Life On The Outside

Looking Back - Bluth days

2008-09-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

This post is prompted by Mark Pudleiner's 'Memory lane' post on his website. He put up a pic of the Land Before Time clean-up crew in Dublin at Bluth in 1987. This is the 1988 assistant animation crew on All Dogs Go To Heaven. Some of these people were previously clean up artists and in Mark's photo as well. Enjoy. Doesn't seem like that long ago really.

Left to right are: Me, Patrick Gleeson, Konrad Winterlich, Denis Deegan, Greg Tiernan, Eddie Goral, Michael Kiely, Rob Koo, Ben Burgess & Paul Bolger.

Pasadena Rt 66 Car Show

2008-09-17T12:11:00.001-07:00

I went to a fabulous car show on Sunday Sept 14, in South Pasadena. It was on Mission Ave at Fair Oaks Blvd, which also happens to be one of the original sections of Route 66. Being a Route 66 fan, I just had to go. There were probably well over 200 cars, including, old trucks, vintage fire engines, European sports cars, musclecars, hot rods, even antique pumping motors used on farms, almost all mesticulously restored. Portions of the proceeds from vendors, and other donations are used to fund the South Pasadena Torunament of Roses Committee - the oldest self built float in the parade.

It was great time, met some great people and of course saw lots of neat cars. And it was right off the original 1926 alignment of Rt 66, which went down Fair Oaks Blvd before hitting Huntington then Mission onto Broadway and ending downtown at Broadway & 7th St. More on Rt 66 in future posts.

Here we have a line of cars that looked like they were ready to eat that little girl if she didn't watch out.

The fearsome threesome - Robin, Batman, and Wonder Woman, or a close facsimile.

Of course, The Batmobile. Although, not the real 'first' car. A replica, clone, what have you, of which I think there are 4 or 5. The original George Barris Batmobile made from the 1955 Lincoln Futura is in George Barris' shop on Riverside Dr, in N. Hollywood.
A few of the many 'finned' entries. The one in front is a '56 Chevy Bel Air and the white one behind it is a 1956 Lincoln Premier. I love finned cars. And of course these were only a few of the hundreds of cars. Will post more later.

Hot Rods and Nice Photos

2008-09-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

This is just a shameless plug for my daughter's new hot rod photography blog. Her name is Lauren and she's getting to be a pretty good photographer and like me digs hot rods, musclecars, and stuff that goes fast. Please check it out - Life In The Fast Lane blog Check out this photo of a '41 Ford front end.

Mr. Fun

2008-08-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

If you haven't yet had a chance to check out Mr. Fun's blog, (aka Floyd Norman) please do. I'm sure most of you pros in the business either know him or have at least heard of him, but those of you who aren't in animation or haven't heard of him are in for a treat. Floyd was a long time Disney artist, a storyman at Pixar and all around nice guy. He's full of wonderful stories about the old and new days in the studios and of course his famous 'gag wall' from which the cartoon above is from. As we must keep these studios on their toes sometimes, Floyd does with these wonderful cartoons.

"The Wrecking Crew"

2008-08-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

If anyone of you out there have a chance in the next few days to catch the documentary, "The Wrecking Crew" you won't be disappointed. If you are or were a fan of 60's pop music, rock music, The Beach Boys, Sonny & Cher, Phil Spector's "Wall Of Sound", Glen Campbell, The Monkees, then this movie is for you.

This movie is being shown as a part of the ArcLight Hollywood theater's DocuWeek showings of documentaries. Hurry too, as there are only screenings of this tonight Aug 26, Wed the 27th & Thurs 28th. Go see it. It's great! I saw it today at lunch at the ArcLight.

It's a fabulous look at who exactly were the musicians that played on all those top hits of the 50's and 60's and behind the scenes interviews with that close knit group of super talented artists that were instrumental to those songs by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, The Mamas and Papas, Nancy Sinatra, The Monkees, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, all of Phil Spector's hits and many more.

My hat's off to Tommy Tedesco's son Denny, who made this film and to all the wonderful musicians such as Hal Blaine, Tommy Tedesco, Glen Campbell, Earl Palmer, Don Randi, Carol Kaye, Plas Johnson and many others.

Go here to see the trailer.

Old WB stuff

2008-05-18T14:55:00.000-07:00

Here's some old drawings I found from a spot I animated on from back in the WB Classics days. It's Daffy of course, selling this drink in Spain or Mexico called Trina. It was a Spanish language commercial. There were 3 Daffy's sitting side by side drinking it. Doug McCarthy directed the spots.

