My 2017 Demo Reel!

Hey everyone! here is my newest animation reel, showing work I have completed in the last 12 months as well as some of my work from Animation Mentor - the incredible character animation school which I was lucky enough to attend!

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Fan Film Storyboard Comparison

Some kind soul out there made a video with my animated tribute video alongside the original storyboard that it's based on. It was pretty awesome to see them play out side by side like this!

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Fan Video Completed!

After 6 years of work, here is the finished Rhinestone Eyes video animated entirely by me.

Apologies for taking as long as it did, but this project was completed in my spare time, and that is not something I have had a lot of over these past few years. Gorillaz has been a huge inspiration to me since I started animating back in high school more years ago than I care to admit, and I am so happy to be able to realize the brilliant storyboard video in this way for all the other fans out there to appreciate.




Thanks to everyone who has followed the journey along with me, both here on this blog and on my Youtube channel - your support has been invaluable.

Rick and Morty Exceed Exclusive variant cover designed by me!

Hey all! During my brief time on Rick and Morty season two, I was given the opportunity to design a variant cover for Oni Press' Rick and Morty comic. The cover was selected to be an Exceed Exclusive, and it is now available to purchase in the link below!

http://exceedexclusives.com/products/rick-and-morty-number-12-exceed-exclusives-cover

Animals. - New HBO show that I worked on!

Hey all! Just wanted to take a second to shout out Animals. - the new show from the Duplass Brothers and comedic geniuses Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano. This was the first show that I got to be a full time animator throughout the whole season, and it was an amazing experience. I highly recommend you check it out any way you can, it's available now on HBO Go a day earlier than it airs on TV, check it out, you won't regret it. Probably.

Also check out this sweet gif that got made out of one of my shots where a cat plays air guitar to White Zombie.
 via GIPHY

Interview for Beyond The Cartoons

Hi all! So recently the up and coming animation blog "Beyond the Cartoons" interviewed me about all things pertaining to my professional life, and the crazy journey that is the animation world. It's a pretty long read so be warned, but there are tons of cool interviews and other pieces on the site to check out when you wanna know what goes on behind the closed doors of the animation world!

http://www.beyondthecartoons.com/richard-van-as

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes - Something big is coming...

Hi friends! To show you all once again that I am not dead, I have a little snippet of finished Rhinestone Eyes footage to bestow upon you all (in crappy low res gif form). Don't get greedy or anything because who knows when the next second or two will be available.

Animation Mentor Class 3 shot progress

Hey everyone! I have some shots I have been working on for my Advanced Body Mechanics class at Animation Mentor. My amazing mentor Drew Adams is helping me polish up this 3 shot sequence of a bungling burglar. I will upload the final one when it's done and stitched together and rendered nicely with motion blur et al, but for now this is a little sneak peek into what I am up to.

What I have been up to

Hello all!

Just thought I would share what I have been doing with myself for the last 6 months. I have finally been able to take the Animation Mentor program, which I have wanted to do since I heard about it back in 2005! It's an online school for CG character animation, and its super cool!

This is my progress reel for the first 2 classes and I thought I would share it with you, my avid readers, by way of an explanation for the lack of Gorillaz updates (sorry).

I have another year to go on this course (sorry) but if you have any questions about the program or are considering taking it, give me a shout and I would be happy to add my perspective! (hint, it's awesome).

Rhinestone Eyes updates coming...some day... I promise.

Rick and Morty Animation

Hey everyone! Just wanted to share the 1 shot I got to animate for Rick and Morty season 2 with you guys since it was featured in last night's episode!

I worked on season 2 quite a bit, but most of my contributions were in the layout department, but I was given the opportunity to animate this shot you see here, and I had a real blast doing it!

