The Cintiq has landed!

I finally got my Cintiq in the mail the day before yesterday.

It truly is a thing of beauty. From the packaging, to the sleek design, to functionality you can really see how much care went into this product. It wasn't too hard to set up, the only complaint I have with it is so far is that I find it easier to just duplicate my monitor, but that means I have to lower the resolution on both screens to 1280x800, also I think I have to find a way to balance the color between my monitor and the Cintiq so they match exactly. Overall I'm am completely in love with it.


(*the wallpaper is based on a Dumbo, pink elephants, concept piece that Michael Sporn posted a week or so ago*)

I'm still figuring everything out with it, but here are a couple little images I've done so far.

Gilligan splashing around.


Sleepy Gilligan


Claude and his super fantastic flying turtle!


Claude may have inadvertently enlarged his turtle, or shrank himself... he's still not sure.


Pirate a Day

Pirate a Day II


On that day all the townsfolk celebrated! They had a huge bacon feast and held the first ever annual Our Little Hero Memorial Bacon Day Parade!


After all the festivities were over our little hero finally got some much needed sleep.


A couple of notable things have gone or will be going on this week in the internet art community. First off the Art and Story crew finished up their big Kids Read Comics event and it seems like it was very successful. If you haven't been keeping up with it they recorded a bunch of podcasts during the weekend and even a couple funny audioboos. Overall a great listen and some of the kid stories they share are priceless.

The other big event is the Pres-Aid auction being held this Sunday June 20th. The auction is a benefit for animator Pres Romanillos who suffered from a relapse of leukemia. It's amazing to see how the community has really reached out and jumped in to help him, not to mention the great resources and art pieces that are being donated. I really wish I could go. If you're in the LA area you really should check it out. I hope the event goes great, and that Pres get all the help he needs and the bone marrow transplant is successful. Thanks for the inspiration everyone!

In the Zone

I've heard about football players, basketball players, professionals of any type of skill talk about being in the zone. I know I've had that feeling before, while drawing, but I haven't really felt the rip you out of the zone feeling as strongly as I did tonight. For some reason after drawing for an hour or so, everything was going smooth and then I had to take care of some other business and just could not get back on track. Fought through it, and eventually I got over that hump, but I just thought I would bring it up. Maybe some of you have had that happen before. On a happy note, I finally got around to making some of the animation cycles actually move tonight!

Claude and his turtle exploring the deep blue.


Gilligan stretched out the wrong way.

Our little hero hoping the Porkestuous creature having not yet spotted him, leapt stealth-fully from the closest window knowing that the element of surprise would easily turn the tide of the imminent skirmish.


After our latest venture to Borders, Rhys picked me up a copy of "The Art of How to Train Your Dragon". We both loved the movie, but the art is almost better than the film itself. Nico Marlet's concepts are beautiful. He was also one of the lead character designers on Kung Fu Panda, Monster's Inc, and Madagascar! Thanks for the Inspiration Nico!

One last note, Jerzy, Mark, Kevin and Knifeman from the Art and Story (Extreme) Podcast, which is exponentially better with the new soundboard zoo they've got, are really getting excited for the upcoming Kids Read Comics event on June 12-13. If you haven't checked it out, it looks like it's going to be a blast. The concept is pretty simple if you haven't guessed it already. It's basically a gathering of kids, adults, professionals, amateurs, and comic enthusiasts sharing their love for the medium. I wish there was an event like this when I was a kid. Go check it out!