The Level Of Fame I Want

I look at successful people of certain notoriety, and it has definitely made me realize there is a delicate line of fame that I want to hit. I want a level of fame that gives me certain power to call my own shots. That doesn’t mean I want everyone knocking down my door, with every vampiric agent or rep wanting to sponge off of me, but basically me having the realistic ability to propose my own project, have a company go, “Well, he did these last three projects well, so he’ll probably pull that off, too.” I want a level of fame that, when at a convention meeting one of my idols, I can off-handedly mention one of the projects I worked on, and then they go, “Oh, YOU did that?” which is then followed by a quick exchange of cel numbers, them inviting me to a bar with him or her, and a myriad of other idols of mine happen to all be there, since they all know each other, getting mildly drunk and laughing with them, and all of them remember me as being integral in helping them all have a good time that weekend. I want a level of fame where I can request a fee that would even make Steven Segal stop squinting for a second, but would begrudgingly be honored with little haggling. I want a level of fame where mutually-talented peers will politely approach me at a convention and mention some obscure project even I had forgotten I had worked on, and get a polite handshake and perhaps a quick photo, but still a level low enough that I won’t have a fanatic fan scream and bombard me in a restaurant to sign a body part they will immediately go have tattooed while I have Special Sauce on my face. I wouldn’t mind a level of fame where I can be an “industry voice”, giving feedback, inspiration, and basically giving an interesting, if not humorous point of view to what we all do for a living. It wouldn’t be horrible to have a level of fame where I have a secretary or agent being an intermediary between me and a bunch of time-wasting phone calls, but I wouldn’t want to be so famous that I’d have to hire a person to pretend to be me to write responses to fan mail. I don’t think I’d surprise too many people if I had the kind of fame where I’m on the local channel, getting detained by police for making a scene at a frozen yogurt shop because I’d basically hit my threshold of dealing with stupid people with attitudes for the day, and the zit-faced chinless Goth teen’s emo action of snorting and rolling his eyes at having to redo my order because he put butterscotch instead of fudge on my sundae puts me over the edge and makes me throw a whole container of rainbow sprinkles at his head. I have a kid now, and that’s taught me a level of patience I never knew I’d attain, so probably not gonna happen. I’m just saying none of my immediate relatives would be shocked, if it did. So, I suppose that’s my fame “manifesto.” Time to stop talking about it, and continue to make it happen!

Sea Lions Swimming

Got some work recently for the Mote Marine Aquarium, as well as The Food & Wine Fest, both in Sarsota, and both for BeCreative Studios. I initially started off with illustration work for Mote, but eventually got rewarded for my creativity by getting assigned two short commercials and some banner animation to do. Here's the two commercials: It definitely gave me an opportunity to polish up my skills in After Effects, which is an absolutely amazing program to work in!

UI and Concept Art

Here is a UI design I did for a Mobile gaming company in 2013:

This led to the A.D. asking me to do some quick spec art of monster designs. Very Pokemon-esque, so I spent an hour and quickly submitted these samples:

Nah, they said, doesn't fit the style enough. In fact, we're gonna go ahead and make a style sheet, and then get back to you with that, give you another shot. Finally a month later I had a style sheet, as well a basic assignment: create a baby and adult version of a lion, with a water theme. Doesn't matter WHAT kind of version of water, surprise us. Here's the roughs:

The A.D. thought the Steam lion was an interesting concept, and told me to evolve that to a finished piece. Here's what I did with that:

  These are the kinds of assignments I can't get enough--rough, quick concepts, the sky's the limit, here's some basic parameters, show us what you can do.  Many people ask, "How do you come up with these ideas?", and for me, I wonder how people CAN'T come up with ideas. :)

A Tidal Wave Of Amazing News

Well, the dust has finally settled enough for me to spread the good news. And "news" is plural, this time, surprisingly so. First off, check THIS place out:

This, my dear readers, is IGT, aka International Gaming Technology, one of the titans of casino gaming in the entire world. And now I WORK FOR THEM!! ME!! HOLY CRAPOLA!!! And so far, it's one of the most amazing jobs I've ever had in my life. I worked in casino gaming prior, but it was for a tiny group of people that really had no organization, and honestly no art background (I was the only art guy, for the longest time), so I never felt like I grew there. Now, fast-forward to now, where I work with some of the most talented people I've ever collaborated with; people that keep me humble at their insane skills, and are willing to glady spread their knowledge to me, as well as keep me honest in my own abilities. In addition, Las Vegas is BEAUTIFUL! There's SO much more to this place than the Strip! Everyone I met that's a local are some of the most ardent hikers, and man, does this place have that in spades! I hope that I continue to love this job, and I don't foresee that changing for a long, long time! In addition to that, I have MORE amazing news. Check THIS picture out:

