Giving Thanks

Wow, it’s been almost a month since the last update. I wish I could have an excuse and say a lot has been going on, but the truth is, it really hasn’t. I’m still unemployed, but freelancing, which doesn’t exactly pay the bills, but also helps me stay sane. On a positive note, I have been working on personal projects (mainly on my comic “Hockey, Love, & GUTS!” but I’ll leave the talk about that on my next post) most of which are too personal to discuss here… for now. But, here’s what I can discuss: I’m making new friends and seeing old friends again, and that in and of itself is enough to say thanks to. So here are a few sketches of real and imaginary people, and I’ll let you decide which is which…

Happy Thanksgiving,  Everyone!

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ありがとう金田さん！！

It’s been a few months since his passing, and Yoshinori Kanada’s animation still influences me greatly. It’s a pity that I only really found out about his work in the last few years, but it obviously reached my sight and mind many years ago without my full awareness. But I guess art works in this transcendental way in which we tend to experience an artist’s work sometimes vicariously through another, or it just happens to exist in the world sometimes lasting generations, so ingrained in our culture, that it surpasses its original purpose. To many, Kanada’s animation is just that, and I’m very happy to have learned about his work, and I continuously keep searching for it.

It was in one Anipages article that his name first popped up to me. Ben Ettinger is of course an expert in the field of recognizing animators by their scenes, but he’s also a very astute animation critic. I had known of the work of Hiroyuki Imaishi  years ago through my familiarity with FLCL (of which he directed ep 5) and I could write a whole other essay on him alone, but I’ll save that for later; the fact is Imaishi’s animation made me notice something that I had seen before. Not necessarily a style, but a feeling; a feeling of timing and life that can only be found in Japanese animation. My young inexperienced mind then couldn’t understand how one pose in one drawing could be followed by a completely different one in another, and yet, in real-time it just worked. But, that is just one aspect of what Ettinger calls the “Kanada School” of animation.

Since Ben has written about it in a much more eloquent way then I ever could, I’ll leave it up to you to check the links to his articles – they are all very well written and translated (for instance this article translation of Hayao Miyazaki writing about Yoshinori Kanada.) However, what I can say in this modest post are my personal feelings and why Kanada’s animation affects me so much. The “thank you” drawing above certainly encapsulates a lot of my feelings on his artwork, and while I did it very fast and without over thinking too much, that is what I think must have gone through Kanada’s mind when animating. The poses and expressions just seem so free, like quick gesture drawings that flow on the page without the artist even looking. His figures move in a rather syncopated way, with such impeccable timing that almost feels like he’s improvising animation in real-time, giving it a sense of spontaneity to a very premeditated medium (and I’m paraphrasing Peter Chnug here – he’s written an article on AWN about spontaneity an animation years ago.) That freedom that he gives his characters makes it almost feel like the characters themselves aren’t just alive, but want to be alive in a “Kanada World” so to speak. It’s like they have to move that way to get the most out of their inner most feelings, as if nothing but that pose and that timing  cannot describe their emotions. And of course, that also translates to the camera and effects work. Kanada constantly played with the sense of camera in his works, creating something truly original and something very unique about hand drawn animation. Moving the camera the way he does in any other medium will just look bad, or a mistake, but somehow (again) when he does it, it just works. That is partly because he’s not merely moving the camera in extreme quirky ways, but he lets the emotion of the scene or the character guide the timing and movement, simultaneously, further emphasizing that sense of spontaneity. You don’t even notice the quick camera zooms because the characters often dictate the camera, and let you experience the motions through their emotions.  And the effects follow that philosophy as well in abstract shapes of light or smoke that often look like neither, but when timed just right, heighten that sense of reality in the drawings. (His “punch takes” or lightning frames are beautiful works of abstraction actually, and it is to no surprise that fine artist Takashi Murakami has talked about Kanada’s influence in his work.)

Kanada’s animation is really appealing to me because of that freedom that he gives his drawings; nothing feels heavy handed, overworked, or intellectualized. Sometimes I wonder if he just took all the fun out of animation for himself and didn’t leave any pieces left for anybody. But, then I think there must be a lot of that fun left because of the incredible work of the animators that followed in his footsteps and the new animation they leave for future generations. I’ll try in my own way to bring that sense of fun, that Kanada animation into my own work, even if I’m geographically far away from that school of animation… well, at least our love for animation can bring us just a little closer together.

