Comic Books!

Last November I noticed that a comic creation program, Manga Studio, was having a huge sale and I thought "that might be fun to try" given that I spend so much time reading comics with Gus lately. So here's page 1 (or maybe page 37) of something I've had rolling around in my head for a little while and it was drawn in MangaStudio4 EX and painted in Photoshop. I'm definitely going to at least do the 3 pages I've thumbnailed of this short story and see where it goes (there's a lot more story but I don't know that I like much after these first 3 pages...) Let me know what you think, this is a new world for me - the last comic I made was on notebook paper when I was in 6th grade!

Family Movie Night(Morning)- Jonny Quest!

So we watched an ocean documentary for family movie night this week but we got really amped over watching 4 episodes of Jonny Quest last Saturday & Sunday morning. I can honestly say the show is better than I remember it (which is barely at all) - animation is pretty much what you'd expect but the character & background designs and layouts (drawings the animation's based on) are top notch. It seems comic artist Doug Wildey was a huge part of what made the show so good. I've included a few images after the jump to show the (very quick) process that got me to the final brush pen/watercolor combo I ended up with.

Family Movie Night - The Lorax

 
For this week's family movie night we watched The Lorax by Illumination Entertainment and I thought I'd pull out a sheet of bristol board and do a little drawing since I'd seen it before. Last night I decided to go back in for a watercolor pass. Might make a tradition out of this, it was pretty fun. Hope you like it!

National Assoc. of Realtors Spot

Here's a new spot I did a ton of work on for the National Assoc. of Realtors called "Dreams". I storyboarded and layed out the whole thing, animated 4 scenes (2, 5, 6 & 7) and did about half the final line/"crayon-mation" The spot was directed by Mike Wellins at Laika/House, while all character and environment designs were by Jenny Kincade. Joe Meredith animated the other 6 scenes and Jon David Buffam did the other half of the final line/crayon-mation. It's pretty fun, right?

Creature Watercolor

We received our copy of Creaturebox's Kickstarted Monster Volume over the weekend. Creaturebox is Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin - Dave was my college roommate, one of the groomsman at my wedding, somebody I've known since around 7th grade, and one of my best pals. I can't begin to express how proud of him and excited I was at the success of their Kickstarter (they made over a 1000% of their goal!) and am equally excited to display their book in our home. Dave and Greg were also nice enough to include a ton of other goodies for us including a bunch of prints, a slipcover for the book and even a hand drawn and colored sketch of one of my favorite comic characters (Daredevil; he's blind, jumps around NYC and has radar sense - what more do you need?) So grateful to those guys and hope we can get together someday soon.

After that, Gus and I spent the better part of the afternoon drawing our own creatures and this image is what I came up with (I'll post Gus's to his drawing blog later this week). Wanted to play around with my new brush pen I recently acquired and then got the itch to add some watercolor. Was nice to play with traditional media and get unshackled from the computer. I also included the pre-color version below for any that might be interested. Hope you like it and don't get too creeped out!

Spike Wants To Ride A Bike - Hedgehog Hiker

So I'm posting up pages of the Hedgehog Hiker book as I finish them and am soliciting them for critique much the same as I did with Grumpy Gus. I've had a few images in mind from the beginning and have been just working those up and am making a dummy book at the same time so I know a good way to stitch it all together before I get too far. Hope you like it, but if there's anything that rubs you wrong please say so - I'm putting my nights into this so there's no point in making it less than it could be! This page would be facing a page of text.

Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child Illustration

Emily and I recently went all the way back to the beginning and watched the first ever eposode of Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child. While I loved it, you don't necessarily need to keep your eyes glued to the screen - so I started sketching, kinda liked it and decided to make a little promo piece for the original airing. Hope any of you Who fans out there dig it!

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!