, where the musicians, live on stage, accompany a classic silent film. This year's selection was Speedy, starring Harold Lloyd, with a fairly modern score by Carl Davis. It was Lloyd's last silent movie, made in 1928, and shot largely in New York, including Coney Island, the last horse-drawn trolley car, and Babe Ruth (really!). It was fantastic. The print had been restored, it was running at its proper speed, the orchestra was playing a score that had been written for the movie (quite well, I might add, and not some ghastly modern-sounding thing intended to 'update' it, either), and it was absolutely enthralling. The story was simple but solid, the characters engaging, their complications frustrating, the action exciting, the gags plentiful but not distracting, imaginative, and funnier than anything I've seen in recent memory. And the dialogue was surprisingly judicious – most of the time, you knew what they were saying without it being specifically stated, so cards were only used when delivering a specific gag line or important exposition. How flattering, for a moviemaker to trust the audience's imagination instead of assuming they need everything spelled out for them.
On top of that, the whole audience was incredibly involved in the film. I don't know if it was the setting, or the lack of an overpowering sound system, or the fact that you actually had to pay attention to the movie to get anything out of it, but there was much more audible reaction – genuine, unconscious, instant reaction – to what was going on onscreen than I've ever heard before. There was one moment at the very height of the climax where something goes suddenly wrong and the audience, as one, let out a tremendous gasp. It was amazing.

I left the theatre giddy, and with joy discovered that there was a wealth of Harold Lloyd material on YouTube as well as a 5-DVD set of restored films with new scores (most by the same composer as Speedy). Unfortunately it appears all the good clips have been taken off YouTube so you're left with the DVDs (which are better, anyway)... if you have access to a library and that library is blessed enough to have any of them (hint: try VPL downtown), I highly recommend you check them out. Speedy is still my favourite but Safety Last is probably the most famous and is surprisingly gripping while still being funny. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't at least expose yourself to these movies, no matter how much you think you don't like silent film. Just make sure you give them your full attention; that'll be the most rewarding. Take it from a convert. If nothing else, marvel at how a movie can be both funny and charmingly sincere, the art of which seems to have been mostly lost in the quagmire of snarky dialogue and unsavoury characters.
*Last remaining bastion of integrity in educational television since PBS started making shows intended for resale to the Discovery Channel. Only in Canada, you say? Pity.
**as explained by my Animation History teacher when questioned as to why old cartoons were timed oddly slowly and not terribly funny.

Animator vs Reanimator

Look at this – look at this – I'm updating twice in one month! Watch out for further signs of the apocalypse!

I've been fully occupied banging my head against the wall at work, but we had an optional design class so I took the opportunity for a diversion and brought in a project that's been simmering on the back burner* for a while: adapting H.P. Lovecraft's Herbert West stories (PUBLIC DOMAIN!) into comic books, albeit fairly animation-looking ones. I didn't have much of a problem with Dr West:


His half-unwilling accomplice and the narrator of the stories was rather harder ... he's a bland enough personality not to upstage West but not so bland that he disappears completely, and he has to look at least moderately interesting.** I did three pages of thumbnails before I got something I liked, then a mediocre rotation, which I showed in class. Luckily the teacher that day was the incredible Andreas Deja and he had some good suggestions for ways to simplify and push him a bit more so I went back and did these:


That's something to be going on with, I think. They'll evolve a lot, I'm sure, before I'm done. Here's a test setup with the two of them ... the narrator's model hasn't been updated yet.


After the last class I realized what I'm trying to do with their shapes is basically this. Oh well.

*and will probably continue to do so until it boils dry and ruins the pot, to stretch a metaphor to the breaking point.
**He doesn't have a name in the stories but I came to the sudden conclusion that he can have no name but Howard Phillips.

I Has a Cooky

Said Becky: "Oh Erik, oh Sweeney... I love you, too. Have a cookie, and go see a psychiatrist."

Arooo!

Wow, it's been a long time since I touched this thing ... many apologies. More will be coming as soon as I can get a chance to work on that daft crossover gag thingummy I've got in my head, but that probably won't be until later this month at the earliest.

Anyway, I hear there's a bit of a Wolf Man Challenge going around right now, so here's my two cents:

Animated Sarcasm

At long last, after more than a year since starting it (but only a few weeks' worth of actual effort, all told), I've finally got this animation to a presentable state:





That would be Sue Perkins in place of Emma Thompson ... her voice is a bit harder but she's got a good delivery.

