A DELAY + SOME NOTICES + A REQUEST...

THE DELAY

Hey everybody, I've got some good news & some bad news...

Let me start off with the bad news: because of the final end-of-the-year school workload I have here at SVA over the next week or so, the Ollie Johnston tribute is going to be temporarily delayed until at least the middle of May. With all the final exams, 8-page reports & the short film I need to complete, I just don't have the time or energy to work on it at this moment. Same goes with the FortheBirds Masterpiece Collection paintings as well as the Disney Reuse & Bastardization videos. Until I'm out of school, those things will be temporarily put on hold.

Now for some good news: Once I'm out of school, I've got a seemingly infinite amount of free time & space to do those things and more. That means more videos, more drawings and more posts, possibly with some added goodies thrown in for good measure. Just imagine: 4 straight months of free time to draw, paint, compose & post on this blog.

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THE NOTICES

Here are a few notices on news & things around here:

- NIN10Doh!, the little film I had a small part in making, has won three awards (the daily, weekly & monthly award) on Newgrounds.com! Congratulations to the rest of the NIN10Doh! crew & staff! I had a lot of fun animating and voicing for it, & thanks to that little gig, I'm starting to do some of my own Flash animations. I'll post some of them here for you to see over the summer!

- Remember Toon Platoon, that old art contest site I had running a while back that mysteriously stopped running for no apparant reason whatsoever? Well it's back & better than ever! We've got new topics, new artwork & even some new members! Check back every once in a while to see some of the great artwork the members are putting up, & while you're at it, help out by voting in the weekly polls. The link to the site is on the right, so make sure to stop by from time to time, as well as checking out the other member's blogs!

- Some of you may be wondering/asking after seeing the first paragraph on this post: "Wait, you're doing a short film? I wanna see it!". Well, I am doing a short film , & I'll try to post it sometime in May when I'm done. I'll also put up some behind-the-scenes drawings/concept sketches/thumbnails as a bonus along with it.

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& THE REQUEST

I'm letting this out there once again: I REALLY need you're help with the Ollie Johnston tribute! I've got plenty of Ollie's scenes set up in my database ready to be compiled into the video, but it's not enough. If any of you know any SPECIFIC scenes Ollie animated (besides the ones I listed below) please let me know. & don't send me a link to his IMDB page, 'cause that doesn't help me much. Thanks to the Frank & Ollie DVD, John Canemaker's Nine Old Men book, the books written by Frank & Ollie (Illusion of Life, Too Funny For Words, etc.), Hans Perk's animators drafts, Mike Barrier's ''Song of the South-Running Away'' draft & the Disney Family Album episode put up on Youtube, here's a list of the scenes I have so far:

- Thumper's "Eating Greens" speech from Bambi
- Brer' Rabbit struggling with the Tar Baby + various bits in the "Running Away sequence" of Song of the South
- The Bare Necessities sequence, Bagheera & Baloo's conversation & the ending scenes in Jungle Book
- nearly ALL of the Prince John & Sir Hiss scenes from Robin Hood
- some animation from Reason & Emotion, Chicken Little & Brave Little Tailor cartoons
- Pongo comforting Perdita under the stove + miscellaneous scenes from 101 Dalmatians
- various scenes from Alice in Wonderland, Three Caballeros & Pinocchio
- Archimedes laughing in Sword in the Stone
- Rufus comforting Penny & some Orville animation in The Rescuers
- Drunken Smee in Peter Pan
- Mickey Mouse's Monday & Tuesday introductions of the Mickey Mouse Club

So far, these are the only scenes I know Ollie did, but I know he did a lot more. What other scenes did he do in films like Robin Hood, Jungle Book, Sword in the Stone, Bambi, Song of the South & Peter Pan? What about the films I didn't mention...like AristoCats, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Lady & the Tramp, Snow White, Winnie the Pooh, the shorts & the package films? What about the TV shows & specials? This information is essential to making this tribute a complete one!

I'll level with you... if you give me some credible, definite information about Ollie's scenes, I'll give you credit on the tribute in a "Special Thanks" section at the end of the video. How's that?

