New sketches

Did these on Friday, and posting them up today.

More sketches

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Dirk The Daring

Love me some Dirk The Daring. I started pulling Singe out of my ass, so he looks like garbage hah. I don't know who that guy in the upper left corner is. I pulled him out of my ass, too.

Hi

Hello

Here's a new sheet of sketches done when I had a few minutes at work.

Some sketches

It's occurred to me that I haven't been sketching like used to in quite a while. I've been working a lot in After Effects at my day job, and thus I haven't been drawing much. I'm going to try and make an effort to fill an entire page in Sketchbook a day. Nothing special. Just doodles. Just something to get me drawing again. Here's the last three days worth:

GFG#5: "How To Hook Up The NES"

So after around seven months of production, Phil and I wrapped up production on GFGames#5: "How To Hook Up The NES". My brother-in-law, Joe, kicked into high gear and turned around a fantastic soundtrack. Clearly, this is inspired by the Goofy "How To" shorts from the 40s and 50s. I hope everyone gets a laugh out of it. Head on over to the Shamoozal and scope it out!

GFG#5 Update

I don't feel like re-typing stuff. Read more here. Me tired.

Short update

I was able to sink most of my weekend into the new short for the Shamoozal. I'll wager I spent around 75% of my time sitting here working on the short. I decided to revisit the shot I posted the rough posted below from. Hah. Does that sentence even make sense? It's been a long weekend, so I'll make this quick and just get to the image.

Animation rough from new short

It's been drawn to my attention that I havent updated this in some while. And you know what...it's totally true! I've been busy doing another short for the Shamoozal, and I feel like all my free time gets devoted to it. I don't know when it's going to be done at this point. I wanted to have it finished up last month, but you know how things go. The above image is an animation rough from a shot with Jacquo stuck in a very cramped space. Hopefully it'll be done soon! Wish me luck!

Suave Doodle Dude

There really isn't anything special about this guy. I actually kind of lost interest in him as I went along, but I wanted to post something up here today just to try and get myself in the habit of making semi-regular posts again.

Some character designs

I did a few designs in Flash for a project that I just wrapped up on recently. One of them got used, but these guys didn't. Oh well.

Eggplant Wizard

This guy was great. I always loved the Eggplant Wizard from Kid Icarus. Though I've gotta say I love the Grim Reaper in it even more, so I may have to give him a shot this week, too.

This upcoming weekend, Saturday December 13th, the Shamoozal crew will be holding another live NES marathon for the Child's Play charity starting at 12 noon to 12 midnight. We're going to try and mix it up some, and not just have a couple of guys in a living room try to beat Mike Tyson (again) from Punch Out!!. We plan on doing some sketches of classic NES characters live and posting them up on Ebay where 100% of the money will go towards the charity. So, I'm trying to ramp up a bit to get in the mood this week, and try to knock a few of these out before the marathon begins.

Head on over to the Shamoozal for details!

Yay!

Been a while

What can I say? I've been a busy little bee lately, and there hasnt been much time to post these days. I'm trying to get into the Halloween spirit so I doodled up this little cartoony Frankenstein.

Speaking of Frankenstein, Phil did a new short for the Shamoozal, "Frankensteiner: Muscle Quest" last week over a 10 hour time period. By popular demand, Phil brought back Frankensteiner who was first seen in "Crapfest Force" when Jacquo tried making his own cartoon. Phil has been looking for an excuse to break out the SNES and do an old school short using strictly Mario Paint. Premiere was used to edit everything together. The results would make Jacquo proud. Check it out!

"The Last Copy" is done!

Hey all. The past few days have been spent finishing up our latest short over at the Shamoozal, "The Last Copy." Head on over and scope it out. We also have a variety of snazzy hi-def versions available for download to put on your iPod or media player of choice. Check it out!


In other Shamoozal news: in lieu of our regularly scheduled podcast this month, we are having a 24 hour NES-a-thon to try to raise money for Child's Play Charity. The event is starting this Friday, July 11th, at noon and continuing into Saturday morning. Stop by Shamoozal.com for more info, but I can promise a nonstop parade of classic gaming goodness including the likes of the SMB trilogy, Contra, Castlevania, Mega Man 2, Kid Icarus, and many others. We plan on streaming it live via UStream so one can check out a room full of grown men whither away playing retro video games on a 20 year old NES. Awesome!

Hang'n Out

The past few weeks have been crammed with working on the new Shamoozal short, "The Last Copy", however for the past few nights I've been working on a skateboard deck for the Three Feet Hight show at Maxwell's in Hoboken this upcoming Monday night. I haven't touched real paint in like eight years, but I've been looking for an excuse to give it a whirl again. I was a little nervous, but I think overall I'm happy with the final results. So here's my addition to the show, "Hang'n Out".

The final version.

Indiana Jones is awesome

I think I've been thinking nonstop about the new Indy movie for about two weeks. I think it blew my mind. Indiana Jones may be my all time favorite character. Despite all the negative criticism out there, I frigg'n loved the hell out of it. Sure, there were a few goofy moments, but that's just what they were. A moment that lasted for maybe one minute of screen time that I forgot about because Indy was kicking ass the next. If you care, I wrote up a spoiler-filled review at the Shamoozal.

