Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Pixar Revolution

The first time I ever saw Toy Story was way back in 1996 on a plane thousands of miles above the Earth on the way back from a trip to America. I remember thinking on how boring will this be movie be? But hey it will kill a couple of hours in a 20 hour flight so whats the harm?.

How wrong was I, This film really brought back something that had been missing from animated cartoons for years that of a Plot and great storytelling while being visually stunning it was right there that I decided that YES I wanted to work for Pixar.

Of Course I'm not an idiot I know that me working for those guys would be as remote as say Michael J Fox waking up one morning and jumping for joy because his Parkinsons has miraculously dissappeared. And the waiting line for those jobs are about so long you would be about 80 years old before you make it past the gate.

But in Late August I will be getting up real close and personal with Pixar. I will be making an hour flight to Melbourne where they are currently holding the Pixar 20 years of Animation Exhibition where are lot of Pre-Production Artwork and Models will be on display. I am very excited to see this and Of course I hope to upload heaps of images during my visit. Thankfully I will not be doing the trek to this great dedicated church to Pixar on my own my old friend Martin will also be in town at the same time and we have both decided to enjoy everything of this Great Animation Legacy together. Only a month to go I can't wait!!

Friday, July 13, 2007

Good Animation Doesn't Matter!!

It's true , for every one good Art portfolio theirs about ten bad ones and they are most likely to get the job. Why is this so? Companies, Particulary most in Animation don't care today for Quality its in the Quantity and How Much money can be made off the product that really counts.

They couldn't give a flying pig that the stories or ideas suck they just make them and get them out there so they can rake in the Dough.
Case in Point was some recent misfortune I went through with a Truly Awful Animation company lets call them Blue CRocket... They had the worst character designs in the world for their new animated series lets call it Pixie Dixie!! Pixie had already been sold to a TV network as a cartoon for little girls and they were churning them out very quickly. The stories were Sub-Standard at best and all they did all day was talk about the Spin-Off Products like dolls, games to even mobile phone content that they planned to make more money from. Yes, I was dumped because I wanted to do a good job something to be proud of instead they wanted it cheaply made through Flash.

Now you can do really good product in Flash but my god this was atrocious. Pretty much if you can imagine Russian Animation on a ShoeString Budget then your half-way there to knowing what it was like. When good quality animation gets Overshadowed by Marketing we all have to sit back and go WTF. Now you can read into this post what you like but am I far off the mark with this example are most animation companies in it for the money such as Blue CRocket? I want to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Not Another Art Blog?

Arrrrgggh I've created a MONSTER!! Yep an all-new Art Blog from me, so whats going to be so different from my old Nuts and Bolts blog? Plenty.
Don't get me wrong I still love my old blog (it will still be around for awhile) but this has so many cool features the other doesn't. I got Live Bookmarks (so you can subscribe/bookmark to my page if you want to look for any latest updates. It also seems to automatically resize pictures neatly which I like.

This blog will also be different in that it will chronical my personal experiences and hardships previous and present through trying to gain employment in the illustration, cartooning and animation fields that I love and yet I find it very hard to gain employment in. And yes I'll post lots of my art and podcasts here too.

In fact theres lots I plan to do here so I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!