Mystery Guest

Happy Halloween, folks. I thought today you deserved a treat. So, just like those Scooby Doo movies, we have a very special guest star. His name is Micah Trivisonno and he's co-directing that Kuma project I keep jabbering about. Play nice and give him your full attention.

(Note: The change in font means it's not me. Seriously.)




Wow, so this is what it's like in Shanes blog -I ain't never been in a real blog before. Man. It feels like I'm in someone's house without them being home. It's pretty crazy. I'm thinkin I mighten check on and see what's in the fridge. Anywho- These little droppings are my feeble attempts at creating a waitress character for the aforementioned Kuma short. I'm having a bit a trouble finding the right blend of form, function and male chauvinism (or is it just good ole fashioned misogyny) but I do feel that it's coming around a bit. As you can see I'm pretty much just ripping off John K. at this point but who cares right.


I hope you like. If you don't... well... I guess that means you really like Counting Crows and you my friend have a lot more to deal with than just a dislike of childish waitress sketches.




**Calibration Note**
For optimum viewing pleasure
dim lights and turn off your monitor.

PS -All Shane had in the fridge was Miller Lite...Effing Gross

Editor's note: Shaney-Shane Shane does not condone the sale or usage of Miller or any derivatives of the Miller brand. However SSS does condone the use of Counting Crows as a punchline.

Dual Boot System

Mac user by day, Windows user by night.

C'mon buddy, a house divided cannot stand.











Mr. I.T. says:

"This is no laughing matter, kids. No. Seriously. It's just not funny."


Enjoy...

or not.

Sundazed

It's been a most relaxing day here, I must say.

Working on some storyboards and other assorted sketches.

Since there's nothing too significant to post...

Have a sketch.

It's a clue to the next project I've got rattling around in my head.

Enjoy.

Trick or Treated / Breakin 3: The Electric Hip Replacement

I know, I know. I forgot yesterday's post. What can I say? I'm human, I'm fallible, but most of all, I'm sorry.

Last night I attended a breakdancing battle. There were some pretty amazing moves being thrown around including those of a friend and fellow animator.

However, I have to say that I always find it amusing anytime guys become "artistically aggressive." Don't get me wrong now-- art is a great outlet to channel any emotion including anger, frustration and such.

That doesn't make it any less amusing for me. When you see two fellas facing off and one guy is dancing, is the other guy thinking, "Pirouette this, you @#$*$!!!"

It's tantamount to watching heavy metal bands and wondering how they can be so aggressive when they're musicians. "You better watch out or I'll tear you a new A-flat-minor and modulate to C, dude!"

Regardless of what I've said, I enjoy it all. So... you really shouldn't listen to what comes out of my head, travels through my fingers, and ends up on the internet. Heh.

Now onto purely unrelated business.






















Meet Kaijo-- at least I think that's how you spell it. He's Kuma's little buddy who will appear somewhere in the commercial (as soon as I can place him in the storyboards.)

Adorable, huh?

Below you'll find the original exploratory sketches I made before coming up with this guy. Micah particularly liked the idea of having such a happy little guy being a fine contrast to Kuma's brooding demeanor. Every Batman needs his Robin. Every Hardy needs his Laurel. Every Skipper needs his Gilligan. Every rose has its thorn, just like every night has its dawn...

Where was I? Right. The other sketches.
Enjoy.

Thursday Designy Thing

Need I say more?

Enjoy.

Hump Day Hustle

I actually had to stop myself from drawing these silly gestures.


Enjoy.

Bear With Me...

...and forgive the title as well.

Storyboards for that Kuma commercial in progress (I swear). Micah is doing one hell of a job designing the waitresses.

Seriously.
Stay tuned.

Enjoy.

Yeh. It's Monday.

Hmmm...

I don't get it either.

Best not to think too hard so it doesn't hurt the brain as much.



Kuma storyboards in progress. More to come.

Stay tuned, world.

Enjoy.

A Treatise on Bandidas...

...well

a few thoughts anyway.

So after thoroughly enjoying the company of a few friends and co-workers, I decided to conduct a psychological experiment on everyone by tossing the movie Bandidas into the DVD player.

Now let's get one thing clear: I do not own, nor did I rent this movie. I relied on a dear friend who has absolutely no filter when it comes to making media purchases. Luckily, both of us have a very high tolerance for the special kind of pain that only a movie like Bandidas can dole out.

As I expected, it was deadlier to a party than playing 4 Beach Boys songs in a row. Only a select few of us survived to see the "fantastic" old-west-bullet-time-shoot-out-climax. Yeesh.

What struck me funny was that this movie would probably have been well accepted had it been made in the 1940s. But for some reason, we just weren't willing to accept this plot in 2007-- even if the -er- cinematography was beautiful.

Oh well. Those Bandidas will never beat these fellas:



Due to the fact that I feel terrible about skipping yesterday's post-it, here's two in one day. Enjoy.

Hippity-Hoppity

Finally got that video to load, kiddos. It's an animation test for a rabbit from the intro to the Kuma commercial. Rough around the edges as usual.

Enjoy.








Almost forgot today's post-it, kiddos.

Hmmmm...

Trying to upload a short animation test, but nothing's working today.

Until I get this thing going, enjoy today's post-it.

No Sizzlean Here

Good evening world.