I have been so very swamped with doing Animation Mentor, working on various TV shows (HBO's Animals at the moment - look for that early 2016) that Rhinestone Eyes progress has ground down to functionally nil, which I feel bad about on a daily basis, as I love that project with all my heart and soul and want nothing more than to finish it and get it out to you guys! Thanks for not showing up at my door with torches and pitchforks, lord knows my insurance premiums went up the last time that happened.

Gorillaz Small Update

Hey avid Gorillaz fans! I thought I would share a small update with you all that I have been wanting to announce for a little while. Many of you already know that I have been up till this point creating my Rhinestone Eyes video using a multitude of software packages, but for the primary 2D animation, using Flash. Well having purchased a license for Toon Boom Harmony in order to do some freelance work, I fell in love with the software and quickly realized that part of the reason why the quality of the animation was taking me so long to achieve was that Flash really isn't animation software. Toon Boom Harmony however, is. So hence forth I am switching over to creating the remainder of the video using Toon Boom Harmony, and I just know that this is going to bring an extra layer of polish, and hopefully shave off some working time, from the remainder of the video, allowing me to bring you the finest quality product, faster. Thats it! I will be sharing some new scenes as soon as I can that have been done in the software and hopefully you will all agree, it was a wise move!

Rick and Morty Couch Gag on The Simpsons

Hey avid readers! It's been a busy few months, and I have a few minor updates on Gorillaz, and what else I have been up to.

Since 2008 I have wanted to take the Animation Mentor - the intensive, focused, character animation school, and this year I was able to join the Animation Guild, and with the aid of the wonderful educational grants available, was finally able to enroll in the school. My wife an I both in fact. We are deep into the first semester and I will be posting updates of my progress as I complete each stage of the program.

The next exciting thing was that I was lucky enough to be able to contribute some work to a couch gag on The Simpsons, a lifelong goal and now one less item on my bucket list! Check out the clip below!



Finally, on Rhinstone Eyes, I have been doing a lot of intense maya work lately, both with the video and with Animation Mentor (since their whole program is taught using Maya). I have been doing a lot of time intensive renders lately that have slowed my progress on the video, and I have to share my computer among all my different projects so it is a slow process. In addition to that my workload is making it harder to spend time working on the video, but I assure you good readers, it is still coming out, and I am still working on it as fast and as much as possible. New updates will be added as soon as they are available.

Fellow Fan Director Martin M's 5/4 video released!

Martin M, my fan brother in arms has completed his 5/4 music video to spectacular result! you can check it out and give him feedback to his Newgrounds page!

This only serves as another little reminder that I too have a Gorillaz video to get made, and trust me, I want it to be done as much as you all do.

Thanks Martin for all your hard work, you have made a great addition to the Gorillaz fan canon!

You can follow the link to check out the finished product.

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Fan Video - Boogey's Eye View

A quick update for everyone, just a shot that recently got done and since I have nothing more substantial to share right now, this will have to do. I've been busy working on a host of different projects, some large properties (*cough* Marvel *cough*) and it's all been terribly exciting, but I haven't forgotten this video, I swear!

Gorillaz Rhinstone Eyes Fan video progress update!

Hey friends. I have been really, really busy of late, working on a whole bunch of projects which I of course can't say anything about. Suffice it to say progress on Rhinestone Eyes has been slow, but I will be ramping up to do more in the next few weeks/months...I swear. Probably. Or at least that's what I would like to happen.

BoJack Horseman Fan Art.

BoJack Horseman is now live on Netflix!

If you get the chance, check this show out on Netflix. I animated and composited for the firs season, and it was a great time! The show is funny as hell, definitely aimed at adults, and the whole of season 1 is available right now! You can check out the opening credits right here for a little taste!

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Extended Clip 2

Here it is! clip 2 of the Rhinestone Eyes fan video that I have been toiling over a hot Cintiq to bring you all!

The progress has been slower than I had hoped, but those of you following the blog know I am spread pretty thin as it is. But forgetting all that, here it is, let me know what you think in the comments below. Don't forget to follow the blog by clicking "Join" on the right of the page, like and subscribe on Youtube to let me know you want more, because on those days when I just don't think I can sit down and look at Gorillaz, it's the positive encouragement of the fans that motivates me to pick the pen back up and keep rocking!