So, in closing, just enjoy some highlights of his work on the following clips.

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Summer 2009 Odds and Ends

Here are some sketches and pieces that I did this past summer but never found a good reason to post them.

Hipster Tennis  – she’s so ironic… she doesn’t even use a racket – inspired by my brother and sister-in-law’s shenanigans.

I tried to work on some character designs for my comic and ended up getting a little out of hand.

But I felt it was still worth posting about it.

Same goes for the toned version. And yes, I was looking at a lot of Street Fighter III art around this time.

I was very hesitant to post this one, since overall I don’t really like it, but it I feel that it’s still a worthy exercise… in something.

Woman at Embarcadero – Pitt brush markers on Fabriano Journal paper

Marcel, Profile – Oil Pencil on Fabriano Journal paper.

Santa Monica YWCA Figure Drawing – Oil Pencil on smooth newsprint paper – 2 min quick sketch

Santa Monica YWCA Figure Drawing – Oil Pencil on smooth newsprint paper – 5 min quick sketch

Santa Monica YWCA Figure Drawing – Oil Pencil on smooth newsprint paper – 10 min quick sketch – just imagine George Michael’s  “Careless Whisper” and you’ll get the picture.

Fall is upon us, and so is a new header…

Yup, it’s Fall! More exciting posts to come soon including some character designs for “Hockey, Love, & GUTS!” and the occasional painting here and there. But for now, you can enjoy the new header above (and below, hehe.)

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Happy Birthday, Reggaenights’ Blog!

I just noticed it now, but yeah, it’s been a year since I started this. I could say a million things about it, but I’ll just have this sketch of a future “Hockey, Love, & GUTS!” character do the talking.

Thanks for all the visits, to friends, acquaintances, or just passers-by. You’ve made all the difference this past year for me, so thanks so much!

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Doin’ it Wright?

Since coming back from NYC, and after having experienced an extensive Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition, I’ve noticed that my figure and life drawing has been greatly affected by Wright’s compositions. The idea of framing models and thinking about compositions even in a figure drawing class had been introduced to me years ago when I took some classes by famed muralist and anatomist John Watkiss. But, I think only now, (almost 10 years later) am I beginning to understand what he was talking about, and I think the Wright exhibition was a catalyst in my understanding of composition, lighting, design, etc…

I know, I’m boasting right? But where else can I be allowed to it if not on my blog. Well, enjoy and come up with your own critiques.

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NYC Sketches, Summer Plans, and Film Festival News

NYC was a blast! My first time and possibly my shortest vacation ever (I was only there for 2.5 days) but it was enough to conjure up these sketches below. (The first one however is from May, drawn at the Pasadena Huntington Gardens, but I thought it’d fit the series here.)

To start of the trip, I drew some clouds in the plane, and thought a lot about ideas for my story “Dandelions.” Think of it as concept art for it, if you may.

And then, New York City…

The New York experience wasn’t even barely the tip of the iceberg, but it was still well worth doing. I stayed mostly in Manhattan and Brooklyn and traveled alone this time, and while it gives one a lot of freedom, it can sometimes be rather isolating. First of I gotta thank Lisa King of KidsFilmFest for not only selecting my film to be part of the festival this year, but also for putting me on a nice hotel for 2 nights. Thank you Lisa! Also, everyone that I met was awesome, here’s a quick list: Lisa King, Tomoko Oguchi, Ru Kuwahata, and Annie Poon. Their films are cool and so are they.

What else… oh yeah, the 3600 year old Egyptian relic at Central Park!?! No one ever told me about that, but there it was, Cleopatra’s Needle. I was in awe, and hopefully the sketch shows some of that as well.

Unfortunately, I was too busy being social to sketch people at the festival, but I did get some interesting figures at the Guggenheim. Oh man, Guggenheim! There was a huge Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit there that totally blew my mind. Now I understand why Frank Lloyd Wright is, well, Frank Lloyd Wright.

And who can ignore the Guggenheim’s own collection of precious paintings by the masters! I saw paintings by Picasso, Kandinsky, Gauguin, Cézanne, Degas, Pissarro, Renoir, Vuillard, among others I can’t remember now.

