Since you asked...


I'm not in Austria anymore. I've been back in California for a bit, did the holiday thing, and now I'm right back where I was before: wedged into the corner of a hot little room at Disney.

Austria was really cold, and everything was super old and historic. I went to Crystal World. It was extremely surreal (it even smelled like a dream).

Other highlights: ate in a medieval castle (there was an awesome CAT in there too!), it snowed and looked magical, I stole some tiny spoons from the Swarovski office, went to Lichtenstein (that's a country and no I didn't make it up), rollicked around the traditional Christmas Markets, went to Mozart's house (where he lived pre-Stanzy, with his dad), checked out a LOT of crazy baroque churches and cathedrals. And ate a lot of cheese. And drank a lot of coffee, even though I don't really like it, it's just the thing to DO there, and it tastes an awful lot better than that muddy bean water they serve up here in the states. I also found myself calling my home country "the states". Is there a way to say United States of America without feeling like you're playing an American in a movie? "USA" is awkward. "America" makes it sound like the land of milk and honey, which is certainly not my personal impression of it.

X-mas was okay. That is one holiday that dilutes into a big old bummer as one ages. The best thing about this x-mas was my favorite best present ever: A BIG RED BICYCLE! A one speed Schwinn with a basket and back pedal brakes (I never liked those hand brakes...they give my thumbs blisters). Sean and I spent several afternoons pedaling around our neighborhood during break. Lovely!

I've been working on a lot of stuff but I can't exactly show it to you. That's one of the many facets of suckiness that accompany making artwork for a job. But I won't go into that. Suffice to say that I can promise you much new stuff soon, since I've decided that my new year's resolution is to make more art for myself, just cause I feel like it, just right out my guts, just letting the right brain flow all over the place. That's my favorite kind of stuff anyway...the funnest to do and usually the best lookin'.

That said, here is an exremely tiny, extremely accurate self-portrait (by accurate I mean that I am in reality absolutely no more, or less, attractive than this image implies). This was supposed to be my new blogger image, but I'm having a hell of a time getting it to work for some reason.



Okay, happy new year, and expect new and excellent things from this blog. It's about time already.

Hello! This is the deal: I'm going to Austria tomorrow, for two weeks. Not on vacation, but to do some design-y stuff for the Swarovski company. They make crystals. Not the kind you dig up out of the ground or find in a mystical cave, but the kind that they glue all over celebrities to make them extra-fancy. So I'll have lots of stuff to show off about Austria when I come back! In the mean time, here are some sketchy-doodles from my sketchy book.

Some kids.



Owls. At one point I thought it would be really cool to draw 100 different owls. Does that sound like a good idea to you?



An unfinished Posieden. I liked where it was going.




Also, I met Walt Peregoy today. If you don't know who that is, then stop reading right now and go find out! He said the Freddie Moore was a drunk, Mary Blair was a drunk, and Marc Davis was a drunk. He also relived a conversation he once had with Milt Kahl:
Walt: I'm glad I don't live next door to you.
Milt: Why is that?
Walt: Because if your house was on fire, I wouldn't so much as piss on it.

He was a very, very irreverent old man. But he had some great stories!

Wish me luck in Austria...it's gonna be cold!

Aha! Here's a spooky thing just in time for Halloween.




It's for the Cereal Killers project (check it out at idigcerealkillers.blogspot.com). For those of you who don't get it, here's you're opportunity to learn something: Margaret Keane was an artist who was responsible for quite a few of those ubiquitious 60's big eye pop art kids, you know, the ones that make you feel instantly guilty just for looking at them. I happen to be a fan of her work, which is limited in its subject matter of large eyed kids/women/animals, but there's something appealing about the weirdness of the images. Maybe it's just that I'm nostalgic for an era that I never existed in...but what's wrong with that? For reference, here are some real Keanes to measure mine against:






There are other artists who painted in this style too, like Eve, Gig and Mayo. I really don't know who started the trend, I just like the Keane stuff best. I like it so much that I sleep with her arguably most famous peice, "The Stray", watching over me every night.





There's an awesome legend about Margaret and her husband, Walter, over who really did the paintings. They were divorced and both claimed that they had done the work. Margaret won in the end...if you wanna know more then Google it or something, I've gushed about the Keanes long enough! Have a Happy Halloween! Watch The Shining! Carve a pumpkin, for goodness sakes!

