Coda

I mentioned a few posts back that I was working with the Iowa Filmmakers on a short martial arts film (Now titled "Coda"). Well, I unfortunately had to drop out of completing my work on it due to some other gigs but I've heard filming has started on it and all is well.  I really only worked on 2 scenes but it was a blast to do and hopefully I'll be able to collaborate with those guys again in the future.  Here's a few of my favorite boards from the opening:

 

Storyboarding Class-Week 4

Week 4 of CGMA's storyboarding class with Steven Macleod consisted of doing some film studies (at least10 consecutive drawings) and taking photos to replicate compositions found in movies.  For the film study I chose "True Grit" by Cinematographer Roger Deakins.  Deakins' stuff is flat out awesome.  He can use a wide angle lens like a boss and I love the ubiquitous feel in everything he shoots.  So have a look at my drawings for that below.  I'd show you the photos but they're nothing special.  Mostly just shots of my girlfriend and dog.  Mkay, see you guys back here for week 5!

Storyboarding Class Week 3

We're past the 3 week point in class and it's still going great.  This past assignment was to either write a short script between 2 characters OR draw beat boards for something you did last summer or a childhood memory.  I opted for the childhood memory route and handed these in.  They probably don't need the generic descriptions I put on them but I'm fairly happy with how they turned out (considering I cranked them out over 2 short nights.)  Enjoy.

*and here's a bonus sketch of my girlfriend, Erin.  she had a long day at work and...well, this happened...

Storyboarding class - Week 2

So as I mentioned before I'm currently taking Steven Macleod's Storyboarding for feature animation class over on CGMA.  We're 3 weeks in and I'm loving it.  Steven is a great guy and his class has so much information in it.  I haven't taken notes like this since I was in art history back at ISU.  Anyways I thought I'd share the homework assignment for week 2, in which we were tasked with creating five original "gag" drawings.  A lot of what we just covered in the lecture had to do with the power of a single image and what makes for an interesting gag drawing.  Awesome stuff.  Steven even went over some of the stuff he learned from Matthew Luhn while at Pixar.  Again, awesome stuff.  So take a look at these and stay tuned for my next update from class.
-B

Sketches

This blog has been a little lacking in the sketch department so let's fix that, shall we?  Alrighty then.  These were all done in the last month or so and include everything from my recent trip to Arizona, to watching a lecture at the library, as well as some cafe sketches that were an assignment for my storyboarding class.  It's funny to be required to do sketches for an assignment, since I try and do it all time anyways.  Anywho, I promise to get better at posting sketchy stuff and will do so once I get my big scanner all hooked up.

Cheerio!

Smoky Row Cafe

More Smoky Row (except for the sleeping dog:)

Cheryl Strayed's talk at the Des Moines Public Library

Mesa and Denver Airports

Done during a sketchcrawl in Scottsdale, AZ

Name Droppin'

I've been pretty busy working on a couple stories and doing some freelance.  Actually, I just got hired to do some toy designs for "The Walking Dead".  As in the TV show.  As in these things will be sold in stores.  So yeah, I've been freaking out about that but it's been fun so far.  Hopefully I can post some stuff from that soon.  But yeah, in between that I'm boarding out a story I wrote featuring the dog and guy you see below.  It's been a blast so far and I hope to see it through soon.  The rough stage at least.  My friend Adam (professional story board extraordinaire on such films as "Ice Age" and "Despicable Me") has been giving me advice along the way and I think this will end up as a good portfolio piece.  Consider this image a sneak preview.

Oh yeah, and I just signed up for a "storyboarding for feature animation" class with Steven Macleod!  Steven is a story artist at Dreamworks animation and has worked on "How To Train Your Dragon" and "The Croods", so I'm super pumped for that.  Man, I feel like I'm name-dropping a bunch in this post.  So why not do some more...

Adam Scott, the actor guy from "Parks and Rec." recently filmed a promo for a short film he's doing with Nick Offerman.  It's a ridiculous video but you can see Adam wearing a green shirt I designed that features a pirate riding a unicorn.  Pretty awesome.  You can see it here

That's all for now, I think...

Dog-racked.

This just happened and in an average week happens at least twice.  Apparently I need to start wearing a cup around the house.  

Kenpo Movie

I just started working on a short film with the Iowa Filmmakers tentatively titled 'Kenpo Movie'. Actually that name is just a placeholder and as soon as we figure out was it's called I shall tell it to the world.  Simply put, it's about a guy that's just trying to do right by the world but also happens to be a classical violinist and martial arts badass.   We're not too far along it but it's coming together quite nicely.  Just yesterday we rehearsed and demo'd some of the fight sequences to get the choreography straightened out.  I'll post more about this as we get farther into production, but here's some sketches of Jack ( the main character) playing his violin.

BURP!

If you know my girlfriend Erin, you know she can burp on occasion. Quite often actually. But I've learned to live with it. I personally don't even know how to burp (seriously, I have no clue) but every time she burps it seems like she always has a new excuse for it.  I've had the idea to immortalize this in drawn form for quite some time, so I'm glad I finally made it happen.

ps-Erin says that I have to allow her to burp whenever she wants as a result of posting this.

Blockwalking with Luna

We went for walk around the block this morning ( we call it a "blockwalk") with Luna and she took a huge poop in the snow.  I couldn't pick it up without scooping a bunch of snow with it so I just went for it with my little green doggie bag.

My favorites.

Out on the town

Went out to eat the other night for a b-day party and saw some interesting peeps.  At the restaurant we ate at there was this Mom and daughter right across from us.  The girl was just staring at her phone and the Mom was just staring at the daughter.  Made me laugh.  And then after that we went to a bar that bills itself as "30 and over" kind of place.  There was this older guy there who was out on the prowl and kept asking all of the women to dance.  The guy was quite the character and just begging to be drawn.

And yes, the line in quotes was the actual line I overheard him use.  Funny.

Watching Movies

Here's some film studies from "Presto" and "The Avengers."

From Pixar's short film, "Presto"

From "The Avengers"

Taxes

I have the coolest accountant ever.  Every time I go to get my taxes done she has a little art project that she needs completed.  Last year it was a painting and this time it's illustrations for a book idea she has.  Basically a cartoonish book about tax preparation.

Here's a sample I did one night and shot over to her.  It wasn't simple enough for what she had in mind but I thought I'd go ahead and post this earlier version.  We're on revision 3 so we'll see what we end up with.

Just a couple sketch ideas before I got started

The final result from that go-round.

Next Five Exercise

Over in the twitter world Emma Coats aka @lawnrocket posted the challenge of taking a random picture and drawing the next 5 panels.  An awesome storytelling exercise I tell ya.  So here's my take.  I pictured the girl waking up abruptly and then a tendril/vine thing shoots out of the ground.  As she gets up a bunch more tendrils shoot up and she decided to climb one of them.  If I'd gone any further I had the idea for a dragon flying by that she would hop on.  Why not?

Here's the original picture

#nextfive