little further

A little bit further...

Work In Progress

My first attempt at modelling one of my characters in 3D. It's more fun than I thought it'd be, but also extremely frustrating. It's a slow and laborious process. It feels much more impulsive and creative to draw on paper or sculpt in clay, but the "undo" button is fantastic.
I believe the process must be quite similar to wire sculpting, but using an anvil as a tool. Hopefully when the program features become second nature I'll be able to go faster and more efficiently and intuitively.


Will keep you posted!

Borge Ring

A little doodle of Borge, who turned 88 on Tuesday.

For Elliot

For Oscar

Aliens

Happy new year. Here are some discarded alien designs I did for a commercial.

Merry Christmas

Uncle Bum

Polar Friends

A brand new epic adventure movie film motion picture flick event experience is coming your way soon.

Ehr....

Dino

Slakkie De Slak

I'm in a legal battle with con artist Harald Siepermann at the moment. He claims his snail design is his own, although he obviously stole it from me. Just look at how original and personal my design is. Never was a drawing of a snail seen that looked anything like this. I'll get you for this Harald!

Nazi Wolves

Andrew Glazebrook left a comment in the post below that gave me the idea for these guys. I've been told they might be offensive to some people so I removed some of the details. But does drawing something evil make you evil as well?

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

Go and see this film. You won't regret it.

Germ Sheets

The amazing Richard Dolan designed the germs for the Grotbuster ad.
After the 3d models were built based on those designs, I was asked to do some sheets fiddling around with expressions hoping the rigging department might find them useful for their character set ups.


In drawings you can really push things (and cheat!) in order to get the shapes you need. It's much harder to do this in 3d, where you have to stay within the confines of 3d realism, and have to adhere to the physical limitations of the model. Still, we got some of the best rigs I've worked with. It really was a pleasure to animate these guys!

Grotbuster

Happy Birthday

It was Uli's birthday a week and a half ago- I did this diddle for the man.

Scream

Post It

I did this on a post it, and I thought I'd post it.

Sculting Class 01

Last night I had the first of 4 sculpting classes at work.

I've never done it before, and must say it's an invigorating pastime. Brendan modelled, and our prime directive these first two hours was to get to something that looks a little bit like a head. I think I succeeded. Next week, the goal is to make it look like Brendan!

Jana

ka-THWAPP!

Oh joy of joys! My 5 ton weighing complete collection of Don Martin arrived today!
2 very heavy books for a hefty price put well worth it- they're wonderful!!!
FLONK!

Sterk

Hot Dog

Some animation drawings of the knight eating a hot dog.

Brando

Knight

Sunday (with movement for Elliot)

Tree

Toro y Matador

Quick sketch. Not sure why it shows up so pixillated. Perhaps too saturated... click for clean image.

Annecy Sketches

I brought my sketch book along to Annecy, and asked every animation related person I met there to do a little drawing. It turned out to be a wonderful collection.
Below only several 0f them. I might post the rest another time.
Sketch I did on the train to the airport.

Matt Jones' doodle.

An original Elliot Cowan. If you want to know the story behind the drawing ask him, not me.

My own offering.

Mr. Amidi's erotic fantasies.

Alex Stadermann ended up sick in bed for a day after some food poisoning.

One of the days was very rainy and grey and Elliot captured the mood perfectly in this amazing diddle done in the Cap'n Pub.

Uli by Bibo and Bibo by Uli.

Jason Kotey is not only an accomplished jazz musician, he also draws, and does a mean garlic salmon supreme.

Annecy 2007

Here are some pictures from last week's festival. If you see yourself here and don't want to, please email me and I'll edit the post.


Apart from me in the middle with the yellow shirt from left to right: Henrik Clausen, Amid Amidi, Matt Jones, Martin Bell and Elliot Cowan.

Uli and me pulling faces. Off to a good start.


Elliot drooling over the cheese fest he's about to consume in 3 seconds flat. Being so close to Switzerland, this was cheese heaven. Harald Siepermann and I shared a cheese fondue delight, which I'd never had in my life. It was amazing, stinky, and very filling.

Amid from Cartoon Brew is a very nice fella and we got on like a house on fire, until we stumbled upon one secret topic we COMPLETELY disagreed on. We ended up in a vicious fist fight nearly killing each other, until we realised how foolish it is to fight over trivial matters. We made up and in this pic I'm about to kiss him.

Jesper Møller and Anders Mastrup from A Film. Next to them amazing animator Sergio Pablos.

I was delighted to finally meet fellow Dutchman Hans Perk, co founder of A Film, who had a wealth of animation stories and pictures to share with me. This man is a walking encyclopedia concerning Disney history. Thanks Hans! Hope to see you again soon.

Brothers reunited: I was surprised to see my good friend Greg Lawson at the festival too.
Having a great time is never hard when he's around.

Here he poses with Doctor Emmett Brown and his lovely wife.

Herr Siepermann and an unknown idiot.

Amid again. We just couldn't ditch this guy. Here he is just before Elliot ran for the hills.

One night Matt had to stay in my room. There's a saying in Holland that goes: "What happens under the sheets should REMAIN under the sheets".

Attending a performance of the 'Big Gees' band was great fun, although I'm sure there must be laws about the allowed amount of decibels. On the keyboard(left) the delightful Bibo Bergeron.

