September 26, 2008

Daily Crapbook



My online moniker has been "Jo The Zette" ever since middle school. She's a reference to Freakazette, a female counterpart to Freakazoid that was never used in the show. At the time, I thought it would be presumptuous to call myself Freakazette, as in THE Freakazette, so I took the "zette" and added a Jo to make her more my own. These days my avatar is that Cup-Head-Jo-girl-thing you see all over my site, because Jo The Zette is a little too fangirly to market me as a professional (and yes, in some twisted way I feel the CupHead Jo will make people take me more seriously). Anyhow, I haven't drawn ol' Zette for a while, and I thought I'd give her a makeover.

September 24, 2008

Daily Crapbook

Adorable Baby Animal Show


Animal Planet has some really addicting shows. One of my favorites it "Growing Up..". Its a show about people who rescue abandoned or mistreated exotic baby animals and raise them. I just saw an episode called "Growing Up Sitka Deer". Even though I've seen "Snow White" and "Bambi", I never knew how affectionate and sweet deer could be. Hell, if you have the land for it, they seem to make wonderful pets. This lady on the show has rescued two fawns, and watching her interact with them really made me dissatisfied with my cat. They would jump and lick her face whenever they saw her, follow her around, nuzzle and cuddle, and she could even walk them on a leash! Anyhow, this is a fanciful picture based on that.

September 23, 2008

Daily Crapbook

There is Chuck Jones cartoon about a bored little Martian (not Marvin- a different one-hit-wonder Martian). I can't recall the title, but it was a really adorable cartoon. There was a lady Martian in it whose design was fantastic, but as my memory is very patchy, I decided to forgo trying to remember exactly what she looked like and just doodle something inspired by her.

Daily Crapbook


September 21, 2008

Daily Crapbook


September 20, 2008

Daily Crapbook

A few new doodles, and a couple ancient ones I must have missed in my past doodle sheets.

September 16, 2008

Silesia Walk Cycle 2.0

I unexpectedly got a break from working today, so I decided to waste time a bit. A few years ago I realized I needed to get over my hated/fear of Flash if I wished to continue to eat, so I decided to acquaint myself with the program by bringing in an old school walk cycle pencil test and just drawing over it. The process turned out to be more grueling than I anticipated, so once I felt Flash-friendly enough I abandoned the project. Until today! Here she is, in all her cyclical glory.

September 11, 2008

Ohm Is Where The Heart Is

(Yes, I did draw this just so I could make that lame pun.)

September 10, 2008

Daily Crapbook

I got some new markers- inking practice went a little better today.

September 09, 2008

Daily Crapbook


Tried inking again today- its damn frustrating!

September 08, 2008

PBS Kids Expansion with Dot and Dash

This was the job I was also working on during last spring alongside the previous Cocoa Puffs spot. This was a massive network rebranding- I'm not sure, but I think that the final tally of spots delivered was in the range of 40 or so. I touched maybe half of those, and of those there were only a few where I was pleased with my animation. It was a different pipeline to work with, as I'm more comfortable with handling my animation from keys to to clean-ups. But I had to learn how to animate with other tweeners in mind some time, and this was a good learning experience. Take a look!

September 06, 2008

Cocoa Puffs: Big News Combos

I'm just now getting around to posting the jobs I worked on last spring. Here we have a Cocoa Puffs spot. I wasn't on this job for very long and didn't get to do much animation, and what little animation I did do was either cut or edited (The news anchor bird got completely chopped out at the last moment). But I got some good pencils out of it- here ya go!


September 05, 2008

Daily Crapbook


Nothing good today- here's two sketches from yesterday.

Daily Crapbook


Here's one for the crapper- a nice drawing of Libra that I muddied by overworking it. I'm posting it to remind myself to do better next time.