Mars Bar Robots

2008-04-20T17:25:00.000-07:00

These are robot sketches from a robot I designed for our 3D short, Mars Bar. No telling when it's going to be done. It's sort of in limbo at the moment as people have other commitments like heavy duty work at the studios. But I started playing with the designs again in Sketchbook Pro.
He's a fun robot, aptly named Unibot.

Rats

2008-04-12T23:34:00.001-07:00

Possible character for a short idea I started a really long time ago back in Chicago.

Hercules effects

2008-03-29T15:59:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd put up an old scene I did effects on from Hercules of Hades giving baby Herc a skull looking sucker. Doesn't seem like it was 10 years ago already.

Cool Present

2008-03-26T13:37:00.001-07:00

Just thought I'd share this cool present my daughter Lauren made for my birthday yesterday. It's an anmation desktop with disc and paper and pencils, made out of Fimo Clay. She used translucent white for the paper. It's about 4 1/2" wide by 3" tall. She's an excellent minature sculptor in this stuff. It's very cool. Thanks Lauren!! I love it.

More Surfer Dude

2008-03-10T16:20:00.001-07:00

I'm just having fun with this guy in Sketchbook. Who knows, maybe he'll evolve into something.

Drawing Club Sketch

2008-03-08T17:10:00.000-08:00

This is a sketch I did at Bob Kato's excellent Drawing Club a while back.

Sketchbook

2008-03-07T19:41:00.000-08:00

I just got Sketchbook Pro the other day, and I love it. It's a lot of fun, so here's a few images with more to come from it. I have to get a better tablet though, as I have this cheapie Wacom Graphire from a few years ago. It's alright but not great, but does the job for now.

This is some surf dude that I'm sure hangs out along the coast somewhere.

Not Brand Echh Part 2

2008-01-31T17:28:00.001-08:00

Here is the Origin of Stuporman also from Not Brand Echh # 7. Another great piece. Again, Marie Severin penciled and inked this piece. Click images for larger versions.

Not Brand Echh

2008-01-31T11:00:00.000-08:00

This was my favorite regular comic book when I was a kid, Marvel's Not Brand Echh. It came out in 1967 and was a parody of all things Marvel, drawn by the same artists who broght you Fantastic Four, Superman, and the rest of the Marvel gang. I have the complete original run of 13 comics. I wasn't a huge Marvel comic fan really, as the regular superheros were not my thing, but anything that made fun of something definitely was. At the time, my favorite regular comic was Spiderman. Mostly I bought a lot of Mads which unfortunately I don't have anymore. I'm sure lots of them got thrown out or lost when we moved.

But here's Issue 7 of Not Brand Echh, which I think is great starting with the origins of the Fantastical Four & Stuporman. According to the Grand Comics Database - the super talented Marie Severin did the cover, and on this story I think Jack Kirby did layouts and Marie did the pencils and Tom Sutton did the inking. I don't claim to be by any means an expert on who did what comics, so if there's any artist mistakes let me know.

I just loved the way these look and they were fun for any 12 year old. I will put up the second story soon, on the origin of Stuporman. Enjoy.

Beatley Christmas

2008-01-08T15:39:00.000-08:00

Now I don't know how many out there are Beatle fans, but I got the new re-release of the fabs second movie Help! for Christmas. I'm so happy it finally came out. It's a great two disc set that has been restored much like the Hard Days Night version, although the boxing isn't quite as elaborate. The first disc is the movie and it looks and sounds great! Crisp and clear and the color is beautiful. The 2nd disc has a 30 minute documentary on the making of the movie, which unfortunately doesn't have any present interviews with any of the Beatles but none the less has interviews with Richard Lester the director and actress Elenor Bron and others. There's a good in-depth look at the restoration process as well on there. This puts the previous vhs release to shame.

I like this film for a number of reasons. One, I like the Beatles. I'm a big big fan. They were a big influence on my musical tastes growing up, along with other groups of the 60's. Two, this was the first or one of the first movies I went to with my friend, by ourselves in 1965. I was only 10 years old and my mom dropped my friend and I off at the local Lancaster Theater in Lancaster, NY back when you could drop your 10 year olds off by themselves and not have to worry. I just remember going to the show and watching it and loving it. It was just so exciting for a young kid to see something like this. I also remember even more vividly seeing Yellow Submarine only 3 years later, when I was 13 which may or may not have had an influence on my interest in animation, I'm not really sure. But that's a post for another day.

