I designed and animated the invitations to LACMA’s Muse Costume Ball this year– go have a look!
http://www.lacma.org/muse-costume-ball

It just seemed all-too-appropriate (yet so inappropriate) of a combination. They’re really pretzelley.

Watch on YouTube

This is what I look like as a senior.

Balancing a sketchbook on my head, keeping my arms shielded from the unpredictable A/C and being (happily!) wired on plenty of tea. Boot season hasn’t kicked in yet, but it will soon enough (as will my stripes)! I’m super-excited for all the classes I’m in– moreso for the teachers we’ve got (and will have next semester, too!) I’m finishing up some work outside of school and have been settling into the slow-but-steady growing load of homework. This is going to be a fantastic year. Crazy-busy, yes of course, but super-awesome and worth all the forthcoming sleepless nights! Eeee!

Looks like a great year for film festivals! Here’s the line-up!
Readymade Film festival

Playing in LA on the 27th! :: http://www.readymadefilmfest.com/la

Clearwater Film Festival

September 22-25, Clearwater, Florida :: http://www.clearwaterfilmmusicfest.com/

REC Internationales Junges Filmfest

September 21-25, Berlin. Germany :: http://www.jugendmedienfestival.de/

Anim’est

October 7-16, Bucharest, Romania :: http://www.animest.ro/home.aspx

Videoart Festival Casablanca (FIAVC)

Casablanca

I ordered an alligator kit from Woolbuddy and learned the art of stabbing colorful fluffy wool with a needle to yield a little critter!

“Beep beep! I’m the slowest roadrunner you’ve ever seen!” he’d say in the Character Animation hallway at CalArts, ambling along his walker not all that long ago…

I was fortunate enough to have Corny as my freshman mentor. When I showed him the animatic for VALUE BLiND and my sketchbook, he recommended that I animate small, and gave visual suggestions for the look of the film. By gosh was he right! This man spewed advice from a long life of experience.

“Draw, dammit!” (And when you’re sick of drawing, draw some more!)

I remember one of his most charming characteristics was a goofy mind. Here’s this old man with a wispy beard– giving sage advice on drawing cartoons?! Didn’t seem to make sense, but was it ever great!

He remembered my portfolio and recognized the model out of the first life drawings I showed him. And two years later, on his visit to CalArts (many thanks to Bob Kurtz), he recognized me– and said “she’s a good animator!” I’d never felt such honor before….

Knowing that night was going to be full of fun stories and experiences, I recorded the full hour and a half, and I wanted it out there for the rest of the animation community to enjoy. I now offer you a 42-megabyte .m4a of that night!

>>Corny Cole, Feb 16th 2011 @ the Palace (CalArts)<<

This is one guy whose brain I wish could have been magically preserved, hooked up to a computer… Something like that.

He also made that drawing for me at the top of this post!

He also made Heaven and Hell, Originally for the 1981 movie Heavy Metal. He told his employers yeah, yeah, I’m working on it– it’s almost done. The film deadline passed. Twenty years later, he finishes! What a rebel!

And here’s a drawing of him. Gonna miss him– but does an animator, one who creates life, ever really die?

Happy shark week, everyone! These guys made me think of paint (in fish form)– so here they are saying “shark” in hiragana.