park box

One day back in May

2009-11-01T09:39:00.003-05:00

The wife dashed into a store to do some shopping, the baby was asleep in the back seat and I managed to sneak in a few quick sketches.

Lusty Luau

2009-06-28T17:38:00.008-04:00

What's more fun than drawing one voluptuous woman?
Drawing two of 'em. Although, that also means trying to draw twice the speed.

This was from a Dr. Sketchy session a few months ago. The poses started from 30 seconds and went up to about 10 minutes for the last 2-3.

Yes. One of the girls is wearing a giant banana costume in the first few. Good Times.

Happy Year of the Ox!

2009-01-25T18:59:00.003-05:00

Same resolution as always. Draw, draw and draw some more!

WWSC 21

2009-01-14T01:39:00.007-05:00

Started the morning sketching the family on Skype, then the little man playing with his toys.

Next doing errands at the mall. Most of the drawing were done here and there, in stolen moments of time. I felt like I was warming up the whole day and never fully got into the flow of things. When that happens I switch pens, hoping it will make a difference. It does, but not in the way I want it to. All four coloured at home.

Dropped by the new Richmond Olympic Oval in the afternoon. Lucky us, we got to see some speed skaters practising. Might have been the Canadian National team.

WWSC 20

2008-10-30T04:53:00.005-04:00

I only had a few hours, so I decided to go out for a solo Sketchcrawl on Saturday. Went to nearby Steveston Village to draw. I still have summer on the brain, so I was a little under dressed and ended up fighting the cold weather and wind for most of the session.

Went to the Heritage Shipyard to check it out. Decided to give some watercolour a try.
These were done on the spot as quick as I could and finishing touches added at home.

Decided to call it a day and head back to the car. The place was now filled with kids in costumes, going around to the different stores. I did mostly scribbly sketches and gestures and finished them off at home.

Go Shorty, it's yo' birthday!

2008-08-27T21:19:00.002-04:00

One year old already. Man, that was way too fast.

DIA

2007-11-15T17:07:00.001-05:00

Here are two spots I animated back in the Spring for the new Detroit Institute of the Arts.
I animated about 95 % of both spots and cleaned up all the animation. Directed by the awesome Julian Grey of Head Gear Animation. Both were tons of fun to do and a great way to end my time at this amazing studio.

Check out Hatman and Flower Woman.

Le Secret

2007-10-20T06:26:00.000-04:00

Here's a piece I did for an art show at Deighton's Well in Vancouver. It had been ages since I've used watercolour but it turned out OK, I guess. Now I just have to try and use it more often.

Strong Wong

2007-10-04T13:44:00.001-04:00

This is a character exploration for an idea that a friend and I are working on. I think he is going to look alot different and possiblity quite a bit younger, but it was fun to draw.

More Sketchbook Pro, coloured in Photoshop.

a new chapter

2007-09-22T23:40:00.000-04:00

The last nine months have been a bit of a whirlwind. After 5 great years in Toronto, my wife and I decided it was time for a change. A move back to the west coast. I've been away for 8 years, so for both of us it feels like something new.

Starting over again. A new city. A new place. A new role as first time parents.

I just recently got a copy of Sketchbook Pro. It's a pretty cool program. Still getting used to the whole digital drawing thing. Here's the first test.

fourtet

2007-04-19T00:23:00.000-04:00

The last couple of weeks have been insanely busy at work. Things should be slowing down a little in the next few days. Hopefully I can show a bit of what I was working on. In the meantime...

morning faces

2007-04-14T22:09:00.000-04:00

Nothing fancy. Just a bunch of transit sketches from the last week.

Genius Party

2007-04-07T13:51:00.000-04:00

I had planned to post something on this a few days ago, but got busy and Enrico has beaten me to the punch.

The film is a collection of shorts by the geniuses at Studio4ºC. The segements that they did for the Animatrix are by far my favourite in the film. I love the work of all of those guys, but with Genius Party I am also very personally interested in seeing the segment "Le manchot melomane" by Nicolas de Crécy. I first became aware of his work after seeing La Vieille Dame et les pigeons. Unfortunately, by the time I started working on Les Triplettes, he and Sylvain had already parted ways. I have yet to meet the guy, but I'm a huge fan. His drawing style and colour palette are so obvious an influence in Sylvain's film work, but it will be great what he does on his own.

