LI'L KANYE AND PALS

Some illustrations commissioned for the Wyclef video, echoing the song's references to Kanye West, Biggie, Tupac, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, and Sean Bell. I was asked me to draw them as children, in a bit of artistic license. So cute!

I did multiples of all of these because everyone likes to have options to pick from. I did many more of Kanye because the director didn't like my original versions, and was too busy to spend all day going back and forth with revisions. I figured if I just threw enough options at him one of them would have to hit if only by accident. (I even pasted in the reference photos. As if to say, "See, he really does wear sweaters like that.") You can see the versions that got picked bouncing around in the animated backgrounds in the video.

I think "Li'l Biggie & Tupac" could be a cartoon show, don't you?

Teshkeel trailer 2

AFLAC DOES NASCAR

Racer girl

some frames from a music video job. I'm going to post on it if they ever get the video out of post-production and onto the web. but I like these frames a lot; I don't think I'm spoiling anything for anybody by posting them. For pre-vis purposes, the illustrated figures are combined with backgrounds captured from a video game.

What’s So Funny ‘Bout PJs, Love and Understanding

A Monday night a few weeks ago:

Working at the house, three days into a monster of a job for Olive Garden with a super tight deadline. I suddenly had what I thought was a cool idea: let’s pack the girls up and hit up the Olive Garden in Poughkeepsie for dinner! It’ll be ironic or something. Now before you feel all superior to me, please consider my situation: I had gone three days almost without food or sleep, with nothing but propaganda for Olive Garden in front of my face. Those are pretty much prison-camp brainwashing conditions, you know.

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Faith leapt into action. She’s learned through experience that she can’t stop me from working insane hours, or from becoming a strung-out stress goblin over the course of a heavy job. But by God, a heartwarming family trip to Olive Garden was something she could damn well put a stop to. In a flash she dug out the lonely jar of Prego in the back of the pantry and tarted It up with fresh garlic and leftover shrimp and vegetables. When the smell hit me it was like my body suddenly registered three days of hunger, stress and exhaustion all at once. It was all I could do not to shove my face into the pan while it was still on the stove. Just as we’re about to dig in, baby Roxy decided it was time to shred what few nerves I had left with a monster screaming fit.

I happen to be the black belt in baby kung fu around our house. It's sort of the one thing I bring to the table, not being able to say, lactate, or balance a checkbook. This was the sort of five-alarm barn-burner of a meltdown that was going to last a good hour and can only ever be marginally contained. If I made her mom handle it I would get to eat, but we were still going to have to listen to it. What could I do. I let Faith and Edie enjoy their meal and walked Roxy around the house, using every secret Tibetan fussy-baby trick in the book to keep her from blowing our ears out. An eternity later she exhausted herself, and I was able to pass her off to mom for feeding and bed.

A broken shell of a human, I stumbled and collapsed at the table next to Edie. She sat and watched me struggling numbly to push my fork at the cold noodles. One of the hundreds of reasons that I’m madly in love with this kid is her way of exhibiting empathy at times. Or maybe she just thought it would be funny if it was her turn to feed me for a change. In any event, she looked me up and down, and showed that there was more to her than diabolical master plans to score cookies and stall her bedtime. She took my fork and started lifting big long strands of pasta, waving them menacingly in my general direction. Even if I wanted to say no to a two-year-old, she pretty much could have overpowered me at that moment. I bobbed and weaved and sort of aimed my mouth at it as she stabbed at my face. She even did the running commentary that people do to her when she gets fed: "Here it comes! Thassa big bite! I guess you like it!" She didn’t stop until the plate was empty.

I sucked down a beer and we mutually helped each other up the stairs. Faith had the light in the bedroom off so the baby could sleep, and I managed to put Edie’s one-piece pajamas on her body all wrong, which she found hilarious. Even after I figured it out and fixed it, she was still laughing at me and giving me crap: “That’s notta arm, thassa leg!” She tumbled into the crib and wished me nice dreams. My three girls went to sleep and I went back to work.

