Good Day, Sacramento

Mark S. Allen stopped by Ken's Dreamhouse today for a little chat with yours truly. Thanks to my girlfriend, Sarah, I have the screenshots to prove it.

"What's Austin working on next for Pixar?"

"I'm sorry Mark, that's privileged information. If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

"Thanks, that's all the time we have today."

Battle Toads

A rough design of a new logo for my friend Dave's company, Dueling Arts San Francisco. I don't think snakes, owls, or frenchmen will be messing with these frogs any time soon.

Dave's a fan of frogs, so he asked me to simply revise the current banner for DASF's mother company, Dueling Arts International (below), with slightly more amphibious combatants.

This is an actual illustration from an old fighting manual. I'm not sure what the rules to naked fighting were, but I know slapping someone in the face with your genitals was considered a challenge to a nude-duel.

Here are the frogs who had great auditions, but didn't quite make the cut:

This guy does a fantastic George Lucas impression, but he was ultimately too pompous and very difficult to work with.

We really wanted to use these gentlemen. They're qualified fighters with great chemistry. Unfortunately, they were caught by an elementary school class and dissected the day before the shoot.

Geoff here brought his own weapons from home and gave quite a vigorous audition. I don't think he understood that we were doing stage combat.

This guy was an excellent fighter, but a bit of a drama queen. He kept hamming it up for camera and demanded his own trailer. An entire trailer for a frog? I don't think so.

Support the Arts

Shawn Sullivan's animation program at Sheldon High School got me where I am today (which isn't too shabby of a place at all). Unfortunately, that program is in dire need of funding. You can help out by going to lots2give.com and voting for this horribly embarrassing film. This is actually the first piece of animation I ever did, way back in my Freshman year of high school.

The film may not look like much, but student films like this pave the road for young artists to become animators. Please take a moment to vote for Sheldon's program so that Shawn can keep mentoring future filmmakers. Thank you!

Other Sheldon High alumni:
Ben Adams
Tyler Decker
Sean Taylor
Ethan Hegge
Darrell Watson
Glenn Williamson

CHADES CHALLENGE XXVIII:
PATRIOTIC CHINCHILLAS

Injected with a government-formulated serum which granted him super-cuteness, Captain Chinchillamerica works with Nick Furry, Iron Mouse, Squirrel Girl, and other members of THE SCAVENGERS to protect adorability from the threat of ugliness.

Anyone else got any nationalistic crepuscular rodents to share?

My loathsome arch-rival Nate Wragg has contributed Red Chin-Skulla. Sure, he seems patriotic on the outside, but given one chance, he would seal the fate of the daring Captain Chinchillamerica.

Tune in June 18th for...
CHADES CHALLENGE XXIX:
GUILTY INSOMNIACS

Happy birthday to all you Geminis out there!

Go easy on the cake. It's his first time.

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