September 04, 2008

"The Trouble With Angels"


A few weeks ago I caught a really cute film on TCM. "The Trouble With Angels" starred Rosalind Russel as Mother Superior in a Catholic girls' school and Haley Mills as a troublesome student. Its a really cute, fluffy movie that sometimes feels like a sixties precursor to "Saved". One of my favorite scenes is when troublemaker Mary is "volunteering" at an elderly ladies' home at Christmas, and witnesses the heartache of being alone and old, forsaken by your family. She tells the Mother Superior with ferocity: "I hope I die young..and very wealthy." Again, its a very cute film and the acting is superb.

Another cool part is that the titles were done by DePatie-Freleng, and have a very cool scruffy look. I did some sketches somewhat based on them.

September 03, 2008

Daily Crapbook


Its been a while since I've put pen to paper, so I'm spending this week warming up my drawing muscles again. (I think I may have posted that green-background dude before, but hey, it can't hurt to see that ugly mug twice.)

Dragon*Con 2008

Nate and I got to spend one fun-filled day at Dragon*Con Atlanta this year, and I'd like to go over the highlights.

The Skeptic Track: This was actually the main reason we decided to go this year. Michael Shermer and The Amazing James Randi were holding panels, and Randi alone was worth the price of admission. He is well into his twilight years, but sharp as a rapier blade and full of pluck. He demonstrated how two napkins could topple our metaphysics, and I got to shake his hand! Shermer was delightful as well, and his lecture was a blast.

The other draw this year was a bunch of wonderful artists I wanted to meet. Now, I am *not* good at approaching people I admire- the latent fangirl in me bursts out in a tirade of babblings, titters, sweat in weird places, an oddly, an inability to focus my eyes on the appropriate part of the speaker's face. So while Nate educated himself in the Battlestar Galactica panel discussion, I took a stroll down Comic Artist Alley. After stalking up and down the rows a few times, I spotted Shane Glines and decided to approach his table with stealth and warm up before attempting to make contact. My eye caught the work of an artist I hadn't heard of before, but his nifty fifties style was delightful...

Derek Art - I don't know his full name- but just go to his page and be wowed. Totally awesome fifties and tiki art thats so much fun to paw through. It turns out he's a local in Atlanta- he's done work for Cartoon Network and even did poster art for Atlanta's premier improv theater Dad's Garage. How did I find all this out you ask? I actually *spoke* to the dude, and only made a minor ass of myself. With the confidence I gained from that conversation, I felt safe enough to sidle up to...

Shane Glines: One of my greatest artistic heroes. I met him briefly years before, and got my picture taken with the back of his head (it was candid). This year I was determined to talk with him, and through an ingenious segueway in which I commented on his makeshift sketchbook and produced my own homemade crapbook, he actually asked to see it. Masking my glee with a nonchalant "ok", he thumbed through my entire crapbook and even said it was good! I could feel my head turning beet red and knew my luck had peaked, so I hastened to make an exit. Upon turning about, I noticed the table of another hero of mine...

Stephanie Gladden: Another Atlanta local, she's an exquisite draftsman and her drawings are exploding with unbridled joyful fun. Even though I had briefly met her several times, and she even sent me a congratulatory email when she saw Juxtaposer on Local Point TV, it was still hard for me to muster up the courage to talk to her. But as soon as I introduced myself, she knew exactly who I was and immediately gave me a complimentary sketchbook for her property "Girls of Monster Paradise" (its so fantastic- I highly recommend snagging a copy). We chatted about "the biz" and after about ten minutes I felt myself getting babblesome so I excused myself to celebrate quietly in a corner.

Nate and I eventually trekked up to the Walk of Fame, where we bumped into my awesome friend Lucas Ryan who was all dressed up in his Mr. Friskett duds, with a zoetrope gun he had made. He had to run off, so then we sought out C. Martin Croker, whom I've worked with at Primal and is always a pleasure to talk to. Of course, it was about a year of fangirlish terror before I could speak to him like a human being, but I'm glad to say we're friends now and I hardly embarass myself at all in his presence anymore.

It was a full day, and after topping it off with a lecture on Dark Matter on the Science Track, I was ready to call it quits for Dragon*Con 2008. We had such a good time, we might even attend for more than one day next year! Start saving up...