airsurfing

MaquetteProject- entry 13

2011-04-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

With all the pieces done, all that's left is the paint. I tried to match the colors in Erick's model as closely as I could.

After the base was painted, I secured the brass posts into the holes I had set into the sculpey. You can see that the footprints to kinda guide where the figures should go.

Erick wanted the base left unfinished, so that was easy.

Matching the paint was kinda difficult. These characters had some strange colors. What I ended up doing was testing the colors by painting a little onto the color model sheet itself to see how close I was getting!

TA-DA ! Finished.

VIDEO ENTRY 13-A

VIDEO ENTRY 13-B

Thanks for checking in.

On to bigger and better things.

UP NEXT:

MaquetteProject- entry 12

2011-02-19T15:57:00.000-08:00

Almost finished! I hope you aren't bored with this project- because I am. The only thing left now is just refining the details and sharpening up lines and stuff. I use dental instruments to tighten up details like around eyes and in between folds in clothes or skin... areas where I just can't reach with sandpaper. Sometimes I'll cut an orange stick in half the long way and make my own sanding sticks to smooth tight areas.

I mark high spots that I want to sand down with a Sharpie or lead pencil. I mark right on the sculpt- it doesn't matter since I'm gonna sand it down until the mark doesn't show anymore. I usually circle shallow spots and then fill them up with putty- then sand those spots smooth too.

The base the characters are on is pretty simple- sand dirt and rocks with a small cactus. But I still need to do it in Erick's style. I followed the drawing again while tweaking a few things so they would work better in 3 dimensions.

I pressed the characters' feet into the sculpey a little so they'll set nice on the base after it's baked. Later I'll put some posts into the base for the 2 maquettes to rest on so they don't fly off when you move the piece.

I placed this base on foil so when I bake it inside my Pyrex pan, it'll be easy to get out and won't stick to the glass. The foil will peel right off and the slab will be nice and flat!

Test run.

Ta-da! All primed in primer gray and ready for some color.

VIDEO ENTRY 12_A

VIDEO ENTRY 12-B

VIDEO ENTRY 12-C

VIDEO ENTRY 12-D

Until next time...!

MaquetteProject- entry 11

2010-12-05T13:10:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving like I did! Sorry I haven't updated earlier but I got carried away with other projects and work and family stuff and you know...

I baked the upper portion of the tall guy and after showing Erick about some edits, I started finalizing the bottom half of his body and his tiny legs.

The legs should be able to hold his weight with the help of the armature wires in them, after they are baked that is...

Also finished his vest, along with his pants and belt.

I did some finishing touches on his face and hair since I had another baking session. His freckles I plan on etching into the baked sculpting with a needle tool. They are so subtle and I just feel like if I tried sculpting them into the soft material I would just end up thinking they were too heavy anyway and filling them in and trying again...!

...almost done!

VIDEO ENTRY 11-A

VIDEO ENTRY 11-B

...Later!

MaquetteProject- entry 10

2010-10-16T11:33:00.001-07:00

Hey y'all...! Building up the taller guy and roughing out his details this time around.

As before, I used simple shapes to start out with and keep refining them until they look like the sketch. I kept comparing everything to the sketch to keep the scale and size relations right.

This guy looks like he's really heavy, but remember his torso is full of tinfoil, so he' not really heavy. I had to keep him light because of his skinny legs!

DROP AND GIMME TWENTY!!

Hooks for hands... patience... they'll come around...

Gettin' there... still pretty rough but you can tell it'll look like him. Man, his jaw is big!

I roughed in the hands and put a temporary sign in them to see if I was on the right track. You kind of have to keep everything in mind while you are sculpting a project like this with added props. The hands may look really good, but will they hold the sign after you bake the thing?

You may have noticed that the legs were roughed in and now they are not! This is because in the process of sculpting him, I kept squishing the legs out of proportion, so I decided to bake the top half first and them sculpt the lower half after, just like I did with the shorter character.

VIDEO ENTRY 10

See you next time! Almost done!

MaquetteProject- entry 9

2010-10-03T21:19:00.000-07:00

Greetings fellow earthlings.

With the 1st sculpt baked, the only stage left is to finish him off by sanding and detailing. I use alot of different tools for detailing, like sandpapers and dental cleaning tools. Sometimes it's a tough job getting every surface and curve and plane really smooth. And you can't cheat! Once you paint the the thing, all the rough spots show. So I try to get everything as smooth as I can.

Some things I left a bit rough since I knew it would be easy to sand smooth after the sculpt was baked again, like some of the lines and hems on his clothes and sneakers.

Sometimes I use plumbers putty to fill gaps and cracks that show up. You can see one of those places around his eye where the sculpey was a little shallow The putty is pretty easy to use, but you only have about 3 to 4 minutes before it sets up and hardens. It sands pretty well too.

VIDEO ENTRY 9-A

VIDEO ENTRY 9-B

Until next time friends!

Maquette Project- entry 8

2010-09-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all! Worked on the little guy's bottom half this time around. It helped baking him first because now AI can handle him without messing something else up.

Finishing off his legs was easy. I removed the sculpey around his feet that braced him up while I was sculpting him and started on his legs first. I had to dremmel some of the hardened sculpey off because his legs were too thick initially (see video).

In the above pic you can see where i put new soft sculpey over the old baked sculpey.

I also sharpened up his hands and clothes. I sculpted his sneakers and laces next.

I had showed Erick the sculpt and he had mentioned that he wanted the tummy to be a bit smaller, so I fixed that.

At this point the next step is to final bake him and then patch up some divots and shallow spots that always show up when I start sanding him. I use plumber's putty to do patch-up work. More on that later.

Meanwhile... TWO videos this time around...

VIDEO ENTRY 8-A

VIDEO ENTRY 8-B

See you next time!

Maquette project- entry 7

2010-08-29T20:55:00.000-07:00

Hey friends! Interesting twist this week- since I had to go ahead and bake our little nino here. I had finalized the hair, his ears and the curve of his lips around his smile. I got all that stuff the way I liked it and started working on his sleeves and jacket.

The trouble was I came to that point I sometimes hit where you can't grab the sculpt or hold it so you can work on some other art of it without scrunching up something else! Well, I kept doing that-...! So I decided to detail everything up to a point and bake him. Then I wouldn't have to worry about messing up the hair and having to constantly fix it if I held it the wrong way. If you are careful, you can bake sculpey a number of times, putting new sculpey over or along with the baked stuff.... if you are careful!

As you can see the hair has less mass which made his head look smaller and fit his body alot better. I had to fudge the design of the hair in back because Erick's drawing only showed one side. I kept it simple and within the style of the drawing.

I sharpened up the sleeves and cuffs on his shirt and jacket, keeping in mind that the flow of the curves should look nice from every angle.

The hands and fingers have been folded over and shaped to hold the tiny sign. I purposefully left a rut into the clay to hold the sign so it would kinda slide into place. The groove didn't show with the sign in place.