I am so sorry. I will never abandon my blog again. I feel like I forgot to feed my fish for a week or something...except in that case the fish would most probably be expired, while this blog is hopefully (fingers crossed) still kicking. I guess my major cause of blog neglect is simply having a full time job, but that's NO EXCUSE! I know! Also I've been doing a lot of other life-oriented stuff, like throwing tea parties and baking cupcakes and going to Disneyland and buying Halloween decorations galore! So it's not that I'm lazy or boring, I just don't have any art to show for it. I'm gonna have to feed you that old line about "posting something soon!" In the mean time, here's a big old load of baked goods:


Here's a cartoon/super dork-related thing: I went to Dia de los Muertos at Hollywood Forever Cemetary last night, and there was an alter dedicated to Mel Blanc! It won 2nd place in the alter contest! It was real hard to get a good shot because it was super dark, and there were people crowded all over.





Happy Halloween, by the way!

Hello everyone! Thanks for saying so much nice stuff to me. Here's a picture of a girl I saw at the Melrose Trading Post in LA.




She was really small, and her shorts were really high waisted. I saw her checking me out through her big dark giant sunglasses. I don't know if it was an approving or disapproving glance.

Everything here at Disney is good. I'm working on a Cintiq which is strange...I'm more used to the tablet and it's weird to always have my hand in the way when I'm drawing something. We've been in training for the past two weeks, lots of classes and getting lost inside the hat building. I really genuinly got disoriented somewhere downstairs yesterday and had that awful, little-kid type "I'm lost" anxiety. But I have been eating lunch on the main lot, just like I hoped I would! The squirrels are real cute.

Anyway, I should be drawing more often now. Just keep checking, there will be better stuff than this meager photoshop thingy soon...

Just an update on the life of Gette, for anyone who's interested...no new work, sorry. But there will be soon!

SO I kept getting annoyed with people for assuming that I'd gotten accepted for the Disney apprenticeship program that starts this next week. They'd say things like "so what now? Just waiting for Disney to start?" and I'd say "NO, because I didn't get the Disney thing." And then that person would shrink a little bit. Not that it's an insult, it's just understandably frustrating to have the same conversation over and over. And then comes Monday and Disney calls me.

So I AM doing the Disney apprenticeship. Serves me right for being so prickly. It starts on Tuesday. What am I looking forward to the MOST? To eating lunch in the comissary on the main lot with my friends, that's what! And harassing Joe Moshier to find out all his design secrets. And free tea. And, oh yeah, access to enormous libraries of animation art and history, too.

And I had a very lovely 23rd birthday last week, and Los Feliz is probably the best neighborhood I've EVER lived in, with the nicest people. Good to be back in LA for keeps! So life post-art school is treating me well. So far so good!

Here's that witch all colored in (you really have to click on it to get a better idea of what all that jibbery detail stuff is).

One of the cool things about being up here is that there's so many awesome people all in the same place. For instance, I talked to Tony Fucile today! I wish I could think of better questions to ask...I'm so bad with spontaneous question asking. I'm always like, "Er...how do I not suck? I mean, how do I be's better? How do I hold a pencil again? What's a shape? " Anyway, he said lots of very nice things, and that was exciting. We're starting to wrap up, even though I've got a bazillion totally unfinshed things lying everywhere... And we're supposed to pitch our stuff to like, real for real art directors and production designers. Hm.

I'm moving to Los Feliz this weekend! Finally I'm out of Valencia... Since I'll be in LA I'm gonna stop by the Ninja Show at Nucleus (I've never been before). Will I see YOU there?

Here's some beat boards from Hansel and Gretel. It's not the whole thing, obviously, but it's a lot of it.







Looking forward to being back in L.A. soon, land of high rent, amazing swapmeets, and blisteringly hot summers.

Kids in color! Oooooh!




When I design characters I usually think of them in color. I knew I wanted Gretel to be super-blonde, so that when she's in the forest or in the witch's dank old house her head will silhouette nicely. Also, a lot of, a LOT of gals in old fairytale illustrations have white blonde hair like that (maybe for the same reason?), so I lifted the idea for myself. Hansel still looks like a jerk but I'll get into him more soon.

It's Hansel and Gretel, right? So where's the witch?? Oh, here she is.




She has a bird theme. I have more drawings of her, but the scanner here is about as useful for recording images as a bologna sandwich. Kevin Dart managed to get these inside the computer, somehow, some way.

My CSSSA kids are coming to visit me soon! Hooray! CSSSA is going on right now, as we speak. Maybe I'll stop by CalArts this weekend while I'm down south and check out the CSSSA crop this year. I'm going to Los Angeles! Yay! We're going to go to the Museum of Jurassic Technology. If you don't know what that is, then you should go here: www.mjt.org

Hansel and Gretel!




