Santa Clause is Coming to Town....

...and he's not wearing any pants! Xmas was such a stressful time of year, I wish I could have just joined Santa and ran naked in the snow. PS - this was my Xmas card this year, and though I've posted it elsewhere, I thought it made sense to post it here too.

Happy New Year

A tiggeriffic birthday to you!

A birthday card for a fellow employee. My humor can be a little dark sometimes, but so is hers. Hope she likes it. I do.

Happy Birthday to you too!

Turtle's Need for Speed

My last show for the season and my final Noir Themed Cover page. (In addition to the usual cast of Pooh, this episode also featured great voice work by Mark Hamill!)
Now I'm staying on and helping with Post, and eventually moving on to Mickey's Clubhouse, a preschool show that is for the...um...preschoolers in middle america..if you know what I mean. That said, it's a really great group of people working on it and Disney has really gone out of their way to take care of me and keep me on staff. What can I say, I'm a lucky boy.

Chasing Pooh's Rainbow

Ahhhh, end of a season and the cover pages are getting dark. This is actually a funny, sweet episode, but after a long haul of boarding, the mind does wander to dark places.
Below is a funny little gag, ala Bugs Bunny, that makes me laugh:

(click image to view scene)

Scrooge: The Final

So here's the Final on Scrooge: the Musical. Had to pull it back to a more traditional family friendly style (some directors have no imagination...ah, thems the breaks). My only gripe is that in the printing, the blue we used (a metallic blue) ended up printing a little softer and greyer than I had hoped. Bah, and humbug. But the image still looks great on the wall and I love the town in the background! Merry xmas.

Take that, Litterbug!

Just complete a large number of frames in a very short time for a very cool client (creative director Kurt Reifschneider to be exact). Taking on Litterbugs in Seattle. Call a number, give a litterbug a $1200 ticket! THWACK! This frame just begged to be posted.

Happy Halloween to All...

...and to all, a Fright Night!

Scrooge: the casualty

Selfish Children Know Best. Our tag line isn't When you want it Our Way for nothin'. That said, I don't always GET my way (which makes me cranky). This is the original poster design for this year's production of Scrooge: the musical. As you may or may not notice, I'm trying to switch things up with this seasons promotional material. I guess the client had other ideas that they failed to communicate to us until AFTER the entire project was completed. You can imagine my thrill. But you, my friends, can enjoy the great design that my lil' sister and I came up with here. Bah! Humbug! Color for print: Deep Maroon and Gunmetal (shiny!)

A CHORUS LINE

Well, it's the start of a new Season for Capital Playhouse. This will make my...I have no clue....5th year doing their posters and programs and logos and brochures and photo touchups. It's been pretty great. I get to change styles with each new project and work on lots of great shows.

This year's a bit different as my sister (my usual art director and boss at the theatre) has left CPH and has moved to another state. We like working together so much, we're going to continue with Kris continuing as project manager. And this year we're going to do it all remotely. So far it's working fine (though we were having the damnedest time banging out a concept for this poster). In the end, something classy always sells a show like this.

Though I just did a yellow and black poster for Urinetown last season, I think a nice black and high chrome yellow could really make this design pop.

Tigger's Delivery Service: The Irreverant Cover Page

In my tradition of Cover Pages that will never see an executives desk, I proudly present Tigger's Delivery Service - did somebody order "piglet"? (actual boards to follow).

Tigger and the Xmas Pooh

Just a little bit of my opening sequence (actually, the second sequence) in the Tigger & Pooh Xmas DVD. In this sequence, the camera starts on the falling snow, pans down and around a tree, revealing how the animals of the Hundred Acre Woods are experiencing the winter. Pan down continues (following Woodpecker to reveal Lumpy and Roo Pushing a bigass snowball up a hill). I'd post more, but I'm already done with the next episode (Tigger's Delivery Service), so I'll try to get some boards up for that this week.

Fool for the Honey

This "Noir Pooh" is just a quick sketch I did for a colleague in his sketchbook. Since it goes with the other "Noir Pooh" covers I've been doing for my boards, I thought I'd post it. Threw a little grayscale on it for a pulp effect. Forgive me for the bad lettering - like I said - for sketchbook.

Workwise, finishing up my latest board...Tigger opens a delivery service. Some fun stuff on it. We also got our opening animation back and it looks amazing. I've even seen rough animation from my 1st show and I think it's going to be a stunner. I'm really excited. Dave has given me a lot of control over the way in which I present (and add to) the stories (as is his way) and it's makes the job we do very fulfilling. Especially when we can see the positive results from our choices. Thx Dave!

In other work, the brochure I designed for Capital Playhouse's 2006-2007 season saw print this month. With a nod to the amazing Mary Blair I went big color and flat paper. I'm really happy with the results. You can see examples of the brochure below:

OUTSIDE


INSIDE


About to start work on the new season posters...1st up: A Chorus Line.

There's no business like show business.....

Something new for an ad campaign I like to call "Subtlety in Advertising". If this ever gets produced, I'm definitely getting a copy for my website. Funny stuff.

Consider this your sneak peak.

A cute shot from the opening

This is going to be changed, I'm sure. (Ahhhh, the magic of working with so many Network executives). But for about 10 minutes, it was designated as the final shot from our opening for Tigger and Pooh. I liked it so much, I thought I'd show it off.