So far - so good. The baking worked great and he didn't crack or split or anything. The plan now is to finalize everything else, like his other foot and possibly some more planes of hair in the back. His sneakers have laces on top of them... those should be interesting.

VIDEO ENTRY #7

See you back here in 2 weeks. Thanks y'all!

Maquette project- entry 6

2010-08-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all! This week you'll see that the little guy's features are more defined and more on model. I decided to start over with the hair because it had too much mass and made the head look too big.

I also reshaped the eyes a bit. I didn't feel they matched Erick's drawing good enough and simply reshaped them a bit after I re-sized the planes of hair on his head.

He also has hands now. Since the armature is connected to the doll I baked, I can swing the arms in and out of position to sculpt the hands better. I cut a little piece of paperboard to act as a stand in for the sign to check scale and position and stuff.

His clothes are slowly coming together also. I'm sort of working my way down the thing with the details, since I have to pick it up alot and if I detail something and then grab it to detail something else- it gets smooshed.

I didn't put any wires in his fingers because I didn't think they were needed. He only has to hold a small sign and I didn't think his hands and fingers needed any extra support. If they were long and lean instead of short and stubby, I would've put some wire in the fingers.

His stance and anatomy make him want to fall forward so I placed a brace of sculpey under his tummy so I can work on him without holding the sculpt to detail it. One of the feet are roughed in, while the other is simply a mass of sculpey keeping him upright.

I started wrapping the sculpt in plastic wrap after a sculpting session. I found that it keeps the sculpey cleaner and helps so it doesn't dry out as fast if I don't get to work on it as often as I'd like.

VIDEO ENTRY #6

See you in a couple weeks. Summer's almost over already. Make sure to have some fun!

Maquette project- entry 5

2010-08-01T16:27:00.000-07:00

Well hello there and Happy August! (ManIcan'tbelieveit'sAugustalreadythisyearisgoingfastformehowaboutyouguys?)

As y'all can see our little friend has some new editions! I roughed in some hands and finished the arms, keeping them about the right thicknesses, knowing I can trim stuff up later. I defined the eyes a bit better and started working in a nose, along with getting the shape and size of his teeth and smile a bit more on model.

I knew the hair would give me some trouble since I've haven't sculpted alot of stuff with hair so far. I'm simply gonna keep roughing in the shapes and planes and tightening them up until they match Erick's drawing from that angle. I'll have to figure out how the various spikes of hair will fit on his head as I go along, again always matching the drawing.

The legs are also roughed in. I won't worry about the feet until I've finalized most of the structures above them. Then I can cut away all that excess sculpey I'm using as a base at this point.

VIDEO ENTRY #5

See ya in a couple weeks friends!

Maquette Project- entry 4

2010-07-05T11:30:00.000-07:00

Greetin's fellow humans! And Happy Birthday to my oldest brother!
Well,the details have started! I kinda approach sculpting like I do when I'm drawing something... you start rough and continually add and take out what's needed or not until the final shows itself.

I haven't mastered doin hair yet, so I knew that was going to be a challenge for me. I simply started rough laying in the main structures of his head and face and hair planes, like his eyes and mouth and ears..

I periodically checked Erick's sketch so everything was staying in line with everything else.

The eyebrows were a landmark on his face so I added rough ones. His upper lip took some designing to work in 3 dimensions. Remember- it all has to work from ANY angle!

As you can see, the main points on the hair are in so I can line things up with other landmarks, always keeping the size and scale matched to the drawing. Some points are missing because I simply will mess them up trying to redefine something else. One thing at a time.

I placed some rough pupils on his eyeballs to see if he was in there... it looked like he was who he was supposed to be so I was happy. Sometimes everything on a character can be spot-on-model but if the eyes are off a bit, it doesn't work.

Our short guy so far...! Notice his arm is pulled away from his face so I can get at it. After I'm satisfied with his head and start working on his hands and arms I'll move it back into position.

VIDEO ENTRY #4

Thanks! See you all in 2 weeks.

Maquette Project- entry 3

2010-07-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

Hey Friends! I'm really sorry I'm late with this entry. No excuses... just lost track of the weeks. But I just got a new printer that has a button to print calendars so hopefully yours truly won't get lost in time again...!

I started putting the masses and planes onto the armature dolls, using the sketch I made from Erick's drawing. I'm not too worried about putting in details and facial features just yet. I'm simply trying to get the overall silhouette of the characters' shapes generally laid in over the armature.

The short guy was pretty easy. He's just a doughboy shape. What matters most at this point is his mass. I don't want him too fat but right on the money because if I put details on him and find he's too big- I gotta scrape all my details off to get him the right size.

The taller character presented a common problem... big body with tiny legs! After my Batman sculpt, which really pushed this problem to the extreme, this guy was pretty simple to figure out.

A common "trick"(I guess?) is to use aluminum foil to fill out some mass instead of using the sculpting material itself. This way, the sculpture will be much lighter and the legs can support the weight better.

I could've put brass rods in his legs like I did with The Batman (*which I'll post on this blog after this project- if you want a sneak peek- look in the VIDEO BAR on the right!*) but this little guy wasn't that heavy. I made sure I didn't use too much foil either or again, when I put the sculpey over it, the character could be too fat.

The tubes for the arms and legs were next. I'm not gonna worry about hands right now, because if you remember from the drawing, they are holding signs. So the arms will have to be repositioned for that later anyways. Always plan ahead!

I roughed in the taller guys head mass. He is going to be really top heavy! So because I'm aware of that, while I'm sculpting him, I'll constantly be checking his center of balance. Even though I'm planning to mount him onto the display stand, I still want to design the sculpt so that he can stand on his own, by himself. Hopefully it will result in a stronger design and less broken legs!

The Dover boys... no- The 2 doughboys (that's it) in their rough forms so far. Next I'll start workin' on just the sort guy for a spell and just concentrate on one character at a time.

VIDEO ENTRY #3

Thanks for checkin' in everyone. See you in two weeks.

Maquette Project-entry 2

2010-06-12T17:05:00.000-07:00

Hey Folks!

Just a video this week...the pics of the armature dolls look pretty much the same as when they weren't baked. LOL

VIDEO ENTRY #2

See you in two weeks!

Maquette Project-entry 1

2010-06-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first of several blog entries showing the process of how I constructed an animation maquette for my friend and fellow Simpson-ite, Erick Tran.

First Erick gave me a copy of the character sketch of the two guys standing on a little stand with a simple setting on it. I thought it would make a great piece! I looked for challenges right off the bat. The curl in the chunky one's lips would be hard to pull off in 3D, plus the tall one has really skinny legs! Cool! Just makes the puzzle cooler to figure out!

I made a copy of the model sheet, enlarging it so it would be about the same size that Erick and I had decided it should be. If you do this, it's easy to line things up and scale parts of the sculpt so that everything works to look like the actual drawing.