Check out some trailers here, and get ready. I can't wait to see what they have in store for us 'cos to quote a line from the site, "...in July 2007, it will rock the world again."

wolf-man, old man and a girl.

2007-03-31T23:28:00.000-04:00

A few sketches from the good ol' subway last week. The guy in the first pic had a kind of lycanthropic quality about him. Dark monobrow, cool sideburns and a snarly mouth. This was all enhanced a bit more by his jacket with a big furry collar. Maybe I'll try and do another drawing later that's more of a cariacature.

This old guy had a big nose and a couple of extra chins.

A girl, thrown in for good measure.

I'm back!

2007-03-08T12:45:00.000-05:00

It's a little weird to be blogging again after taking so much time off. It was good to not be in front of computer and actually get a bit of Vitamin D. My body thanks me for it.

Thanks to all of you who have dropped by in the last 2 months. As soon as I make the time to organise drawings and notes, I will post about the Brazil/ Hawaii adventure.

In the meantime, here is a subway sketch for old time's sake.

walrus man 2

2006-12-07T02:58:00.000-05:00

Later during the day I tried drawing him again on a Post-it note. Just working from that initial impression and trying to infuse a bit of that walrus-iness.

Oh yeah... Off to Bahia, Brazil in about 3 hours. Going to be travelling in Brazil and then Hawaii for a couple of months. Hopefully, lots of inspired stuff to post upon returning. Happy holidays everyone.

old man Timmy Ho's

2006-11-23T00:02:00.000-05:00

This guy was on the subway this morning. He had such a great, old face. The first thought that came to mind was a human walrus. Lots of lines and a nice, fleshy nose.
Having just finished my cheese croissant, I immediately reached for my pen and scribbled away on the closest surface, a bag from Timmy's.
With my lumpy backpack for support and a paper and steeped tea precariously clutched in my left hand, I managed to whip off a few sketches before he got up to leave.
Next time I'll try and push it even more... play up the whole 'walrussy' part.

aquarela

2006-11-15T23:37:00.000-05:00

A couple of quick sketches at Future Bakery.
It's been a while since I busted out the watercolours.
Just playing around, trying to get reacquainted.

morning sketch

2006-11-14T00:51:00.000-05:00

here you go Phil. This one's for you.
A quick sketch while sitting down at my favourite coffee place, Le Gourmand.

#125 and beyond

2006-11-12T21:20:00.000-05:00

Here are a few sketches from the last couple of weeks on the bus and subway to work.
Moving a little further out means no more biking... but more sketching.

Scott Morse

2006-10-23T00:02:00.000-04:00

Went back to Vancouver for a visit and had these beauts waiting for me.
The digital pictures don't really do them much justice, but I thought I'd share them anyway.
Thanks Scott.

cleaning house

2006-09-13T19:27:00.000-04:00

Things have been busy the last month, working on a spot with half the usual crew. Now getting ready to move apartments in a couple of weeks. Going through tons of boxes and throwing out loads of paper. It's amazing what piles up.

Anyway, here are a few rescued quick sketches.

Off to Vancouver tomorrow for my cuz' wedding and back in a week.

fruity heads

2006-07-30T19:16:00.000-04:00

Here's a few head scribbles inspired by a Fruits mag.

Half Past Dead

2006-06-18T01:09:00.000-04:00

I was flipping channels the other night and came across this Steven Seagal movie I had never heard of. I didn't even know the guy was still in the business of making movies. So I imdb'ed him and found out he has made 17 movies since then. Crazy!

Anyway, I drew some faces while semi-watching. Here be them.

Sketch, Sketch, Sketch!

2006-06-09T09:29:00.000-04:00

We hear it all the time, from every drawing teacher out there. Draw, draw, draw!
Dave Master once said, "Take your sketchbook into the bathroom even. You might get lucky and get a few hands done".

With his very inspiring blog, Dave Pimentel reminds us once again to, "Keep drawing!!!
No matter how busy you get in your daily lives, try and keep the pen moving!"
If you have not seen his quick sketches, go now! Dave is one of the lucky ones who got to study under the brilliant Walt Stanchfield.

Also check out these amazing sketches by Bolhem Bouchiba, one of my favourite animators. Thanks to Enrico Casarosa for sharing them.