But seeing it again brings me back in a good way, to that time in my life. Love the music and the fun of it all. If you're a Beatle fan, check it out. It's well worth it.

Eating Pizza!

2008-01-06T19:42:00.001-08:00

Saw this dude eating pizza at Dino's Pizza in Burbank, so I quickly sketched him on the menu and scanned it and colored it quickly in Photoshop. I know there's some things wrong , but I don't care, it's an impression I was going for. That and I don't like to finish drawings or clean them up, they always get too tight and stiff on me, so I don't bother.

I really don't think this guy needed any more pizza to tell you the truth, but it looked like he ate there a lot!

It's A Wonderful Life - Then & Now

2007-12-26T22:54:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd make a little post having something to do with favorite Christmas movies. Just up the road a bit from where I live is where they filmed the 'Bailey Park' section of Frank Capra's great holiday classic - It's A Wonderful Life. It's actually in La Cañada, California (for you out of towners!) The movie takes place of course, in the fictional town of Bedford Falls NY, which the residents of Seneca Falls NY say the town was modeled after. I thought I'd share some pics of the fictional Bailey Park of 1947 and Viro Road today in La Cañada where it was filmed. It really was today too, as I took these pictures this afternoon. So enjoy.

1947 - Entrance to Bailey Park. Obviously a new development of $5000 homes going up just after the war. Big housing boom in the Los Angeles suburbs like everywhere else after the war.

2007 - Entrance to this side street in La Cañada. The old tree is missing, and I didn't quite get the angle right but I didn't want to trespass on the owner's property to the left on the corner. Nice mature trees & paved roads. You can barely make out the mountains in the back. A very nice neighborhood too. I'm sure it's quite pricey today, about a half mile from Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

1947 - The front of the new Martini home that George Bailey got them via the old Building & Loan.

2007 - The same house today. Some paint and trim and walkways have changed but basically it's the same place 60 years later.

1947 - Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed welcome the Martini's to their new home, at number 4587.

2007 - No one was home, but the number is still up there the same as it was. I actually wonder how many visitors they get on this street during the holidays, or that maybe the owners leave town as not to get bothered.

Sonny Landreth Plays Guitar

2007-12-22T16:13:00.000-08:00

This video is amazing. Top notch slide guitarist Sonny Landreth playing at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival this past summer in Chicago. One of my newer favorite guitarists. So many greats played at that fest from Johnny Winter, Albert Lee, Vince Gill to B.B. King & Buddy Guy. Wish I could've been there.

Sketching out and about

2007-12-17T10:38:00.000-08:00

For some reason, the pics I put up got lost. I'll try again. This were done out in various places the other day. Bob's Big Boy, Poquito Mas and Starbucks.

Funny Cars. . . .

2007-11-07T17:11:00.001-08:00

. . .Or how I spent my Thursday afternoon with my daughter. Last Thursday we went out to Pomona Raceway to spend a day during qualifying rounds for the NHRA World Finals held every year there. I'm a big drag racing fan going back to my teens, and in my early twenties spent every weekend at the US 30 dragstrip in Merriville Indiana, with my friend, basically helping him wrench on his two cars. So every once in a while I get out to Pomona to see the action. To me it's just a blast to see nitro dragsters and funny cars rip down the 1/4 mile. It's gotten a lot more corporate over the years, much like everything. It's about money, selling a product and of course winning to keep your sponsor. But to me, it's also fun. There's also a lot more women racing these days which is great I think. Talk about 'fast women'. . .these girls do the 1/4 mile in 4.7 secs at 330 mph! If you've never experienced this, you never forget it. Basically you 'feel' and 'hear' the nitro burning dragsters all through you when they go by. Ear protection is a must. My daughter took these great pics, except for the one I took of her and Ashley Force.

Sox & Martin sponsored Pro Stocker piloted by Bob Panella Jr.

Funny Car driver Ashley Force poses with my daughter Lauren.

Ashley Force just finishing her burnout. She qualified 4th for Sunday's race, around 4.7 seconds and 325 mph.

Tony Schumacher's dragster being loaded onto the trailer at the end of the day. I really like this pic, nice silhouette.

Robot Sketch

2007-10-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

Just sketching in Photoshop. I started with an abstract shape and this is what came out of it. Some sort of spare metal parts robot, who wears converse all-stars.