Then I traced around their bodies and drew a rough sketch of what the armature would have to be and where the sculpey skeleton would be placed in the armature to make the doll.

Here are the armatures dolls before baking.

VIDEO ENTRY #1

See you in two weeks!

So the plan is...

2010-06-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

I've finished a maquette set for my friend Erick Tran and it turned out well. Erick was pushing a new show concept he had in mind and I thought it would be fun to make his characters and add an interesting piece to my sculpture portfolio!

Only this time, since I know Erick and has an interest in how things like this get done and "how did you do that?" stuff, I thought I'd document the whole process of making the sculpt from armature to finished product, and puttin the stuff on here, complete with little movies I took after each stage in making this thing. Keep in mind this is how I do it- I didn't go to school for this and I just figure stuff out as I go. Seems to work... most of the time.

So the plan is, once I get enough blog entries done, I'll try to post one every other week. I get alot of complaints that I don't put enough stuff up regularly and I agree. I'm either too busy or too lazy...! So maybe if this works I'll have something new and interesting up here every other week so Ernie-grog and everybody else will be happy campers!

...by the way... does anyone still read this thing...?

;)

Building Paul's Dinosaur

2010-05-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

When I started this project, it was kind of like a test for another sculpture idea I have. I needed to know if what I had planned would work and since my friend Paul had a birthday coming up, I figured I'd try some designs on this sculpt as a sort of experiment. The idea was to design the dinosaur so you could change his expression by rotating the scale on the top of his head which in turn would change his eyes.

I picked an apatosaur ( or brontosaurus if you are old school...) because it was simple and I could sculpt it pretty fast. The hard part was the design of the gizmo inside his head that would change the eyes. I stated with a simple armature design and sculpted the torso.

After that I designed the turntable that would hold the eyeballs. These were simply tiny wooden beads I bought at a craft store. I took apiece of epoxy putty to build the flat disc and glued the beads onto it, along with a thick piece of armature wire that would later be cut off to make the turning knob.

I baked the body and shaped and sanded it. As I do this I always like to keep in mind that the sculpt should be interesting from any angle.

I sculpted the head to my "style" keeping in mind that the turntable would have to move smoothly and fit inside the head at the same time.

I used epoxy or plumbers putty to fill in the spaces that would join the head and neck pieces. The putty cures hard in about 10 minutes so you can mold and shape it into what you need, but you gotta be quick sometimes. It comes in handy because you don't have to re-bake the sculpey pieces- you can just add the putty and let it cure. After I got the shapes somewhat interlocking, I would them join them and fill in the seam after the 3 pieces were assembled.

I had to sand and re-fit the pieces several times before everything worked the way it was in my head. When the pieces were finally fitting together, I added more putty to the inside and keyed the pieces so they would fit together in the same way everytime.

It worked!

With the head finished, I sculpted the rest of the body, finalizing the tail and the neck. The head assembly would be glued or puttied onto the neck. I wanted the neck to go kinda thin and then end with a big dinosaur head so it had to be strong.

I sculpted him with teeny tiny feet as an homage to the dinosaurs in an old Tex Avery cartoon I really liked!

I puttied the head assembly together and sanded down the seams. After that, I puttied the head onto the neck to complete the dinosaur. At first I had planned to paint the pupils on the different eyeballs themselves. But I decided try to "float" the pupils in front of the eyeballs and paint just the lids on the beads because you could then double the possible combinations.

I sculpted a little rise of land and put wires into the sculpey for grass. This was baked and glued onto the wooden base to create a river setting.

Then you paint it!

And the finished piece. Don't forget to check out the video clip of how it works in the earlier dinosaur page on this blog!

UP NEXT...

Merry Christmas everyone!

2009-12-20T14:53:00.000-08:00

All the best everyone! May your Christmas be merry and your New Year be better than last!

-Lance

Paul's Blue Dinosaur

2009-10-31T14:25:00.000-07:00

For a long time, I was trying to find a simple way to make a sculpture you can change a little, like a toy or something. I had come up with an idea on how to at least change the expression on a sculpt and since Paul's birthday was coming up, I decided to use the occasion for a little experiment. This blue dinosaur was the result!

I picked a dinosaur because I knew it wouldn't take me long to sculpt a brontosaurus ( or apatosaur if you new-schoolers prefer). The part that was gonna hold me up was the design of the moving parts to make his eyes change expression.

Another reason for picking a dinosaur was the fact that I could disguise the knob that moves the eyes as one of his scales. Below are pics of how his eyes change as you turn the knob!

I thought about painting the pupils on the little eyeballs themselves, but leaving the pupils independent of the eyeballs gives you more combinations and thus a greater number of expressions. This worked to a certain point, which I expected. Remember, this was an experiment for something else I have in mind later. But in the meantime- Paul got a pretty cool toy!

When I first start to sand my sculpts, I usually start with some pretty course sandpaper and then move on to the finer stuff when it gets smooth enough. On this sculpt, I just left the course sandpaper's scrapes and ruts because I knew when I painted him, those scrapes would look like skin! It worked.

Some sketches I did before I started working on the actual sculpt. I wanted him to have tiny toes and feet like the dinosaurs did in that old Tex Avery cartoon! His bottom jaw is inspired from Elliot of "Pete's Dragon".

Here's a video-clip!

The weeds and grass are just painted wire. The little river bed he's on is a wooden plaque you can buy at an arts'n'crafts store. I sculpted a little ridge of land to give it some character.

"Not another one...!"

EVERYMAN is on his way!!

2009-09-10T00:28:00.001-07:00

This year, The Simpsons season premiere is an episode I directed! Not only was I lucky enough to get a script with a storyline about superheroes and comic books, but on top of it- I had Tommy Tejeda (longtimepalandfellowcomicenthusiastandbesides-heusedtodesignforBatman) helpin' me out as my assistant director!

The show's gonna be great so I hope you all tune in to Fox on Sunday, September 27th and check it out. Everyone had a really fun time drawing and working hard on this episode and I hope y'all have fun watchin' it!

Thanks to all the crew that helped us make this show "the worst episode- EVER!"

-Lancer

C. Montgomery Burns

2009-07-31T21:02:00.001-07:00

Years ago, I did this sketch of ol' Burnsie lookin real mean and angry just for laughs. I tweaked his brow tight over one eye and raised over the other and gave him this intense look. Everyone liked that drawing. I remember Paul saying that it would make a great sculpture or paperweight or something. I kept it in mind and put the idea on my list of cool things I should try to do.

Then I got laid off during the writers strike. I had plenty of time to do some things and projects I simply didn't have time for while I was working on the show. I decided to dig out the Burns project.

I couldn't find the original sketch I did (I know I have it someplace in some old box of memories), so I drew up a new one with the same look on Burns. I also sketched a side view so I could push the attitude with his posture as well.

The pre-baked Burns awaits his fate in the hot oven! Indy waits with him.