Shrek Goes Fourth

Hey folks ... Sorry I haven't updated in roughly forever, I just haven't had anything to update with. What little I've drawn recreationally since getting back from California has been of a most specific and probably uninteresting fangirlish nature so it's been sequestered to my LiveJournal. I have a whole lot of things on my 'to be drawn' slate and nearly all of them will be worthy of posting on Blogger ... when I get around to them ...

Anyway.

Upon learning yesterday that the newest incarnation of Dreamworks' cash cow is to be called Shrek Goes Fourth, I realized they were following the Blackadder naming convention, and the inevitable crossover followed:

DONKEY: Hey Shrek! I got a cunning plan!
SHREK: Tell me, Donkey ... Is it more cunning than a weasel with a doctorate in cunning from Cunning University that has just broken into the cunning reserves and eaten so much cunning that it is literally oozing out his ears?

The more I think about this, the more I believe it would be bad enough to be actually entertaining.

Ireland Photos

I've finally got them organized, captioned, and plotted:

Behold, Ye Emerald Isle!

Gealimh an Daoinn (Gallivanting)

Here I am in Belfast, alive and well, though I question my sanity when after only a few days in Ireland I turn up my nose at a castle if it is merely Victorian. Everything is so much more fantastically amazing than I thought it would be. This place is seriously awesome. And I have a renewed desire to learn Gaelic if only to figure out the mad spellings.

Today I listened to Radio 4 LIVE and IN THE CORRECT TIME ZONE.

Not enough time to sketch! Have lost all my pencils and must use pen! Many many photos! Have some more exclamation points!!!!

The First Letter of Tealin to the Vancouverites

And lo it was a Wednesday, and I was labouring upon my animation, and my desk was within earshot of the chamber of editing/compositing. Upon a late hour in the afternoon, there commenced a Meeting in which the Lords of Colour and the Lords of AfterEffects did converse and dispute as to why the company that did the trailer for Enchanted got the colour so wrong. It did continue for a goodly time and in fact well into the evening. And at no point was anything pronounced by the conversants which could be interpreted as "Aah, 's good enough, the kids won't notice, just ship it." Verily I say unto you, I have heard no such utterance in all my time here. The good citizens of James Baxter Animation have deadlines like unto the Vancouverites, yet behold their passion and commitment! THIS IS THE SOUND OF PEOPLE CARING. Love it.

More Photos

	It's the magical door ... and I go in it every morning! Magical! I think there might be a forcefield of drawing power at the top of the stairs because it's just ridiculous in there. Here's a detail of the sign, with the world's best logo.
	The Mendenhall Sobieski Gallery is next door, and it has this sign in its window which I found amusing.
	This is a fixture in the local grocery store ... as far as I can tell, you put money in and you get movies out. No word on how they hold you to returning it ... maybe you have to use your store's loyalty card or something so they have your address and can send out their movie thugs to get it back.
	This is the view from my bus stop in the afternoon. One of these days I will investigate that church or whatever it is; it looks pretty cool.

Adventures in Pasadena

First day of 'work'!

Five Things About California that are Not Like BC:
1. There is not a Starbucks on every corner of a busy, touristy shopping/business district. I walked for ten minutes to find a café, a length of time that would have taken me past three Starbuckses and an independent café in a comparable area back home.
2. The commuter bus is a coach, with no rails to hold while standing up, and with a button in the seat's console to signal your stop rather than a cord to pull on. FANCEY.
3. Jasmine-scented sidewalks that nobody uses vs. urine/pot-scented sidewalks that everyone uses.
4. People who talk to complete strangers on the bus and are not crazy.
5. No $5.95 18-piece sushi combos at liberally scattered hole-in-the-wall takeaways.

Photo Time!
Hey look! It's Robson! With palm trees and no pedestrians! (It was 8:30 am so no walking commuters and no business traffic yet.)
Further proof of Robsonicity: they're digging it up.
You know those trees people keep in big pots as houseplants? This is what they look like when not housetrained.
Oleander bushes that line the Buena Vista side of the Disney lot ... look out, they're toxic. Yes, that's right, Disney has a POISON WALL. Don't tell the kiddies.
The door I go in, in the morning, is the one in the side of the alcove that has the double red doors. It's magical. McCormick would have been my last name if it were not for my great-grandfather and, the story goes, his raising the ire of the IRA. It was meant to be, obviously! We'll conveniently ignore the fact there are thousands of McCormicks...

