Ghastly



It's your classic squirrel meets ghost film.

Buffalo Chicken

My contribution to the Dave Pimentel and Jeff Snow's Drawing of the Day game. Today's theme is "Buffalo Chicken." Here are some other excellent contributions!

Dave Derrick

Louie Del Carmen

Dave Pimentel

Josh Lieberman

Jeff Snow

Happy Birthday!
To my brother, Andy, and The Empire Strikes Back, who turned 33 and 30 this weekend.



Here's a little iPad animation to mark the occasion.

My lovely girlfriend Sarah and I paid a visit to my brother last week. Here we are in sunny Burbank with Andy and his girlfriend Michele. Yes, my big brother is a terminator.

More Star Wars nerdiness:
Star Wars Uncut
Universal Day of the Jedi
The Star Wars trilogy in Lego
Ewok shirts are the new Wolf shirt
Periodic Table of Empire Elements

CHADES CHALLENGE XXVII:
"WE DON'T NEED THEIR SCUM."

Mosta Rizk is one of the many bounty hunters who were turned away by Darth Vader during the hunt for Luke Skywalker and his friends. A kliggak from the planet Ortili, Mosta's large insectoid eyes are well-adapted to low-light conditions,. His asthma and allergies to most alien flora, however, make him far from an ideal bounty hunter.

If anyone has any inept bounty hunters to contribute, please let me know and I'll post them. I'd love to get a rogue's gallery going.

Josh "He's no good to me dead" Billings

Mr. Popular

If you missed this week's challenge, join us on Friday, June 4 for:

CHADES CHALLENGE XXVIII:
PATRIOTIC CHINCHILLAS

"Let the wampa win."

A piece I did for my good buddy, Nate Wragg. Nate is an aficionado of all things abominable. He collects yeti-themed artwork, and this is my little contribution to his ever-growing snowman horde.

Watercolor, ink, and prisma pen 9 x 8

Surfing the Chiustream

Artist extraordinare Bobby Chiu hosts a weekly sketch contest on his aptly named blog, Sketchoholic. Every Friday at 2pm (Pacific Time), sketchoholics all over the world tune in and participate in an hour-long drawing session. Bobby picks a theme at the top of the hour, and each artist spends the next sixty minutes rendering their version of the subject. The contender with the best drawing at the end of the hour gets Bobby's original sketch.

This week's challenge was "Big Arm vs. Big Head." I naturally thought of Brachiosaurus (whose name means "arm lizard") vs the tyrant lizard king. My drawing didn't win this time, but I'll keep participating till I do. Below are some of the other amazing participants. The unfortunate gentleman with the bird crap on his head was the winning submission.

How to Build a Dinosaur
Step 1: First Blood

According to Popular Science, researchers have successfully extracted 43,000 year-old mammoth DNA and replicated mammoth blood. This is the first step in bringing back an extinct species. Next stop: baby dinosaurs.

Animated on the iPad.

In other news, the latest Toy Story 3 trailer is out. It's definitely a different direction for the studio.

Frank Frazetta
February 9. 1928-May 10, 2010

News of my hero's passing is a sobering way to start the week. Frank Frazetta forged modern fantasy art and created some of the most striking images in illustrated history. To me, Frazetta is more of a genre than a name.

Like Tolkien and Harryhausen, he handled fantasy with the same reverence and care as a documentarian. I wonder if he knew of some far off region where he could go and study titans and trolls in their native environment. I can picture him astride a drawing horse, perched on the edge of a mountain precipice, carefully sketching a horde of orcs as they went about their daily routine in the valley below.

Much of my artwork (like the smiley fellow below) is inspired by Frazetta. The man stoked the creative fires of fantasy nerds all over the world and I hope that, wherever he is now, they have a large supply of acrylic and plenty of well-endowed amazonians for reference.

CHADES CHALLENGE XXVI:
DC vs. MARVEL

The votes are in! The two heroes you wanted to see square off were Batman and Wolverine, and the winner (by a mutated hair) was ol' Canuklehead. Let me know if you have any submissions and I'll post them below.

"I can smell that black rubber a mile away, bub."

Calvin Tsang

Also getting into the superhero-spirit is my buddy Mach, who rigged his own arc reactor. For info on how to make your own, check out his blog! Don't worry, you won't have to suffer a major heart injury to do so.

And in honor of The 30th Anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back (2nd greatest film of all-time), the next challenge is Star Wars themed:

CHADES CHALLENGE XXVII:
"WE DON'T NEED THEIR SCUM."

Not all bounty hunters can be as badass as Boba Fett and IG-88. We'll be designing the losers who got turned away by the Empire. Submissions due May 21st.

The 2011 Film Project
Part I: Shoot on the Butte

I joined a group of friends in some filmmaking hijinks over the weekend. The indefatigable Emma Coats (director of the upcoming Hitchhiker) led us to the top of a mountain, and we returned at the end of the day with shots worthy of a David Lean picture.

Against all of my animation training, I venture outside to make a film.


After an hour of hiking, we reach our location: the summit of a butte. And let me tell you, the view was a real beaut indeed.


I may only be an extra in the film, but the props make the job worthwhile.


Erick watches over the camera. Witness protection asked us to keep his face concealed in all images.

At the end of her film's first weekend of shooting, Emma takes a well-deserved breather. Okay, so she may not be completely indefatigable, but she she's pretty hardcore.

As for me, I prefer the comfort of animation. Hell, this was animated on an iPad in a bar; you'd never guess it by the grace and sophistication if the linework.