You really get familiar with a character when you have to figure them out in 3 dimensions! I was constantly adjusting his posture to keep him like a vulture. It was fun figuring out how his mouth and teeth form his beaky mouth.

The roof of his mouth was really hard to paint! And the bright yellow paint I used didn't cover real well so I was paintin with yellow for a long time. Experience. The coat came out with a nice sheen to it. His tie got a shiny satin finish.

The desk is a separate piece by itself with a cradle for when Burns is displayed with it. I simply finished a piece of wood and glued stuff on it. The blotter is construction paper with foam corners. The pens and holder are sculpted.

The big red button to "release the hounds" was sculpted in 2 pieces, the button itself and the brass housing it sits in. I did this because I wanted to be able to really press the button. I glued a small bit of foam under the button so it gives and pops back when you press it.

The plaques for his desk button can be changed. They are just painted cardboard. Here are some other ideas I had.

The pens are a piece of armature wire with sculpey around it. The paint was cool on these! it was black with little bits of gold in it! Burns demands the best!

I made Burns with the original paper-weight idea in mind, so he comes off the desk display and can work on his own anywhere you put him. He looks very ominous on his own... sitting there... staring...!

Burnsie's eyes glow in the dark too! I coated his eyes with glow-in-the-dark paint, so when the lights go out, he's still staring at you. Hmm-hmm-mahh-ha-haaa...!

YOU'RE FIRED!

More Knick-Knack Stuff

2009-06-27T11:16:00.001-07:00

Nancy's Mardi Gras Gator

My friend and fellow Simpsons Director Nancy Kruse is a big fan of Mardi Gras and loves alligators, so for her birthday one year I surprised here with this little marching alligator.

He's made with colored sculpey and glow-in-the-dark sculpey. The confetti, his eyes, and the tassels on his hat and scepter all glow in the dark!

The confetti was harder to pull off than you think! His scepter is a colored toothpick baked into his hand.

As I've said before, the pre-colored stuff is somewhat hard to detail, but it's really great for cranking out little stuff like this. You can just make it and bake it and it's done.

Maggie's horse

I always miss my friend Maggie's birthday because one of us is always laid-off when it comes around. I made her this horse and just gave it to her one day at work. She got a kick out of it.

I made her a horse because her and her daughter own a real one! Maggie always has some great stories.

This horse was difficult to put together because the light tan sculpey was very brittle and waxy. It didn't stick to the other colors like it should have. Maybe it was old. Anyways if you look close you can tell where I had to glue the muzzle back on after it fell off in the oven while it was baking.

He turned out okay though. I like the expression that I got out of this one. It looks like he's laughing really loud!

I paid a little more attention to the hair (and the hay he's sitting on) 'cause I wanted it to kinda look like hair and not just a mass of clay representing it, even though this is just a little sculpt.

"Golly! He's the tiniest horse I've seen...!"

I should get a horse!

Indiana Bart

2009-04-26T23:14:00.000-07:00

I know, I know...! The next post coming up was supposed to have been Nancy's Mardi-Gras Gator. Well, I've been sick and/or busy so you get this surprise! This is a drawing I did for a friend. He wanted me to draw Bart as Indiana Jones so I spoofed the Temple Of Doom poster.

...and these are some cookies I made...!

VIDEO Stuff

2009-03-17T19:47:00.000-07:00

Vivian (in color)

2009-03-15T15:04:00.000-07:00

Vivian is all painted! She looks great, doesn't she? Tim gave me a color mock-up for me to use to match colors. Her paint scheme seems simple but the shades have light grey in them, making the colors very pastel and "powdery" looking. I think the colors make her look alot more feminine and soft.

At first , I didn't think the color scheme would look that good on the sculpture, but after I mixed the paints and matched the colors from the model, I started to like them! Nice job, Tim.

Her eyes really stand out now that she is painted. She looks focused and alert! I put a gloss finish on her eyes, mouth, and teeth.

Yes, she has panties. Be sure to check the little video turnaround of her in the Video Bar!

Vivian was a fun project. I'm glad she turned out well and Tim was really happy with her.

Good times! JUDO-CHOP!!

Li'l Indy and Kodos...and some worms!

2009-03-01T10:40:00.001-08:00

One year when I was at home in North Dakota over Christmas break, I bought some of the pre-colored sculpey to experiment with. I made some simple animals like a pig, a hippo, a bird- just to see how the stuff handles. I made one for each of my brother Marc's little girls. When I got back I sculpted this little German shepherd pup with the stuff for a friend's birthday. He's modeled after my own shep, Indiana.

The colored stuff is great because you don't have to paint anything once it's baked. However, it gets really soft really fast and becomes kind of difficult to put any real details on the sculpt itself.

Since it does get really soft, you can easily blend and swirl two colors together. I tried to kinda blend the colors of the pup's tummy fur together to see if I could make it look more like hair.

The pics don't really show it but the blue sculpey in the tile floor has a pearly iridescent color to it that's pretty cool. It made the tile really contrast with the texture of the puppy.

I think if you really wanted to do detailed stuff with the colored sculpey, it might work better to sculpt the piece in phases and put the whole thing in the fridge for a bit between each session. Then you could pick it up and handle it a little better before the sculpey absorbs the heat from your hands and gets too soft to work with again. It works great to crank little fun little things with though!

Big Indy and Li'l Indy.

Another kind of sculpey I tried playing with was the bendable sculpey. After you bake it, it stays rubbery so you can bend longer pieces and they don't break! First I made these worms.

Then I made this little sculpt of Kodos from Simpsons. I figured his tentacles would be fun to bend around and play with.

The bendable stuff works great. But like the other colored sculpey, it gets really soft and is hard to detail with. It's fun to make stuff and crank on it when your done though. The stuff won't break! It just bends!

I gave Kodos to my buddy and fellow-Simpsonite, Ernie Keen, as a surprise. He was surprised!

DOG NOT TO SCALE

Garvin & Jerry

2009-02-21T15:51:00.000-08:00

These two ostriches were gifts for two ladies, Joanna and Luella, that used to babysit me. I think my Mom went to college with them. Garvin and Jerry are their husbands names. Anyways our families all grew up together and I've known them and their kids since I can remember. These ladies are school teachers who have worked together forever! So when I came up with the idea to give them the sculptures, I thought it would be cool to make them in such a way so that they work together or by themselves. The bases fit together and make a goofy scene with both of them, but still work as a sculpture when they are each by themselves.

The tricky part was that I had to make everything twice! I did most of the work on one first to see if the design was going to work and when it did I started the other one. It's always hard for me to match or mirror something I've sculpted like ears or hands or fett. I always seem to make one that I think is better than the other one. These guys turned out to be a pretty close match.

I used the same technique of baking some small structures onto the armature to make it easier to sculpt and pose while the sculpey is still soft. The armature was kind of tricky because of the skinniness of the legs, while still having a pretty hefty set of leg muscles, along with the a big turkey body. It was sort of finding a balance so he would stand on his own and then try to keep that going through to whole process.