New Sky Animated Commercial

2007-09-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

My good friend and top notch animator, Richard Bazley just directed a new animated commmercial for Sky for promoting the fact they are a Carbon Neutral company and direct people to their website about them. It's a great commercial blending styles of rubber hose animation and Miyazaki influences in the backgrounds. Check it out.

You can check out the commercial quicktime movie HERE.

Go Here for an article on Digital Arts' website about the making of the commercial.

A Little Animation

2007-09-16T23:13:00.001-07:00

My posting is sporadic lately. Been putting in hardwood floors in our house to get it closer to selling the darn thing. But here's something animated.

This is an old take on a scene from a short film that I've been working on with other fellow animators in town here. It takes place on Mars. In a bar. It's robots.

It's About Time I Wrote Something

2007-07-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

Geeze, it's been a while since I posted. Been super busy, but not really in any art way. Been finishing up my house that we are putting on the market in Sept, so we can move out of Californey. We've been doing the stuff that we just haven't gotten around to either due to time or money or both. Now we're on the backstretch. Never again will I restore an 85 year old house.

But otherwise, I just got a couple of great books I thought I'd plug. The first is Tales Of Terror, the complete compendium of all the EC comics by Grant Geissman and Fred von Bernewitz. This is a updated version of the original EC Comics Checklist first published in 1955 by Fred von Bernewitz. It's chock full of everything EC and all their history of the comics line, writing credits, art, covers, interviews, photos, art, etc. Amazing stuff if you're an EC comics fan.

The second book is Foul Play! The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950's E.C. Comics, also by Grant Geissman. This has great interviews, artwork, and chapters on each of EC's great artists like Al Feldstein, Jack Davis, Grahm Ingels, Wally Wood, Will Elder, Harvey Kurtzman, and others. Definitely worth checking out for all you comics fans. I know these have been out for a few years already but I just never got around to getting them until recently.

Besides being a great writer of things EC, Grant Geissman's day job is that of a well respected studio jazz guitarist with 11 eleven albums, and also played one of my favorite guitar solos way back in Chuck Mangione's band on Feels So Good.

I've finally made it!

2007-04-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, that title is midleading. I just wanted to sucker you in to reading this. While I was on vacation a few years ago visiting my mom in Erie PA, I came across this Hercules sticker book in a Rexall drugs in some sale bin that was with a bunch of other cheapie coloring books and other assorted things like I can't remember. I just had to buy it, because . . . one of my efx scenes actually made it to a sticker. "See mom!! I made it! I'm in a sticker book!"

The sticker book

The sticker with my flame efx and a
weird looking hand of Hercules

Alex Toth and Drag Cartoons

2007-03-19T20:45:00.000-07:00

While reading the ASIFI Animation Archive site the other day, they had a post on Alex Toth. Now when I was kid, I didn't watch many H-B cartoons like Space Ghost, Herculoids, Super Friends, etc. so I knew nothing of the shows Toth was involved with or what he did or who he was. Honestly I don't remember watching those shows at all. The only H-B stuff I watched was stuff like Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, and all those. Mostly I just played in this old fashioned way with my friends. . . they called it "outside". You know, baseball, football, climb trees, play army. Things kids today don't know much about. I was a big Mad magazine fan, but not really a comics collector like the Marvel and DC type. However, what I was into were hot rods and hot rod cartoons like Drag Cartoons, Cartoons, Hot Rod Cartoons, and others put out by cartoonist and publisher Pete Millar.

So I was jazzed when I picked up my copy of 'Toth - One For The Road" put out by Michael Auad Publishing. If you want to see another side of Alex Toth check out this book. This is a complete collection of all the great cartoons he wrote and drew for Millar's Drag Cartoons, Hot Rod Cartoons and Big Daddy Roth comics. I didn't know who he was at the time, but looking at the cartoons again today it is his cartoons that I remember most. This doesn't by any means degrade his great design work he did for H-B, it was just another outlet for his creativity at the time that not many people know about unless they are or were into cars, or drag racing and the like.

So besides Toth's stuff, another great collection of stuff to get - if you are a hot rod comics kid from days of old (the 60's) are the cd's of all the hot rod cartoons Pete Millar wrote and drew and published. You can get those here. And I must add, his family who takes care of the comics biz these days since Pete's passing in 2003, are the nicest folks ever. In just the few emails I've exchanged with Pete's daughter Robin, you can just tell they truly care about what Pete left and his love of comics and hot rods.

