Upcoming Events!

Fun things that are happening soon!! I would love to see you come to any of these- I've helped make them happen (except Hoo Hah) and appreciate your support of course!

This Saturday, Eyedrum, 9pm: "Hoo Hah"! There will be a play, a fashion show, and two beautiful animated videos by my friend Kristin Jarvis- she is brilliant :)

My dear friend Jacqueline put this together, and the last event she threw at the Eyedrum ("Daddy, I Want a Pony") was incredible and is the only place in Atlanta I've seen an actual pony, so I won't be missing this one. More info here!

December 17th, Five Spot, 8pm: It's an ASIFA-Atlanta party! We'll be showing beautiful international animation we didn't get to show at the High because it came too late: France, China, and Argentina! I'm super excited about France particularly :) And the Floating Coats are going to play music!

Janurary 20th, Eyedrum, 9pm or so: Brandon's going to do his puppet show "The Horrible and Tortuous Report" (I did a tiny bit of animation for it) and my friend Andre's going to play music with Isia Cooper and Gary Eddy and some others- really beautiful music!

Feburary 19th, the Plaza, 7:30pm: Clay Croker, the voice of Zorak from Space Ghost and brilliant animator, has hand-picked twelve cartoons from his 16mm collection- all themed around Hitler! Don't miss "TO HELL WITH HITLER", it'll be awesome!

And last night I did live drawing at the Five Spot for Hand Job, an event from the mastermind of Mr. Thom Foolery! It was a blast, and you should come next month :) Sean Jarrett was kind enough to swing by and videotape the three of us drawing (it was myself, Chris Hamer of URBN-POP, and Ted Murphy of Adult Swim). We used my Dreamcast to let people play NES games on the projector while we drew and painted on stage. Photos here!

I also sold a piece last night! Woo! Here it is (I might be able to find a better picture):



Thanks for reading!

Polar Bear Sketch

So I'm working with my two extremely talented friends
Ryan and Bryan on a new cartoon. Ryan's designing the main character, a polar bear! He just posted some new drawings of the bear, and they're great!

Anyway, based on Ryan's drawing, I sketched the character before starting to work on the storyboards.




He's not perfect- he definitely looks a bit stiff, but he is kind of an uptight character. It felt SO good to finally put some time into working on a cartoon.

Thanks to Ryan for telling me to go ahead and post this sketch!

Sammi Shredd on CartoonBrew!!

Wow!!!

So you know the video I posted last entry? My pal Sammi got it on cartoonbrew.com, holy smoke!!

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/music-videos/tom-jerry-metal

SO cool! :D

Wow. My very talented friend Sammi Shredd used his powers of metal guitar to re-perform the soundtrack to a Tom and Jerry cartoon, it's amazing!

"Cat and Mouse"


More info here

He even did the sound effects, on his guitar! Eeee! :)

Edit: updated so the video's embedded. Also, my manager digs it, wow!!

The Chameleon, Part 1


Part 2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=sNAaHRwV_Bk
Part 3: http://youtube.com/watch?v=HMNS0GHuqPQ
Part 4: http://youtube.com/watch?v=3EnUpm9E8lA

I'm only in the first part but I find the whole thing amazing.

This was a blast to do!! Len took great care of me and Jed did a great job shooting and editing, and I loved working with Matt. It was pretty hot out and Matt and I ran quite a lot- at the end of the shoot I was exhausted, haha. If you see my mouth really wide open in any shots, that's because I'm trying to get more air! :)

We went and got smoothies afterwards which felt great.

This film was screened at a small theatre in Sarasota where Colby worked at the time.

I really love seeing my friends in it. Cameron is hilarious as a caveman (and a crazy future guy), and Catlan as The General really cracks me up- he does this really funny, gruff voice.

Thanks so much to Jed for posting this on YouTube!

Animation Attack!

Animation Attack!, part of the Atlanta Underground Film Festival, is tonight at Eastside Lougne and also this Saturday (8/25) at the Plaza, both at 9pm!!

We have some pretty incredible films lined up for you to see, so I encourage you to come if you don't have anything else to do :)

Tickets are $5 at Eastside Lougne. At the Plaza, it's $7 for adults, $6 for ASIFA-Atlanta members, and $5 for students.