These guys were really fun because I wanted them to look sort of graceful yet goofy... kind of what I think of the ostrich anyway!

The white color on the first one is primer and the tan ostrich is plain fired sculpey.

I had wanted the feathers on their heads to look like Big Bird's feathers from Sesame Street. I put some thin black wires in the top of the heads and in their necks as hair. Then I pressed tiny pieces of epoxy putty onto the wires on their heads and let it dry. When I painted the putty, it looked like tiny feathers on top of hair just like Big Bird.

I had never done anything like feathers either! They were fun to figure out. I had to put some thin wire armatures in the big rear feathers and even smaller ones in the skinny wing feathers that I wanted to flair away from the body. I scratched some lines in the soft sculpey before I baked it. I figured I could sell the idea of them being feathers more with the paint of it didn't work. I think it worked out fine!

The bases were very simple. To simulate the sand I just pressed a wired brush into the sculpey before I baked it. I added some wire grass later too.

So why ostriches? One summer when I was very young, all our families were camping together and Joanna told us kids about how she had had an ostrich as a pet when she was a little girl growing up in Chile. She would get to ride on its back! Well I thought that was the coolest thing ever! I'll never forget that story. Good times!

Garvin and Jerry were very well received! By the way, Garvin's wife got Jerry ostrich while Jerry's wife got Garvin ostrich. What?!

LEGO Anakin Skywalker costume

2009-01-25T12:26:00.000-08:00

I'm a big LEGO fan, so I thought it would be cool to make a LEGO costume for Halloween one year! Episode III had just come out so I did LEGO Anakin, using one of the mini-figures I got with a LEGO kit I had.

It took two years to finish the costume- I ran out of time the first year. I improved the design anyways and it really helped to construct it with more time. I could see, turn my head, walk, even run in the costume. Everybody was surprised when this giant LEGO man came walking out into the courtyard that day at the Halloween party at work!

I designed it so I could take it apart and transport it easy. The thing is made mainly of foam, fabric and foam-core board,... and alot of hot glue! The body is simply a sandwich-board design made of foamcore that hangs on my shoulders. The hands are gloves that have LEGO-hands glued onto them. The legs have a pair of sneakers mounted into them, so anybody can wear it. You just step into the shoes and off you go! (once you learn how to walk in it.)

The head is foam pieces stacked and glued together. I could see out of the mouth opening. When I started painting the hair, I realized that if I simply painted the face, the texture wouldn't be smooth enough to make it look like a giant toy, so I covered the face with fabric. It looked pretty good that way, nice and smooth!

The lightsaber is a blue FX saber from Master Replicas. To make it look more like a LEGO saber, I wrapped it in bubble-wrap which made it look thicker and still let the light shine through.

My buddy Tommy dressed up as the real Anakin! We had fun dueling it out at the party!

There were a bunch of cool costumes that year! It's always fun to see how creative everybody is! Again, I didn't win anything in the costume contest. The "judges", who they always pick from a department we've never even heard of, always seem to vote for their friends, who we also have never heard of! Maybe they thought I bought it. However,my fellow Simpsonite and friend Karen Carnegie won in one category that year. She dressed up as a birthday cake... table and all! Woo-hoo! Represent!

Here is the min-figure I used as a model for the costume. Like I said, I had to open his mouth so I could see out of it. The rest is pretty much the same as the figure.

LEGO Anakin now stands watch over my game room. I improved the look of the lightsaber with the help of my friend/Simpsonite Nancy Kruse. She wanted me to join her troupe she was heading up for the annual Doo-Daa parade here in L.A. that year. You couldn't see the saber glow in bright light, so Nancy suggested that I cover it with blue cello-wrap they use to package flowers with. It worked! It glowed blue in the sunshine and even bluer in the dark!

Since LEGO Ani doesn't move while he's on display in the game room, I made 2 fake arms using foam rollers and hung them with bungee cords so you can fight him. Anakin's good hand can be chopped off if you hit him the right way! I hollowed out one of the arms and stuffed a red sock inside after it was mounted to the hand. If you cut it off, you can simply "reload" it!

The horror!

The spider is not to scale!

"Don't make me destroy you!"

Frroggitt

2009-01-11T16:14:00.001-08:00

The "Froggitt" sculpture came about through the formation of an after-work sculpture technique swap/class my friend Dusty Abel set up. Everyone interested just showed up in the Simpsons conference room after work on Wednesday nights for awhile and brought their own stuff and we all sculpted whatever we wanted. Some people brought in things they were already working on while others started projects right from the concept. It was fun sharing ideas and techniques and tips with other artists and finding out which tools they liked for working with what and stuff like that.

I wanted to do something that looked like you caught a funny moment of action or something, so I did this sketch of a frog catching a fly that I kind of liked and did that.

I first worked on the frog's body in class with everyone. For a while, you couldn't tell what it was! I had planned to really enlarge the feet, and because of their thinness, I was going to leave them off the body and mount them directly onto the base. The body would be glued on later.

The lily pad is just a sheet of plywood I cut and sanded into the right shape. To get the veins of the pad, I just carved into the wood using my Dremel tool.

I actually baked the tongue first. The tongue is a simple brass rod with sculpey baked around it. I wanted the tongue to be removable so I could put the whole sculpture in a smaller size box! It was pretty easy. The brass rod I chose was square in shape so it was easy to key into the sculpey of the frog's mouth before it was baked. The fly was glued onto the tongue with epoxy. The spit-splats are drops of dried epoxy as well as the water drops on the lily pad. Alas, the epoxy I used has aged and become a bit yellow.

I'm glad I did make the tongue easy to take off because I'm always fixin' the spit that I break off!
Shut-up.

Froggit was a fun sculpture to put together. I had originally planned to put him up on Ebay to how much I could sell him for but my friends wouldn't let me! I'm glad I still have him.

Snap!

Vivian

2009-01-04T18:13:00.000-08:00

Vivian is a character designed by my good friend and fellow Simpson-ite Tim Bailey. I needed something different to sculpt... something that was a far cry from my own stuff. Tim always had drawings of his Ninja Cats up at work so I asked him if I could try to sculpt one and nail his design in 3D.

So Tim gave me two drawings of Vivian, the one at the top of the page and one little sketch of what she would look like in profile. That was about it for reference. I would ask Tim questions when I got hung up and he'd advise me about how her features should blend into her head shape and stuff like that. We adjusted her kicking pose to be more dynamic than in the sketch. That was fun- getting more energy into her pose! The first time I brought the proto-sculpt to work for Tim to see, I had the head interpreted wrong. It was a bit too wide and a little too big. I sleeked-out her face more and Tim liked it.

Vivian was really a blast for me because it was fun to try and dimensionalize someone else's 2D sketch! Tim had a much better idea of what these cats look like than I did. It was fun to see Tim's face when he saw his character sitting there in the little pyrex baking pan I cooked her in. (She was easy to move around and transport in that pan so I just left her in it.)

