Saturday, November 25, 2006

Comic on sale!!!

UPDATE!!!
I hope Enoch didn't buy too quickly, but my comic is available on the Squidworks website here. It's a lot cheaper and helps out the group a bit. :D

Hurray! My 24 hour comic is available for sale through Mile High Comics! A tad pricey for my meager plunge into insomnia.....

I'm going to post the link up anyway, but I believe later on the Squidworks website will have it with cheaper shipping (Is it okay to say this lol?). $6.00 is a bit too much for my taste. If you're in Colorado, swing by and bug them.

And if you are really low on cash...
I might put up a smaller version up on the internet :D

Here's the link:
http://www.milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/backissue.cgi?action=list&title=37962938842&snumber=1

I'm just really happy I have a shopping cart for my comic. Novice happiness....^^

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Realism?

Really terrible quote:

“And even though we are featuring live-action characters, it still had to be done the Cartoon Network way. Re-Animated has proven to be that kind of project.”--Michael Ouweleen, senior vice president, programming and development for Cartoon Network

Jaw droppin stupid quote...

From Toonzone:

"The Hollywood Reporter states that Disney's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D earned $3.3 million in its opening weekend, raking in $291,000 at the El Capitain Theatre in Hollywood to break the house record previously held by Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Buena Vista distribution president Chuck Viane was quoted as saying, 'There is no question now that digital 3-D is having an impact on the box office.'"

These two quotes were just some of several that made me slap my forehead. I swear I have bruises for slapping so hard. Today, I found a quote (more like a paragraph) that made my animation soul flicker.

"Representational art has a place, but it's not for me. I'm more interested in drawings as psychology and expression, a subjective way somebody might see the world. I like little flaws in art because they reflect the flaws in life. I like children's drawings, not just the freedom and imagination in them but the painstaking struggle in the lines. There's conflict and tension there. There's so much richness and personality going on before you even get to what the story is.

CG models and perfect life drawings leave me cold. All that a realistic, representational drawing of a bicycle tells me is, "bicycle." There's so much more mood and psychology to bring to the film if your artwork communicates more than just nouns. It's why photorealism in animation is usually so boring and pointless. It's all nouns. Ninety percent of CG animation is all nouns. I can't feel anything going on behind the image.

The point of this medium is you can do literally anything, you can show us amazing things we've never seen before. I want to see animators change the language of cinema! Seriously, we have the means. Push animation deep into the wild new places where the surrealists took their reaction to photography. Rock the damn boat. If you're going to strip animation of all its subjective power and just show me what things look like in real life you might as well be shooting live action."--Don Hertzfeldt

Don just said everything I ever wanted to say about the animation industry and the educational system in a couple of paragraphs. Heck, this quote can reflect life in general. People always strive to be perfect when it is not necessary to be. I hated my high school self because all I cared about was to have perfect academics in all subjects. Only in college did I realize challenging yourself and building yourself was what mattered.

In art especially, you wonder if talent out weighs hard work? I've been struggling with this for quite a while. I could never draw realistically without pulling my eyes out. Maybe I wasn't meant to be an artist. The one thing I could do well was gesture drawings and drawings in brush pen. My professor John Hull helped me figure this out and told me Hokusai can never do Rembrandt and Rembrandt can never do Hokusai because that wasn't their style. I really thank him for such wonderful advice.

In a round about way, animation may have room for someone who can't draw realistically.

Sorry for such a weird and long winded post.....I better end with a Happy Thanksgiving!

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Avatar Shipping

Zutara fans are crazy....



Man, Avatar as of late is just getting so crazy....but so addictive :p

I wasn't too sure why at the beginning fans were already pairing Zuko and Katara. They barely meet except in fight scenes.

Aww poor Aang....he better not kill Zuko for this.

I'll blog above the very hilarious Avatar shipping panel at Comic-Con. I'm still rooting for Foamtara lol.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Seat is waiting

Right now, I'm currently waiting for my chance to see "Brief Encounters of the Animated Kind" at the Starz Film Festival. It sold out...so I'm waiting if somebody doesn't show up. This year their main focus is Canadian films. What's better than the wonderful NFB!