Kathy Bray draws in my sketchbook. I asked everyone I met at the festival to do a little squiggle in it. I've got a fine collection now, and I'll probably post some of them in the future.

Jason Kotey has a voice of gold, and could be heard singing in the blues bar we went to almost every night, also known as the Irish, Scottish, and American bar. Jazzclub. hnnnn-ice!

The beautiful sights of Annecy- it was an amazing week.

Break

Here's a badly drawn bug from another commercial.

I won't be posting for a week, as I'll be in Annecy for the film festival.
Meanwhile, check out Will Finn's spanking new blog.
He's done so many amazing things it'd take too much space to mention here, but this is the guy who as an animator is mostly known for supervising the clock in Beauty And The Beast; the parrot in Aladdin; and that old gargoyle in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. Before and after this he designed, storyboarded and directed some great films. nice!

10 Second Rule

Just for fun. Try 10 seconds for a doodle; another 10 to apply some colour.

Maf Ventje

By the way, my Thai Blog is done.

Music Video

My good friend, director and producer Paul McKeown of McKeown-DeVita Productions has just delivered this wonderful music video of a Mark Ronson song featuring Lilly Allen.

His site:

http://www.mckeown-devita.com

Croc

Saw Uli's and couldn't resist.

Chess

Horse the horse is the worst one of them all. He loves himself so much it makes everybody sick.
Lately he has been talking non stop about becoming part of a chess set next month. What he doesn't know however is that his ivory will be taken for it.

Loser

Snake the snake is the laughing stock of the polar friends, because he wears Clavin Klein boxershorts. But who's got the last laugh? His balls are nice and warm, making his sperm the most fertile, and reducing the chance of getting down syndrome snakes.

For Brian

Walrus the walrus is a private detective. He's a pompous old prick and well loved by everybody despite the fact that he smells of cabbage.

Polar Friends

Polarbear the polar bear is a semi retarded polar bear, whose only wish in life it is to KILL Penguin the penguin.

Penguin the penguin is madly in love with Polarbear the polar bear, but finds it hard to communicate with him.

Pig the pig lives in a can of spam and can also be used as a telephone. His weak liver makes getting drunk dangerous business.

Bathman

Geddit? BATH man. My blog is getting worse with each post see.

Elephant

Samurai Guy

just came across this in the depths of my computer. A design for a website I did a couple of years ago.

Bust

I just got back from a two week Holiday in Thailand. What an amazing country!

I'm in the process of writing down my accounts on a whole new blog with pics and vids, so friends and family can see what I've been up to over there. I'll put the link up when it's done.

Pinocchio Mania

Most hardcore Disney animation fans rank it at the very top of their lists, and rightfully so. At the height of the 'Golden Age' they didn't make 'em much better than this. It's all about child prostitution you see, and it's got a whale in it with herbivorous teeth.

Please take some time to admire the hard work of fellow Dutchman Hans Perk, who is compiling all the so called 'drafts' of this film on his marvellous blog; long shot lists with the names of the artists responsible for those shots.

Also, check out Michael Sporn's blog; he's posting a large part of the film's storyboards.

Finally Mark Mayerson is doing a great job posting Hans' drafts but with screen grabs so you can put an image to the animators' names, for those who don't already know the film backwards and upside down, like my geekish self :)

Penguin

Not to be confused with 'Chenguin', who soils comment boxes everywhere.

Slakkie

little thing I did in 2004 for the sheer helluvit.

Deg Doodle

More Roughs

This is a very original type of action you seldomly see in animated commercials.

Getting Older

Don't ask.

Don 3

More Don Doodles

Donnie

character design for a retarded mafia boss.

Nose

Kitty

Animation pose thumbnail blow up sketch diddly doodle drawing thing

Heffalump

Amsterdam

Happy new year everyone!
spent a couple of weeks in the motherland, had a great time. Here's a piccie of my hometown.
Still in the dark ages, who wouldn't want to live there?

I was accompanied by the wonderful Tony Thorne, who started his own blog:
http://thornetony.blogspot.com

More Mammoth

I love those old short film title/character cards... Thought I'd make one myself. Should have spent more time though... it's rather sloppy. Maybe it's got something to do with revving up for xmas... too many nights out...

Markus F. Norman

Ere's a piccie of my mate Markus F. Norman. Take a look at his blog, which is linked on the right.

Another Bug

Cereal Tiger

Cereal Hippo

Ennio Morricone

I saw the master conduct some of his finest music this weekend. Although the concert was rediculously short and missed a bunch of classics I expected him to play, it was an amazing experience . Before I went in I told myself, "As long as he plays some cues from 'The Mission' I'll be happy." He ended up playing lots from it and I sat there in awe all teary eyed.

Soprano Susanna Rigacci, who looked amazing from far but was probably not at all from up close, was absolutely amazing on 'The Ecstacy Of Gold'. If there was an audio function in blogger you would hear me do an impression of her when you clicked on the image. alas...

Fetish Week

Reepicheep and victim.

Mr. Drip.

Frank.

Animation Roughs

Animation drawings I did for a bug spray commercial. Click to enlarge.
Credit to the wonderful Uli Meyer for the designs and direction.

Elephantitis

I'm working on a film with those damned creatures. It's all I see and will see for the next 6 months.