BI-DAILY DRAWING: BUFFALO CHICKEN

Todays Bi-daily drawing topic; Buffalo Chicken.

I had to do this rather quick as I'm quite busy today, but I missed Monday's drawing, so really just wanted to make sure I got one in today. Not sure if this is what Jeff Snow had intended for today's theme, but it'll have to do.

-Hat

BI-DAILY DRAWING; BABOONS ON VACATION

Today's theme was thought up by the incredibly talented Dave Derrick. My submission; Baboon vacation of the family variety



I didn't have as much time as I'd like to finish rendering the drawing. I wanted to do it in color, but lest, I must get sleep. I couldn't tell which version was funnier, with the words or without... The dialogue was funny in my head, but when I put it down on paper/cintiq screen, it became a bit pretentious. And I don't exclude myself from the portrayal of humans above... although I don't own a TV, so take that Mankind!

Wow it's late.

Oh yeah, some quick Baboon doodles I did;


-hat.

BIRDS OF PREY

Today's theme was 'Birds of Prey'... but I'm awful at drawing birds so I chose to feature a cute little mouse instead. A cute little mouse who's about to have his intestines ripped to shreds. See below;


Hopefully this still counts?

-Hat

UPDATE: Have added a link list in the side bar with all participating bi-daily drawing artists, check em out, they all have some amazing artwork up.

CINTIQIN'

So my good friend/mentor/one-of-the-sickest-artists-i-know Dave Pimentel was kind enough to sell me his old Cintiq. I've been thinkin bout gettin one for a while now, and glad I finally got around to buying one (not to mention the fact that since Dave used it, it comes with magical powers that make me draw better... at least that's what he told me when he sold it to me. I paid extra for the magic but it's totally worth it).

Just been messin around tryin to get it set up;


This here is another 'assignment' from Dave and Jeff Snow's drawing initiative; Baseball Player.


They are encouraging anyone interested in drawing along to join in and post your artwork.

Oh and also, the short I made for Cartoon Network with my good buddy Joey G has officially been released online, and is currently up on Cartoon Networks website;

Manny and Khan on CartoonNetwork.com

All the other shorts from the Cartoonstitute program are up too, check em out if you didn't have to chance to see them back when they were leaked, they are all pretty rad;

-Hat

BUDWEISER CENTAUR

So some of the other board artists at Dreamworks decided to give themselves little assignments in an attempt to update their blogs more frequently with artwork. Dave Pimentel invited me to join in, so here's my contribution to the first theme 'Centaurs'.


Check out Dave's blog to see some of the amazing drawings he did, as well as links to the other artists involved.

-Hat

HAT-SCRATCH III

Here's another little strip I did, the third now in the on-going psychological thriller Hat-Scratch.

Strip 1
Strip 2

I've got about 30 strips outlined now, not sure how many more finished ones I'll post, as I'm hoping to compile them into a comic-booklet. However I'm sure I'll post more Hat-Scratch related doodles as I continue to work on it.

-Hat

UNCLE BEAR

Quite frequently at the studio, someone (including myself) says something stupid, which almost always leads to a drawing. In this case;

I can't remember exactly how it started, but the image kept getting passed around the story team with each board artist slightly (or drastically) tweaking the image by drawing on top of it. Eventually it got;

Have a good weekend.

-Hat

HAT-SCRATCH TOO

The second strip in now what is officially being called 'Hat-Scratch'.

(Strip #1)

I'm havin a lot of fun with these. I scribbled down 12 or so ideas to keep the narrative going. I'm thinking bout tryin to draw 30 strips, and perhaps putting them together in a little book... Thats the idea anyways.

-Hat

LOLIVARES

A little birthday card I made for my good friend Ms. Lindsey Olivares.


-Hat

HAT-SCRATCH

I find that when I set out to start new projects, I get bogged down in 'style' and 'rules' and 'format' all before I ever even lay pencil to paper. It's a bit overwhelming in that sense, expecting perfection from the get go. I wanted to try something unplanned, something spontaneous and straight-ahead, basically; draw and see what comes out. The strip below is what happened to materialize;

Using this as a starting point, I'm hoping to make this a regular strip, of which I've tentatively titled 'Hat-scratch'. Perhaps one strip a week, assuming my schedule permits... I do have a lot of sleeping to do.

No rules, no style, no format, no over-thinking, just drawing.

