Carmen

People are always messing with that wonderful opera. A few months ago I saw a god-awful ballet version of Carmen performed by the St. Petersburg ballet company. I figure if St. Petersburg is allowed to muck up Carmen, why not me?

Doodle Dump

Tall Dark and Gruesome

Doodle Sauce

Cocoa Puffs: Great Chocolatey Escape

I freelanced at Primal for a couple months, and this is one of the projects I worked on. Sonny is tons of fun. Once its safe, I'll post the two other projects I did at Primal.

Website Tweakage

I'm tweaking my website design a bit to make it more fun to visit. And for anyone who has had fifteen minutes of nothing better to do, didja find the easter eggs??

Doodle Sauce

More Procrastination Doodles

Today's Sketches

What I doodled today while I was procrastinating.

Some Sketches

I meant to update my website this weekend, but got distracted by cleaning the office, doing wedding errands, seeing Kung Fu Panda, and rediscovering my love of naptime. So instead, here are some doodles I done did in my crapbook .

Keepon The Dancing Robot

Keepon is a robot who dances. He was developed by scientists in Japan to help treat children with Asperger's syndrome and autism. Pretty lofty job description for a robot that is essentially two yellow balls, eyes, and a button nose. But apart from his scientific credentials, if you watch this music video which introduces Keepon, you'll see a fantastic lesson in character appeal. Keepon has only a few simple moves, and no appendages, or a face that can change expression or even blink, but he is an irresistible personality. You see his magic best when he is dancing with the more human-proportioned robots. While the other bots can wave their arms, do the twist, and scuttle like crabs, Keepon seems like a little living animal among them. Simple, adorable, and incredibly entertaining. Great song too. I love Spoon. Thank you Nate for finding this video!

My Triumphant Return!

Well, perhaps "triumphant" is too brazen a word, but that title sounds more interesting than "hey guys I'm back. sup."

I've had a helluva lot of work pile up on me these past few months, so I've been neglecting my cyber-presence. But things are easing up a bit so I can get back to working on my own stuff again. Hey! Here's a logo character I created a couple months ago- yes another redhead. --->

Looking down through my blog, I notice I have naught but girlie drawings: I swear I draw other stuff, really I do. Its just that none of it seems interesting enough to post. I'll get to work on that.

In other news, my titles for "Touch Me I'm Karen Taylor" won an "Excellence in Design" award from the ASIFA-East Animation Festival, a distinction shared with an E-Surance ad, so I'm really pleased. Also, I have some projects completed and I'm itching to post them, but I'm not at liberty just yet. But do keep an eye on Low Carb Comedy- I'm just sayin'.

Some Sketches

Muybridge XTREME!

You know that feeling of wonder and awe you felt when you first discovered those remarkable Muybridge photographs? Those step-by-step explorations of simple motions in humans and animals revealed subtleties that were up until that point unnoticeable. Those pictures are fascinating to anyone who never knew that horses fly, but particularly so to animators. Animation is, after all, a study of motion.

I've just finished watching a show on Discovery called "Time Warp" and I'm thrilled to announce that it is Muybridge 2.0, Muybridge To The Max, Muybridge On Acid, MUYBRIDGE XTREME!!! The concept of the show is simple: take common actions and film them at 3,000 to 10,000 frames per second. And the results are astonishing. A man gets punched in the abdomen and his body becomes liquid- with tremors rippling in all directions from the point of impact. As his head snaps back from a clock to the jaw, his nose literally gets left behind. A balloon is popped with a pin and reveals a second smaller balloon inside and then that pops too (I still have no idea how that's possible or what that means, but its friggendy cool.) Did you know that a dog laps up water not by curling his tongue forward and making in a little tongue-bowl, but by curling his tongue backward and tossing the water in his mouth? WEIRD!

So to all you animators and everyone interested in the poetry of motion, you must make a weekly date with this show and goggle. I know I'll be adding it to my reference library the 3,000th of a second it comes out on DVD.

X Minus One

I've stumbled across something remarkable on this electronic manna known as "the internet". In an innocuous archive, there is a treasure trove of episodes from a mid-century radio program called "X Minus One". This is a fantastic science fiction show that I just cannot get enough of. Most of the episodes are adapted from a publication called "Galaxy", and it includes stories by Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and a bevy of other trailblazing authors. The tone of the show reminds me a lot of the Rod Serling "Twilight Zone", with stories ranging from tongue-in-cheek funny, to soul-trappingly horrifying. There are of course, a few clunkers (the one about a blinded spaceship worker who sings in spaceports was a bit blah) but the better part of the series is awesome. My favorites so far are "The Cave of Night", "Skulking Permit", and "A Thousand Dollars A Plate" . Go check 'em out!


Now, for those who have never bothered with old-time radio (or OTR, as the cool kids say) this is an entertainment experience that nothing today can compare with. There such an intimacy with radio- even after half a century these programs seem spontaneous and personal. I really recommend you give them a chance.