My Hansel and Gretel takes place in the late 60's. Hansel, a cynical sulky 11-year old, despises his little sister, who acts like a cute baby even though she's like, 8. So they're both obnoxious in their own special ways, but they only act like brats in hopes of winning their dad's attentions (he's not around too much). And then...enter the evil stepmother! The plot thickens!

More later..

Another taste of Hansel and Gretel...



A color/scale experiment. Character designs coming soon!

Here's something.



Our assignment, which we're going to tackle over the next eight weeks, is Hansel and Gretel. So in my version, the witch lives in a crazy gingerbread style treehouse. This is my first stab at it in color. Still a lot of fixin' and tweaking and so forth to do.

I'm tired!

It's been a hectic month or so!

1. Portfolio day went really well and I got to talk to some cool people.
2. I passed all my classes!
3. We graduated!
4. I got an internship at Pixar!
5. I'm there right now!

So I'll be updating with some actual art soon but not today...there's no scanner in here yet. But you can understand how I've been caught up in all this stuff, right? Okay. More later!

Do you know why they're called "argonauts"? Because the ship they're on is the Argo, which is named after the guy who built the ship, Argos. I never knew that until I watched it again today!




Medea was really hard to draw in profile. She's pretty, but she's got some crazy bone structure where it looks like her cheekbones are swollen, and her eyes are always kinda twitchy and vacant. But she's still one of my favorite characters in the movie anyway. She also wears the most unbearably inaccurate costumes...the Greeks didn't have corsets, and they didn't invent the wasp waist...but what the hell! It's the sixties! Everybody is shiny and orange and it's great.

Hercules' hand is missing because the paper ended. I'm constantly drawing too big for the surface that I've allowed myself. I'll add his hand later, with a giant broach pin in it. And just to prove that I'm not lazy, here's some sketches from the movie:





Archer!

Yes, I'm starting to feel rather tense these days. Portfolio day is a very big day, and I don't want to jinx myself by saying this, but in my CalArts career I've never earned a single callback from it. It's not like my life depends on it or anything, but just the same, wish me luck.

It's not argonauts, but it's better than nothing.




The ensemble cast of Captain Scratchy Beard, compiled for the portfolio...I think they need to be a little bigger. These fine folks and the captain himself, and the sticky cat and the capn's daughter, will be appearing in the Producer's Show! If you were fortunate enough to snag an oh-so coveted ticket, then I'll see you there.

Okay, well, yeah, I didn't die or anything.


This is what's been happening: I FINISHED MY FILM!!! Hoorah!


So I'm done with that! The final thing came out to almost six minutes (longer than I had thought), and somehow I got it in two days early, by some stroke of luck or genius or timing or maybe the universe is about to implode. I thought I was going to be working up until the last possible day, as usual.

So, Captain Scratchy Beard lives. And I can't wait until the Open Show this Friday...I've seen a couple films, a few snippets, a few teasers and tests and so on, but the Open Show is where it all comes together. And my dad is coming down to see it like he does every year, so that'll be fun!

And then, PORTFOLIO DAY! Ugh. So that's what I'm working on now. Sadly, I have nothing to post, since I dare not set foot inside the labs to scan or upload anything (there's nothing worse when you are working on your film and winding down to the last hours than when someone comes waltzing through going "I'm done! I'm done!"), and I feel like I really need a little breaky-break anyway, drink some tea, read a book, paint my fingernails, junk like that.

But soon, I promise, I've been dying to draw some stuff from Jason and the Argonauts since I saw it again a few weeks ago, so expect some Neptunes and greasy sixties-style Greek dudes coming your way.

Thanks everyone for the big response for the indie kids! I like them too, they remind me of CSSSA. The one in the bottom left corner is me. I used to drink soda and wear fairy wings (dork).

Yay for life post-crunchtime!

Pink trees and indie kids.

I'm so tired.

Here, look at this:

Here's my assignment from Shane and Shannon's character design class. I liked the way this one turned out. Somehow I did this and then ran out of steam for the other two, so I'm not postin' those. They turned out yucka. But here's my Tiny Tim!