Good Irish Ale

2007-03-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

This post really has nothing to do with animation other than the fact I first tasted Smithwicks ale (or as the Irish pronounce it "Smiddicks") while working at Bluth Studios in Dublin. I remember really liking it. It wasn't heavy and dark like Guinness, not that fresh Guinness at a local Irish isn't good, but I'm not a heavy dark beer drinker per se. But now after all these years, Smithwicks is available at your local Ralphs supermarket. I just happen to see it the other day and bought the only 6 pack they had on the shelf. It was on sale too, so I hope that was the reason there was only one 6 pack left. So if you've ever tasted this or even haven't, go grab some and enjoy it.

Suicidal Toondencies

2007-03-11T20:29:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, like years really, I was working at WB Classics, doing commercials and other stuff. As we looked on the laser disks and tapes for reference material I started to collect printouts of all the characters who put a gun to their head during a cartoon. I enlarged them out and posted them all around my cubicle, along with some drawings of the ones who never did that in a cartoon. I just thought it was funny. One day our producer came over and saw all these and asked me if that's how I felt. I just looked at her and said "yes, all the time!" I don't think she saw the humor in it. But frankly, I didn't care either.

Being the way things are today, you could never show a character contemplating suicide, let alone shooting someone else. Never mind that today's cartoons are totally unfunny, overly politically correct, and have lame ass stories and the writers are the ones that should probably be shot. But I guess children's groups, execs, producers, etc, can't figure out that those were CARTOONS and really, when you think about it, rabbits and ducks that talk, carry guns, and coyotes that always seem to blow themselves up IS FUNNY! Really funny!

But here are just a few I've collected again off the dvds, and a few my friend Frank Gabriel sent me, and a couple drawn by me or others back then. So enjoy.

Itch In Time

Plane Daffy

Rabbit Fire

Scaredy Cat

The Scarlet Pumpernickel

Ballot Box Bunny

Barbary Coast Bunny

For Sentimental Reasons

Here Today, Gone Tamale

Daffy by Donnachada Daly

The next two I sketched out of Michigan J. Frog & Taz

Warner Daze

2007-03-03T21:10:00.000-08:00

I was cleaning out a bunch of stuff and came across some drawings I had from animation I did on the Duck Dodgers in 3D project I worked on at Warner Classics. I wish I could say the 3D element of that project was great, but in my opinion it could've and should've been so much better. The 2D animators that already worked in 3D did great scenes, like Andrew Gordon.

We actually animated either fully or posed out all the animation before it was 'reanimated' or the 3D crew used our drawings for reference in the 3D. I've actually never seen the short in 3D with the glasses so I can't really say what the final outcome was. But anyway, here's some fun stuff from the sequence where Daffy & K9 crash the spaceship and Daffy with the airbag.

One Fine Day On Iron Giant - Part 2

2007-02-27T11:57:00.000-08:00

Got a comment from Dave Nethery about the Iron Giant outtake and he was kind enough to link me to info on how to actually load a quicktime movie, which I hadn't any idea how to before. Thanks Dave.

And thanks to my assistant back then, Ryan Carlson helping me bang this thing out in a few hours for approvals the next day.

So here's the actual outtake that isn't in the movie.

Life Before Animation

2006-12-27T20:15:00.000-08:00

Like I said about the blog, this isn't all about my life in animation. It's about other things as well. Take for instance this photo, This is me back in '78, I was 23 and practicing guitar in my parent's basement in a suburb of Chicago. That's my trusty Takamine 12 string I'm playing and my 1963 Fender Stratocaster in the background.

This was well before animation even entered my brain as a way to make a living. I was a semi- struggling musician and living at home. Well, not really struggling, as my parents were very very understanding. Hell, I slept until noon, taught guitar at the local music shop during afternoons and evenings, and stayed up late at night. In essence, I was a typical 23 year old musician. I played in a short lived (on my part at least) southern rock band on weekends or at night. We did covers by The Allman Brothers, Charlie Daniels, Poco, Marshall Tucker Band, Heartsfield, Les Dudek, and Pure Prairie League. The band was really quite good, but I had my own disagreements with the drumming. So I quit. Not that we were on our way up to greatness, but one never knows. Well anyway, on most other weekends I played in a 'wedding band'. Ah yes, a 'wedding band'. The Bob Basso Revue to be exact. Heck, I even owned my own tuxedo. I was not however, a 'wedding singer.'