Here are a few scribbles of mine from the last week. Trying to get myself to keep the pen moving, no matter how busy I get.

João

2006-06-01T17:23:00.000-04:00

This is a character from a short film idea that is set in Brazil. More specifically Salvador da Bahia. It has been floating around in my mind for a few years now, but has yet to become anything more than a concept. I will post some more sketches and art from this project in the future.

Rapture

2006-05-12T10:39:00.000-04:00

Here is some artwork done for a music video for a band called HURT. I came on board to lead the animation and just bring on whatever ideas I had.

Here are some of the earliest designs, before I arrived, done by Jeff Timmins (who has just started his own blog).

Jeff is a great designer and draws completely the opposite of me. He uses hard pencils and loves rendering. I generally use softer leads or thick nibbed/brush pens and attempt to be economical when it comes to line.

This is what the character turned out to looked like after it was put through the paces of animation and a bit of both of our styles mixed in.

It was alot of fun trying to retain Jeff's ink and nib quality in the animation and abandon a traditional cleanup line. Things started to get a little messier the more comfortable we got and later on we even started splattering ink on the animation drawings.

Here are some ruff and clean-up drawings shot on an Animation Lunchbox.
The studio is not set up to do a lot of hand drawn animation, so we were lucky to even wrangle this together.

The video was a mix of hand-drawn animation and stop-motion(animated by Mike Gatty) with some excellent CG work and compositing, thanks to Cuppa Coffee's awesome Broadcast Department.

Here is the Rapture man puppet, with the head sculpted by the multi-talented Jeff Timmins.

Lastly, here are some finished frames from the video. The final look of the video is largely due to the extremely talented director, Mike Spicer, who I have not mentioned yet. Thanks Cuppa! This was a joy to work on.

a little colour

2006-05-07T20:43:00.000-04:00

Just playing around with photoshop, trying to figure out how to add some colour to an existing sketch.

been a while...

2006-04-29T20:19:00.000-04:00

Well, I haven't posted anything in a good 5 weeks. Work has been pretty crazy, but that's no excuse really. I haven't been drawing for myself much in the last month. Like trying to exercise, it's so easy to fall out of that routine.

Anyway, here are a few from the sketchbook archives.

subway sketching

2006-03-20T15:26:00.000-05:00

After months of wanting to check out Bobby Chiu's Subway Sketch Group, I finally made it out this Sunday. It was great getting to hang out with other artists and draw. Suprisingly, something I don't get to do very often outside of work. The next step is to make it a regular event.

Anyway, here are a few quick sketches.

Tom Gately

2006-03-15T21:14:00.000-05:00

Enrico Casarosa's blog is one I check on an almost daily basis. It's usually full of his wonderful sketches or photos or comic work. Always plenty of eye candy. Today he suprised me and completely made my entire week by posting some of Tom Gately's sketches.

For those of you who don't know Tom Gately. He has been an animator at Disney for years and years working on alot of the best animation crews and is now over at Pixar.
Anyone who has had a copy of Walt Stanchfield's notes, is probably already a fan of Tom's amazing work. His drawings are so full of life and darn appealing. More than that, it also just looks like he had so much fun drawing them himself.

They really do make you "...simply make you want to draw!"

b-ball

2006-03-15T21:01:00.000-05:00

I went out and played some basketball last week with some people from work. It was alot of fun, but it was also the first time I had played in about 5 years.
Man, am I out of shape.

Anyway here are some scribbles done in front of the tv few weeks back.

cafe sketches

2006-02-27T20:09:00.000-05:00

life drawing 2

2006-02-20T08:34:00.000-05:00

Here's a few more from last week.

life drawing

2006-02-18T08:36:00.000-05:00

Drawing from life has always been one of my favourites parts of improving my animation craft. I used to go alot in school and for the first few years after that. Unfortunately, it's something I don't do much of anymore (maybe 3-4 x a year), but something I need to push myself to do more.

For me the thing things I suffer from the most when I don't go life drawing is falling back on drawing from the same library of symbols and shapes and the speed and confidence in putting lines down on paper.

Here are some sketches from last year sometime.

Curious

2006-02-09T23:35:00.000-05:00

Curious George comes out tomorrow. I went to check it out last weekend with the Yowza crew, and I can honestly say I enjoyed it. It's defenitely aimed for a young crowd but it turned out to be a very sweet little film, that captures alot of the charm and innocence of the books.
I thought there were some genuinely touching and funny moments.