Here's what a really wanted to do: the assignment was to design Scrooge, Marley's ghost and Tiny Tim, and I thought it would be amazing to do then in 1960's style, and make Tim a big-eyed Keane style waif, holding a stray cat and crying, and then give scrooge a nappy old 40's style suit and show him walking through a courtyard full of mods and Audrey-Hepburn-in-Charade style gals, but where does that leave Marley's ghost?? Anyway, I decided to just hop into 1840's style, but in that case I should have designed some ladies too, cause hoop skirts were IN and those things are crazy! Oh well. Later I suppose.


Trying to finish animation before Spring Break, which starts on the 24th. If I can manage that then I'll not only feel like a super-duper star, but I'll actually stand a chance of getting the whole film done. It might get rowdy but I'll do the best I can.

Here's a quick post: This little guy is my first crack at coloring something using nothing but photoshop. And Neysa made these little stamp swatches of fabrics (she's a fashion student) and I used the denim one for the jeans. It was pretty fun, and you can undo all your boo-boo's. Yay!

Well, I guess this is what's happening: even though I KNOW I should be working on my film there is a big TRIBE of awesome, rad, bitchin' character designers coming to our school within like, a week of each other. So here I am spending one million hours in the lab trying to make my scribbly-poop drawings look pretty, so I can actually get advice from people who KNOW what they're doing! And construct a decent portfolio from the rubble of tiny pieces of paper that are pinned up all over my cube! Because you see, to date, as of this moment, the highlight of my career as any kind of character designer is this: eating Joe Moshier's hashbrowns and Cheny Yi Chang's coleslaw at Denny's late on a Wednesday night. That's it for me.




These are INSANELY old. They're from second year, when Alex Kirwan came and gave us a little character design workshop in Shane's class. I had so much fun!! The only redeeming quality of these two are their names: Twiggy and Chubbers. Alex Hirsch loves this junk.

And El Deatho, the villian counterpart to Twig and Chubs...


This is NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART! Submarella is a grotesque, yucky creation that was the result of a conversation between myself and Alex Hirsch. She's yucka. I know. She's a mermaid manatee, or WOMANatee, if you will. When explorers from Europe first saw manatees in tropical waters, they thought they were mermaids. How could they make such a mistake?? Beats me. Perhaps they were Adrian Molina's Spanish ancestors, which would explain his obsession with her.

WELL this isn't a boy's only post, but it's at least an equal number of boys and girls. Next one, I promise!



I colored this rather slap-dash-edly in photoshop. But I made it small so you can't see all my screw ups. I'll fix all the boo boo's for portfolio time...UGH. 18th century clothing is SO cool...the shapes that people contort their bodies into for fashion are completely exaggerated and mostly wierd (that said, I should have exaggerated them a little more now that I look at it). But that goes for the whole history of fashion, I guess. More than anything I noticed that in the 18th century people look bored and slightly annoyed. I guess that was the "cool" look, opposed to todays 'cool' look of bored and slightly drugged. I guess I'd be intensely bored and annoyed if I had to stand still for one million hours to get my portrait painted, though.



Okay, it's not Valentine's Day anymore, I know. Whatever. Here's the card I made for Sean. I think it looks like him. He said I made him look like a fat cat. "You think I'm fat, don't you? I'm FAT aren't I?!" No! I don't ! I can't say that the ginger tabby looks a lot like me but that's what it's supposed to be. I've been told I'd be a siamese. Us as cats. Anthropophormism, away!

To start out with, here's what my little plot in the char anim show looked like. Those elaborate, beautiful golden flowery branches are from my Oma's house. She doesn't know I stole them. Don't tell her! It's sideways, sorry. Oops.



So, it's been a while. I always start to feel guilty when I don't post often as I can. I don't have a whole lot to show though, because I've been hammering away at old Scratchy Beard (the film) all week! Here are some sketches which have been dolled up with photoshop, because color always illicits a more emotional reaction.

Stewardesses from my sketchbook...










This hula hoop drawing was meant to become a painting but it never made it, cause I ran out of time. Someday! It was going to be part of a triptych, which is fancy artist speak for three paintings hung up next to each other. The other two were going to be "loop de loop" and "chupa chup", like the delicious sucker.


I love historical costume...and screwing around in photoshop late at night. I wanted to give her a full color treatment buuuutt...it's late and I'm sleepy!

I think I need to draw boys more. My inclination is always towards drawing girls, since I grew up thinking boys were gross and stupid and that girls are pretty and nice. I think guys have an equally difficult time drawing girls, since they spend their childhoods trying to draw every muscle on He-man or whatever. Okay. I'll try to draw more dudes. Maybe the next post will be guy-drawings only.

That's all for now, folks. I'm taking the day off tomorrow. I'm pooped.