In other news, my film “Her Lion’s Jump” got into Comic Con! And it will screen there twice!! Read all about  it here http://herlionsjump.wordpress.com/. So if you miss it the first time, you can see it the second, or both times! However I will only attend the first screening because on Saturday, July 25th, I’m going up north to Berkeley to see perhaps one of the most influential animation artists in the world, and the most influential artist on my art and career, Hayao Miyazaki. Now now, I know he’ll be at Comic Con and in LA following that, but I these nice numbered tickets and I’d rather see him without worrying about crowds, know what I mean? Besides, my folks live in the Bay Area, so it’s always good to stop and say hi, eat some home cooking… you know what that feels like.

Besides all that craziness, I also took a quick trip to Yosemite, which was awesome, but I think my fiancée did a better job at describing that here on her Yosemite set Flickr page than I ever could.

I plan to get back to “Hockey, Love, and GUTS!!” as soon as I get back to normal, even though normal still means unemployed, but hopefully something will pop up soon that will change that.

Phew! Longest post ever? Maybe…

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One for the Road

I’ll be at the KidsFilmFest http://www.kidsfilmfest.org/films/ in Brooklyn, NYC this weekend! I’ll be back in town on Tuesday, June 16th. Here’s a sketch of Pearl to keep you tuned in until then. The comic is still in B&W mind you, but maybe this will become part of a cover someday…

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Concept Art Portfolio Page Update

Here’s a quick update to my concept art portfolio. Most of the pieces are the same, but I think you’ll all enjoy the slight additions. You know, gotta keep current with the times and things happening… Here’s a glimpse of one of those pages. These are some concept sketches for something that I don’t even know actually got picked up or what. And I’m not one to draw up violence and anger gratuitously, but I guess that’s what I had to do for the job. Luckily, I’ve been catching up on some old anime on the Funimation site, and I gotta admit that I earnestly enjoy Fist of the North Star. So, I guess this was my chance to put my influences to practice. Well, I was really instructed to mimic stereotypical Marvel villains, but once I realized that I really couldn’t pull off copying Jack Kirby, I just decided to draw what raw anger and fury felt for me. After that, I remember the producers and directors saying they were scared of my drawings, but if you had seen the reference material they gave me, I think they were really asking for it… then again, I haven’t been called back to work for them in a while…

Since I mentioned Fist of the North Star, I really should do another “Influences” post, but with so many ahead of that one, if I kept on doing posts like that, this would just turn into another anime fandom site… which to be fair, it partly is. Anyway, I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to let my demons loose like this again, so here’s to loosing ones demons… and letting go a bit too.

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PS: a link to my latest concept art portfolio can be found on the sidebar to your right. I’m thinking of putting some storyboard samples as well soon, so maybe on the next post…

Patience, Wondercon, and Tales of Banyan

I’m still not quite there yet, but I promise that very soon I will upload some comic pages. A few factors are preventing me from fully delving into that world, and while I could list all of them, I’ll say this: 1:  drawing with a tablet is NOT the same as drawing with a Cintiq; 2: developing a process for writing and drawing comics is still new to me; and 3: it takes a lot of patience to draw nice looking lines with a tablet. This is not to say procrastination doesn’t factor in, but I don’t know if I would constitute looking for a job and promoting my short film as procrastinating from doing comics… maybe, or maybe not. Either way, I’m still incredibly excited about the characters I’m developing and just storytelling in general.

On a more positive note, I’ve arrived at a pretty close final look to the line work of the comic, as seen below. I can’t remember how long it took me to do just this one drawing (based on a rough pencil sketch,) but I remember not being that long, and having a nice flow and pacing while doing it. Hopefully I’ll be able to maintain this quality for the pages (if not better) the more I do them and the better I get, but this is a great starting point. I’m trying to minimize the tones, and keep the comic as black and white as possible, but much more in the tradition of the cartoony work of Tezuka and Adachi.

Also, as I have pointed out on my film blog http://herlionsjump.wordpress.com, I will be going to Wondercon for the screening of “Her Lion’s Jump” (click on the site link for more details regarding that.) So, expect to see me wandering the exhibition hall on Friday and watching some short films on Saturday.

Lastly, you might see some of my work, whether in illustration or animation form, in collaboration with the music of Tales of Banyan. Marcel and I have worked pretty well together, and he’s always coming up with such beautiful music that it’s a pity our busy careers don’t intercept more often (hey bro, you ready for another film score? ^_^) Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, head over to http://talesofbanyan.typepad.com/ for some great music.

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PS: will the next post be it?! Will we finally see some comics after all? … I sure hope so :/