I struggled through my flu this weekend to participate in the Norman Mclaren: Animation Workshop. He's really quirky and a wonderful animator. All of these techniques are no walk in the park. He really had talent. I got to take clear film and draw animation on them with colored markers. Then, at another table I got to scratch and color on regular film, which was really difficult. Finally, I got to do pixelation or stop-motion with a camera. They used a device called a "lunchbox" connected to a digital camera to take single frames.
I was thinking to myself..."my god! This is the solution to my animation problems. I've been trying to find a single frame camera."

I found out the box cost roughly $7000.....><

I made approximately 3 seconds of film lol. They screened it the next day, but I was too sick :( It was of my Xiao Bao too....can you imagine him on the big screen XD I have pics of the film strip that I will later post. Sadly, I didn't get to keep the film.

Oh yes and I'm also seeing a short later tonight by Chel White. Gosh I hope I get a seat. On one hand...a sold out show for animation is awesome! On the other....I want to see it.

Here's some Mclaren:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dNzefjYxeEI

The oscar winning and favorite film "Neighbors":
http://youtube.com/watch?v=X6x-Hf9GSfc

Friday, November 03, 2006

Finally NDK 2006 Report

I'm trying a new thing here. I use to just upload pics on Imagecave, but this time I created a Flickr photo album of my photos from NDK. I couldn't upload all the pics because of a limit ><. If you get confused with all the name blurting, here's the guest list and also the slideshow gives more info.
I had a wonderful time this year! I didn't get to go on Friday to see Opening Ceremonies because of printmaking craziness. I think they showed a trailer of Satoshi Kon's Paprika.

Saturday

I started off with the Madhouse Fan Panel (little did I know they would be there lol). For some reason, I had the courage to yammer my head off as to why Madhouse animation represents such quality work. Not to many people came so Umehara-san asked us to bundle together. I got to sit right next to him 0.o. We mainly talked about whether Japan will slowly go to 3-D like the U.S. Mizushima-san said they're so use to flat images like manga that it won't likely happen. We also discussed the difficulty of the transition to cel then digital to make the work. I like how they described missing the air between the cel and the camera so the color was much different. Also we asked if their studios had any rivals. In reality for Japan, animators work at multiple studios and often collaborate with each other. I guess no Pixar and Dreamworks rivalries lol.

I quickly went to see Fullmetal Alchemist: Conquerer of Shambala movie. I had to leave 10 minutes before the end for my panel :( thankfully my sister stayed for the Mizushima-san questions. She said the best part was when Umehara-san slowly came up and said in broken English "Please would you have an anime in Denver?" Mizushima-san cracked up and said no more questions lol.

I was part of the 24 hour comic panel where we retold the comic kinda like a storyboard meeting. A lot more showed up this year and I think people enjoyed it.

Then I went to the Piano Squall concert. Great musician with a great cause.

Sunday

This day was mainly for getting autographs and waiting for the closing ceremony auction. We were lucky enough to win the auction for Mizushima-san's signature with Al. Meeting Madhouse this year was one of the most rewarding experience I've had. Although I bet meeting the Animation Show crew will soon top that lol.

The auction was awesome. They raised around $4000 for Piano Squall's MS charity and $7000 for breast cancer. Umehara-san's sketch went up to $2000. It was a really cute sketch. I was right behind him and he was shaking and sweating lol. He came up to each person who bought his sketch and bowed.

This was a group shot with the two people who auctioned to $2000 each.


This is the banner the guy bid on. As a thank you gift for both they got the entire library of Manga Entertainment and lifetime pass to NDK. They both looked pale lol.


This is Sato-san, Mizushima-san, and Umehara-san


All of the guests...Spike Spencer (va for Shinji from Eva) is the one with the sunglasses lol.


My goodies!

Top: Piano Squall poster
Left to right per row: Umehara-san's sketch of me, Mizushima-san's Al, Stan Yan's sketch he gave to me
2nd row: CCS dvd Sat0-san signed, FMA dvd Mizushima-san signed, CD Lisa Furukawa signed
3rd row: PSME dvd Michael Dobson signed, Samurai Champloo dvd Darrel Guilbeau signed
My sister got he Eva figure signed by Spike Spencer which is not present in photo lol.

Check out my pics with Madhouse and more in my Flicker set.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32106219@N00/sets/72157594359328314/

What a great year! I missed you Will if you're reading!
Can't wait for next year.