It was your typical Chicago wedding band of the late 70's. Bad hair and bad suits, but that didn't seem to stop us from getting hired. Maybe there was a shortage of badly hair styled wedding bands back then, I don't know. This particular wedding band was headed by this old band leader and sax player named Bob Basso, hence the name. I had replaced a good friend of mine, Harry Hmura, on guitar who went on the road with famous Chicago blues harmonica player James Cotton and later Sugar Blue and others. So at the time, I thought it was a good gig. This might lead to something. And I got paid to play! What more could you ask for? Free food and drinks too! Strangely enough, my friend Harry went on to play with many people in jazz and blues, and I ended up designing and doing the art for his first two albums.

But back to the weddings. . .I'd have to say, we probably weren't the worst wedding band in history, but the fact was, we rarely, if ever rehearsed. Well, okay, once, at the beginning of the season. That was it! Literally, that was it! We ran through the list of songs in the trusty fake book, and some of the popular upcoming tunes of that time, like Celebration, (this was the 70's and the disco era after all! ) and others. Otherwise we read everything else off charts on the spot. That was the one requirement of joining this band, you had to be able to read music charts and of course play your instrument. If a wedding party goer wanted to hear a song, and we all knew it - hell, no problem. But if we didn't know it by heart and it was in our charts and we had never really played it . . . well, I used to pity the party that heard it first. It was like a rehearsal at their expense. Thankfully, they were usually so drunk by that time, that it really didn't matter what we sounded like as long as the song was recognizable. Most seem to enjoy the music and on more than one occasion we were even applauded with vigor on our performance. If you've ever gone to many wedding receptions, you eventually see a lot of drunk people, most of whom can't remember a thing they heard or said that night. So I took their compliments with somewhat of a grain of salt, especially if it was by the groom's drunken brother who was already hitting on the bride and he also loved our performance of Takin' Care of Business, yet another staple of weddings everywhere.

Sometimes young kids would come up and request heavier rock tunes like Zeppelin or Deep Purple or Black Sabbath. Come to think of it, Dazed and Confused is probably pretty appropriate for a wedding. These heavy rock tunes were usually kind of tricky for us as our earlier incarnation of the band had one of the oldest drummers on the wedding band circuit. Poor Al, he was probably in his sixties at least. He was the type of guy who used the same beat for every rock tune we did, no matter if it was a Beatles or Creedence or Stones tune. He was from another era. The 1940's I believe. We sometimes would just answer if hit with a request like Black Sabbath, that we don't know it, rather than cause Al, a heart attack. Al was a really nice guy but usually by near the end of the night he'd had a few too many drinks in him and he'd be slowing the beats down and you'd have to force the rhythm just to get him to keep up! He eventually retired and was replaced by our former guitar player's brother. This was great, as we now had 3 younger musicians in the band. We still had Bob as leader and lead singer, and this older than us bass player who was kind of stodgy. But at least Danny the new drummer, could play rock, jazz as well as lame wedding songs all equally well. Danny was also the drum teacher at the store I taught at too.

The songs which I dreaded most were the standard wedding songs you had to play at every wedding back then. Proud Mary (not the Creedence one either) , Celebration, The Hokey Pokey, The Wedding Song, The Anniversary Song. I'm surprised there wasn't a Divorce Song.
I enjoyed the jazz standards because you could stretch out a little as Bob would take a sax solo and the other guitar player Frank or I would take guitar solos and you could use cool jazz chords instead of standard rock chords. Stuff like Watch What Happens, Stardust and George Benson's Breezin' were always nice to play.

I think I made around $65 to $75 for the 3 hour gigs. It kept me in new strings, different guitars, and Chicago pizza. Sometimes I'd make more if it was a bigger event and the band charged more or for special events, like New Year's parties or something. I think I ended up playing in every hall on the south side, all with names like Chateau De Beer or Condesa Del Sausage. All dressed up in a nifty tux with stripes on the pants, ruffly shirt and shiny black shoes. It was quite an experience and I'd have to say it really helped with the guitar chops to read charts every weekend. Looking back, we had a lot of fun. Heck, I was 23 and living at home, and just playing guitar. That didn't seem so bad. Didn't hit the big time but what the heck. I guess the animated movies I've worked on more than make up for that.

The one thing I wish I still had from all this is that DAMN guitar in the background of the photo. That was an original 1963 Strat! I've had many guitars since then, and still have a Gibson 335 I've had for over 25 years, but I only paid $450 for that Strat! I eventually sold it to a member of Tammy Wynette's band for $1200. So I did profit some $750! BUT those guitars are worth like ten grand in today's market. Oh well, can't live in the past as my wife says to me.
Where's my TIME MACHINE!! I wanna go back and get it!

