"SPEAKING OF THE CIRCUS..."

I'm in the middle of putting together a flier for a friend's graduation (a pedestrian task for anyone more or less skilled with assembling via photoshop; a Herculean ordeal for my limited knowledge, but I love putting these things together), and had scanned some images from one of my favorite books: "The American Circus: Wild, Weird and Wonderful 1901-1927".


I love how utterly depressed everyone looks.

"SPEAKING OF CIRCUS PEANUTS..."

I recently dug these designs for my first pilot, CIRCUS PEANUT. It was my first foray into Flash animation and Eric Pringle, Matt Danner and Aaron Simpson taught me how to break everything down onto separate layers and so forth. It should be noted that this was Flash, if not in it's infancy, then it's toddler years. Per the design aesthetic, I'm more or less happy with what I came up with at the time, though I suppose had I drawn these now, I'd definitely push some more appealing shapes and features.

BUY THIS ALBUM!

I couldn't be happier to see the growing success of my very good friend and occasional collaborator, SHAUN CROMWELL. For those of you who happened to see my very first foray into animation pilots, Shaun did the rootsy score for CIRCUS PEANUT. Since then, he's worked on other movies, TV shows and currently headlining folk festivals around the country. Aside from painting this CD cover and designing with Charlatan Ball co-collaborator Ben Kalina, the music itself is some of the most sophisticated, introspective and whimsical songs I've ever heard. Listen to some of the tracks on his site or ORDER THE ALBUM FROM HERE.

Check out this video...

SUPERHEROINES

A big THANK YOU goes out to the women in my life...no, my lovely wife--if you're reading this, it isn't how it sounds...but the other day, an incredibly talented artist from Missouri sent me something that not only made my day, but made me humbled--by her skill...using traditional medium (markers, prismacolors, etc)--you've might have seen it on her blog, but take a gander at her SCARLET WENCH drawing!!!

Thanks a million, KRISTEN McCABE! She is possibly one of the most talented cartoonists I've seen out there in Blog Country. Each drawing is textured and tactile. Her lines and form retain their energy--can't say enough about this talented chick...except she does live in Missouri. hahaha

Awhile ago, I had the good fortune to trade super hero drawings with another amazingly talented--and obscenely popular (!) (she averages 50+ comments on each post, I'm not insinuating anything, but...hehee) artist from Toronto, Canada (she's not a girl I made up, I swear!). I think I did a GREEN LANTERN for her--the Hal Jordan version, she was very specific (sorry, Guy Gardner...perhaps someday). She, in turn did this amazing LUKE CAGE and MISTY KNIGHT!

Thanks MEL MADURO!

He might not look like one, but CIRCUS PEANUT is a super hero to me. This first piece is a collaboration between myself and TINY PICNIC'S MICHELLE BICKFORD. I've talked about her work before--but she's so multi-talented it warrants further discussions. Visit one of her many sites and buy something!

She's also good at assemblages...
Not to mention all of the cool things she's sent me over the years. Who could ever forget the ANDY UPDATES BOARD GAME!!

Thanks, ladies!

"THE ART OF ANDY"

BIG NEWS!!!

Debuting at the San Diego Comicon, via The Art of Fiction Booth (#523)!!! "THE ART OF ANDY" idea started off as a portfolio...then turned into a sketchbook...then into this beautiful, 120 page, hardcover, full color smorgasbord of designs and sketches ranging from development ideas, Samurai Jack models and Clone Wars layouts...to comic book pages and paintings, many never before seen! Not to mention super-cool intro by Spongebob himself, TOM KENNY. All for the mere price of $25!

*I will also be @ The Art of Fiction Booth (#523) as well as the IMAGE COMICS booth (#2729) all throughout the weekend, signing and selling my wears...

Check out:

http://www.artoffiction.com/5CChome.html

For those not coming to the con, you can also purchase at:
THE HOUSE OF SECRETS
1930 W. Olive Avenue
Burbank, California 91506
(818) 562-1900
e-mail:
houseofsecrets@earthlink.net

Contact them via their website and they will tell you how to get one via PAYPAL.

One way or another, try and get your hands on one. They are very limited, only 1000 copies were printed.

"OLDE TYMEY"

--that title was for Darrick to appreciate.

Anyway. I am SOOO happy so many of you have watched CIRCUS PEANUT and commented on it. Thanks!

Thought I'd attach a couple of recently rescanned images that were used in the pilot blogged below.







This last one isn't a new scan, but a bad xerox; I wanted to put it up because I've always felt it hit the mark in terms of what I always strived for with my markers...

A CIRCUS PEANUT NAMED CARL

A long time ago...in a year called 2003...there was a pilot that tested waaaaaay better than anything on TV today. In a land called WB and oversaw by an overlord that's had many faces and names called CN, there walked but a tiny Circus Peanut who had dreams as big as his best friend Francis.

It's champions, albeit "Davids" in David and Goliath proportion to the powers that be were Matt Danner, Aaron Simpson, the boys of 6point Harness (before they were), Kim Olds...and yours truly.

Enjoy.



This video is for portfolio and resume use only. Copyright Warner Bros. Animation and to all others that apply.




...although I've reacquired the rights to the character(s) themselves.

SOMETHING OLD...

Geez; I don't know exactly how many years ago we did CIRCUS PEANUT. It was my first pilot that ever got developed; the boys at SIX POINT HARNESS, before they were technically called that and right before they had a studio are the ones who animated it--and the irreplaceable AARON SIMPSON helmed production duties as well as art and animation. He's a one-man army! What an experience and education. One of which were BACKGROUNDS. Our backs were up against a tight spot: CP was being animated in FLASH and my only experience with it was via the internet/webtoons. My biggest complaint was its "flatness". I loved ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE, so I attempted to utilize and exploit "limited animation" as much as it's own art form as one would use a color palette (which would've been cool--except there are sequences in CP that I couldn't even tell wasn't traditional; oh my God--ERIC PRINGLE is a magician, to say the least. Anyway; my solution to "softening" up the look to a Flash cartoon was to use TRADITIONAL BG's, most everything done up until then were vector-based, flat, click-and-fill backgrounds (suitable for the internet). Seeing as this wasn't designed to stream the superhighway, my #1 stance on this project was its backgrounds. That's all well in good; but technically we had a budget of an animatic and more or less 2 weeks to produce it. That meant no money to hire an actual BG painter--and turned out, no actual time to implement myself...until I said "Hell no!” I believe around 8pm one night--and turned in 40-plus fully rendered BG's the next morning. I think Aaron said: "You're insane", first--and then: "Well, okay", next. Here are a few images I was able to scan. I hadn't time to learn how to ACTUALLY paint with the proper tools, so I thought: why fake it? So I used a combination of markers, colored pencils and even crayons. I suppose I was going for a children's book feel, while still being heavily influenced by Jay Ward.







That being said; if anyone possesses a copy of CIRCUS PEANUT and knows how to put up on the web via Youtube or whatever--not only would I appreciate it, but I'd even do an original marker comp for you!

"CIRCUS PEANUT-MARKER-FUN-EXTRAVAGANZA!!!"

Some new scans of the new marker comps I did for no reason whatsoever...