Fencers

Once apon a time, I used to fence. Its been years since I picked a foil up and I do miss it. I never did it competitively, but I could hold my own. Who knows if I'll ever have the time to get back into it again. Oh well...besides I don't think I'll fit in my jacket these days :)

Random stuff

Like many times before, I'm trying to devote about 30 minutes of my day just doodling. Animating is fun, but drawing the same shapes and characters day in and day out has a tendency to cramp your drawing skills up. So from here on out, I'm going to try to spend some time just letting it go and come up with some loose stuff before I start work.

On a side note, does anyone else think the "newer" 21 inch Cintiqs aren't as good as the "older" 21 inch ones? I own one of the first 21 inch models at home and work on the newer ones at my job. They have a slight bevel to them along the screen, and have a harder drawing surface. I prefer the softer feel of the old ones. Anyone else?

GFG background

Here's a new BG that's going to be in the next short. A nice little chunk of it takes place behind the GFGames store by the trash.

Some storyboards from the next GFG short

Here's a few stills from the next GFG short for the Shamoozal. The animatic is done, and we're about to roll forward with animation production. Hopefully, it'll be done sometime this month.

Shamoozal short: "Tactical Espionage Retail Simulation"

Hey guys! Head on over to the Shamoozal and check out our latest entry into our GFGames series, "Tactical Espionage Retail Simulation". Grey is dealing with a snotty, know-it-all customer while Jacquo looks to take advantage of the situation that would make Solid Snake proud. Enjoy!

Let's go Flyers!

Let's face it, the Flyers probably aren't going to make it into this year's play-offs, and even if they do I can't see them making it beyond the first round. Ahh well...at least they aren't loosing every game they play this year like last season.

I was flipping through my hard drive and I stumbled across this sketch. I apparently started to clean it up and stopped for some reason. It was just a little over two years old as it was originally created on May 1st, 2006. Its possible I posted the rough version of it up here some place, but I don't remember. So, I finished its clean-up and splashed some color in there. Maybe I'll get around to giving it a shadow pass at some point...probably in another two years from now :)

Dragon guy!

Its been a while since I posted anything here that wasn't Shamoozal related. I've been busy getting the next short done in any spare time I have, but tonight I wanted to basically just scribble and have fun. I feel like I force myself to work in a tight line all the time, so I just wanted to toss some shapes down and let loose. I kind of like this guy a bit. Maybe I'll play with him a bit more later on.

Speaking of which, the new Shamoozal short will probably be done sometime next week? A large majority of it is done. All shots with the "Hipster" character have been done, and I was dropping in some BGs last night. Hopefully I'll be able to make a post here soon about it!

Character design for next Shamoozal short

I'd like to introduce you to "Hipster", a new character that will be in the next Shamoozal short my bro and I are working on. This was a slow week for production, but hopefully we'll get things moving along a little faster next week.

New short is done!

Head on over to the Shamoozal to check out the new short, "Rated 'M' For Molester". The next one is currently in progress and should be done with in a month or so, but in the meantime scope out the newest one!

New shorts on the way!

So me and the rest of the Shamoozal staff have been busy little beavers lately. Around early December, we decided to step things up a bit at the site. With the new year, we wanted to try to do a new 1-minute short and record a new podcast once per month. So we've been designing new backgrounds, revamping the characters, and have a slate of scripts already in the pipe. So far, so good. And of course, we're running behind schedule hah! Hopefully, it'll be done by the end of this week.

Here's a storyboard panel I did for it.

Time to move on...

Hey all. Its been quite a while since I last updated. Its been a busy time. I've been occupied with what's going on at Shamoozal.com and busy with the holidays.

This past Friday, my time at Curious Pictures as a drawn animator on "Little Einsteins" has come to an end. I've been there for the past three years, and I consider myself extremely lucky to have worked with so many talented people. I learned a hell of a lot, and its hard to believe that its all over. I felt ready to move on to another project, but it didn't strike me how much I would miss it on the 4th floor in the Hot Pocket until I was half way out the door. It is very unlikely that there will be another season ordered of the show, and the lease on the studio space we were stationed at is being let up. It certainly is an end to a very important time period in my career.

However, I feel very strongly that drawn animation can be pushed further forward. I think our team has proven that traditional drawn animation can be done effectively, affordable, be delivered on time, and most importantly be done here in the States. We were only a small crew, and I know we can carry the ball even further with a larger team in place.

While going through my files, I came across a handful of thumbnails that I did several years ago of the kids. I remember I was asked to drum up some poses by my director, Mike Luzzi, and these were what I came up with. Some were fleshed out and were fully animated for the show. I thought I'd share them with you.

"I meant to do that."

Glass Joe

Andy, ask and you shall receive :)

Metroid

If there's something I love, its Metroid.

Painterly Pumpkin

I just wanted to draw out side the lines today and play with color in Sketchbook. I want to loosen up a bit more and not worry about making every line perfect all the time. I started out by just plopping a big orange blob down and working from there. I might do a few more of these later on as this was kind of fun.

Owls

Old people

I don't know why but I've been doodling old people alot lately. I think its because they have such interesting features that are fun to characterize. Anywho, here's a few:

Anime stuff from a pitch

I did these for a pitch about a month ago. Nothing came of it, so I figured I'd post them here for you consumption. I cleaned up and coloured (look! I'm British!) the one in the upper left corner as a sample of what a final rendering would look like.

The Doctor Is In