One Day On Iron Giant

2006-12-26T19:10:00.000-08:00

Back on Iron Giant, I had an efx scene to do with Kent lighting up his pipe while asking the train engineer where a phone was. Brad Bird wanted this smoke to look like the smoke from the cigars in Pinocchio that Lampwick was smoking. After I got the reference, I quickly animated this version for fun, because the Kent animation just lent itself to this gag. Luckily Brad thought it was hilarious and it made it to the dvd outtakes. Brad had the sound editor add a really loud Warner-esque explosion to it too which made it even funnier. I did of course, do the real one that was in the movie. The train engineer of course was the one and only Ollie Johnston in a cameo role. Those of you who don't know, Ollie was a top animator at Disney and one of Walt's Nine Old Men and train fanatic, like Walt.

Something new-ish

2006-12-24T09:18:00.000-08:00

Well, I know it's been a while since I posted. Busy trying to finish some home remodeling that I hope won't be re-muddling. Been building a bedroom for my daughter out in our guest house. She's itching for me to get it done. So in the meantime, here's a cg model I've been trying to finish of a WWII P-40 Warhawk. I really dig the way the old fighter planes look.

BBC News View

2006-11-22T16:03:00.000-08:00

As we were watching the BBC news today, my son who was supposed to be doing his homework listened to a story about a serial killer and quickly sketched this up. I'm afraid there's no hope for this 10 year old. He's destined for the 'toon biz. It was just too funny not to put up here.

This vacuum DOES indeed suck

2006-11-17T18:56:00.000-08:00

Just a couple of sketches that turned into a 3D model for our short film . I made these designs for a couple of robot ideas and one of our guys on the crew, Adam Stewart, took both of them and combined them for the finished model of a bar cleanup type canister vacuum model. I think it turned out great.

Take one robot head . . . .

Add a canister vacuum. . .

And Viola! Add a nice jog shuttle and some cool wheels.
I want one of these myself!

More "Ink" Toons

2006-11-09T16:20:00.000-08:00

This was what we thought the various owners at various studios were thinking at the time. . .

And of course next, the auctioning off of talent. Captured brilliantly by Sean Sullivan.

(click for larger versions)

"The Ink" toons

2006-11-04T12:40:00.000-08:00

From '89 - '92 , when I was working at Don Bluth Studios in Burbank, we had an inside comic paper called The Ink. It was a revamped edition of the in house comics that we had in the Dublin studio that John Eddings headed up called The Fourth Floor Funnies. We had a lot of fun making fun of whatever situations arose in the studio. This is one from one of our background painters, a very talented guy named Sean Sullivan who went onto be bg supervisor down at Disney Florida before they closed shop.

Back when people were leaving Bluth in droves for other studios like Kroyer, Disney, Hyperion, etc, Sean depicted our management trying to fire these people 'after' they left as some sort of damage control. More comics to come.

Pesky dog

2006-11-03T18:07:00.000-08:00

Sketched this out while listening to my neighbor's really annoying dog.

Doodles

2006-10-30T17:28:00.000-08:00

Sketching while watching tv late at night. Not much on after midnight.

Surfing through ESPN I guess. I wasn't really paying attention.

"Have you seen my dog? It was about this big."

Kid's stuff

2006-10-30T17:04:00.000-08:00

This is again from my son's sketch pad. He's 10. I imagine he'll be working at Cartoon Network next year or the year after. He's got a whole series of characters set and ready to go. These are the Kobooz. He drew them and I colored them in PS, with his direction of course.

Vintage Disney

2006-10-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

I'm just posting this drawing from my collection because I think it's cool. It's Willie the Giant from Mickey And The Beanstalk, circa 1947. I bought this drawing off John Pomeroy when I working at Bluth back around '90 or so. John told me it was a John Lounsbery drawing.

A 9 year old's concept

2006-10-24T16:47:00.000-07:00

Today I thought I'd share one of my son's concept drawings that we made into one of the extra characters in our short. As we were coming up with designs, our director just had everyone go home and design stuff. I told my son he should draw up some robots, as that is what he likes to do anyway. I brought them back and one of his was picked to be one of the extra characters. I did a more detailed version for the modeler and the finished model was done by one of our classmates who worked on the project for a short time.

