after 100 years...

...the project that I worked on for Swarovski is FINALLY online!

I don't know why it took them so long to put it up on their site, but it's THERE, and you can watch it now!

RIGHT HERE!

Up to 2:53 is the part I worked on.



And now to answer any questions you might have, I've written a little FAQ:

You: "Wait, what did you do on this??"

Me: I designed the characters based on the crystial figures (which already existed...I had nothing to do with how they look) and did model sheets, and I also painted the backgrounds.


Y: "Wait, what is this for?"

M: It's basically a commercial for crystal figures. They don't have much personality on their own, so they needed a little help from good old animation know-how.


Y: "Did you do that whole thing???"

M: Nope. I just designed the characters and painted the backgrounds. Courtland Lomax directed/produced the whole shebang, Sean Jimenez drew the layouts and did story boards, Ethan Metzger after-effects-ted it (with help from lots of others!), and just about every animator I know animated a few seconds here and there. Unfortunately a whole lot of the folks who worked on it don't have a blog or website or any other kind of presence on the inter-webs, or else I'd link to them right now. Get with it, guys!


Y: "What did you do the backgrounds in? Is it paint?"

M: They're digital, 100%. I have like a hundred photoshop brushes.


Y: "What's Swarovski?"

M: They make crystals. Or, more appropriately, I should say that they manufacture crystals. They don't dig them out of the earth, they melt quartz and sand and colors together and then grind them down to make them amazingly shiny and pretty. They are very expensive. I've been to Austria twice and visited Swarovski HQ and stolen their markers and abused their espresso machines, and I love them for giving me the opportunity to do so.


Y: "Are you going to work with them again?"

M: Yep! I'm working on the designs for the next round of figures right now. It's fun.


Y: "Which one is your favorite?"

M: I really love how Emily turned out. Animation wise, Jen Hager hit the nail on the head with Marie and Pierre...they are PERFECT: they're on model, they move beautifully, and their acting is spot on. Camille is pretty cute too...I'm impressed with how she spins around on the lazy susan. Props to P.Vose for painting that slice of cake over and over again.

Y: "Where is this playing? On TV?"

M: No, it won't be on TV. It'll be on the website and probably in some Swarovski stores. Notice how there's no dialogue/talking/writing except for the cats' names. Swarovski is way international, so this could be playing in a store in Japan or Italy or somewhere right now for all we know.


Y: "Who did the music?? It's so charming."

M: My friend Brian! Check him out!


Okay guys, I know that the lack of images on this blog lately is way lame. I promise that NEXT TIME I post, there will be images aplenty!

one double wide post this week + ape is coming! + trees

Ok, I was doing really good with two a week, but this week has just been toooooo crazy! So I'm just giving you one large-ish post instead. I've been getting my stuff together for APE and let me tell you something about getting organized: it's HARD, and it takes a LOT of energy. I'm in CalArts-crunchtime mode right now, with a wackadoo sleep schedule and I've been fueled mostly by big cups of tea (with the occasional soy latte for emergencies) and packets of Emergen-C. But enough about me. I know why you come here and it's not for the jibber jabber!

I made a little series of family tree paintings for these crazy, kitschy frames I found.

First, an awesome frame shaped like a house! I can't take credit for the creation of the frame, but I can take credit for filling it with art.




This frame was really, really hard to photograph. It has a shiny finish on it, but the pic makes it look super glossy, which it's not!



The little paintings are digital, and I printed them out, cut them out, and put them inside of this awesome frame. I've never seen one like it...I wish I could find more. I'd do a whole series.


I got some of these "family tree" frames, too. They were really, really horrible looking when I got them. They're made out of some awful fake pewter stuff, and they looked like something your grandma would have on top of her TV, but not like a cool old school grandma. Like a REAL grandma who likes things that are made from pewter and filled with embarrassing photos.

I turned the first one into a librarian tree, complete with Miss Lib herself, and her owl friend, a fox taking in some new fiction.



These frames are double sided, so on the back I filled the frames with pages cut from an antique book (which, in all respect to books everywhere, was an awful book and kind of deserved to be used as decoration).



Here's the actual little paintings, since they're kinda hard to see in the photograph. Taking good photos is HARD!





This tree is smaller, but it's the runaway hit so far.

On the front: a handsome, 1920's-esque family...




...on the back, cut outs from a vintage National Geographic.





And here are the subjects themselves! Sean said that they seemed to be from New England, and that they instantly implied a story to him. He asked me what the story was, but I leave that up to the viewer. I didn't have a really clear idea of who they were when I made them, I just know that I like them a whole lot.




These, along with quite a few other one of a kind framed prints, are going to be on sale at APE this weekend! If you're going to be there then you should stop by, get your button, and check them out in person. I'm really really reeeeaaaally curious to see what kind of reaction they get...they're kinda artsy, but kinda crafty, but quite character design-y. Oh yeah, and there's more pics of them on my flickr!

So, I've still got some printing to do, but I will take LOTS of pictures on my little San Francisco journey and let you all know how it goes.

See ya next week!