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!

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Fan Video - Small Update 2 - bombs away!

Small update number two, again taken from the upcoming second extended clip.

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Fan Video - Small Update

Here is a little preview of a new clip I will be uploading sometime soon. It is in the 3rd act of the video, once Boogey has summoned his forces to all converge on the island. Now that I am back on the job full time there will be more soon!

Once again credit to my wife Yaoyao for her amazing background work :D

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Plastic Beach Wireframe

Hey avid blog readers! here is a little update on the progress of my Plastic Beach model. I was using this model purely as reference for composing shots in the beginning, but I have to complete it to production standards by the end for use in moving camera shots, such as the planes attack runs on the Island. I am being pulled in several directions at the moment but I will try to update more images and behind the scenes tidbits when I can! thanks for tuning in Gorillaz fans!

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Fan Video - Russell and Noodle poster (to let you know I am not dead)

It's been a while since the last update on my video, so I thought I would share one now. This is a cleaned up image from the video (added the sky and shading for dramatic purposes :)) I will update more when I can, but things are always hectic for the freelance animators of the world.

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Extended Clip

Hi all, it's been a little while, but as promised, here is a substantial update on my progress on the one and only Gorillaz Rhinstone Eyes fan video. Once again, this clip is a taste of what has been completed so far, and in no way represents the sum total of my progress. At this point I would say that the overall completion of the entire video sits at about the 30% range.



I would like to give a big shout out and thanks once again to my wife, Yaoyao and her work on the backgrounds and artwork for this video!

Also, if you like that there are fans out there willing to spend time making these projects then check out Frameslinger and his fan video for 5/4, which like mine, is based on an unreleased storyboard video! give him a look!

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes - Boogeyman Ahoy

This week's teaser image is of the almost completed Boogeyman's ship that will be the center of a great deal of the action in this video.  The model as shown here is at about 80% completion, and was made in Maya/textured in Photoshop.

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes - Teaser 2

The second teaser clip from my Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes fan video. This is the same clip that I released an animation test for a little while back, now in a much more finished state. There has been speculation that the clips released represent the sum total of all the completed work thus far, and I can assure you that is not the case. The video is coming along nicely, and the parts I choose to show are purely so that the fans can get a taste for what is in store.

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes - 2D's room Poster

New image for today! This one is special because it is the first to feature a background created by my partner in crime (and wife) Yaoyao. She is going to be helping me out on the video with animation and background design, check out her blog, and give her some of that Gorillaz fan love!

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Fan Video Teaser

New Teaser is up for Rhinestone Eyes! My Gorillaz fan video inches closer to completion every day! Here is the latest snippet of animation released. These clips are still a work in progress, and merely serve to show the kind of style the video will have when it is completed. Like and Subscribe on Youtube and I will post more!

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes - Cyborg Noodle In Action

A new image from my Rhinestone Eyes fan video. Noodle brandishing her newly made twin Uzi Carbines.

Gorillaz Rhinstone Eyes Test Animation...with Murdoc!

Hi Gorillaz fans, as promised I am trying to update my progress on Rhinestone Eyes as much as possible, so today I thought I would share a little bit of footage. Murdoc, with Cyborg Noodle not far behind, sneak up on The Boogeyman in this shot. The animation was done in Flash and After Effects. Stay tuned for more Rhinestone Eyes news!

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes... Cyborg Noodle has arrived

So for this past week I have been working to get the Cyborg Noodle model done and rigged for my Rhinestone Eyes fan vid, and it came out better and sooner than I expected, so here is a teaser of what to expect! The model was made using Maya, textured in Photoshop (I'm oldschool like that). All thats left to do on her is sculpt her facial expressions, since she is going through some pretty heavy emotions in this video! More soon...

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes: Teaser Poster #2

Due to the overwhelming and lovely response to the material I have put out so far, I thought I would throw up another image as a thank you!

The support for the project has inspired me to work faster and harder to make sure this isn't another film lost to the "someday" files.

Thanks everyone! More updates soon...

Gorillaz - Rhinestone Eyes Teaser Poster

The first official image from my Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes fan video. The mission of this film is to fully realize the amazing storyboard video for the un-produced Rhinestone Eyes music video, completing the storyline for the Plastic Beach campaign. This film is being made by me, purely as a fan of the incomparable Gorillas, out of a desire to see the story finished in the visual style that Gorillaz fans are accustomed to.

* This is a fan video, I do not own anything, all content owned by Gorillaz/respective copyright owners.

Black Stormtrooper 3 has been released!

The third installment of the ongoing Black Stormtrooper series is finally here! I worked closely with the series creator Donald Faison, to create sets and special effects that would bring as much of a classic Star Wars feel to the show as we could, while still keeping it very "Lego". Enjoy!

Hand Made Cigar Box Ukulele

For a few months now, in my spare time, I have been making a Ukulele from scratch, using a cigar box as the starting point. The basic idea is to take a wooden Cigar Box (though you can use non wooden ones as well, resulting in different acoustics), build and attach the neck, fret board etc, cut a hold in the box, string it up and you have yourself a musical instrument! The neck was certainly the most challenging part, as it required the most finessing. First the wood, (which was salvaged from a scrap bin, and so I am unsure of what kind it was, but Birch is my guess from the color) had to be cut at a precise angle, glued, and then cut to rough size with a band saw, planed down and finally sanded to the final shape. Once assembled, I stained the fretboard to give it a little contrast, and then coated the whole thing with a few coats of a polyurethane to protect it. The sound it makes is decent, not quite as loud as my other, store-bought one, but it has a more rustic quality, which I like.

                     

Denis Leary's Merry F#%$in' Christmas

I was a part of the small team of extremely talented folks who put together the illustrations for this book, a christmas tale filled with Dennis Leary's special brand of debautury and delightfully dark seasonal humor! The book is an adaptation of the song taken from Denis Leary's 2004 comedy album Merry F'n Christmas. Denis Leary's Merry F#%$in' Christmas is now available for purchase on Amazon.com or wherever books are sold!

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*Update - Comedy Central just reposted the original, uncensored video. Enjoy!

The Story Of Pines - Watch the full film online now!

Here it is ladies and gents, The Story Of Pines, featuring the music of Alison Sudol. Thanks to Musa Brooker for giving me the chance to be a part of such a magical little film! Please comment, like etc, anything you can to help spread the word about this film!