I'm creating the DVD for tonight right now actually, hah!

Hope to see you there!!


Oh! Also, many many thanks to Eric, Bryan, Robert, Tak, Fatimah, Aaron, Blake, Karl, Alex, and all the filmmakers for making this possible! :)

"Everybody Knows Time Machines are a Bad Idea"


My dear friend Kevin Seeber wrote and directed this short play and asked me and a couple of my closest friends to be in it. "Everybody Knows Time Machines are a Bad Idea" was the first thing to be shown on the OAF stage, which previously had been a shed full of junk. Bobby Z and Kevin, who both appear in this video, put a lot of work in and made the shed into the "Slusher Street Theatre", which is still being used as a venue today!! (See http://myspace.com/oafhouse)

This was one of three plays shown to debut the theatre, a night called "Jerks in Progress".

I'm not that happy with my performance in this play but I absolutely LOVE watching my friends!! Sean Jarrett is particularly hilarious, and you can hear William Tucker laughing pretty often in the audience.

Hmm, the video sort of cuts off suddenly as well but to correct that I'd need to find and re-capture the original tape. Maybe sometime...

Thanks to Kevin for making this happen and Shahar for agreeing to film it for me at the very last moment.

My really good friend
Jeremy Van Doren (who also did "Playing with Power", in an earlier post) recently emailed me to tell me he had re-edited this short film, "Will it Bounce?". I really love what he did with it!! :)

I'm not sure if I remember exactly but I think we had gotten together to shoot stuff for "Playing with Power", and afterwards we decided to shoot this. It was really fun! I don't think there was a script really, I think Grant just came up with the idea and we went from there.

"Will it Bounce?"


Thanks for watching!! :)

That might be the last bit of video with me in it- I've got one more in mind I'd like to post but I don't have it at the moment (Jed does though).

I really haven't done that much film acting- you've seen almost all of it now if you've been reading the past entries :) I really enjoy it though and would love to do more. It seems like less work than animation- like, I'm always amazed at how easily you can get a bunch of footage, to me it's like a deluge of frames.

I'm very glad to be back in Atlanta; I went to an amazing circus art event thing at MJQ on Thursday. It was incredible, I saw lots of friends I needed to see (thanks to Amanda Goodbread for reminding me to go to that).

So the last post I talked about being in some films my friends made...

Well, this was the first one!! I was a freshman in college and my dear friend Jed was kind enough to ask me to be in this short skit. It felt great.

Jed works in film in LA now!

"Enter the Trash Room"



There are a couple things you get to see here: me as a younger person without a beard and the inside of our dorm, Gilchrist, where I lived for my first two years of college. The names on the door "Brett" and "Robert" were my name and Robert Hill's name, who went on to make really cool films of his own (he also makes great music!) in FSU's Media Production program.

Also!! ASIFA-Atlanta is putting on "Blowin' Smoke" at the Five Spot on July 23rd!

I will be there but will probably be tired from travel- I'm in Ireland right now for work, and it's beautiful here, but I'm flying back that same day as "Blowin' Smoke", hah.

It'll be fun though, an animation showcase of local commerical work.

Thanks for reading!

Sometimes my friends who make films ask me to act for them- this is extremely flattering, and I always wish I could do better at it, but I have no training. Anyway it's a lot of fun, I'd love to do more!

My character appears at about two minutes in the following promo. Chuck, one of the first people I met in Atlanta, asked me to be in. He's moved to LA now and got none other than Erni to edit it!! Holy smoke!

"Rock and Roll Lawyer"



And my dear friend Jeremy asked me to play a homeless man in this film, which we worked on towards the end of college. It was really really fun! I miss him, he's in Austin now.

"Playing with Power"



The first films I was ever in were by Jed Shoemaker but I can't find any of them online- hopefully someday!! I don't even have a big beard in some of them, how about that?

Man I need to post more!! Ryan's blog is very inspiring.

Here's my favorite kind of drawing to do:



ASIFA-Atlanta's "Blowin' Smoke", the showcase of local commercial animated work, will happen July 23rd at the Five Spot. It should be a lot of fun!!

