First of all, Happy 2017! 2016 has been a great year for me artistically. Finished lots of personal art goals and I was happy to have gotten a few mini animations completed. I've gotten back to doing animations just for fun, taking only a day or two to crank something out. Not sure if I will ever go down the road of a film project like Alien for Christmas again, but who knows!
Here is my New Years animation called Burst out of Your Shell. It's a simple statement that we should all shed our skin each year and start something new!
Right before Christmas, I updated Alien for Christmas (which you can watch on Vimeo) with an all new HD version of the short. It was really starting to show it's age with the 640 format - so it was overdue for an update.
Now that I'm using Instagram much more than the blog, I put up a widget at the top of the page that shows the latest posts. This way, the blog stays a little fresh, even when I'm not updating it here.
In early December, I was part of 2 gallery openings at Gallery 1988. One was "The Coen Brothers show" (which you can see more detail on in the previous post below), and the other was "Another art show about Nothing" - a show dedicated to one of my favorite shows of all time, Seinfeld (which, coincidently, we have been working on a slot game at work for Seinfeld for the past year!)
"The interview"
Ink on paper
I chose to do an homage to one of my favorite episodes to a bit where Kramer and Newman work up a scheme to have the homeless pull a rickshaw cart around New York City. A fun moment when Kramer and Newman perform ad-hoc interviews with the 3 candidates that shows up - one of which wanders off right at the start, and another that ends up just running off with the cart!
I was using a new ink stain technique on this image - so if you now own it from the show, a fun fact that this is the first time I worked in this medium. I really wanted this to have a personal quality.
Here are a few more images of the process:
At thanksgiving I had a chance to work up a couple fun bear-eating images. Who doesn't love a good guilt-snacking furball?
On November 19, I was part of an art show at Creature Features in Burbank CA dedicated to "MYTHBUSTERS"! What a treat. The show, curated by Chogrin, and featured a select group of artist works that featured portraits of Jamie and Adam from the show.
"Cheers!"
11x14 - Digital
My piece showcases, from what I was told by the curator, something that never happened in the shows history - Jamie and Adam dining together. Another thing it showcase is a drink that Jamie created called 444 - a mix of 4 fruits, 4 veggies, and 4 grains. I thought it would be fun to have these 2 cheering each other for their awesome success! The art is now on tour as part of a Mythbusters exhibit. Check out the review of the show on Nerdist
On November 18 and 19, I had the chance to experience CTN and DCON for the first time. Both conventions were fantastic, and I came home with more that a few bags worth of artwork and artist cards to enjoy.
CTN gave me a chance to talk with many folks that I normally only get to see online, and a chance to rub elbows with may of the industry professionals that I admire, and worked with on previous occasions.
DCON was a real artists show - independently produced works (art, shirts, toys) from a wide range of passionate creatives. The price was right - only $10 to get in, and just about anyone who wasn't at CTN already was located here.
In November, I took part in the Back to Bits project, a multi-animator effort that collected GIFs from animators and showcased them as an homage to the games of yesteryear. This is the first "volume" of the show with (hopefully) more to come. This effort is curated by Jerry Liu.
My animation - The Life and Death of a Marble - based on the Atari game Marble Madness, ended up being a little long for the GIF format - but you can see my directors cut here
On November 5th, Gallery 1988 feature "Postcard Correspondence" - a show entirely dedicated to postcard art that you could buy and use as cards to display - or better yet - mail to your friends! My piece featured "The Blues Brothers" at christmastime, and was aptly title, "Let the Good Times Roll". I was inspired by Elwood's tiny apartment in the movie, and I loved the idea of the brothers sharing that space at Christmas.
"Let the Good Times Roll"
5x7 Postcard
And one of the biggest moments of 2016 - Cubs winning the world series! It doesn't get better than that for a Chicagoan.
Geez - I have more to get to - Inktober, the Wonka show, SDCC... I'll need to do the rest in a post update when I get more of that precious time!
-Dave
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