Clubhouse Covers And Splashes

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As I’ve mentioned in the past, I run an afterschool comic book club at my children’s school. I give a little presentation and outline for projects at the beginning of each meeting. When I talk about how to make comic book covers and splash pages it’s the first time that the students get to use markers and pens to ink their drawings. In order to demonstrate how to do this I prepare a number of sample penciled drawings and ink them in front of the students to show them what to do. Here are some pieces I couldn’t help myself from finishing after the session was over. One that’s a nod to one of my favorite artists growing up and some with K-Pop Demon Hunters vibes. Kudos to you if you can name that inspirational artist and the referenced cover. 😉

Type 2 Inflammation Animated Commercials

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A little while ago I had the opportunity to work with a great team put together by Byrd Alley to create a series of animated commercials for a new drug to help people suffering from a list of illnesses related to “type 2 inflammation”. Matt Sutter did the character and background art and I did the animation. In these pieces each illness is personified by a member of an extended family living in the same apartment building. The fun part for me was figuring out how to do various morph animations that pop up in each piece (ie. dumpling -> cringe, flowers -> congestion, pizza -> blob monster). View all four animations on my portfolio page.

“Type 2 inflammation ruins date night” animated commercial.
“Type 2 inflammation causes family trouble” animated commercial.

Side Hustlin’

Playing bike polo is a lot of fun. I started playing it around 2008. The sport has existed as a hardcourt game for about 25 years (as a grass court game for over a century!) and has developed its own subculture. Slang, memes, personalities, global involvement; all there. I’ve designed t-shirts and other products to help my local club raise money in the past. Recently, I have felt an itch to also make some more things related to bike polo that didn’t pertain to my club. This inspired creating BikePolo.Me, a web store for fun Bike Polo apparel and accessories! Check it out. Join in on the fun!

Screenshot of the BikePolo.Me website store front.
"Bumper Stickers" t-shirt design.
"Pow! Swoosh!" t-shirt design.
"Spider Flash Art" t-shirt design.
"Ask me about Bike Polo." t-shirt design.
"Is it a real sport?" t-shirt design.
"Play Bike Polo. Have a nice day." t-shirt design.

Magick Gathering

Here is another animated interpretation of Eleanor’s book covers. This time it’s for “Magick In Theory & Practice” by Aleister Crowley. Hopefully, I’ve brought a little bit of magical feeling to the original art.

Eleanor’s cover art.
My moving interpretation.

“A Farewell To Arms” Redux

JustEleanor has been doing her own interpretations of classic book covers. I was asked to bring a little extra life into the artwork. Here’s an example of “A Farewell To Arms” by Ernest Hemmingway. It’s a very moving story.

Eleanor’s take on the “A Farewell To Arms” cover.
Me adding “zazz” with After Effects.

Sweet Sweet Thursday

Thursday is almost Friday and that’s almost the weekend. Get yourself a sweet treat for you and the sweeties in your life today. Y’all deserve it!

A little looping gif I made for my sweetie.

End of July Racing

I love cycling and July is a special month for cyclists because it means that it’s time for the Tour de France. Both men’s and women’s races take place during the month, although with staggered starting dates and for different durations. The racing looks beautiful with the backdrop of different French regions and mountain ranges. There’s also the human drama with stories of champions, underdogs, legends, and legends in the making. If you’re curious to learn more and experience some of the thrills there is a wonderful documentary series available on Netflix called “Tour de France: Unchained” (crudely translated from the French title “Tour de France: Au Coeur du Peloton” or In the Heart of the Peloton).

My wife and I had the privilege of taking a self-guided bicycle tour of France several years ago. The luxurious fabled time before children. Unfortunately, it was not during July so seeing le Tour first hand wasn’t possible. However, we did get to ride some of the classic terrain that the race visits often. Afterwards we came home and collaborated on a series of art prints based on what we saw and experienced. I made some translations of these pieces as looping animations. Here’s one of those pieces inspired by riding through fields of lavender. I can still remember how it smells.

A Rainy Day

Rainy days can be frustrating. They can steal your joy. Maybe rainy days even make you feel a little bit sick, but they can be beautiful too. What do you do on a rainy day? How do they make you feel?

Animation With A Different Direction

Most of the animation projects I’ve done recently have utilized older comic strips that I’ve made or friends have made. I felt it was important to not fuss over drafting the story, character design, etc. and focus on the animation. Just get to business! This was also my solution for killing procrastination. For a while, this seemed like a fun way to generate content and practice different skills (SPOILER: I’m not a trained animator). The drawback has been that the style hasn’t changed much and the type of directing, framing, and pacing were very similar. It felt like I needed to change things up and try a different challenge.

I’m an avid anime and manga consumer. At night, when I have trouble sleeping, I’ll watch anime since with the sound off and the subtitles on. Maybe I’m a bit more focused on what I’m seeing and I absorb things differently. One day I sat down and started making an animatic from scratch of an action sequence inspired by anime (well actually, it’s more like a portion of a scene). No big plan, just winging it. After reading about the movie production process of “Flow” I felt empowered. Here’s the rough animatic so far…