Speaking of which I should post some pictures from "Roll Yer Own"!! Thanks SO much to everyone who showed up. It felt wonderful to hear people clap for my little, very short, animated piece that I'd rendered at like 4am that morning, whee! Seriously, it felt great to have that kind of support. One particular professional animator I really look up to said to me, "Another one to add to the classics!" which meant so much.

Once I finish the short piece that was in "Roll Yer Own", it'll be a part of Sean Jarrett's music film about his trip across the country.

Check out the ASIFA-Atlanta Google calendar: http://asifa-atlanta-calendar.notlong.com!

I believe the next workshop lecture will probably be about different ways to encode/render video. Last meeting was the AfterEffects tutorial. Website is here.

Got myself a light box, some pegs, and some paper- I was very inspired by Bryan's setup! I had Bryan and Ryan over yesterday and Bryan showed us some traditional technique which we were very excited about.

Maybe it's backwards that I'm wanting to move towards traditional when everyone else is moving to Flash, which I've used for years now? Paper feels so good to draw on, though!! :) It couldn't hurt I suppose.

Oh! I went to the Yo-Yo show last night and saw a bunch of amazing local animator artists there. And my friend Adam on theremin!!! I didn't get to talk to anyone as long as I wanted but if I saw you there, please know that I was very happy to see you (Corey, Todd, Thom, Amber, Porkchop, Penney, Stephanie, Adam.... I didn't run into Mike unfortunately but I know he was there). And I got to meet Pierre, how about that?? :)

I do need to write in here more. Thanks for reading!

I drew this a couple days ago in my small sketchbook. Allison at Fellini's took a look at it earlier tonight and said she liked how thirsty the guy with the long tongue must be, out there in the desert! Hah!

Ooooo Ryan started a blog!!! I love his drawings so much!!

http://okapifigmentdroll.blogspot.com/

I drew this at a party last night! I left my sketchbook in my car but grabbed a paper plate:

The flash took out the background for me! :) I gave it to Carol, who's in Routines with William (see it at the Eyedrum May 24 to 26!)

My close friend and producer Steve Sharkey visited this weekend which was awesome. We partied with William; it was great.

Excellent Animation Workshop meeting tonight! Finally got to see Lee Crowe's demo reel, yay!

Ooooo my friend Ryan updated his website:

http://eshninerforest.org/

Check out his music and art!

http://eshninerforest.org/art13.htm

We're planning on making a cartoon together in the next year or so.

I drew this in the moleskine Karl gave me for Christmas! :) I started drawing in it after my sketchbook (and some other stuff in my backpack including storyboards, ergh) got stolen out of my car in the parking lot of R. Thomas. Always put your backpacks in the truck, kiddies!

Also, Roll Yer Own deadline has been extended to May 11th.

Quite unhappy with PowerDVD and WinDVD, earlier tonight I found AVS DVD player which lets you framestep forward and backward (hit 'Y' and 'U'; I love this!!). Looney Tunes are really, really fun to frame by frame!!

Geez it's been so long since I've posted much! Well here's an umbrella piece I did for Mint! It did not sell. Perhaps I should price my art lower (my good buddy Aaron's $5 pieces sold quickly, woo!).


The red one's mine :) The beautiful outfit that's on display was made by my friend Jacqueline!

Here's a closer look:


I gave it to Amanda for her birthday, yay!

More posts soon. Hopefully.

Poster sized drawing I just did:


It's always a lot of fun to do these! Back in October '05 I think it was, I did one for V89 and sent it off (if you want to look at that one, it's the first entry in this blog). My friend Cameron was visiting me at the time and suggested I do one every Sunday! Well, I've skipped quite a few Sundays since but I do have a small pile of them accumulated at this point :)

Lots more I want to blog about: teaching Flash at SCAD to 30 eager and excellent students (thanks to Amanda), Blood Car, and of course Chickenheads (and me!) on PBS... lots more too, it's been too long since I've written in here!

For upcoming Atlanta animation events, see the ASIFA-Atlanta Google Calendar! :)

Entries for Roll Yer Own (ASIFA-Atlanta's screening of local independent and student animated works) are due tomorrow but watch for an email from Karl with more details.

Haven't scanned anything lately, (or posted, for that matter) so sorry!

NYC was amazing!!

