Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas card for 2008. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and may the best of the new year come to you and yours. Top is front, bottom is interior - make your own!

Some Drawings

Hello out there. Here are some drawings from in class sessions this week.
It's always fun to draw the characters my students come up with and Yoda is a tough one to draw out of your head. 'Guess I need to watch "Empire Strikes Back".
Some from our Friday class with one of my favorite models, Rita. 'Brought antichrist brownies, everybody did well. Sorry these are such terrible scans
Drawing = fun!
Speaking of fun and Yoda, that will probably be the next challenge. I know I haven't done one in a long long time but get ready we'll do one soon. 'Can't believe I won't be teaching next semester, so I guess I gotta get in one more challenge.

Studio To Amara's Room

Because the Jackson three got bigger by one, we decided I would have to move my stuff out of my studio and turn it into Amara's new room. So, after moving everything out and getting rid of a lot of my stuff (thanks, Jessica for giving my table a good home) we began painting the wall like a sky. Amara was pretty excited about moving into her new space and I encouraged her to help. We stayed paint free with the help of some old pajamas and a little plastic painting smock.
Painting blue was fun for a while, and then she lost interest and left. She came back only to find that I was in the process of painting the clouds, which she wanted to do. So I taped off some cloud shapes which took so long, she lost interest again and left.
Finally it was finished and below is the final product. I need to set aside some time to paint something cool on the rest of the walls later but just know they will be covered with High School Musical 6, Hanna Montana, and Princess posters later.

She loves it!

Kai Reece Jackson

What better way to celebrate my 100th post then to ask you all to welcome the Jackson Clan's newest member, Kai Reece Jackson! Born Oct 14th at 9:03am he weighed 9lbs 10oz and was 20 inches long. Both mom and baby are doing fine although the little guy was processing his glucose too fast and had to be on IV in the nursery for most of his life outside the womb. But at 9:00 last night he got to come off IV and stay with Mommy and I. He's sleeping well and Mommy is doing great, walking around and doing a little soft shoe. Amara is a very happy big sister and so far has adjusted well to this new little being. Both Mommy and Kai will be coming home soon. More pictures soon,

Thanks for stopping by!Kai's first picture.

No flashes Daddy!
Hair!Finally some open eyes

Thumbs...Swaddled upAmara and her little brotherThe fam
The feet...More later have to get back to hospital now.

Skeletal Proportions

A recent lecture on proportions. Bones are neat!!
By the way this is my 99th post...My next post is going to be a big one (really).

Comix...Kid gets older

Hello. After many iterations, here is the signed off version of the comic book. Two spreads. What more can you say? At the very least, I know more about how memory works...I just hope I don't forget. Better stuff later. Next contract is about expressions, which should be interesting but I don't know how I'll find the time to do it.

For that comic book...

Oh yeah, I hope you like the new look of Sonjebasaland. Something happened to make my linked text turn a frightful high chroma, high value blue. I tried customizing and editing the text via the (indifferent 'help') from the help link and have deleted my cache numerous times. Still couldn't make that crap blue go away, so I found another template that sort of works with it, revolting as it is. Anybody know what's going on, let me know. In the mean time I'll just throw it in "another reason why computers are evil" bin. Wee.

Happy First Birthday Blog!

Wow, I can't believe it's been a year and day since I first started this thing. I hope some posts have been informative, I have enjoyed putting up the class notes and other stuff. Happy birthday 'lil lonely blog which nobody reads, I'll keep posting but will make an effort to try to post better work so I don't have that sour look on my face when I go back and read them. For those of you who have stopped by, thanks! Your comments and thoughts are welcome.

Some sketches done while in Seattle last weekend for PAX, photos will come soon.

Screen Grabs For Composition Part 2

-->Bambi 1942 One of my favorites....which I'll talk about later. Tyrus Wong you're the man! Color use here is phenomenal. At start, color is employed softly, as muted hues. Very low chroma, lots of middle to middle-high values. It's soft and gentle in this case. There are colors present but they are subtle.
Bambi is given a tour of the forest by Thumper. Both stand out due to high contrast in color: Bambi is orange and stands out due to ge rich greens of the forest, Thumper is cooler grey and stands out due to the warm orange wood behind him.
In the meadow and Bambi's first meeting of the Prince of the Forest. Color gets toned down again to a comfortable level reminiscent of the film's beginnings. Strong greens show spring's richness
Winter, food is scarce so greens are pulled out and blues are pushed to say cold. But a calmness is still prevalent.
Spring: color is brought back again like the beginning. Not saturated, but gentle.
Mother! Mother! Bambi loses his mom to the hunter(s). Dark values, lots of low chroma blues, muted opposing colors in the shadows.

Bambi fights for Faline. Now the colors are intense, almost over saturated. Graphic black and lack of detail heightens the violent drama and obscures the characters so much we are left wondering who will come out the victor.
Bambi is reunited with Faline, as the victor (spoiler) the colors lean toward gold.
But the feeling is short lived as the forest catches fire through man's carelessness. Colors are presented almost separately, no blending, a near posterization. Now the forest is a  dangerous place where nothing can blend of live. By the way, Bambi gets shot in this sequence, nobody seems to remember it but a gun shot rings out, Bambi is seen laying in a pool of water and the Prince of the Forest says, "Get up Bambi, Get up!"

Go back and research this magnificent film. Thanks for stopping by.

Screen Grabs For Composition Part 1

Amelie:2001
This is a wonderful movie and beautifully crafted. Below are some screen shots which I hope to be able to elaborate on for my class very soon. Stay tuned.

A Sence of Accomplishment

Hello, as I get ready for another semester, I am taking the time review some of my past projects. The Memory Bots Project is basically done but I'm waiting for comments on the cover. Here are some final samples that seem to have a nice sense of expression or at least, sort of ended up the way I wanted them to. I don't know if I'd draw them this way again, but I like the Black #935 Prismacolor on animation paper. Takes a long, long time though.

Kinda fun to draw this brain. Yay anatomy! (Can you find the Hippocampus?)The last two pages before the glossary are these comic pages. This was fun and different.
What do you think?