Saturday, May 17, 2008

o, how times have changed

Remember when we were young and "celebrities" would get Saturday morning cartoons instead of reality TV shows. How great would it be to have a Public Enemy cartoon where Flava Flav is still a side kick, but instead he's a dog. And Chuck D's weapon is his piercing rhymes. Yeah, and Terminator X only speaks through samples on wax. And they hunt down fruadulent corporate criminals and government oil lobbyists. I would buy that lunch box.

Anyone remember these:






Wednesday, May 14, 2008

PIXAR presents "Lucaplakia the Penguin"

There is a little know studio in Emeryville, California called PIXAR. They are releasing a new film titled Wall-E. I was a bit apprehensive with PIXAR doing robots, I always admired them for their exploration of characters without having to do the robot thing. Don't get me wrong, robots and ninjas are my two favorites things in the world, but when i think of spending 400 million dollars on a story, robots aren't on the top of my list. I would have gone with Penguins. But then again, I do not have an academy award for best animated feature.

It appears the film is a love story between Wall-E and a clearcoat-drenched robot (designed by Apple). Could this be an animated remake of the 1986 classic Lucas? You must admit, Lucas was persistent, curious, lonely and his glasses have a lot of similarities to Wall-E's eyes.

I'm sure the story, environments, character design and animation will bring me to tears... they always do.

Here is a collection of Wall-E clips

Art Institute features The Basement Design + Motion show reel

Recently we were approached by the Art Institute and asked if they could feature our current show reel in their online curriculum. We said yes! (of course)

“We’re thrilled to showcase the demo reel from basement design + motion in our Advanced Modeling & Animation Topics course in the Media Arts & Animation program. The reel is an excellent example of how to integrate interface design, motion graphics, and both 2D and 3D animation work into an entertaining presentation.”
-- Jeannie Novak
Online Program Director, Media Arts & Animation / Game Art & Design, Art Institute of Pittsburgh – Online Division;
Lead Author & Series Editor, Game Development Essentials, Cengage/Delmar PublishingMuch

Many thanks to Jeannie Novak and the Art Institute.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

portfolio update

Lately people have been asking about the new work I've doing, so instead of throwing myself into the chaos of a new studio website, I updated my portfolio. I've added some new work, reformatted some old favs and pulled out some I thought would never see the light of day. I plan to add a sketchbook section since I'm just about finished filling a sketchbook I've had for 2 years. Anyway here's the link: http://www.atomicbigwheel.com/