As for the life inside, well ... this is going to be an awesome two months.

Safe and Sound

Made it here in one piece, luggage intact (as far as I know), plus arms legs minus scales fins. All good. Now back to lunch and the Mabinogion!

P.S. Ken Duncan has a studio in Pasadena too. To which I say: AAAH. Mayhap I will meet him and pick his brain on his brilliant yet incomprehensible line style.

Absurdism

This is, more or less, what I was thinking through that whole part of Pirates III.

Last fling with a Cintiq for a while! Whee!

Special Announcement

I'm going to J. Baxter 32 Mills Place Pasadena, where are you going? I'm going to J. Baxter 32 Mills Place Pasadena if you're asking where I'm going, I'll tell you that's where I'm going is J. Baxter 32 Mills Place Pasadena – Where? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you, J. Baxter 32 Mills Place Pasadena - I can hear you, I was just asking if it was J. Baxter 32 Mills Place Pasadena!

Enchanted Trailer

ENCHANTED TRAILER! WATCH NOW!! (at least the first half)

Eowyn

Every so often I am seized with the urge to caricature the cast of Lord of the Rings ... this is a good way to keep my head from swelling because it's always a painful exercise in futility. After a couple days drawing the same thing over and over, I think I managed to get Eowyn. I begrudgingly chalk up another point for the Cintiq; as soon as I tried doing it in Sketchbook it worked. (Well, on the second try, but that's close enough.) Blast.

Naked People = Virtue

Airborn

I just finished Airborn, Kenneth Oppel's first book after his Silverwing trilogy. It's got airships and pirates and swashbuckling good times ... and apparently a reluctance to give up flying mammals, but who can begrudge him that? Anyway, it was fun, so I drew stuff:

(left) Main character, Matt Cruse, looking kind of bland, but that's more or less how he looked in my head ... and that's why I'm not a design star.

(right) Kate de Vries, leading lady, who makes me wonder about Mr Oppel's wife because she's very much like Marina in Silverwing. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'm majorly ripping off some Jane concept art but it turned out nice anyway! Yay me! (No telling how many really awful sketches came before this one...) There's a girl at work whose 'look' I want to capture for her...

A thumbnail for the scene where they're offloading rubber hosing ... it looks cool in my head, trust me. Mostly dependent on colour, though. The composition needs a little finessing before I go that far.

Szpirglas, the pirate captain. After overcoming my tendency to picture him as Reacher Gilt, I realized I could base him off a family friend who fits the description rather well, but these were drawn before the realization, and I'm not sure I have any reference pictures. He could also look a bit like the author, but I don't know what Mr Oppel would think of that. Doesn't look very captainly here, or very piratey for that matter... More attempts later, perhaps.

The book is punctuated with occasional dream sequences in which Matt is flying, so I brought in a bit of the climax and stuck him with a flock of cloud cats ... apparently I can't get over Silverwing either.

Now for some moaning: Every day at work I draw what I would consider decent drawings. Admittedly, they're mostly poses in rotations, but they're solid and confident. I've even taken to doing rotations on paper instead of the Cintiq to keep me in touch with a pencil (and also because it's faster... and better). I get home, though, and open my sketchbook with pencil in hand, and what comes out looks and feels like the stuff I forcibly excreted in the midst of my rough storyboard-induced drawing decay period last summer. What do I need to change? I've been out drawing observational stuff more than ever this year but that hasn't seemed to have helped, it just seems to have made me impatient with my drawings so they're all really haphazard and gestural and I don't bother to get things right.

EDIT 21 MARCH 2009: What is up with this post? How is it getting so many comments? Does it turn up on a Google search or something? Could someone please tell me what is going on?

EDIT 14 NOVEMBER 2009: Thanks to those who commented with info regarding the traffic on this post! Interesting.

The Wintersmith

I finally got around to reading Wintersmith* and rather liked the image of the Wintersmith handing Tiffany her necklace in the snowy woods.
It started out as a speed painting but was rather blah, so I bounced it off Sean and with his suggestions managed to make this out of it,** which is actually presentable, hurrah!
I've been meaning to update this blog more often but if you look back and see how much of that I've done, well, that is exactly how much recreational drawing I've been doing lately. Must fix that.
*Most recent Discworld novel, but it's a Tiffany one which, while better than most other YA novels out there, did not warrant the urgency of, say, a Watch book or Making Money.
**...though that nullified the 'speed' side of it. Oh well, greater good and all that.