Hedgehog Hiker Book Begins!

First page of Hedgehog Hiker book complete (unless I decide to change it later). This is actually more in the middle of the book but I didn't want to warm up on the first page or the cover. Emily (my wife and proprietor of Hedgehog Hiker) and I have been wanting to work together for her company for awhile and this is where we're headed. As was the case with Grumpy Gus, I'd love to get any and all feedback on this ("You're awesome" is great but I'll just as happily take "What's going on with that sky, you weirdo?!")

PS This part of the book is set at the Sellwood Waterfront Park in Portland. The rest of the book will be set in various Portland locales without drawing attention to them.

Thor Watercolor

Did this as a thank you to my 7 year old nephew Lane for getting me the Thor DVD for my birthday. Thanks Lane! Was fun breaking out the watercolors after so much digital work.

Movember Animation for LAIKA

Movember: The Hairy Ladies of LAIKA/house from LAIKA/house on Vimeo.
Here's a little bit of animation I did to help LAIKA/House promote the Movember Prostate Awareness Month (concept by our awesome Brand Manager Alise Munson). My apologies forever to my friendly female co-workers who let me do this to them!

Poitical Ad I Helped Animate

Just in time for Election Day! I helped animate this political ad for a local Oregon ballot measure a few weeks ago - it was produced and directed by Jeremy Joesph of Headache Films for Defend Oregon. I animated everything up to when the guy answers the door and then from when she falls into the tunnel and shoots out of the top of the Oregon symbol. Super fast turnaround (my part took place over 4 nights and one day!) but I think it's pretty fun and Jeremy did a fantastic job pulling it all together. Enjoy and make sure you vote!

Wonder Woman/Wonder Girl

Painted up this Wonder Woman & Wonder Girl drawing I did for Gus awhile back - decided it needed an invisible jet too!

Going Away Card For Jennie Terranova

Yet another of my favorite friends at the ol' dayjob has departed for better things. Jennie Terranova (and her awesome husband Stephen Bodin, art director extraordinaire) are leaving rainy Portland for snowy Nebraska to take jobs at a cool company called SkyVu that specializes in App development - most notably they are the developers of BattleBears. I was asked to design a going away card for her and, with some suggestions from upper mgmt., this is where we landed. They got it framed and printed on watercolor paper and everybody at LAIKA/House signed it - I hope it was a nice send off for my bud, JT and that they have a great time in Omaha!

Cut-Out Animation Demo Reel - 2012

Chris Purdin - Cut-Out Animation Reel 2012 from Christopher Purdin on Vimeo.
Here's my latest demo reel of digital cut-out animation that I've done the last few years. My background is in hand-drawn animation but I've had a blast learning this different medium (I feel like it's as different as stop-motion or CG) and hope to do more. I've been particularly interested in the ways that After Effects and Toon Boom allow to push the "puppety" nature of it into more fluid territory. Hope you enjoy!

Sketchin' On Vacation

Here's a little break from the norm - I made a point of only doing observational sketching with my trusty ballpoint pen when we went to the Oregon coast over the weekend. I don't do this kind of thing nearly enough. Here's a few of the drawings...

We were havin' a summah!

11 Second Club - June 2012

Chris Purdin's 11-Second Club Submission, June 2012 from Christopher Purdin on Vimeo.
This was my entry for this month's 11 Second Club - I came in 16th out of 232, yahoo! You can check out the entry with my score, comments, etc.: http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/june12/entry/BX28Kf

Superman, Krypto and Twitter

"I like pink very much, Krypto."

Colored version of one of the superhero drawings I did for Gus awhile ago. Also, I'm on twitter now! Still no Facebook, maybe I'll be able to stay in contact with some family and friends who only communicate via social networking now! Also, I entered this month's 11-Second Club animation competition, if you happen to be a member you can go through the submissions and vote for mine (they shuffle 'em up) until July 5th. I'll post the video here after voting's closed.

More Superheroes!

Some more superhero drawings for Gus, might try to get enough to slap together a coloring book for Christmas presents.

Startin' something new!

A little taste of what's to come - Emily and I are collabing on a book for her company, Hedgehog Hiker. Started doing some sketches over the weekend while she was preparing (turning herself into a sweatshop) for Crafty Wonderland this Saturday. More to come...

Animated Banner For Fumbata

(Click on the image for full-res - this is a low quality preview)

I did this animated banner for one of my best buds, Clay Stricklin's website awhile back. He's a musician going by Fumbata (he happened to do the great score for my short, Chicxulub), and while he hasn't been able to update the site yet you can check his current one out (www.fumbata.com) as well as his great tumblr (http://fumbata.tumblr.com/ - a lot of stuff I'm into lately comes from the things he posts on there). He gives all his music away for free, and has before that was a business model that people followed - good stuff!

Hedgehog Hiker T-Shirt Design

My wife runs a children's outdoor clothing company called Hedgehog Hiker and we collaborated on a t-shirt design recently. I designed her logo character a few years back and while learning some new things in Flash I animated the character wandering through our hometown of Portland. She took a stillframe and re-drew the elements to make it print-ready (and more stylish) and voila! It's pretty sweet and the fabric is really soft in case you're looking for a gift for that pre-schooler in your life - you can buy it direct from the artist here. Emily will have a booth at the Buckman Art Show & Sell to benefit the Buckman Arts Elementary School, so you can see her there on April 13th and 14th. Also, we were lucky enough to have an up-and-coming fashion model showing off the shirt (my niece, Mara - you go girl!)

Three Little Pigs

Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!

Illustration Friday - Popular

Thought this was appropriate to this week's Illustration Friday theme. Gus is "popular"! Just takes being friendly and willing to share, right?!

Aquaman/Aqualad in color

Here's the color version of the Aquaman/Aqualad drawing I did for Gus - this was fun! Apparently Aquaman's seahorse is named "Storm".

UPDATE! Here's the version Gus colored too - I dig it. Gus is very familiar with Aquaman's orange and green costume and he completely disregarded it, coming up with his own color scheme. That's my boy!

Superman/Krypto and Wonder Woman/Wonder Girl

Here's some more superheroes from Gus's growing collection for coloring - Superman & Krypto and Wonder Woman & Wonder Girl (both Krypto and Wonder Girl are major presences in the aforementioned Tiny Titans books)!

Drawing Superheroes - Aquaman/AquaLad

 I've gotten Gus into comics lately through Tiny Titans (by Art Baltazar & Franco) and a few others, and he's really taken to drawing his favorite superhero characters. I've started drawing them with him (Aqualad being a member of the Titans, both Teen and Tiny). He's been using some of my drawings for coloring, but here's one I did recently that hasn't been crayoned over yet - I may give a shot of coloring it myself if I can find some time. I'll try to post some of these superhero drawings occasionally if you're interested in seeing them!

Christmas Card - 2011

I always have grand ambitions of getting it together, illustrating and printing up a bunch of holiday cards and sending them out. The problem is that ambition usually strikes around December 15th. I printed about 10 or so of these and then it was just too late. So for everybody I didn't get one to - here you go and I hope you had a great holiday!


PS I was a little worried that Gus was going to be scared that the tree was going to eat all his presents. It only wound up eating a few.