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!

Preview of upcoming film I worked on, The Story Of Pines

Check out the first preview of the upcoming short film The Story Of Pines for which I was responsible for visual effects and compositing.

The film is a collaboration with Alison Sudol, lead singer of the band A Fine Frenzy, and the film helps to tell the story of her new album "The Story Of Pines".



The film debuts online on October 2nd on Take Part TV, and will be posted here as well.

Wake The F**k Up - Staring Samuel L Jackson

This is a short election piece that I worked on, which stars none other than Samuel L Jackson. I was responsible for the visual effects/compositing in this ad using animation created by Musa Brooker. I really love the piece, as it is a funny, some might say controversial (if you are offended by bad language) way of delivering a message I am passionate about. I feel very privileged to have been a part of it, and hope that it serves as a reminder of all the president has achieved in his 4 short years in office. *update Link has been taken down, here is a mirror. and here is a segment with my favorite news group The Young Turks, talking about the video.

Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Video - Fighter Plane Render

Hey all, I said I would update progress on my Gorillaz fan project as soon as I could, so here is a little teaser for you. This is the same model of WW2 fighter planes that was attacking noodle in the Melancholy Hill video, and are back to cause trouble in this one! Gorillaz videos are known for fusing live action, practical model photography, traditional animation and cutting edge CGI and I am attempting to stick as closely to their style as possible. Modeled using Maya 2010, textured in Photoshop.

News - Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes Video now in production (by me)

Hey avid blog readers! So after several months of working on top secret projects that I can neither show nor talk about, I thought I would share something that I CAN talk about, and that has me very excited!

Those who know me are aware that I am a huge fan of "virtual hip-hop" UK outfit Gorillaz. Those of you who follow their work know that the final music video from the Plastic Beach phase, the video to accompany the track Rhinestone Eyes, was never made due to budgetary constraints, and rather a storyboarded version put up as the official video. Well I have taken it upon myself to create that video in full animation, purely from a fan perspective, and with no financial gain in mind. It just seems like such a shame that these incredible storyboards were never taken to completion, and that the fans of the Gorillaz were never given the conclusion to the Plastic Beach narative. I will keep updates coming on my progress with the video on this page, releasing screen shots etc as often as I can. Watch this space for more Gorillaz Rhinestone Eyes video news!

Daxter Speed Painting - The First Post Of 2012 (sorry)

So this is a digital speed painting. It was done in about 30 minutes using Photoshop. The aim of it was more tonal study than compositional accuracy. It's kinda whatever but I haven't posted anything for what feels like a decade so I thought this would be a nice way to ease back into it.

Anyone who knows me knows my affinity for the play station 2 generation platforming heroes Jak and Daxter, and so the subject of this painting will make complete sense as my easing back into the world of doing stuff.

Clank Puppet First Animation Test (stop motion)

So despite being super busy for the last few months, I have been trying to do some stop motion animation in my spare time using the Clank puppet I whipped up. This is my first little test, its nothing special really, just the character doing a confidant, robotic looking walk cycle. I will be trying to do more with the puppet soon, testing out it's limitations etc. Will post more when I have a chance!


Animation Test - Clank puppet walk from richard van as on Vimeo.

Clank Stop Motion Puppet

He may be Ratchet's adorable robot sidekick to some, to others he is Secret Agent Clank, master spy, but to me he is a brilliantly designed character which I have been wanting to animate for some time, though I thought I would be doing it in CGI. However I recently installed Dragon Stop Motion on my computer and have been dying to really test it out, so I created this puppet in order to do some broad gesture animations to add to my show reel! I will update with the animation clips once I am finished with them!

New Walking In Circles Episodes

So I have up until now been posting each new episode of Walking In circles as it Debuts here on my main blog. To keep things nice and organized what I am doing now is posting them to the new Walking In Circles page on my blog, which can be found in the pages column to the right. I will be posting all of the newest production art, episodes, Krag Cams and any other juicy tidbits on there for you to check out! Be sure and check back for new content every Tuesday!

Black StormTrooper update!

http://thatsmoo-say.blogspot.com/2011/07/coming-soon-black-storm-trooper-iii.html

Check out this minor photo update hot off of the set of the next episode of Black StormTrooper, coming soon (we hope).

As you can see my good friends Donald Faison and Musa Brooker, as well as my super talented wife Yaoyao are having a ball getting this latest episode on the way, its going to be something else!

Sorry about the lack of actual animation being posted on here recently, I have just been busy on a bunch of as-of-yet-unfinished projects. I promise I will get back to my personal stuff as soon as I can, I still have Lego Lost episodes to make, Cartoon life lessons I want to do, as well as about 300,000 other wacky ideas floating around my brain. All things come to those who bare with me.