Did I mention I work on Tigger and Pooh?

He's much larger in life than I would have expected from watching the movies.

Bedtime for Bouncer: a tigger tale

My latest board for Tigger and Pooh is titled "Bedtime for Bouncer". The premise is that Tigger is unwiling to sleep, as it takes up precious bouncing time. As a result of his all night bouncing bender, Tigger spends the entire episode in a sleep deprived state of drunkeness (my skewed approach to the story). Retitle this episode "Drunken Tigger". I'll post boards of some of Tigger's acting here later in the week. Really funny character stuff. I can't wait to see how the board plays out on this one. Pretty random stuff going on here (one of these days my boards are going to get so crazy, people will have a hard time figuring out which scripts they are supposed to illustrate! haha. As long as they're funny!)

(oh, and see previous posts for an explanation on the twisted cover page)

Lumpy Spends the Night

I'm posting some examples of the work I'm doing on Tigger & Pooh. Hope Disney doesn't mind too much...consider it free advertising! Ok - so the cover pages aren't part of the story, but they have become a tradition around our crowd. Something to entertain everyone who has to look over these things with a meticulous eye. But below are a few pages from the opening of the show:






Finally, a bit of boarding from a sequence that didn't make the cut (due to time). Too bad, as I thought I really hitthe nail on the head with this one. Lumpy is spending the night at Roos, and is homesick. He misses his mom. We push in thru Roo's window onto Lumpy, in his sleeping bag on the floor next to Roo's bed. The room is lit by a single candle behind him. It flickers gently. Lumpy looks up at the ceiling, thinking of his mother, and sees a familiar shadow (his shadow) which reminds him of his mother. He reaches his trunk up to the ceiling, which causes his shadow to reach out as well...out toward him. He tries to touch "his mother's" trunk, but can't reach. He lays back down, lonely and sad, the shadow receeds as well:


Next Episode: Drunken Tigger

Quick Work for adverts.

with ad work, there's no time like the present. which usually means an all nighter in order to accomodate. behold the offerings of last nights artfest. i decided to show these two (out of 20) because i thought it appropriate to see what kind of fashion decisions one makes at 5am. a men's sweater, over a t-shirt, with a silk bandana and...is that a fro?!? and she's caucasion. boy is this woman a hipster. "look out! here she comes! she's a disco queen." what medication IS she on? the art looks good though!

A New Print Campaign

And now for the other half of the bread and butter. Advertising. I really enjoy doing ad work. It's always challenging, and allows me to change up my style and approach to address the specific needs of each campaign. This one is for a Print campaign (photo) for an investment company (so a conservative, elegant approach was called for). I think the execution is classic, and hopfully will really sell the idea to the client. (Thanks for the work Eric! It's always fun!)

Meeting with the Man

Today I met with Jeff Kline, our Executive Producer on Pooh, for lunch. He was very gracious with his time and open with his opinions (which is one of the reasons I really enjoy working with him...he is generous, smart, direct and well thought out in his critiques) (don't take no sh*t neither!). We talked about a lot of things, including one of my properties that I am currently developing further. It was great to get his take on it, and to get his advice. No buttering up here. I am very fortunate to have several people I really respect in the career who are willing to take the time to help me develop as an artist: David Hartman, Chuck Drost, Therese Trujillo and Maura Sullivan to name a few, but not to slight any of the many others who are so generous with me.

So, for the first time publicly, I present a sneak peak at the "Z-Boys",.

Thanks for indulging my gush.

Urinetown: The Musical

Just completed the most recent poster for Capital Playhouse's presentation of the Broadway hit "Urinetown". Trying something different here, getting away from individuals and letting the city be the character. Using a different limited pallette and this time working with simple shapes and transparencies challenged my design abilites. My recent trip to NY really informed and inspired my approach to this piece.
At least I like to think so.

Just a Snapshot

A portrait of life with 3 cats. Now you might think, "how chaotic!", but you haven't seen the half of it. Add in the dirt and debris of a full studio reconstruction (which you can reenact on your own computer by liberally dusting the screen with talcum powder and covering your keyboard in crap you find off the floor) and you can see what we're up against. But give it a bit of time and we'll have the best damned studio around! You're all invited to the opening party...if we ever finish construction.

Taking a Pooh

Tigger's Shadow of a Doubt,

Well, currently I'm creating storyboards for a new Winnie the Pooh show at Disney titled "Tigger and Pooh". It's a 3D preschool show, and I can tell you right now, the work that's coming in is beautiful. It think it's going to be a real stand-out show on the Disney Channel. David Hartman is the Director/Producer that I'm working with, and Jeff Kline is heading the show up. My first board is a Tigger show. Below is an actual page from the board.



More posts, pics and news from the front as the show continues production.

Blingbabies

Thought I'd start by posting a little Illo I did in reaction to the Beverly Hills Accessories....I mean babies being chauffeured around here. Yah-boyeeee - flossin' the way Selfish Children way. Ha!

Sweeet

Now we're on our way...

Dashboard widget...will it work?

Trying out the Dashboard Widget for posting.  Will it work?  Only one way to tell.....