I found some construction pics I took when I was putting Vivian together. You can see her armature and what I call, the "doll" I made first. I started doing this armature doll technique with my mother's Ariel sculpture. It works really well. The doll acts like a rigid skeleton, making it easier to sculpt onto with the soft sculpey, plus it's easy to pose the character better than if it was just armature wire.

Doing this sculpture really made me want to see what else I could sculpt using another artist's distinctive style. It was fun taking a 2D sketch and figuring out how everything had to fit together to make that character work at every angle and still look like the artist's drawing!

I was really happy with how Vivian turned out. Tim really liked her as well. I will re-post Vivian when she is all painted up.

Merry Christmas everybody!

2008-12-21T18:59:00.001-08:00

Every season, since 1998, I've been coming up with a new Simpsons Christmas card to give to all my friends and relatives. Everyone always looks forward to getting one and see what I came up with this time! This year is the very first time I've put one up on the web for everyone to see. Some day they will probably all be up here. Here is this year's card.

May your season be merry, may your new year be even better than last year, and may God continue to bless us, everyone one!

-Lance

Snoopy (WWI Flying Ace)

2008-12-14T07:54:00.000-08:00

My good buddy Kurt has a pilot's license and flies planes (real and model) and is a big aviation buff, so for his birthday one year I made him this Snoopy sculpt.

Pretty basic setup... I did the doghouse first and then put Snoopy on top after he was finished. His arms have small armatures in them but that's about it. The doghouse is solid. Snoopy didn't take me that long to finish. The hardest part was matching Snoopy's classic grimace in his face and making it work from every angle!

His scarf has wires running through it. This gave it support to make it sturdy but also doubled as the yarn in the end of the scarf.

I left this one unpainted because Kurt is an artist himself too. In fact these pictures were taken at his desk when he was doing storyboards for Warner Bros. Kurt really got a kick out of it.

Thank you Mr Schulz for giving us Snoopy and all his pals. You are very missed down here.

BILL from SchoolhouseRock!

2008-12-07T14:30:00.000-08:00

"Bill" from the old SchoolhouseRock! cartoons is another costume I came up with for Halloween. He was just a big sheet of thick foam-rubber, glued together in the right places. The pupils in the eye piece have black nylon behind them so I could see out. The eyepiece is Velcro-ed onto the foam and I cut a square out behind it so I could see through the pupils. The nose was a small sheet filled with stuffing and pulled through a slot in the foam. I put a piece of wire into his top corner to curl it over a little, like Bill's did in the cartoon.

The bill badge was a piece of cardboard covered in fabric and attached to the sash. I wore long underwear underneath to keep everything white. The eyebrows and mouth were simply thick pipe-cleaners I pressed into the foam. The brows wiggled a little when I moved!

The briefcase turned out pretty cool! I bought a case at the Salvation Army and then glued foam-core on it to make the brass buckled and locks. Then I painted it the right colors. To make it look really cartoon-ey, I painted a thick black outline on every edge of the case. I worked pretty good.

The BILL costume was really comfortable to wear too. It was really easy to dance in! That looked pretty funny by the way. People would come and talk to you over the top of it. You couldn't take a leak in it though... well not in public anyways- WHAT!? ... guess it could use an upgrade.

Bill's resting place in my garage. He has yellowed over the years. Now he looks more like a parchment bill... or law!

"Ohhh Yeah...!"

Bugs Bunny

2008-11-23T13:34:00.000-08:00

Bugs was a gift for my Dad the following Christmas after I gave Ariel to Mom. Like me, my father loves cartoons and Bugs Bunny was always one of our favorites. I picked a moment from the opera spoof "Rabbit Of Seville". The pose wasn't too hard, but what was difficult was nailing Bugs Bunny's attitude as well. I wanted him to look like he did at the end when he says "...Next!"

I used the technique of making a poseable armature figure again like I did with Ariel, so I could adjust the pose while Bugs came into being. Of course his ears had armature loops in them to keep them sturdy. His outfit was fun 'cause it had all the barber stuff along with it to figure out. Plus I made a little barber pole out of PVC pipe to put him in opera stage setting.

The comb was the hardest prop to build because of the tiny teeth. I sculpted and baked a rough version of the comb and sanded and filed the teeth in afterward.

The razor was a thin piece of polystyrene that I glued on top of a piece of armature wire. After I painted it silver, the whole thing looked like a straight razor. I was going to give Bugs whiskers, but at the time I couldn't find wire thin enough to pull it off. Everything I tried looked too thick and course, so I left him without them.

I painted his shirt pure white and then mixed a tiny bit of tan into the white to paint his fur. It gave the fur a creamy, off-white color next to the clean white of the outfit. I matched the green tile color right from the cartoon.

Bugs was great fun to sculpt and figure out. My Dad really liked it!

"...Yell and scream and rant and rave!

It's no use! You need a shave!"

Ariel

2008-11-15T16:08:00.000-08:00

Ariel was the first human(well semi-human) character I tried to sculpt. One of my Mom's favorite movies is "The Little Mermaid", so I decided to try and get Ariel done in time for Christmas and give it her as a Christmas gift. I really liked Glen Keane's version of Ariel and wanted to try and make the sculpt capture that moment when Ariel is singing "Part Of Your World" in the secret grotto.

I sculpted the rock she is sitting on first. That was pretty easy. When it came to the Ariel figure, I sculpted a sort of pose-able doll with my armatures and sculpey. It had small head, a small rib cage and a small hip structure with thick armature wire throughout that acted as a kind of spinal column. I baked this first and then sculpted over it. This way I had something underneath that was sturdy so I could constantly adjust her pose as I worked.

The process worked really well and I've done all my other sculpts this way ever since. I was always arching her back more or raising her head a bit to match the pose from the movie.

Her hair was fun to figure out because she was underwater and it had to look that way, kinda like there is a current pulling at it. I made the seaweed look like it was being pulled by the water too. I cut strips from a sheet of brass and painted them to look like kelp.

The fingers on the hand of the outstretched arm gave me a little problem... I kept breaking them off while I was working on stuff! I should have put little wires in them as well, but I didn't think of that until too late. I worked around it and kept fixing them.

The tail being very delicate had to be handled the right way. I wanted it to look like the one in the movie, very thin, very feminine, very graceful. I sculpted the fins separate, each with a wire loop inside, and sanded them down to the right thickness. I mounted the fins onto the tail with epoxy putty and sanded the tail down to the right shape. When I painted her you couldn't tell.

I tried really hard to capture the feeling in her face and eyes the way the animation did in the movie. It took a while but I eventually got it. After that the whole thing really took off and I had fun putting it together. My Mom and Dad thought I had bought it somewhere!

Kaa

2008-11-08T12:19:00.001-08:00

Kaa was a gift I gave to Eric Thomas, for Christmas I think. Unlike my other sculpts, this one relied on a good armature. Kaa is just one big tube with an armature through his entire body.