This is a still image from our short comedic film, "The Ducks", about an innocent jogger that suddenly finds himself being confronted by a band of renegade ducks. I originally wrote it as a lark two years ago, upon which my good friend and collaborator, Rick, felt it was a fun script, and that we should shoot it. Besides, it was a one-person, one-camera deal--should take no time, right? Well...then I had a kid. Fast-forward a eighteen months later....and we finally started production on it. We started filming in April on sporadic weekends, and wrapped production in late August. We had mere days to get a rough cut of the film entered into the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival....AND WE GOT ACCEPTED INTO IT!!! I found this out at the end of my first week at my new job. Man, what an amazing end of that week! This was all an amazing culmination of hard work, that, at many times over the last year, made me question the very purpose of my life. At one point, I really debated about hanging up the art towel, and going back to school to be a dental hygienist. I shit you not. 2011 was an insanely stressful year--I had a newborn child that wouldn't sleep through the night, and my father had cancer. The stress this put on my marriage almost ended it, several times over. All the dreams I had over the prior decades of my life were replaced with just one imperative: JUST SURVIVE. GET THROUGH THIS. I had a very hard look at what I was doing, and what I wanted to do, and I had to be very honest with myself, and figure out if what I was doing with my life made sense. For some crazy reason, there were two things that my heart kept telling me: get back into gaming, and finish this duck film. My wife, bless her heart, understood me better than I did myself, and simply said, "Honey, start looking now for a gaming job! This isn't going to happen overnight! Just do it!" With her encouragement, I did. This started a very frustrating road, for the next several months. I'd get phone calls from recruiters, even a plane flight out to interview with an entire team, and then something wouldn't work out. Either a company would have a hiring freeze, or I'd ace the interview, do a design test, and then, nah, they'll pass. The only thing that was keeping me going was that I was getting consistent nibbles. I kept reminding myself that hey, it ain't easy to get into the big leagues, keep working your ass off, people are interested, this is a numbers game, eventually somebody's gotta say yes! While this was going on, I was getting consistent freelance, and hooked up with a creative temp agency that booked me as a Senior Production Artist. The work was for a black-and-white catalog, basically taking text and applying Paragraph Styles to it. The most challenging part of my job was "ragging": adjusting the kerning on every line of a column so that the right-hand side of the text pretty much lined up with the other text above and below it. There was NO challenge to this, but there WAS steady work, and good pay, and I really liked the people I worked with. From here, I finally got the recruiting call for the IGT position, and things happened in a rapid whirlwind of wrapping up the contract gig, pack and prepare, coordinate flights and apartments, and boom, I was here. It's insane how quickly your life can change. But, remember this--your life will only change with lots of work and focus in the right direction. You CANNOT put that much energy out into the universe without the universe responding to your efforts, eventually. This has been an amazing validation of my calling in life. I LOVE doing art. I LOVE collaborating with creative people that inspire me every day I'm around them. I love this so much, I do it when I'm OFF work! And I don't just wanna do illustration--I do animations, gallery shows, short films, children's books! You only limit yourself, in your potential. You really can mold the world to your will, if you're skilled enough and passionate enough to do it! "Don't complain, just work harder." --Jackie Robinson

A Two-Page Spread From My Children's Book

Here's a rough sample of a finished spread from my Children's Book I'm currently drawing/writing, "My Binky and My Bear." More to come soon!

Making of "ParaNorman"

A spectacular making-of featurette of Laika's new stop-motion animated film, "ParaNorman." It's spectacular to see how efficient stop-motion is getting, with the digital advent of wire removal, green-screening and everything else that you can fix in post relatively easily!

Life of Pi Trailer

'BOUT EFFING TIME!!! After being lobbed from director to director, the Booker award-winning book, "Life of Pi" FINALLY has been made! And by Ang Lee, of all people, probably one of the few big-name directors I'd feel confident would do it right! If you haven't read the book yet, for the love of god, DO SO! It's absolutely AMAAAZZZZIINGGG!!