YOU'RE EITHER WITH US OR YOU'RE WITH THE TERMINATORS!

I've gotten completely hooked on the Terminator TV show.

Over vacation I was hanging out with my presumptive brother-in-law and T3 came on the tube. I didn't let loose my loads of bile for that film since he's a fan of it (except for the scene where Arnie actually says "talk to the hand". For fuck's sake man!) It's embarrassing how little T3 has going for it besides a special effects budget and a willingness to go for the dark ending. No atmosphere, no point of view, not an original idea in it's self-referential little head.

When the film was over I whipped out the laptop and played the first handful of episodes of the series off iTunes. It made a believer of him too. Holy fuck does the series blow away the third film. What's more, it continues the storyline from T2 and completely ignores the continuity of T3.

The series has a TV-size budget for special effects, but that's a good thing: it makes it a throwback to the first film, which after all had no budget either. They have to make do with the same things that Cameron did: suspense, good casting, creepy photography and a good script. I'm happy to say that Arnie's rapidly-aging ass is not missed; the casting of the Terminators is right on. (And mercifully, they wear regular street clothes. Here's an idea: the audience might be smart enough to understand that it's a Terminator even if it wears jeans. You don't have to contrive a reason for it to shake down some goddamn leather bar whenever it needs new pants.)

There's so many cool ideas floating around in the stories: A Terminator skeleton walking around LA in a hoodie to hide its face, figuring out how to re-grow it's skin using today's technology; a super-advanced chess computer as the possible ancestor of the Terminators; a human trapped in a bomb shelter with a Terminator whose mission is to hibernate through WW3; the revelation that the Terminators are smart enough to get what they want through commerce if it's more expediant than using force; a "good" Terminator who's that much scarier for the human qualities she's able to exhibit.

The fact that I like this show is a sure sign that it's headed for early cancellation, but what are you gonna do. It was good while it lasted.

odds & whatnot

A video "trailer" I did for Teshkeel comics (motion graphics by Lorenzo Campanis). It basically summarizes the backstory to their comic book and sets up the first issue. I had planned to cannibalize all the art from the comic book and set it up for a little animation to be added. But nothing can be so easy. Each shot in the video had to communicate multiple story points clearly, and be set up in such a way that a lot of action could be implied using very little animation. The panels in the comic weren't tailored for a video animatic of course. So in no time I talked myself into doing almost all new art.

I'm currently failing to finish the second trailer in the series.



On the same day I ran across some old art of mine on two different blogs.

One from someone I know (thanks Dan)...


...and one from someone I don't. Mine is the image of the pink-haired lady near the end of the post. Done as a pinup in the G.I.Joe book at Marvel many years ago. I can tell from the hair that I was in my phase of trying to draw like Larry Stroman would draw if he were much less talented.

1/1/08

New Year's Eve, 2008:

Picking our way through the East Village bar crowds, we walk through a cloud of Marajuana smoke. I almost asked them to give my wife a hit.

Screaming up the West Side Highway (literally, my wife was screaming), trying to get to St. Luke's while avoiding drunk drivers, passing a stone's throw from Times Square about 20 minutes before the ball was going to drop. I tried to make Faith laugh by telling her that we'd probably hit gridlock and the whole thing would end up like a Very Special Episode of some terrible sit-com: I'd wind up delivering the baby myself on 42nd Street at the stroke of midnight, perhaps assisted by a tart-tongued but lovable hobo, or a gruff kebab vendor who, it turns out, used to be an obstetrician in his native Pakistan. Laughter and tears abound, followed by slaps on the back and confetti from a Greek chorus of drunken frat boys.

Edie was at home under the care of her Russian babysitter. Zina is the kind of neighbor who usually only does exist on TV. I don't know what we would do without her. I called her at 11pm New Years Eve, and she toddled up the stairs in her bathrobe with a stack of magazines, thrilled to be able to help.