Tonight was also a blast: I got to visit SCAD-Atlanta with Karl and Joe, and we showed Bryan's Get Got and several amazing films from the International Animation Day event that we had back in November at Relapse Theatre. Joe talked about ASIFA-Atlanta and Karl talked about the Animation Workshop, and thankfully I didn't have to talk, just hand the projectionist the DVD :)

Haha, Ski Jumping Pairs was a big hit as always.

I might post more info and some pictures...

In the meantime, check out these two awesome short films my friends did (William Tucker helped with the blood in "I Stand Alone"!):

I Stand Alone

Jump Rope with Gutz!

Posts on hold again 'cause I'm on a trip! I'm in Vermont right now on the company ski trip, and tomorrow I'm headed to NYC! Eeee!

Sorry for no new posts for a bit!

I did this doodle in my small sketchbook on 11/11/06, while waiting for PBaRt to start at The Five Spot. It was a blast!!! I had a piece in the show and I met a bunch of cool artists, not to mention hanging with my pals Blake, Tak, Robert and others. It was so fun!!

The light was sort of poor where I was sitting when I drew this, so I made some lines overlap unintentionally.

Anyway, for some reason people seem to like this drawing in particular when flipping through this book, so maybe you'll like it too :)

No Internet at home for now, but posts will resume when I fix it.

Thanks for your patience :)

Blind drawing I did of a classmate when I took "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" at Emory. That is, I drew this without looking at the paper :)

I've got a couple more drawings from this class that I kinda like, although I thought I had more blind drawings (I like them the best because they look so weird).

Elizabeth happened to find this when I was showing her an old sketchbook of life drawings, isn't that nice?

Hi! Sorry for not posting for a little while! I'll try to post more often again. My friend Elizabeth left me some comments which reminded me that I have this blog :)

Here's a drawing I found in a notebook in a box that I hadn't looked through in a while, so I'm not sure how old it is exactly. It's before I started putting dates on my drawings.


Tonight I'll be headed to an art show at the 11:11 Teahouse, it'll be lots of fun! The Teahouse is at 753 Edgewood Ave.

Here are three drawings from different nights of the ASIFA-Atlanta figure drawing class :) I don't show these to people very often but I showed my good friend William tonight and he liked them, so I'm sharing them with you :)


Ten or fifteen minute pose. I don't remember why I didn't draw her mouth, probably 'cause I couldn't get it to look right!

This is one of my favorites. I had been looking at Jert's drawings recently (which I love!!) and decided for this pose to just relax and not worry so much about proportion and technique etc. It felt really good to draw like that.

And this was a short pose from tonight.

Doodle from August:
Attempt at a self portrait a while ago (I promise I'm not this mean looking in real life!):


Hmm. Examining the statistics for this page, very few people actually read this. So, thank you for visiting, you are one of a small, elite group!! :)

Wow! My friend Jason did this a while back and I saw it for the first time today. Our friend Derick told me about it... holy smoke. I'm just so flattered, awww!!! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FcUZTrpn6E

There are a lot of things I love about this. How big he made my eyes and how things float around, haha!

The audio is from an interview with John K on a radio show. I got up the guts to call in, even though I was WAY nervous- this was before I worked as a DJ for WVFS, so I had no experience being on the air. Anyway I still have the whole interview at http://fluidtoons.com/JohnKInt.mp3 but Jason found it somewhere else!

I believe it's from 2003, when the Adult Party Cartoon episodes were airing. During that time I was also briefly on the MOTLOS forum, where I heard about the radio show, and I mention this forum very quickly as one of the first things I say here.

Wow! I'm not sure how to thank Jason, I'm just so flattered :)

I did this drawing after going to a very inspiring art show / solstice party at Teahouse 11:11. My Italian friend who is really amazing, Albino, had his sketchbooks out and his paintings up, and I was amazed. This drawing is influenced by an amazing cowboy face I saw in one of his sketchbooks.

Here's a drawing from October- my favorite format to work in, sharpie on 8.5x11 :) Hopefully I'll get better at pencil with practice, and a friend of mine suggested trying charcoal on newsprint for figure drawing (ASIFA-Atlanta's weekly figure drawing starts again this Thursday, woo!!).

Two sketches:I like the duck here (hence the little arrow). Trying to learn to draw with more construction.

And this is a skeleton and a horse :)

Thanks for looking!