SCRAMBLE!!!

I've been in a bit of a creative slump these past few weeks. I've lost my drive, & I haven't been animating at all. But after attending Bunny Hoest's ( of The Lockhorns & Howard Huge fame) annual "Bunny Bash", my creative juices began flowing again. I just needed a bit of a jump start from Bunny, Howard Beckerman, Stephen Silver & company to get me going again.

I sat down at my Cintiq & immediately started animating. In about an hour, I animated this little bit of my circus dog doing a surprised take & scrambling off-screen.

(Click on the Image to see him scramble!)

My first pass was in green, & my "tweak pass" was drawn over it in purple. If you watch closely, you can see what changes I made in the latter pass compared to the first.

I'm starting to get back into the groove again. & with Tom Sito's animation class coming up in a few weeks, I need as much practice as I can get. If I keep this energy up, I may finally be able to finish that troubled film of mine before the year's up! Here's hoping!

Beware of the Montauk Monster!!!

Does anybody remember the Montauk Monster?

About a year ago, some deformed creature was discovered washed up on the beach near Montauk Point, here on Long Island. It was dark gray like a seal with long scrawny legs & a shriveled tail like a pig, but had a beak with a row of teeth only on the bottom jaw. God, it looked like something outta The Dark Crystal! It was a big sensation for a while & it was covered on every news station. Pictures of it were everywhere for a while, & during that time everybody was debating on what the thing really was.

Some people thought it was some prehistoric, dinosaur-like creature along the same lines as the Loch Ness Monster, while others thought it was a mutated monstrosity that escaped Plum Island, an animal disease & research facility off the coast. (Imagine N.I.M.H. from Don Bluth's The Secret of NIMH, but isolated on an island far off the coast. Feels like something out of a cheesy B horror flick.

As it turns out, it probably was just some poor dog (most likely a Boxer) who was swept out to sea & drowned. Over time began to bloat from the water & it gradually decomposed until it finally was discovered on the shore, which explains it's off-putting appearance.

Creepy & disturbing as it was, I think it would've been an awesome monster if it were real. Imagine this thing knocking over your garbage cans at 3 AM or sucking the blood out of a goat! Creepy little devil!

You can see pictures of the real 'Montauk Monster' all over the web. There's even a whole article on it on Wikipedia. I warn you though, the pictures are REALLY disturbing, so beware! Squint your eyes if you have to.

Ten Dollar Sketches!

With some encouragement from a few friends, I decided to start doing commissions over on deviantArt. Since I don't really have the skill or confidence to go for the gusto & do "full" commissions, I'm going to start off easy. 

My friend Zach, his girlfriend Tara & their friend Megan have been doing something called "100 Ten-Dollar Sketches". The title is pretty self-explanatory... For each commission, they draw 1 full-body character sketch for $10 a pop. They do this 100 times, & gradually they're a grand richer. A simple strategy... so why don't I give it a go?

So far I've only got 1 commission. It's a drawing of Lena Hyena from Roger Rabbit in a Harem outfit. It's probably the single creepiest thing I've ever drawn, but it's a start nonetheless. & hey, it's good practice.

If you got 10 bucks you're willing to part with for the greater good, why not go to my deviantArt page, read the info there & buy a sketch from me? & while your at it, click on Zach, Tara & Megan's pages linked at the bottom of the page & buy something from them too?