Mole in the City...of Ottawa

I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to direct a special DVD episode of Happy Tree Friends entitled "Mole in the City". It's my interpretation of, you guessed it, "the Mole" in a super-spy noir caper. HTF creator/director and Ghostbot pal, Kenn Navarro, was instrumental in letting me loose on this project. Send all hate mail here.

I guess we didn't screw up too bad because we just recently found out that "Mole in the City" was accepted into the Ottawa 05 International Animation Festival! Woohoo! Big thanks to everyone who slaved away on this short and helped us pass out across the finish line. You can only see the entire episode on the upcoming Happy Tree Friends box set: Overkill which should be available soon (unless you already snagged it at the Comic con).

Justice for All

To say I’m at fan of Bruce Timm and Paul Dini’s Bat Man the Animated Series is an understatement. I remember just starting community college, wondering what the heck I was going to do with my life. That’s when I first laid eyes on the first season episode of Bat Man “P.O.V.”. It blew my mind that American animation could be that fantastic in art and in drama. That’s when I knew I had to find a way to get into the animation business.

Since then, I’ve diligently followed Bat Man the Animated Series, Super Man and Bat Man Beyond. One would think after 13 years of super hero action in the same style and universe things would get dull of repetitive.

Then a little thing called the Justice League came along….

I don’t know if anyone noticed, but this year of Justice League Unlimited is easily the best American animation on TV. The story revolves around the post Hawk world attack and the military group Cadmus. It weaves new heroes (Captain Atom, Green Arrow, The Question, etc…) and the classics. They’ve broke the mold this season with a huge story arc with a big pay off for long term fans. The multiple episode storyline adds so much weight to each individual show.

Also, I’ve noticed a fairly new director this season named Joaquin De Santos who is absolutely tearing it up in the action department! “The Cat and the Canary” has some of the best combat I’ve seen since the “Over The Edge” episode of Bat Man Gotham Knights (the episode where Bat Girl dies). He also directed some incredible battles in “Divided we Fall”.

Even beyond the big super hero bashing there are real touching quiet moments of characters masterly weaved by writer Dwayne McDuffie. Some of the interaction between Lois and Clark as well as Green Lantern and Hawk Girl are just so darn sincere.

I’ve heard rumors that Justice League Unlimited is being scrapped for Legion of Super Heroes. Judging from JLU’s kick ass presence at the San Diego Comic-Con I doubt it. Personally, I hope they stick to these characters that they’ve honed so well over the years. Lets face it…. Kevin Conroy is freakin Bat Man… and the fans will never get enough!

Lets pray for a DVD box set that honors this show. Cheers to the crew on JLU! Keep kicking super hero ass!

DRAW! Interview

As you can gather from Alan's last post, we're all detoxing from the biggest nerdfest of the year. It was glorious and bigger than we could have imagined. We met some great people and picked up awesome schwag so I'm sure we will all have our individual reports coming soon (once we wake up). In the meantime, I had to share some very cool news:

DRAW! Magazine (see my original post here), helmed by the prolific Mike Manley, just released Issue #11 that features an article with yours truly. How the heck did that happen? I'm still asking myself that question. All I know is I met Mike at the 2004 con, we had a great conversation, and now one year later I'm in a magazine next to the legendary Steve Rude. The article turned out longer than I was expecting and Mike included a lot of my artwork. Definitely a hilite to my career and something I won't forget. Buy your issue today and let me know what you think!

Gorillaz "dare" to release 2nd video

Hung over from the San Diego Comic-Con? Here’s a new kick-ass Gorillaz video to ease the pain. To peep the video for D.A.R.E. you will need to follow the link below and type in the passcode highlighted below, which will give you access to the cinema:

LINK: http://www.gorillaz.com/screen.php?p=1&q=2&id=dare

YOUR PASSCODE: ERULITTLEMONKEY

Props for Punch Pants

Pick up the July 2005 issue of Animation Magazine to see an article on animation blogs, including our humble little Punch Pants. We share real estate with fellow blogger Jim Hull and his informative Seward Street (where I nabbed the interior magazine shot).

Special thanks to Ramin Zahed, Editor-in-Chief at Animation Magazine for contacting me and setting this up (and sending me a free copy!).

Like Fine Wine....

Check out this cool interpretation of a "Ghostbot" done by local bad ass artist Dean Yuen. I posted the black and white one many moons ago, but here is a semi-color version for your viewing pleasure. I'll post the finished version once I pry it from Dean's cold dead fingers. Stay tuned!

Dean is available for freelance art and illustration, so if you like what you're seeing post your reply here and we can connect you to him.

Altered Carbon

I’m a little late getting in on the enthusiastic outpouring over the debut novel from Richard K. Morgan, but hot dang I have to join the party. Referred to me by our buddy, sound designer extrordinaire Jim Lively, this book kicked me in the face.

In Altered Carbon, Morgan tells a future crime-noir story filled with fantastic sci-fi ideas. We follow super cool Takeshi Kovacs, ex-Envoy (neurachemically enhanced special forces operative), as he is hired to unravel the mystery surrounding the death of a wealthy Earth industrialist. The trick is that Kovacs is already dead, and he’s hired by the man who’s death he’s investigating. I’ll say no more, go read this book now!

If you’re in San Francisco, I highly recommend stopping by Borderlands Books to pick it up. You can also order from Amazon.

Anatomy of a BG: Part 3

Thought I'd take this long weekend to finish my thread on the background design process for Esurance. This first image is of the bg taken into Flash and cleaned up into vectors. Our go-to gal for this phase is the fabulous Christine L. Toscanini. The secret to her power is that she's been trained in the trenches of traditional animation so she's got an eye for good assisting. That goes long and far in the world of Flash clean-up. She's also wicked fast. We're constantly amazed when work comes back from her because it always looks better than we hope. Peruse her handiwork:

Chris gave us a good basis to start by laying in gray tones for value on the bg. I love to color style the bgs myself, but lately when we have no time for art school noodling, we call on the talents of color diva, Jenny Hansen (previously mentioned on this blog here and here) to alter the color spectrum in our favor. She really injected the mood into this one (I love her subtle use of gradients):

We couldn't have cranked out so many spots in so little time without the help of these two fine friends. Thanks, ladies!

Lucky Girl

Here is an image I did for a tribute to one of my favorite lesser known Marvel characters... Molly Fitzgerald... AKA.... Shamrock! I did the original sketch in pencil, cleaned it up and colored it in Flash and then finally took it into Photoshop for a few extra touches. For more drawings of the lady in green by a wide variety of talented artists/maniacs click here.