Tumble Leaf - Behind the scenes

I had a really great time on this show, and although it was a short gig, it was still a really rewarding experience, and now the show has won best animated series for 2014 at the Annecy Animation Festival, which is a huge deal and makes me ULTRA proud to have been on a special project with such a great group of folks!

Enjoy this little behind the scenes look!

Bojack Horseman - coming to Netflix August 22nd

It's been a tremendously busy year for me, and one of the things I have been most proud to be involved in is Netflix's first original animated show Bojack Horseman. I animated on and composited for the show, and Yaoyao, who you may remember is doing the background art for my Rhinestone Eyes fan video, did background art for the show. If you have Netflix, I highly recommend you check out Bojack Horseman on August 22nd. You won't regret it.

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes - I'm Batman...er...Boogeyman.

Hey gang. It's been a fair while since an update was posted on here about Rhinestone Eyes, so here is a little snippet of some animation I was working on a while back. It looks a lot better with the background and effects in there, but you will just have to wait and see it cut into the video when it is released. Which is definitely happening.

Tumble Leaf

This is a promo for a charming little show I worked on last year. It's going to be available to stream on Amazon Prime soon. It's a great day in Tumble Leaf!

Google - Way of a Warrant animated short

This is a short I worked on some months back for Google, which details their privacy and protection of users data, and the process by which authorities get information from Google. This is a bit of a hot button issue right now and I had a lot of fun working on it with the other folks at Screen Novalties! My part in the video was in post cleanup and in making CG models that were 3D printed and used in the shoot.

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes - Russel walking GIF

Hey all, I have been super busy lately working on GI Jeff, the upcoming animated Community episode (airing April 3rd - check it out!!) as well as other projects I am not at liberty to disclose yet, so as I had 5 minutes to spare this evening I thought I would dump something on here for you all. I really dig this shot and I have only released a screen grab up until now, as well as an older version of the animation some months back, this is pretty much the final iteration of this shot (though the sky may change) using the fluid simulation I generated in RealFlow. Hold on tight Noodle!

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Fan Video - Sailor Squid reveal

A new image for today, revealing one of the as yet unseen characters from the video, the one eyed squid in the sailor hat! He only has a brief cameo in the video but eagle eyed viewers will remember him getting knocked from his desk as Murdoc dives to avoid a rather large and nasty looking fireball...
Background by Yaoyao Ma Van As.
Happy Thursday!

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes New Teaser Poster - Wading Giant.

Actually feeling fairly productive today, so I thought I might share an image of what I have been working on lately. I have been working on the water simulations for the video, which has been eating up my computer power. Here is an example of one such shot. Behind the scenes stuff on that and more to come soon...probably.

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Fan Video - Plastic Beach Island 360°

Hey all, it's been forever I know, and while I have been working diligently every day on the (much?) anticipated fan video for Rhinestone Eyes, I have also been working diligently on paying my rent, so things have been slow. By way of apology here is a little something for today, my Plastic Beach CG model on a turntable. For 17 seconds. Enjoy. Made using Maya 2013.

Seasons greetings from The Gummy Bear, and me!

Happy Holidays viewers!
The Gummy Bear videos are usually CG, and I was very pleased to be a part of the first stop motion video to feature the squishy green guy! I was involved in the compositing on the video. Enjoy!

Annoying Orange title card - The Further Adventures of Sherleek Holmes

I was commissioned earlier this year to create the title card for an episode of Cartoon Network's The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange. The episode was entitled "The further adventures of Sherleek Holmes". This was what I submitted, though I think that for the episode the text and other elements were tweaked slightly.

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Fan Video - fighter pilot

New poster from my upcoming fan video of Rhinestone Eyes - enjoy!