I called Zina from the hospital the next day and she told me that they had been having a roaring good time as always, but that Edie had fallen asleep exhausted because of "tension in my apartment". I don't always track Zina's use of English and I figured she meant that there had been some kind of drama with her adult son who lives in her apartment with her. "Tension?" I asked. "Yes, my God, she is tense like a professional." Okay, I thought, no doubt a trait she inherited from her mother, but I still asked her to clarify. "She tense! You know, I put on Ukranian music in my apartment, and she tense all over the room!"

Faith came through like a champ once again, powering the baby out through some difficulty, without the benefit of drugs. She has since announced her intention to retire from the sport while at the top of her game.

I have discovered that the second child's birth is every bit as meaningful, but perhaps not the same pan-dimensional spiritual mind-blast that the first one is. The first time around, we laid there all night in the loudest silence you ever heard, completely existing in another dimension. This time, after the nurses finished up and left the room, I dug my laptop out of my bag and we finished watching the episode of Lost we had been partway through when she went into labor.

We read some dopey book that says you should let the older kid discover the baby in its bassonet. Edie knew something was up, but was too young to really understand our explanations. She had been using the new co-sleeper as a play house. When she caught sight of the new occupant, she froze. She turned around, sank to her knees and stared into the middle distance. I don't know how to convince her to be excited about not ruling the roost anymore. I just held her for the longest time and told her how much we love her.

Excuse of the Weak

The blog has fallen off lately because I'm really pushing on the latest version of the cartoon pitch. When I'm not busy earning a buck I'm just writing on this thing. I figure, this is the third chance someone's given me, and I better goddamn well kill it this time.

It's Christmas eve morning and I've been working all night. Edie came down with a raging fever yesterday. We're due to have a second kid in the next 48 hours.

IMPORTANT CONSUMER NEWS: Apparently my seething hostility to Whole Foods has finally paid off. I evidently made one too many incoherent sarcastic remarks under my breath while shopping there, because they finally broke down and asked themselves, what can we do to make a believer out of Kevin. Frankly it's a little embarrassing the way they're showing their hand. First they opened a gigantic store a block away, which the wife is delirious over. But still wasn't convinced, and in their desperation to convince me they don't totally suck they pulled out all the stops: the corner of the store closest my house has been converted into a stand-alone beer shop. It even has a separate entrance: I don't even have to go into the main store and get smothered by the overwhelming smugness of it all. They sell you craft beer in re-fillable half gallon jugs, which lends an agreeably white-lightning feel, and by the way, really isn't as much beer as you think it's going to be.

Aflac Duck!

I'm told that this ad is on TV all the time. So I guess it must be okay to post the original boards now. The AD I did these for is one who really rides me and makes me work my butt off, but he always pulls the best work out of me (what a collision of metaphors that was). I always wind up with something I want to show off.































































































In case you're curious, those backgrounds that look like I went and took a picture? Those are usually cobbed together from a drawing and several different photographs, then beat to within an inch of their lives with photoshop filters.

I would be watching out for the commercial, if there was some way to do that without, you know, actually sitting down and watching TV.


**********

I'm in Galveston, TX today (I know I must be in Texas because the baristas at Starbucks are discussing automatic rifles). We took a night flight from JFK to visit my in-laws. On the flight Edie was being a total crab and wouldn't lay down and go to sleep. We gave her a double dose of Benadryl, to no effect. Finally I decided to take the bullet and I just picked her up and walked her up and down the aisle over and over, hoping I could lull her to sleep. A half hour or so later I'm just standing in the crew galley with her and I feel her head start to bob onto my shoulder. Getting there... getting there.... almost.... almost..... and what does she do, she voids the entire contents of her stomach all over my shoulder, everyhting she's wearing and everything I'm wearing. It was runny and chunky and just gushering out of her mouth. Now I'm frantically tearing at her clothes and mine and trying to sop up what's on the deck. The stewardess came back and took in the scene and almost lost it herself. I throw Edie, naked, at her mom and now it's laundry day in the airplane bathroom sink for the next hour. The stewardess lent me a t-shirt to wear for the rest of the flight while mine hung drying from the crew seat.

I don't really have a punchline or a heart-warming finish to this story, it's just that it happened to me, and I need to tell people that.