Also, as an added bonus for continuing to check out my blog, here is a little sneaky image that will be appearing in the next episode and causing some trouble!

Walking In Circles Episode 1: Party Up

watch it, laugh, sound off in the comments!

Walking In Circles Premiere

Last night I was most fortunate to attend the premiere of the soon-to-be-hit show Walking In Circles. It was quite the spectacle having all of those people in one room knowing just how much time and effort went into the producing of this show, not to mention the financing. It was equally wonderful to see the clearly deserving cast and crew get to take a moment in the spot light, sit back and see what they had made and how well the audience responded to it. I am really proud to be a part of the show and I will update on here when episode 1 is released and for the other episodes as they come out. Be sure and Like the show on Facebook and follow along on Twitter to show your support!

whew, busy couple of months!

http://www.whosay.com/donaldfaison/photos/37268

check out this special preview hot off the set of Black Stormtrooper 3! It is going to be the citizen caine of lego stop motion films.

These last few months have also been made busy by the fact that I have been working very hard on some top-secret CG happenings for the epic web series Walking In Circles, which is set to make it's debut sometime in July, stay tuned for more announcements on that and check out the teaser bellow!
*update* full trailer now available!

BlackStormTrooper

So recently I have not been posting too much, and the reasons are two-fold. Number 1, I have been sending my demo reel out and focusing on gaining a toe hold in the industry, and number 2, I've been working with Donald Faison (IMDB) on his awesome BlackStormTrooper series (!), and that has been keeping me pretty busy. Episode 3 is shaping up to be awesome though! Black Stormtrooper and Jack Move are going to take their first steps into a much larger world! If you haven't yet checked Black StormTrooper out, go to Shundigga's channel on YouTube and check it out! It's awesome for any Star Wars fans, Lego fans, or fans of general awesomeness!

LEGO Lost Trailer

Hey readers, I know that some of you out there were probably as big of a fan of the best (in my humble opinion) TV show of all time, ABC's LOST. Well since the show ended there has definitely been a hole in my TV watching soul that has not been filled yet. As a hobby I started to recreate some of my favorite characters and props from the show out of LEGO using the art of CGI. The aim was to eventually create either a short film, game trailer or movie trailer paying homage to the most finely crafted TV show in history. I got as far as creating a whole bunch of assets, a lot of the major characters like Jack, Kate, Sawer etc etc (none of which are rigged yet) and had to stop due to pressing deadlines and such in other areas of my life, so here is the work so far. I want to call this project temporarily shelved because I really do have a huge desire to finish it, but that will have to wait until some other commitments get taken care of first.
 *Update* Teaser trailer now available. Comments and feedback please!!!

Dharma Van, in LEGO!

Dharma Van wireframe

The plane that started it all; Oceanic 815

The ill-fated raft

"Were gonna have to take the boy"

Raft details. Those are oranges in the crates.

Walking In Circles, Amazing new web series about dragons and stuff!

Hey all, so you may remember a while back I posted something about working on a dragon character for an upcoming web series - Walking In Circles. Well shooting is well under way and going swimmingly as I understand it, and now promotional material is beginning to surface, so check it out on Facebook, Twitter et al, and leave me a comment to let me know what you think!

New Animation combining 2D and 3D (In the most minor way possible)

So this latest addition to my demo reel is a little lip sync test of Charlie from FX's It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia which uses my Stu(like) rig in 3D with Maya, and a 2D animated mouth done in Digicel Flipbook.

Comments welcome! Please rate and subscribe to my Youtube channel as well for more! and if you want to show love go ahead and "like" me on your facebook page!

2D Animated Shot - Cartoon life lesson

This shot is a little idea I've had milling about in my head for quite a while, in which a hapless little 2D cartoon fellow shows us the wisdom that cartoons have imparted on us. Mostly through pain. Lessons like, if you run over the edge of a cliff, don't look down or you will plummet, or tiny umbrellas do nothing for you against giant falling boulders, or just don't ever buy acme products. So this one is the first of that series, demonstrating the lesson; if you are holding onto a heavy object which is imminently going to pull you down a hole, let go of it.

This shot like all my 2D work was achieved with Digicel Flipbook.

New Demo Reel, and also it's my Birthday!

Hey avid readers, so here is the latest update to my demo reel, I have a couple of new things in there, including some 2D animated shots achieved with Digicel Flipbook (among which is the previously teased pelican shot) and a small snippet (actually not even, its a test shot) for my Evolve CG Heroes and Legends Contest entry. It has certainly been a busy couple of months since my wife and I started out reteaching ourselves animation, and it has been a lot (and I really mean a lot) of hours and dedication, but I am very glad I put those hours in, and I want to thank my supremely talented and wonderfully supportive wife Yaoyao for not ever letting me slip. Thanks babe - It will all be worth it soon!