Thanks again everyone!

For the Birds Masterpiece Collection - "Bridge over a Duck in a Pool of Water Lilies"

Here's my latest monstrosity: "Bridge over a Duck in a Pool of Water Lilies", ripped off from Claude Monet's "Bridge over a Pool of Water Lilies".

Drawing the characters wasn't hard...coloring them wasn't hard... putting them behind the fence wasn't hard... but making them fit with the style of the painting was the biggest pain in the ass I've ever encountered! The painting was originally painted with oils, which Photoshop luckily has a filter for. What they don't have is a filter that filters photos/drawings in an Impressionistic style.

What I did do was put the oil filter on, sharpened the characters & then lightly blurred over them (possibly a bit too much). In the end, the only solution I could devise was to blur the painting itself a bit.

Either way, what's done is done & now I'm off to completely ruin another work of art.

For the Birds Masterpiece Collection - "The Quack"

A new one already?! It's only been a few hours & there's a new piece up?! Oh well...

By popular request (& by popular I mean 2 people), here's my latest piece, "The Quack", based off of Edvard Munch's The Scream. I don't think anyone would want to steal this from a museum, let alone put it into a museum.

It's funny, I thought this would by my hardest one to do, but as a matter of fact it was a piece of cake, thanks to the Oil Paint filter in Photoshop. & yet, this is probably my least favorite project so far. I tried adding grain, saturating it, changing the colors a bit & even redoing the whole thing from scratch 3 times, but for some reason the newly-added stuff sticks out like a sore thumb. It doesn't look like it's part of the painting. I guess it's just a bit too hard to recreate the sporadic yet somewhat delicate and precise brushstrokes of Munch's work. Oh well, onto the next thing...

For the Birds Masterpiece Collection - "The Last Temptation of St. Steve-O"

I loved doing the 'Mona' Lisa so much, I decided to do another one. So here's my second "doctored famous painting" masterpiece, based off of Salvador Dali's The Last Temptation of St. Anthony. (click the picture to enlarge)

I'm a big fan of Dali, because his paintings have those certain qualities that really get to me. They're so rich with detail & color that you want to get a closer look, but the bleak and somewhat scary nature of his paintings keep me at a distance. It's like I'm in art limbo.

This one was a LOT harder to pull off than the Mona Lisa. I had to completely remove the big horse in front, the woman on top, the woman's torso in the window & St. Anthony from the painting, use the stamp tool to recreate the background behind them, sub in Steve-O, Randy, Cannibal Chicken & Mona in their places, add shadows & highlights to them & finally make the painting a bit grainy so the characters don't completely stand out. There are plenty of mistakes I forgot to touch up, but other than that I think I did an OK job, more or less.

Thanks to my good friend AJ for giving me the perfect painting to use!

Ok, this painting is freakin' me out too much, I'm gettin' outta here!

The "Mona" Lisa

The Ollie Johnston Tribute video is currently underway, but in the meantime, here's a little something to tide you over for the moment:

I always loved it when people take cartoons & incorporate them into photographs or famous paintings. I remember that they used to do it on a few Garfield calendars and not too long ago I saw THIS on the Cartoon Brew. Great work on these pictures, especially the one with the hippo from Fantasia (that's my favorite).

Just the other day, I thought: "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if I could stick my characters into famous paintings?" Then I remembered the magic of Photoshop. Being that I'm not the Photoshop Master quite yet, it took a little time to make, but here's my first masterpiece: The 'Mona' Lisa!

Mona (my girl duck) meets DaVinci.

Although it was a real pain in the ass to do it, it was still kinda fun. I want to do more of these things in the future, so who knows, maybe you'll see Steve-O in a Seurat, or Randy in a Rembrandt, or even Cannibal Chicken in a Picasso! Whatever! Stay tuned & find out!

So apparantly, I'm goin' to the NY Comic Con...

Yeah... whoopie.

It's probably the last thing I want to do this weekend, but I'm goin' anyway. Hey, it'll prep me for the San Diego coming up in a few months.

