Sunday, June 28, 2009

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!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

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.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

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?