Other stuff;
A while back, they screened the Oscar nominated shorts for us at the studio. One of the directors, Javier Recio Garcia, even came by to introduce his short 'The Lady and the Reaper'. The short is rad, it's nice to see people making an effort to infuse 2D principals/gags into CG animation. We got to sit down with Javier afterwards to talk about animation over lunch... which they insisted on filming... while we ate...
Here is video of us stuffing our faces while we manage to talk about cartoons;
(Also, holy crap... are my eyes always that buggy!?)

me with buggy eyes eating lunch with other board artists

Javier is an awesome guy, I'm glad I got a chance to meet him.

I also worked very VERY briefly on a new TBS cartoon 'Neighbors from Hell' doing board clean-up. Despite only having done a handfull of drawings, some of them managed to make it into a promo spot they released on the web;

tbs promo

The boards I did can be seen at the 1:30 mark, and were originally boarded by Rob Koo, one of the most talented board artists I've ever worked with. He does have a blog, however only posts pictures of his birds and fish.

-Hat

ME-EASLES

I think I've come down with a case of the me-asles. Not sure why, but I've been drawing myself a lot lately, in cartoon manner of course.

I was thinking about doing some comic strips to post here on my bloggy-do, so I started thumb-nailing one out... but then got distracted drawing hats.


Below; If you remove the over-alls and hillbill-ish grin, this is an exact reenactment of events that transpired at the studio.

Below; Well... the simplest way to explain this is;
1. I call my cube-mate Cubie (yes I know I misspelled it in the picture, I couldn't be bothered to change it).
2. My cube-mate is convinced my toes are going to fall off because I only ever wear sandals. He calls me nubs.
3. Somebody said 'The Nubs and Cubie Show'
End.
Hmm... so maybe I'll get around to doin some of those comics... maybe.

-Hat

TRAINING

I am very fortunate to have had an opportunity to work on 'How to Train Your Dragon'. Dreamworks was kind enough to grant me an internship with the Dragon story team, and it was an incredible experience.

I learned a lot during the internship, about story/boarding and production. It was the first feature I had worked on, and am so thankful it was on a killer movie with an awesome AWESOME crew. I owe much of my success to the guys I worked with on Dragons.


If you havn't seen it, you should check it out. It's pretty darn cool.

There is no way you can walk out of the theater not wanting one of these guys...

-Hat

CUBIES

I felt bad for drawing my cube-mate as a hillbilly, so I drew this to even out the universe.


Although, he told me 'you can't replace old hurt with new things', so I punched him in the head until he forgot about the other drawing... needless to say, the Universe is resting comfortably in equilibrium.

-Hat

NEW CUBICLE

I moved into a new cubicle at the studio today... with this guy.

WARM UP DOODLES

some quick sketches to loosen up a bit.

HACKIN' STYLES

These are some quick little doodles inspired by the work of Rex Hackelberg. I love his stuff, and I don't know that I've ever seen drawings that look like they were more fun to draw.
See for yourself;

http://rex-h.blogspot.com/






I tried not to get too bogged down in the design of things, and just let the doodles flow. It was fun. Not sure who these characters are yet, but I like drawing them, so will probably do some more with em.

-Hat

WORKIN

We had a very important meeting at the studio today. Here are my notes;


-Hat

HELLO TWO ZERO ONE ZERO

Well, it's been a while... Happy 2010

I know it's a bit late, 11 days to be exact, but if god got 7 days to make the earth, it's only fair I get eleven to say happy new years to the few people who check my blog. I'm only human after all. Plus he rested on the 7th day, slacker. I slept for the first 10 days so I'd be ready to go on the 11th, I think these things through.

But I digrest.

So, haven't posted in a while, but have a good excuse. (well if you read the above paragraph closely you'd know it was because i was sleeping, but I'm gonna make up a better sounding excuse). I've been working on a few big things for 2010, that I am hoping very soon will be ready for the web. Stay tuned for those.

So... for the time being, this is just to say hi. How are you doing?

PS, one of those BIG projects WAS going to be the whole 'yeti december/draw-a-thing-a-month' blog, but I realized with work, and the other projects I've been involved with, I wouldn't have enough time to maintain something like that.
But, anybody interested, by all means take the idea and run with it. E-mail me if you are interested in starting that up.

Anywho, should have some new things up soon.

-Hat

ONE MORE YETI

So... things have been a bit slow on the Yeti December front of late... This is a quickie I scribbled down;


It seems the interest has faded in this Sasquatchian Hioliday, but I'm fine with that. It was a lot of fun, the best Yeti December to date, and super cool to see so many talented artists contribute.

Thanks so much to everyone who participated
Yeti Decemberists;
Joey Giardina
Gene Hole
Sam Bachman
Tim Heitz
Isaac Orloff
Claire MacKenzie
Ian Andersen
Marqus Bobesich

I'm thinking bout doing this once a month, or every other month. Not 'Yeti' per say, just a themed creature/object/thing designated to a particular month and seein how many drawings we can collectively create. Thoughts?