Originally, I had started sculpting Kaa in the typical "coiled-up-pile-of-snake" pose with his head coiling out. But I started over because it wasn't interesting enough. I decided to try and sculpt that awesome moment in "Jungle Book" when he hustles off with that trippy animation! I couldn't remember ever seeing any toys or sculptures of him all spread out, so I tried it.

Complete with a knot in his tail.

Kaa was really fun to figure out. But- simple as he is, being simply a long tube with an attitude, this sculpt really taught me that a great sculpture should look cool and interesting from any and every angle! I wish I had more pics of him but I didn't have a good camera at the time. He turned out really nice.

I couldn't resist painting this one though. Eric is a great artist and would have done an awesome job if I would've given him Kaa with just in primer-grey... but I wanted to do it.

I sketched his spot pattern and his underbelly on the primer-coat with a soft pencil. After the primary colors were done, I flat coated the whole thing with dull-coat to protect the first paint layer, in case I screwed something up. The lines on his underside were simply drawn on with a prismacolor pencil, then I dull-coated him again. He had this satin sheen to him that looked really cool. Finally, I finished his eyes over with a gloss coat to make them shiny.

"Ohhhhh... my sssssinusssssss...!"

Would you trust him?

Ivan

2008-11-08T08:17:00.001-08:00

Ivan was a birthday gift for my friend Tommy Tejeda. He was just a crazy creature I came up with when I decided to make Tommy a sculpt for his birthday one year.

Looking back now, Ivan was the first sculpt I actually started playing around with armatures. Before I hadn't simply because the sculpts I had done before were solid designs that didn't really need armatures. Ivan had that huge tongue and tiny arms and legs, so I put armature wire through whatever I thought might be prone to snapping off.

The tongue was a a small challenge because it's the biggest feature on this character. He was propped up in the oven during baking with little scupley pillars so he wouldn't fall over. Super Sculpey gets softer first when you heat it up and then starts to harden, so you kind of have to account for that when you bake it.

I gave him a coat of primer and left him for Tommy to paint up if he wanted. Tommy is another great artist so I thought he could handle it.

He even has a bit of anatomy goin' on. WHAT!?

Boba Fett costume

2008-11-01T15:16:00.001-07:00

This is my Boba Fett costume I made as a surprise for Halloween the year of 1993 (wow) I believe. All of it was hand-made and scratch built in my one-bedroom apartment in North Hollywood. Now this was before the Internet, before DVDs (WHAT?), before you could buy a full costume from some guy sellin 'em. The whole thing was built from nothing! Which is why there is no rocket-pack... for alas- I ran out of time!

The helmet was sculpted in front of my laser disc player in pause mode. "Return of the Jedi" was my main reference, along with pictures from books and trading cards I had. Eric(Thomas) helped me make a plaster "cast" of my head and I sculpted the helmet on top of it with green plasticine (I think) clay. I figured this would be the safest way to make sure that it fit on my head.

When the helmet sculpt was done- I needed help. A friend arranged for another friend of his to help me mold and cast the helmet. I need to buy everything and just bring it to his shop. I had to ask one of my friends to help me get it there. I wanted to surprise everyone at Simpsons with it so no one would know who it was until I took off the helmet, but I had to let someone in on it. Paul Wee and I had kind of talked about how cool it would be to "make-this-or-dress-up-as-that" for Halloween and once we were thinking how tough (but awesome) it would be to make a Boba Fett costume. When I told Paul what I had in my apartment and why I needed his help he nearly fell over. So at lunch one day we drove to my apartment and with Paul holding this green Fett helmet thing in his lap, off we went! When we got there, the guy thought we dropped it because of the "dent" on top. Right on!

The cast was made in a creamy brown fiberglass so it looked like it was made out of chocolate! I filled in any pits and air bubbles with epoxy putty and finished the helmet with lots of sanding and rebuilding. It was really fun to paint it in the flat colors and then mess it up with scrapes and chips and stuff. The macroscope ratchets down over the front and was built from the leg of a Transformer toy I found in an old toy box from home in North Dakota!

The armor and gauntlets and stuff were built and formed out of styrene sheets, cut and fitted together. Lots of Velcro and hot glue anchored it in place on the cloth uniform, which was made by a friend of my Mom's back home who happens to be a seamstress. She did a great job!

Now (of course) you can find unlimited reference for Boba but back then it was hard to find really detailed pics of all his gadgets and his paint schemes and stuff. I think I got pretty close.

Everybody at worked loved it! Paul was inspired with the styrene sheets approach that he borrowed my heat-gun and made his own armor and came as a Colonial Marine from "Aliens"!
Eric was working at Universal ( I think he was just starting designs on the Popeye ride in Orlando), so I drove over at lunch to show him. This is where the pics of me in the full outfit (sans rocket-pack) were taken. Eric was dressed in full-on Pirate mode that year.

That year I didn't win anything in the costume contest back at Simpsons... Pete Michaels beat everybody! He dressed up as a trashy hoochie-girl. Can't beat that! (He looked so HOT...!) It was fun getting big reactions at all the parties that year. Good times!

Captain Hook

2008-10-16T21:11:00.001-07:00

Captain Hook was the first character maquette I tried to do. He was a Christmas gift for a fellow Captain Hook fan. I used a bunch of drawings and sketches and pictures of actual animation art from the Howard Lowery Gallery auction catalogs. I drew the rough pose I wanted to sculpt and hung all the other pics and copies around the room for reference.

Hook has a very crude armature in his hook arm. I didn't do an actual armature in the torso or anything. I was still learning and finding out what I the sculpey material (and myself) could do. I sculpted Hook without the hat and thought I'd figure out the hat and feather later. The teeth were a challenge to get looking convincing but not monstrous. The moustache I built with some bailing wire I sharpened and shaped, then cemented into the sculpt after he was sanded.

The drapery on his chest and the jacket itself took me awhile to figure out. Cloth behaves a certain way and if it looks wrong you notice it. I rolled and piece out flat and draped it the way I wanted and then carefully cut off the excess... and then tried to leave it alone 'til I baked it!

The hook was simply a mug hook that I sculpted a new tip onto. After it was baked I started sanding it to its curvy flare at the end. The other hand was hard for me. I did it over a number of times to get it to look convincing.

The hat I did the hard way... I baked I piece of sculpey shaped like a thick potato chip and sanded it down to the right thickness. It took awhile. I'd do it totally different now, but that's how I shaped it back then. The feather was sculpted on its own and smoothed as good as I could get it.

The hat was screwed into place and then smoothed over with epoxy putty. I cemented his moustache in place with putty as well. When it dried you can sand it down as smooth as you have the sculpt itself. After Hook was painted with the flat grey you couldn't tell where the patched parts are.

"Yar...!"

Spaz

2008-10-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

Spaz was a birthday gift to my good friend PeeWee (Paul Wee). After seeing some of my sculpts and models, Paul had given me a sculpting turntable for my birthday. I've used it ever since on every new sculpture I've done. I wanted to get Paul a cool gift in return.