The original design of toybot

My cleanup model

The final cg model

Personally, I think the cg model lost something in the translation, and my son complained that it didn't have the scooper thing on the end of his tail over his head. My mistake. Plus he lost the vents on the side, and the modeler put pants on him. I thought the vents were cool. I liked the boxy design of the original too like it was a old metal computer cabinet from the 50's or something. I'm not fond of pants on robots or even cartoon animals. Well, it was a democratic project and people were learning and adding their own touches. I say, not bad for a nine year old.

Blog look change

2006-10-23T20:40:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah, I know, I changed the blog look. I'm still not totally satisfied with their templates but since I don't really know html, I guess this is it for a while. Maybe I'll be able to change a few things later as I figure this out.

One Day At A Time

2006-10-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

This blog isn't going to be my rant for or against the animation industry. It's just what I've been doing and am going to do in and around the biz. I'll leave it to others to pontificate on the business of animation. I will post pics and drawings every now and again as I get to them. Hopefully more often than not.

I'll continue to fight the good fight of remodeling my house, playing with my kids, making sure my wife gets enought sleep, and trying to keep the squirrels out of our giant pecan tree. We lost that fight again this year. It was a bumper crop for them I must say. I really don't know where they hide them all, and I haven't seen one sticky note yet to remind them where they do.

Other things I have been doing over the past year have been this 3D short film I'm working on with other animation friends from various studios. It's a great little film, or as I call it, 'the world's longest short' as it's taken some time just to get it to this point. It started out at Studio Arts during the day classes where we all went for Maya. These were the cheap $75/semester classes mostly paid for the LAUSD (the Los Angeles school system). One of the few things that I think the LA school system was ever good for, because their public schools sure aren't great shakes. One of the tricks of going to these cheaper classes was that you had to be available during the weekdays from 8 am to 3 pm. So it worked for all us unemployed animation folk if you could swing it. Into our second semester we decided to start a project during class instead of just class work, so we wrote, designed, modeled and and are animating a nice short film.

The character above is one of the main characters I modeled and am animating. It was textured by a very talented 3D artist named Iohann Sanmartin from Bogota, Colombia. The character's name is Bubba. He's a blue collar, none too bright working class robot. It's a fun little film and I think it looks great so far in the renders and lighting department as well as the design and animation. It takes place on Mars and has robots but really has nothing to do with anything like the movie Robots.

This Other Life

2006-10-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

Hi! I'm an artist. I used to work in the animation industry in LA. I still do as a matter of fact, when I get the chance. I'm an effects animator, the 2D kind. The kind they don't use much of anymore. The kind that were made redundant when the big 3D craze hit. I didn't learn effects in any 3D program such as Maya as it didn't appeal to me. I recently went back to my roots in animation which was in character animation, and that I have adapted to 3D, so now it's a matter of jumping back on the horse and getting back out there. It all takes time to get scenes and stuff together again for a new demo reel. I spent most of the last 2 years in school training on Maya full time.

Which brings me to my other world. My life outside the animation industry. Because of lost work and paychecks and house payments and cars and kids and bills, my wife went back to work as an RN (registered nurse). It's a great job and it pays well and it gets a lot of respect from me.

So we basically switched roles a few years ago, and my life is one of house husbandry. She had been out of the nursing realm for over 6 years as my job seemed secure at the time, so she had to ramp up too as it were on new techniques and medical procedures that changed over the course of 6 years. She went through a period of maybe a year and through 3 different hospitals to get to where she is now. She's an ICU nurse and deals with heart patients. She's amazing. If we make a mistake and kill a drawing, nobody dies. If she or a doctor make a mistake someone could die. I think she'd like a lot less pressure, like one of an artist.

We also have two kids. A girl who is 17 and graduated high school this year. Undecided in what to do. Might be animation, might not. She draws, creates jewelry, & is a quite the photographer. We also have a son who is 10. He does nothing but draw, usually 1-3 hours a day. He already knows he wants to design video games or something of that nature. Both kids are homeschooled so they are basically home all the time.

Maybe, just maybe, when I have time, I can eke out a drawing or sketch on a napkin or hamburger wrapper during my lunch at In 'n Out. That is if I don't use the napkin to wipe the ketchup off my son's chin or something disgustingly worse like the table we're eating at. Actually, a ketchup drawing might be just the thing. . .with mustard for the hair color.

All that and we're going on about 8 years of restoring our old house that was originally built in 1922 as time and money permit. It's almost done.

So this is my story . . . . . . . . . . .stay tuned. . . .