All 3D elements achieved using Maya 2010, Thanks to Josh Burton for creating the Morpheus Rig!

Upcoming 2D Animated Shot

So I am currently working on a 2D animated shot for my show reel using Digicel Flipbook. This is a little teaser image of the shot which happens to involves a pelican. I would love to hear feedback in the comments section!

Turbosquid.com - Over 1000 Dollars Profit!

Hey avid readers, just a quick note before I was heading to bed, I checked my Turbosquid.com sales, and saw that I had just passed the landmark of $1000 earned. People often ask me if it's worth posting their models on Turbosquid, if you can really turn a profit or not, well I have been a member since 2009, but I have only posted up about 40 products, most of which are in the $20 - $50 range, and I have amassed a thousand dollars from those sales alone. If you wanted to make a living off of the site, I would say that you need to be posting a new product daily for about 6 months (keeping the quality and usability high obviously, nobody wants a model of "your house from when you were 5" that has no textures and is 5 million polys). When I was posting a new City themed product every couple of days for a month, my average monthly profits rose from about $40 to about $100, so do the math.

that is all avid readers, I hope that this has given anyone with doubts about Turbosquid a bit of insight. In my humble opinion it is WELL worth doing, especially if you have models that you have already made, it cant hurt to throw them up there. Sure they take a large chunk (40 - 50% depending on your seller level) but in the end, its pure profit off of something you have already done, so why not.

Anyone with experience using Turbosquid, please feel free to register your opinions and experiences here in the comment section, I would love to hear about it!

YouAnimator.com Daily Featured Animator!

Everyone who reads this blog knows that I am a huge fan of the work done over at YouAnimator.com in creating a community for us character animators to gather, share thoughts and feedback and learn from one another. I was honored to find out I had been featured as one of six top animators of the day, thanks a bunch guys, and please continue to grow and build the site, it is a guiding light for a lot of us animators who were stumbling around in darkness before!

New Lip Sync Animation! Featuring Sir Ian Mckellen!

My latest animated piece, a short lip sync to the voice of Sir Ian Mckellen, in a scene from Extras opposite Ricky Gervaise. Feedback much appreciated! (made in Maya 2010 using the Morpheus Rig by Josh Burton)

Lip Sync Animation

Here is a short clip featuring the voice of Matt Damon impersonating Matthew McConaughey while on Letterman back in 2006. The point of this exercise was to practice not only dialogue and acting but also bold posing. This was my first time using the Morpheus rig, and I have to say, I am more than impressed. I think Morpheus might be my favorite rig ever actually. The morphing features are great and very flexible, and the rig is actually exceedingly usable too. As ever, feedback on my animation is more than welcomed.

Pixar's Luxo Jr - New Animation (by me)

So here is some new material, I have wanted to animate Luxo Jr - the lovable little lamp that is the face of Pixar Animation Studios - for as long as I can remember, so I finally just sat down, modeled and rigged the character (in Maya 2010), and I have animated him in this little short!

Evolve CG Challenge: A quick demo of my character rigs

Hey all, so the Evolve Challenge is really heating up, with loads of great talent pouring in with their contributions. My own entry was going to be in the concept art category, but I realized I wasn't fooling anyone, I am no concept artist, I am an animator! so I rigged up some quick dummy style characters and set about animating the story I had already laid out for my now abandoned illustration. This is my first piece of progress, a little demo of the character rigs in action. I forgot to demo all the features, like the foot roll attributes on the centaur, and the paint weights was awful on the shoulders, but I have now fixed that. Anyway, enjoy! (PS: I am in no way a rigger so be kind)

PARKOUR!

 So this is the second animation from my Body Mechanics Class, PARKOUR! (ever since that episode of 'The Office' I am compelled to add extra emphasis to the word "PARKOUR" - See the CLIP)

So yeah, here is the animation, it's still a teeny bit rough, but I'm pretty happy with it overall - as always, any comments, feedback etc are very welcome!

YouAnimator: Show Your Animations - Sweatbox

I have just begun catching up with uploading all of my various little slivers of animation all over the internet, and I have found that above all others, the best way to get useful, immediate, usable feedback on your work has to be Sweatbox. It is a section of YouAnimator.com devoted to work in progress pieces. I uploaded a play blast I was working on and within 5 minutes got a very long, detailed comment of ways to approach the shot and add flare to it. If you guys don't have anyone to critique your work, I would most definitely say throw it up on Sweatbox and see what happens -  and don't worry it's all very friendly!

Check it out here!