Profile Pics & Poo

A few profile pic redesigns and a pic for a horse trainer friend. Thanks for visiting.

Decided to post a number of character designs I've been working on for various clients. The colored versions are the final ones, but you can see some of the development in the sketches. Thanks for visiting.

Too Thick Upgrade

I'm not sure why, but I took an older short toon I did several years ago and did a complete character overhaul. Below is the newer version of some silly grade school humor.

CLICK HERE to visit my vimeo page to see more animations I did.

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Story Time

Below are a few sketches based on a story my daughter and I were making up. I think she's got potential. We even came up with a neat storyline complete with villains and a whole interesting environment. Hopefully I'll find some time to sketch more up and share them. :)

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Eating Habits

My kids have very different eating habits. My son will eat or try anything you put in front of him, no questions asked. My daughter on the other hand won't try anything new. Here's a quick sketch of my kids at dinner.

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My Vimeo Page

Did you know I have a vimeo page filled with animations? well...I do! If you get a chance, just click on the image below to jump to my vimeo page. There's regular updates. So if you like what you see, keep checking back for newer content.

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Confusion At The Museum.

I studied art and have a BFA with a concentration in painting, drawing & pottery, yes pottery. I studied art history and have an appreciation for the art that has been created through the ages. Abstract, was always a struggle for me though. I enjoy the textures, colors, shapes but beyond that I never understood the big deal of it.

The sketches I did below are from a photo of my nephew taken by my sister at a museum. I wish I knew what he was thinking as he stood in front of a Pollock. I decided to do my own sketches based on her photo. :)

Just a note to those die hard Pollock fans, I threw together my own painting so no Pollock's were defaced in the making of these sketches. haha ;)

CLICK HERE to see the original photo.

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Showers

I did this image a little while go. If you work for yourself as I do, then personal hygiene can take a backseat and showers get fit in whenever possible. Here's a pic of me before and after my shower. Don't I look much cleaner? :)

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Morning Sketch 2

A sketch for the morning. I'm listening to the genius music of Joe Purdy and decided to make him the subject matter of my sketch. Check out his music if you get a chance.

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Morning Sketch

I like to start each day with a sketch. Here's one for a friend of mine from grade school believe it or not. She loves horses and has a little girl now who loves horses. Seemed like a no brainer.

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Folklore

I've been messing with some American Folklore character sketches. John Henry, Calamity Jane even Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. Most are fictitious, but a few are based on real characters. I'll post more as I go along. I'm having fun with these.

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Backgrounds Again

A few backgrounds for a job I'm working on. Hope to post a few more later.

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sad

Steve Jobs
1955-2011

Visuals

A few character concepts and backgrounds for a pending project. Hope it comes through, I think this one could be fun.

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Road Animals

I'm always amazed at the number and variety of animals that come across my path as I drive my kids to school through the rural back roads of NY & NJ. We're not talking an occasional creature every once in a while, but a daily sighting of animals.

So, I decided to do a quick sketch of all the animals that ran across the road just yesterday alone. Pretty crazy huh?

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A Little Re-Post

I've never reposted something, but after going through some animations I did a few years back I thought I'd make an exception. The animation below was something I did a few years back to help sell Phil Vischer's (veggie tales creator) new online kids network, Jelly Telly.

Looking at it again I see things I would have done differently, but all in all it was a fun project. If you're a fan of Samurai Jack like I am you will quickly see my background design influence.

Also, towards the end, see if you catch the reference and shout out to one of my favorite 80's movies, Tron.

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CBD

Here's something different a "CBD."

What exactly is a CBD, it's short for Cigar Box Dulcimer. Typically it would be a guitar, but I decided to make these two below patterned after an instrument called a Dulcimer, which is basically a stringed folk instrument. It's designed for those that would love to play a guitar like instrument, but never learned. It's hard to play a wrong note on it, pretty much every note will sound great.

I love making things with my hands and if I hadn't gone into art I would have gone into carpentry. The cigar box guitar or dulcimer is an instrument that's made from found objects and down home ingenuity. The cigar box makes a great resinating chamber. I hope to post a few more designs that I've made as well as sound files and perhaps the process as well.

Thanks to my sister for the photos. :)

Thanks for visiting.

Cornchip & Jellybean™

I'm working on a new cartoon concept along with Ryan Hostetler of Silly Monster Media LLC called Cornchip & Jellybean™ It features the daily adventures of well, Cornchip & Jellybean as they live their lives in Uncle Germy's arcade. Stay tuned for more info, but in the mean time, check out the teaser video below.

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Job Backgrounds

I'm doing a number short animations for Anagram International and I decided to show a few background designs from some of them.

More to come. :)

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A Little Glimpse Part 2

I decided to post a sample Character Library to show yet another glimpse into Flash animation. A Character Library or Character Pack contains all the elements of a cartoon character; hands, eyes, mouth, body, legs...and so on. All these elements have to be drawn first in order to be able to animate a character. If this step isn't done, animating is difficult.

Now there are times when animation begins after the character pack has been created that a new hand pose or body position might be needed that will have to be added or created on the fly, but for the most part the majority of the library has been made.

Below is a sample of a character with all the parts separated out to show the complexity of a character pack. Keep in mind, this is only part of this characters library. My philosophy is to go overboard so that animation is a fun experience.

So when an animator is hired to do a job keep in mind that animation is so much more then moving characters on a screen.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

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A Little Glimpse

You might not believe this, but animation and character design actually takes a lot of time and hard work which means I don't own a magic button. In order to give a little glimpse into what's involved with animating a character, I took a screen shot of a working Flash file showing all the individual parts of a character performing an action. Each one of those little black dots equals a movement. This one is actually very "tame" in comparison with others.

Below the screen shot is the actual character animation that corresponds with those little black dots. Crazy huh? Just click the image to see it in action.

No magic buttons here, just hard work.

Thanks for visiting.