Hearing Will Ferrell's voice for months drove me crazy, but looking at the big picture, he did a good job. Sames goes for Drew Barrymore, David Cross, Dick van Dyke and Eugene Levy (who I didn't even realise was in it).

It's also got some good tunes by Jack Johnson.

Go check out one of the last hand-drawn animated features coming out this side of the world for... a good few years at least.

in transit

2006-02-01T23:26:00.000-05:00

Just a variety of subway sketches from the past few weeks.

be back soon...

2006-01-25T22:10:00.000-05:00

The animation part of the video is done. Now it's in the hands of the director. It's just needs a few final touches before delivery.
Hopefully I can post some images in a couple of weeks. I'm curious to see what people think of it.

In the meantime, I'm off to NYC for a long weekend.

red

2006-01-15T13:22:00.000-05:00

An old sketch that I found and added a bit of colour to.

Things are going great on the music video. Another couple of weeks and it'll be done . Hopefully after that, I 'll be back to posting a more frequently.

good morning

2006-01-08T10:42:00.000-05:00

pink 'n' blue

2006-01-05T19:22:00.000-05:00

anna

2005-12-28T20:47:00.000-05:00

tv doodles

2005-12-28T20:42:00.000-05:00

back to it

2005-12-27T20:41:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted much in the last month with holidays and work being a little crazy.
The music video is still in the early stages of production but it's going well so far.
I'm working with a very talented artist and designer who goes by the name of Jeff Timmins.
He is inking over my animation, and so far it looks great.
I can't wait to share some of the artwork and images when it's done.

In the meantime, here is a quick sketchbook drawing.

Music Videos

2005-12-14T17:05:00.000-05:00

After being pretty sick for the last 2 week and taking some time off, I got a call from Cuppa Coffee today to do some 2D animation for a music video they're working on.

Working on music videos for smaller bands usually have this trade off where the budgets are not as big, but the level of creativity and freedom to realise that vision is higher. It's alot of fun getting to make these mini 'films'.
That's all I can say on it for now, but hopefully when it's done January I can post some images.

I just found out that a music video I worked on a while ago just won 'Best Music Video' at Annecy 2005. 'Year of the Rat' by Badly Drawn Boy. The video was directed by Monkmus, who also did the Kid Koala vids.
Fluorescent Hill handled some animation and all the amazing post work.
I animated some Damon, random characters and all of the dog.
Here are some images from the video:

playing catch-up

2005-11-30T00:07:00.000-05:00

somehow I have never gotten around to learning Photoshop... until this week. This was just a little exercise taking some old drawings and trying to figure out how to make a montage.

2001

2005-11-29T13:08:00.000-05:00

some studies at the beach from a camping trip a few years ago.

Sleepin' Dennis. My first train trip to Toronto. Now I live here and Dennis lives in New Zealand, animating for WETA.

A statue in Place Phillip (Montreal) ... I think. Man, I sure do miss that place.

yorkville

2005-11-25T20:03:00.000-05:00

Just trying to play around with some watercolour. It's been a while, but it was lots of fun. Hopefully I can post more soon.

heads an' stuff

2005-11-14T15:14:00.000-05:00

some old quick sketches.

the heads (from a few years back), were taken with a webcam so they are a little blurry.

a few more from way back

2005-11-11T09:52:00.000-05:00

it's been ages since I've done any animal drawing. I've just discovered The Royal Winter Fair after reading Nick Sung's Blog.
I will try and check it out if I have time this weekend.

Remembrance Day

2005-11-11T08:53:00.000-05:00

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

- John McCrae

a lil' something

2005-11-09T13:32:00.000-05:00

...to get the ball rolling.
Some sketches from about 6 years ago. I'll probably post a few oldies until I actually get a scanner.

starting point

2005-11-09T12:08:00.000-05:00

Well, this is my first post.

After couple months of months of being inspired by so great artists, I have decided to give this blogging thing a go.

I'm not sure what I want this blog to become just yet, but for now it's just a place to put up some drawings, share some artwork and maybe a thought or two and hopefully a catalyst to get me to draw as much as I wish I did.

It's also a great way to stay connected with old friends and meet new artists from all over the world.