Would you guys be interested in that?

-Hat

DECEMBER OF YETIS

Sooo... got some new Yeti December stuffs...

This is the first Yeti drawing received via email, from fellow kn8ian Marqus Bobesich. You can see some of his other comics here; http://www.drunkduck.com/Pants_That_Sag/

Another comic hath been submitted, this one from the very talented Ian Andersen. Check out his blog to see all his cartoony goodness;

And lastly more hilarious drawings from Joey Giardina, check out his blog for more funny drawings of this guy;

Hope everyone is having a good Yeti December, I know I am.
Spread the love of the Yeti.

-Hat

YETI DECEMBER---ONE WEEK IN

So one week in, and going strong. Thanks to all who have participated thus far, your work inspires me.

We got a few new doodles;

Below is one of the three drawings Claire MacKenzie, a very talented up-and-comer, did for our cause;


Her other two drawings can be seen here;
Claire's other yeti 1
Claire's other yeti 2

And then we have a second submission from Gene Hole (The Jerk). He also did a whole bunch of yeti scribbles, so click the link to visit his blog and take a peek.


Family issues seem to be a recurring theme in his Yeti depictions... (Nice feet by the way.)

Let's keep this thing rolling, comment on some of your friends blogs, let them know about Yeti December, and let's see how many Yetis we can get drawn.

You guys are awesome

-Hat

ON THE 7TH DAY OF YETI DECEMBER

So, we got two more awesome contributions to Yeti December... from the same person! Isaac Orloff ladies and gentlemen! He's takin yeti December to a whole other lever.

Here was the first drawing he did;

I love this guy, he makes me laugh.
His second submission can be seen over at his blog, along with all his other awesome artwork;
http://orloffillustration.blogspot.com/

I did a little doodle of this yeti who looks more like a sloth, but is actually a yeti, I promise. I kinda like the design, but didn't really figure all the mechanics out... might do some more cleaned up poses later.

So I think I finally learned the true meaning of Yeti December.
It started on a whim, more or less, and then into somewhat of a joke, attempting to see how many people we could actually get to draw yetis. But in doing so, I began to see Yeti December in a new light, a sort of blog-community-building/art exercise. A way to meet new bloggers, see their awesome artwork, and also challenge one's self artistically.

So there you have it, the true meaning of Yeti December... well that and Yeti's are just cool.

-Hat

YETI DECEMBER

Out of the woodwork
in this dark and dreary December
from the ashes of snowflakes
rises a being who's coolness is superseded only by the mystery he is shrouded in

he is, the yeti.

... that was a lot more dramatic than I intended to be. Anywhom, wow, what an awesome response so far to the inaugural Yeti December. Below are the first few snapshots of this elegant and elusive beast.

Joey Giardina's close up encounter with the smiling Sasquatch;

He was also spotted on SRBachman's blog;

Then he went on a date, and apparently made the Mrs. pay for the bill... what A Jerk;

In the heights of the Himalayas comes this rendering of a seemingly gentle yeti captured by the incomparable Tim Heitz;

Thanks too everyone who has participated thus far... This is turning out to be the best Yeti December ever!

Spread the word of this hairy holiday. Let's see how many yetis we can uncover.

-Hat

YAY MORE YETIS

Found some more time at work today to sneak in a couple yetis. This is becoming Yeti December...


If you happen to be in the mood, try drawing a yeti, and leave me a link to your drawing.
Lets start Yeti December off with a bang.

-Hat

YETI SPAGHETTI

You can never draw enough Yetis.
These are a couple little doodles I did during some down time at work today...

mmm think I'm gonna do some more soon... had a lot of fun drawing these guys.

-Hat

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO TITLE THIS POST

As per requested by anonymous on my previous post, here are some more Flapjack boards I cleaned up.

Unfortunately, I didn't actually keep too many copies of the work I did while on the show, so I think this (and the stuff a couple posts down) are all I have.

With that being the case, I thought I'd at least post more of the storyboard test I did.

Note* These were not actually used in production, only from a test I did applying for the position.

 

While rummaging through boxes of piled and packed paper, looking for more Flapjack boards, I came across this piece of artwork from the production of Manny and Khan, not sure if myself or Joey ever posted it, so thought I would;

At the studio they had a wall dedicated to the 'Cartoonstitute' program, where they would pin up artwork from each short. This is the piece we gave them to hang up. The font was drawn by Joey, characters by DanBob Thompson. I'm pretty sure it's the same pose from the spinning logo we used in the short.

-Hat