Nickelodeon Animated Shorts submission!

Not in a million years did I think I would have the guts to pitch an idea, but with the help of a fellow animation buddy... we made it possible!  It'll be about 2 months before we actually hear anything, but yay for creative endeavors finally coming to fruition! 

Mermaids and PIXAR

I drew this image with a photo reference of a girl doing aerial arts, and decided to make her a mermaid.

Sometimes I feel like I try too hard to draw something picture-perfect from its reference, that the imagination doesn't get its fair time to shine.  I think that with any kind of drawing - if you do want to become an artist - you always need to step back from perfection a little bit and just play around with the pen on paper.  I'm getting a lot of cool images that way, so it's really exciting.

Tonight, I was lucky enough to meet Aarom Hartline, one of the animators at PIXAR, as he was doing a talk at Columbia College.  He had the most impressive example to what it was like to grow up without that privileged background or support in art, just wanting to do it because he knew it was what he loved to do.  He started working at small game design companies as a character designer, while raising a daughter and going to night school for computer animation to get a grip on that booming business.  It was his own perseverance and help from his fellow classmates that kept him in the job market, and it took him thirteen years of rejection before he'd get to set foot inside the Pixar studios.

It's made me nostalgic about the ideas I had about becoming an animator, way back in late 2008.  Wow, has it really been 4 years!?  Did I give up too easily, or did I just not want it enough?  I don't know... I find myself going through class schedules for animation and drawing courses at local colleges, wondering what it'd be like to actually say I have a demo reel with work.  I feel like I'm limiting myself for no reason.

It would be nice to put myself out there, again.

Trust the Marker

Sometimes inspiration just comes the moment the marker touches paper.

My thoughts on Shorts

February still feels like December!

This year was a different year at the Oscars for me, because I took initiative to see the three Oscar Nominated Short Film categories: Documentary, Live-Action, and Animation.  Even better?  The ones I ended up rooting for won!  =D 

Here's something to think about:  big-time directors Quentin Tarantino and George Lucas got their careers because somebody in Hollywood liked their short films.  And the guys who won last year's Animated Short got a call from Dreamworks eventually, to extend one of their short film ideas into a full feature-length film.  It became Rise of the Guardians.  0_0  Which... in my opinion, should've taken all the animation glory awards this past year, because it was amaaaazing.

Another thing:  Adventure Time!  It's a 2D animated TV show on Cartoon Network that's garnered a huge fanbase for the past  because of the wacky characters and its ridiculous, nonsequitir story-telling.  It also began as a short!  The real kicker?  Most animated programs on CN, WB, Nickelodeon and Disney have all started out as short-form animation.  It's all about getting the audience intrigued, then seeing the story as a profitable product to put on a regular 30-minute time slot. 

I'll make this post short (haha) and sweet... and just say that there's amazing amounts of talent out there by people - young and old - who are striving to make their lives be about telling stories.  My favorite short (perhaps because it was a reflection on myself) was an Oscar Nominated Documentary short about a fifteen-year-old homeless girl named Inocente whose been painting in happy colors and creating amazing artwork despite the less-than-happy lifestyle she's had.  It's the most remarkable example of hope that there is in the art world, and I remember vividly how when the film-makers received their award, all they could say was that this girl was a brilliant artist, and that the arts are dying and that we need to do what we can to keep artists alive.

I'm not sure what kind of future I have with animation, as I feel that everywhere I go, I feel like somebody's telling me a different take on the business... but I do know that I enjoy watching animated films, and just films in general.  I love the magical element of storytelling, how one thing can lead to another and before you know it, you're hooked on the characters and plot, and you're rooting for them.  I think it's because at the end of the day... reality can always get you down... and you need a good story to inspire you to get through it.

 

Owl City 2

I'd been wanting to attempt a T-Shirt design for a while.  Haha.