Greetings 2008

I was slammed by the flu last week and now I'm recovering to a pile of work. I've been commissioned by the card company, American Greetings to create an animated Ecard. Here are some character designs that I made for the project.

Happy Holidays

I was too busy this year to send out holiday cards...kind of. I whipped this one in time, but my wife didn't think it was appropriate. It was supposed to be an accordion card with four panels, so when you get to the last panel...it's a surprise! Oh well, maybe next year. Happy Holidays to everyone.

Space...the final frontier

This is a concept sketch for one of the backgrounds for a new animated short I'm working on. The final image was done by background master, Jon Renoni.

Too busy

It's been way too long since my last post. I have been directing three animation projects and I haven't had two seconds to do much of anything...besides work. My typical day starts at about 5:30 AM and goes to about 6PM...I usually tie up loose ends right before bed. I can't complain though because I'm having so much fun doing it.

Here's a sketch from one of the projects I'm working on.

Philippe and Pierre...Animated

Since I left Soup 2 Nuts, I have been directing a series of short animations (30 sec-1 minue) that are going to debut on the web. It's a collaboration with Mike Levine and Pileated Pictures. The goal is to turn these into something bigger...maybe interstitials...maybe a series of shorts for TV. We're about two months into production and we just finished animating the fourth episode. Here is a test loop that the team whipped up. Stay tuned as we move closer to completing the shorts.

60 Seconds to Save the Earth

Surreal. Completely surreal that I'm on the homepage with Bill O'Reilly. The project came a long way since my first post back in April!

There were a bunch of folks who helped me spread the word about my video. A special thanks goes out to:

Swampscott High School
North Andover High School
Amador Valley High School, CA
The Boston Globe
The Animation Block Party
Cold Hard Flash
Bostonist
Boston Magazine Blog
Tak @ The Weekly Dig
Massachusetts College of Art
The Swampscott Reporter
Current TV

...and last but not least, Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.

Global Warming 101

So I have been trying to promote the heck out of my PSA, The Sky is Falling. In doing so, I talked to the entire Swampscott High School...at once! I gave a talk about my art, the PSA, and global warming. I put together a little slide show to help illustrate my points. Here's the beginning of the talk:







Well, who am I to talk about global warming if...







But...



The reason why I'm here is because everyone can play a roll in educating others...even cartoonists! When I was doing my research for my PSA, I realized that many people don't know what global warming is, so here's a little Global Warming 101!





Here's an example all of you can understand. This is Jimmy. He's a typical Swampscott High School student. It's a 90 degree day and he's chilling out in a tank top and shorts. He's looking good.



Now...It's still 90 degrees and he adds two layers of clothes. He begins to sweat and feel dizzy.



Now he puts on an Eskimo snow suit! His body begins to rebel. He's nauseous, sweating profusely, and his bodily systems begin to shut down...he's about to pass out! The extra layering (like the thickening C02) is trapping in all the heat and disturbing the natural bodily processes...just like what's happening to the Earth.



There were about ten more slides that discussed topics such as CO2 emissions, electricity usage, and simple solutions that even someone like "Jimmy" could do to help make a difference. I put the whole presentation together over the weekend, and gave the chat on Monday AM. It was a great experience to talk to so many young folks. If anyone is interested in seeing the rest, drop me an email, and I'll happily share it.

Philippe and Pierre Logo

I have been working with my good friend Matt Moore on the Philippe and Pierre branding/website. Things are slowly progressing, but nonetheless things are moving along with production. Eight shorts (plus two trailers) are fully storyboarded and animation begins this week. More updates to follow!

VOTE FOR ELEPHANTS!

The Sky is Falling Public Service Announcement I directed is a finalist in a major global warming PSA contest. Celebrity judges, including (Cameron Diaz, George Clooney!), narrowed it down to 20 and now the public determines the winner. If you could pass/post/email this on to friends and family, that'd be awesome.

Please let people know they need to create a free account. It takes 30 seconds to set up...it's a tad annoying, but well worth it. The link to the site is here:

Go to the current TV Ecospot contest here!

My video is the one entitled, 'THE SKY IS FALLING" by dmartist9. Please get folks to vote for it! Every single vote counts, so spread the word!

Elephants Win!

I woke up this AM at 5:40 and stumbled over to my computer to check my mail and read the news. I received an email notifying me that the PSA I directed, The Sky is Falling, won an award at this years Best in the SW motion graphics festival.

Monster Mash

A client asked me to draw a picture of a monster for his five-year old son. I couldn't resist and doodled this right away.

Color Studies

I've been trying to nail down the Philippe and Pierre background designs. This afternoon I worked on a couple quick color studies. These took me about 20 minutes each because I'm more interested in the capturing the color and light, than getting anal over the little details. More to come...