If anybody's goin' too & want's to meet me there, drop me a line. Chances are, I'd probably want to meet YOU, but eitherway it'll still be a laugh in a half on my part.

I apologize if I sound a little too negative here, but I've been tired. So very tired. EXTREMELY tired.

HEY EVERYBODY, I NEED YOUR HELP WITH THE OLLIE TRIBUTE!

Like I said in my last post, I wish to get started on a tribute video to Ollie Johnston but before I do I need your help!

I know plenty of scenes Ollie has animated (Thumper's blossom/greens speech, Archimedes laughing, the Bare Necessities scene, etc.), but it would be a great help if you guys could let me know about as many other Ollie scenes as possible. If you can, send me an email (use the link on my profile page) listing as many specific Ollie scenes that you can properly identify so I can choose and compile them appropriately. Consider it as making a large collaboration to pay tribute to Ollie's legacy from all of us!

I wish to get started by the beginning of next week, so let me know ASAP. Thanks everyone!

Goodbye Ollie...

I spent all day today in the animation studio here at SVA working on my final project for the year. As I was animating, I was watching some Disney animation on my iPod for inspiration (& entertainment) to help me get through the day. I studied some of my favorite scenes: Orville the albatross getting sucked into Medusa's swampmobile & Rufus comforting Penny in The Rescuers, Brer Rabbit struggling with the Tar Baby in Song of the South, and Sir Hiss tickling Prince John's ear in Robin Hood. Then I felt a cold chill...

Coincidently, those scenes I mentioned were all animated by Ollie Johnston, who sadly passed away last night. To many, Ollie was an incredible inspiration. His characters have made us laugh, made us cry & made us believe. The Illusion of Life (which he co-wrote) is our Holy Bible & his many words and teachings have been invaluable to us. He was a great animator, author, husband, father and friend.

At least now, Ollie is at peace. & even better, he is finally reunited with Walt, the rest of the Nine Old Men, his wife, and his best friend, Frank.

God Bless You, Ollie! Thanks for Everything!

I plan on doing a tribute to Ollie, so keep your eyes out over the next week or so!

"YAAAAAAA-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOOOEEEYYYY!!!"

Recognize that onomatopoeia? It's the famous "Goofy Holler"!

The Goofy Holler's debut was in the 1941 cartoon The Art of Skiing, originally recorded by a professional yodeler by the name of Hannes Schrolle. Since then, it has become a staple of the history of cartoon sound effects and voices.

Here is a video I compiled of as many Goofy Hollers I could find and identify. It's a pretty big movie to load, so be patient.

I know what some of you are thinking... "Hey, that's not the same kind of holler in that clip!" or "You forgot the one in...". I couldn't possibly have found all the hollers, especially in the more recent films (from 1980 on). If any of you know of any Goofy Hollers that I forgot to mention, let me know in the comments section & I if I can I'll try to stick it into the video and re-upload it.

*Thanks for watching, and remember to leave comments!*

*UPDATE* - an anonymous commenter just gave me the heads up about a few I missed. If possible, I'll try to splice them into the video sometime next week. Til then, enjoy the incomplete one I have up now!

Jerry Beck Plugged Me on the Brew!!!

Check it out:

You know, getting a plug on Cartoon Brew was one of the few goals I had for this site, & now after just reaching my first year here I finally reached that goal! Time to celebrate!

I was going to put these videos on the backburner, but I can't let the Brewsters down! Not the Brewsters!! Therefore, I will get started on my next "DGL" video post haste!

Thanks, Jerry Beck!

Time to Show Some Class!

I'm extremely bored. Help.

'Sad Feelings' & How I Came to be What I Am Today

Have you ever been really sad, but you don't know why you are sad in the first place? I have it all the time. When I was younger, I used to call them 'sad feelings'. I had one almost every day since I was about 5, & like a cold there's no real cure for it. You just gotta wait 'til it goes away on it's own. Every once in a while, I'm at a point where it feels like I'm bombarded with 'em & it lasts for days, even weeks. I'm having one of those as I write this post.