So...

I ate some bacon tonight (along with some french toast-- I know, I've apparently got my meals backwards), and it stuck with me for today's post-it.



That's some angry bacon, my friends.

Some say butter is the ultimate flavoring aid, but I disagree.

Anger makes everything taste better.

Handlet

Meet Handlet: Prints of Denmark.

Okay. You can quit your groaning now. Handlet is a character which has been buzzing around in my brain for many years. He has taken on several different forms.


A very early sketch indeed.



He's now come to the point where I think he would be a pretty swell comic character-- hence the pudgy rubbery mass at the top of this post. Handlet definitely comes from my love of Shakespeare and puns. Let's face it: No pun, no fun. Am I right?

I've written the first installment of Handlet and am in the process of illustrating it-- in between a few other projects.

So...

More to come on this guy as well as the Kuma commercial in later posts.

Speaking of posts--er--post-its rather. I've decided to put up a daily post-it sketch. Enjoy.

Still Feeling That Monster Mood

Hello to the great people of the Dubbleyoo-Dubbleyoo-Dubbleyoo!

Not much new today. Still recovering from my 24 hour horror movie excursion.
And seeing as it is the month for all things Halloweeny, I thought I'd post some fun sketches I've done of classic movie monsters and such.

Enjoy.Okay, so this last one is not so much of a classic movie monster-- unless he counts as Death from The Seventh Seal.
Not buying it? Okay, neither am I. At least he's enough on the creepy side to fit in.

More on real projects soon. Stay tuned!

Survived the Music Box Massacre!

As I mentioned in a previous post, this afternoon at noon ended the 24 hour horror movie marathon at the Music Box Theatre, also known as The Music Box
Massacre 3.


Here we are experimenting with some creepy mood lighting.The afternoon began with a performance by this band. Sorry, fellas, I didn't catch the name. If anyone out there knows who these guys are, be sure to let me know.


Then came the call to order by our master of ceremonies, Mr. Rusty Nails.
I left the red-eye in for proper effect.

Then the movies started.

Above: 1:45 PM and still going strong. I was apparently beginning to feel the madness setting in-- but I'm used to it. It usually passes after about a half-hour.

Above: Around 10:30 PM. Still good. Still frosty. Still kickin', ladies and gentlemen. Though Nat has shed her contacts for the specs, she's not giving in. She's fightin' the bedtime.

What a trooper.
Above: After the screening of Demons 2 (highly recommended), we got a Q & A with the lovely Ms Coralina Cataldi Tassoni. Prior to that there had been a screening of monster squad (why god why?) and a Q & A with director Fred Dekker. Unfortunately, none of my photos from that portion of the evening came out very well.

Coincidence?
I think not.

For the spirits of the filmic realm were with me in my in my shunning of the Monster Squad-- much to Nat's chagrin.


Above: 7:30 AM. Whoo! We managed to sit through It's Alive.

Above: And finally, our exit at 8:30ish. Okay. So we didn't last the full 24 hours of the marathon. But, I'm getting old and didn't really feel the need to see the Shining again. Don't get me wrong, now-- The Shining is one of my all time favorite horror movies. I was just beaten down.

What a ride. I must say that out of the whole lineup, I found The Cat and The Canary, Freaks, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein's Monster, Peeping Tom, Demons 2, and Deathdream to be some of the films that stick with me the most.

Well, Equinox squeezes in there too. You should see it. You really should.

There were many great trailers for old horror and various grindhouse flicks as well.

Being an animator, I would have loved to have seen the occasional animated short. Now I know that a good scary animation has never been made (at least I've yet to see one), but it would have been great to see just how the characters and ideas of classic horror have permeated pop culture. Give me a Count Chocula commercial, an episode of Duckula. Hell, I'd love to see a big screen print of that Bugs Bunny/ Mad Scientist episode. All great stuff to see. Just something I might suggest to Rusty and the crew for next year's bash. Assuming I'm in shape enough to take the abuse yet again.

Kumaquette

At last, my Kuma golem is complete.

Well, complete enough anyway. Obviously, this is the bust of Kuma which will be used to help visualize the character as I animate. Sure, he may be a bit rough around the edges, but...



...the point is: you really don't wanna mess with this guy.

More maquettes to come. Stay tuned, y'all.

Waitress Design

As promised here's more on that Kuma project. These are some preliminary sketches for one of our waitress characters which Micah drew. Enjoy America.

No.

Enjoy, World!




Oh yeh. Tomorrow begins the 24 hour Music Box Massacre at Chicago's beautiful Music Box Theatre.


Hope to see you there.

Kuma - 1

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Do you smell that? It's that new blog smell. Simultaneously aromatic and pungent.

Well, I won't bore you with what I hope this blog will be. Only time will tell how it shapes up. For now, let's just jump into things.

Meet Kuma. Kuma, as I understand it, is Japanese for bear. Now, those of you who know me know good and well that I don't care enough about the Japanese language to have found that on my own.

No.

I know this because of one of the greatest restaurants in Chicago is named for it. I won't mention it here because it's so good that I don't actually want you to go there. At least not until you see the joy-inducing commercial/love note Micah and I are putting together for them. These are some preliminary sketches, ideas and such. More finalized versions and pencil tests to come. Enjoy.