I was up late one night and couldn't sleep so I started doodling. Out came this spaztik duck! I thought it looked really funny, so I cleaned it up. I had some extra sculpey laying around and decided to sculpt him.

Spaz took me only one night to sculpt. I think I baked him that night too and then finished and sanded him the next day.

I was going to paint and prime him before I gave him to Paul, but then I thought- ya' know, Paul's an artist himself and he'll probably have fun painting it up himself, so I left him like this.

Paul was surprised and thought Spaz was great. He also started using the term "Kramer-eyes" to describe my style of character eyes. Paul is one of the greatest and inspiring artists I've ever met. It's great seeing other artists faces light up when you show them your work.

I wonder if he ever painted him...?

Bruce

2008-09-28T16:28:00.001-07:00

Bruce was the first sculpture I did from a drawing. I'd played around with kiln-fired ceramic clays in high school, but never sculpted with super sculpey before. I had drawn this picture of Bruce while I was between scenes on Simpsons my first year of doing layout. My friend Eric Thomas really liked the big toothy grin he had and said it would be cool to see that in three dimensions! He asked if I had ever sculpted and I said not really. So he dared me to do it. I accepted.

Bruce doesn't have an armature or anything like that. He was my first one and I didn't really know what I was doing, so he is solid scupley. I used a pencil as a brace to support his big head. However, little did I know that sculpey gets softer when you bake it and THEN gets hard. His head came off the first time I baked him.

So I fixed his head and re-baked him, using an old shoelace tied to the oven rack to keep his head in place while he cooked. I started leaving the sculpture in the oven after turning off the heat and letting it cool down real slow so it wouldn't crack or fissure so much from cooling down so fast.

It was challenging to make the sculpt look exactly like the drawing from that one angle and keep the whole thing working with everything else at the same time. But that's the trick isn't it!? A good sculpt works at ANY and EVERY angle.

Bruce was alot of fun. Eric had told me that sculpting would help my drawings look more solid, and he was right. I started thinking beyond the flat sketching and really dimesionalized how shapes and forms worked together now that I had done something 3D instead of just 2D. I gave Bruce a little tatt and a band-aid just to be stupid. For the longest time he was just painted with flat grey primer. When I wanted to enter him in the employee art show at Film Roman one year, I gave him his speckled blue paint scheme. I think it worked well. Keep on smilin'!!

Singing Ding-a-lings

2008-09-11T21:39:00.001-07:00

"Singing Ding-a-lings" was the follow up short that I did the summer before I graduated from San Diego State. Mike and Spike were largely responsible for getting this one finished. They both liked the "Denny" short and people's response to it that they asked if I had any others in the works. I did- but it was not another Denny short. They both still wanted to see the storyboard for it when it was finished.

I storyboarded an idea I had about an English bloodhound and a singing ground squirrel that won't shut-up. (no- Alfonse is NOT a gopher, -I'm from ND and there's a difference- prairie dog is acceptable- I'm okay with that) Anyway, Mike and Spike liked the idea and agreed to pay to have it shot and colored! I almost fell over. I warned them that this one was a bit more ambitious. This was my first "talkie", it was longer, and I was graduating the following summer. They told me to get started.

There was alot to do. I knew I could put together all the artwork, but this short had talking characters and effects and was bigger! But I had help. My friend and fellow film major Kevin Hyde was at that time a DJ for San Diego's 91X radio station (great voice!). We recorded all the voices there one night. It was a blast! I was the voice of the rabbit, the dog, and the gopher (WHAT!?), Kevin did the dog's singing voice, and my good friend/room mate/film major/secret agent/rock star/wannabe musician Adam Georgieff did the crows voices, along with their burps. Sound effects were recorded in our kitchen.

After the sound was track read, I started drawing the thing. It went alot quicker than I thought. Drawing to a specific soundtrack (character voices) was a challenge but I pulled it off. Since I did the voices of the characters I was animating, I could see what I wanted them to look like in my head and just put everything down on the paper.

After all the artwork was done, I timed everything on a big pad of accounting ledger paper, then shot a pencil test on the ACME at SDSU. The test came back really good, with no major hassles or anything. I showed it to Mike and Spike and they thought it was great! I did some color models of all the characters and backgrounds and we shipped everything off to get it painted and shot on- get this- 35MM film baby! At the time, that was a big deal. All of us were still too poor and had to shoot on 16MM.

My friends and I mixed and finalized the soundtrack, along with the opening and closing themes Adam had been working on while filming our grad-film "In The Beginning", a Python-esqe comedy about a kid's take on Bible stories. When the negs came back, we had to sync the final tacks in our rival's facility at UC San Diego. There were rumours and stories flying around about the guy who does the mixing at UCSD, and how mad he gets when wannabe Spielbergs book time and don't have a clue about what they're doing! Luckily, all my tra-la-la's were in order.

I was really worried when it came back all finished. Since Mike and Spike paid for most of the production costs, I felt I had to deliver. Me and my room mates watched it for the first time on the fridge in our kitchen. We thought it was pretty funny. So did Mike and Spike. It ran in the Festival and in the "Sick & Twisted" show for 3 seasons. That summer, "Singing Ding-a-Lings" won a couple intercollegiate animation awards, one of which was the Television Academy's internship award where i worked as an intern at Film Roman. After graduation, I started my job there, and later Phil Roman got the Simpsons contract, and I've been drawing Homer and his family ever since! D'oh!!

Denny Goes Airsurfing

2008-09-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

If you've seen my first cartoon "DENNY GOES AIRSURFING", then you'll know just what airsurfing is. "Denny", named after my father- Dennis, was a 2 minute cartoon I did when I was a film major at San Diego State University. It was drawn entirely by me and shot on a huge, old ACME animation camera and I'm not kidding- it was an ACME!

I painted the cels in my Mom and Dad's basement during Christmas break. For the record, my brother Reid helped out when he wanted and to this day claims the thing still wouldn't be done if he hadn't helped out. We laid them all out on the family Ping-Pong table to dry. I'm glad it was only 2 minutes cause it was alot of work! I still remember the long nights shooting all the artwork, eating Spaghetti-Os out of an old thermos at 3 am on campus at SDSU.

I've had some trouble showing it in other venues and formats because of the song "Surfing With the Alien" always needs to be cleared. Joe Satriani was very cool about me using the song and loved the short. I even got to meet him. Nice guy.

I had alot of great help from my classmates for all the post production work. We mixed the tracks on reel to reel tape! I shot on 16mm stock and edited the short on a flatbed. Man! Everything is so much easier now, huh?

My friends and I were fans of Mike and Spike's Festival of animation, so we showed it to them and they loved it! "Denny" was put into the next festival line-up. Mike and Spike slipped it into the next year's shows as an added surprise. It's nice and short and always gets a laugh, so it worked out well!