I've been really down lately. A lot of things have been going on in my life, with college work, registering classes for next year, my jobs & my life at home, & it feels that my drawing has suffered because of all that's been happening. Half the days I'm here, I'm alone in my room drawing &/or listening to music. I'm not quite 'depressed', but close enough.

Still, sadness can be somewhat inspiring. I don't know why I'm gonna tell you guys this, but I feel like I was gonna let you guys know about some time or another. Here's the reason why I draw cartoons:


-From birth to about the age of 10, I lived in the town of Freeport NY, which in some ways wasn't quite the ideal place to live. Although the part of town I lived in wasn't the most dangerous part, it had it's issues.

Like many children, I was teased & ridiculed in school (many artists & cartoonists experience this). Although I had several friends (some I still speak to), I still felt very alone. I have to admit, I was a sensitive child.

Even in my own home I felt isolated. Although my mother was there to cheer me up most of the time while working around the house, my father was always at the auto shop working. He used to come home early each night & stay home on Sundays, but as time went on he started coming home later & later 'til eventually he wouldn't come home at all. Not even on Sundays. He became a devoted workaholic. I'd barely see him 2 or 3 times a week.

I was never abused or neglected as a child, but I did feel left out a majority of the time. My slightly-older sister would completely ignore me, unless she needed somebody to do stuff for her (being the older sister, she felt that she was above me, mentally, socially & literally). Being the 'baby' sibling, I had nobody to look down at, only up. My sisters didn't care & my parents were both busy all the time. I was incredibly lonely, where all I could do was sit by myself & pretend that I wasn't alone. I was even at the point of questioning my existence, thinking that it probably wouldn't even matter if I just disappeared off the face of the Earth.

To help ease my sadness & loneliness, I would sit for hours in front of the TV & watch cartoons. I had a plethora of VHS tapes of movies & classic cartoons (mostly Disney). To me, Donald Duck & Goofy were my friends. If my mom wasn't there, they'd be the only ones who could cheer me up when I was down & make me laugh when all I could do was cry.

Besides coloring & drawing little pictures in my textbooks when I was bored in school, I never really was crazy about it. Still, if I was alone, & all there was was a crayon & a sheet or two of paper, I'd sit down & draw as much as I could as fast as I could. I would draw occasionally, but at that time I wasn't considering it as something I wanted to do when I grew up. That idea came a little while later-

When my grandma used to come visit during the summertime, we used to watch the old Disneyland shows at 8 o'clock on weekends. At 8, she'd give me two After Eight mints & we'd watch & listen to Walt on TV. When something we weren't interested in came on, like Zorro, Davy Crockett or something we've already seen before, we'd pop out a VHS from our movie cabinet & watch that instead.


One night, when nothing good was on, we rustled through the closet looking for something to watch. While scavenging around, I came across an old, dusty purple VHS case with big, gold letters at the top: FANTASIA. Never seeing it before, I asked grandma what it was. Having not seen it in years, she was excited to see it again & popped the tape into the VCR. The child in me was bored with the film, what with all the classical music & no words, but somewhere else in my head, something just clicked. After listening to Walt talk about animation, my grandmother explaining how & what animation really was, & now after watching this film, I finally got it.

"You mean that somebody had to DRAW all those Mickeys?! Whoooaaaa..."

The concept of it completely blew me away. After the film was over, I turned to my grandmother, pointed at the TV & said: "I wanna do THAT when I grow up!"

& since then, it's been history. I've studied countless books/articles about animation, I came up with my own characters & stories, I tried making flipbooks, I took animation classes & now I'm majoring it in college! It's been a long & somewhat successful journey, & it's still early in the game for me.

I still get sad from time to time. But you gotta take the good with the bad. Steve-O, Randy & Cannibal Chicken probably wouldn't be in my life right now if I wasn't alone. I guess in a strange way, they're like my imaginary friends/guardian angels. No matter what I'm feeling or going through, they're always at my side to be there when I need somebody.

-This post is definitely a departure from my semi-humorous banter & cartoony stuff I usually do, but I promise to get back that way as soon as possible. 'Til then, just keep looking up.