Nothing gets the creative juices flowing in the morning like some good ol' dinosaur drawing!

And this is my 'Favela Girl'. Eric Favela is like the Freddy Moore of CalArts' '06 class. And if he knows you well enough, he can draw your dream girl even better than you'd be able to yourself. I had to wait about five years, but I finally got mine.

Here are a few videos I found of James Gurney, creator of Dinotopia and one of my childhood inspirations. My freshman year of CalArts, I sent James a letter telling him how much he inspired me and that, if he had any spare sketches lying around, I wouldn't mind taking them off his hands.
James was awesome enough to write me back and attach not only a visitor's pass to Dinotopia (I think I'll holiday there this Autumn, I hear it's nice there that time of year), but several original concept sketches, including the storyboard for the last page of the book. So here's the great man himself, and a few words of reptillian wisdom.

Story challenge with Vi: "The hunter becomes the hunted"
Here's my take on the subject. If you ask me, this reckoning has been a long time coming.

CalArts first year Tom Moore had this video posted on his blog. It's Ferrofluid (liquid metal baby!) and it reminds me of Venom. Too bad the movie version of everyone's favorite Marvel baddy wasn't half as cool as this real life magnet goo.
And just for kicks, a couple other spectacular, uncanny, and all-around amazing science clips. Science rules!

Doc Ock
Electro

Chades Challenge II: Elderly Mermaids
Once every two weeks, a couple of artists choose one word each (one a noun, the other an adjective). The combined words form the subject of the following weeks' Chades (CHAracter DESign) Challenge. At the end of each week, all Chades Challengers post their skullduggery on their respective blogs and many a good laugh is had.

THE CHALLENGERS ARE:
Ben Adams
Josh Billings
Emma Coats
Steve MacLeod
Adrian Molina
Laura Jane Murphy
Vi-Dieu Nguyen
Bobby Pontillas
Moro Rogers
Robbie 'The Robot' Thompson
Lissa Treiman
Nate Wragg
and introducing
The Mighty Gerenuk

Also, he was a little late to the game, but Leo Matsuda has come in swinging with a truly sweet deformed sorcerors story. I challenge any of you who feel the urge to do so, embrace storyboarding in all its awesomeness. Go Brazil!

The theme is 'Elderly Mermaids' for one more week. So push the idea, explore the concept to its very limits, and post again on June 15. At that time, two new Chades Champions will be chosen to select the next theme. Sketch greatly!

TyrannoSLOWrus rex
According to a recent yahoo article, paleontologists built a model of a tyrannosaur skeleton to estimate its center of gravity and thusly its range of speed and motion. The study shows t-rex was probably not the lively man-about-town we see in Jurassic Park, but more of a hulky, lumbering juggernaut who had difficulty turning quickly and whose leg muscles were not large enough for fast running. To me, this means t-rex is just a little bit more like Darth Vader, and I'm alright with that! More importantly, for any of you looking to animate a therapod like the mighty tyrant lizard king, there's a handy breakdown of how dinosaurs may have walked. Science rules.

THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER
I'm sure this is old news (except to those of you with exceedingly slow owls), but Universal Orlando is creating a Harry Potter theme park. How friggin' awesome is that?? The park is budgeted at over $265 million, and is scheduled to open in 2010. Here's some Kinkadesque conceptual art of the Nerd Mecca. Enjoy!