Why so serious?

Saw The Dark Knight yesterday and I enjoyed it. Without spoiling the movie, here's my quick review. The Joker is seriously psychotic, absolute mad man and Heath Ledger did a brilliant job. His magic act with the pencil made the entire audience cringe(among many other cringe worthy scenes). Overall, I felt the villains in Dark Knight definately improved from the first movie, Batman Begins. The story was epic, the action scenes were equally epic, and the special effects fascinated and horrified me(anyone who has seen it should know who I'm talkin' about). I'm not sure if I prefer it to the first movie, this one certainly had one rollercoaster of a plot that just kept going. All kinds of twists and turns, just when you think the battle is won another battle is unleashed. But the Joker was interesting to watch, his schemes defined villainy and he had some interesting character moments. Anyways, go see it---much darker than the first movie, much much darker.

What do elephants, Groucho Marx, and Batman have in common???

A blog update!


Just playing around in Photoshop. Elephant was drawn at around midnight last night(gotta keep the student sleep schedule alive!) and then colored it digitally. The next one is just a very quick, maybe 20 minute project. I took a screenshot from the most recent Dark Knight trailer and started replicating it--didn't trace or anything, after awhile I started taking my own liberties with it. And any sense of anatomy went right out the window. I was focused on the colors rather than the structure of lets say, an arm. Okay, now that I've reminded myself why I'm more of an animator than color champion, here's a new fangled series of drawings that move----to sound!


I wanted to finish this completely before I posted it, but at this point---I have a million other things that really do need to be finished. A couple weeks ago I decided to pick a random sound clip and animate it. 2 days later I had a Marx brother parrot! I was planning on adding a background(supposed to be a whole gang of pirates behind the Captain and parrot sidekick, foreshadowing an impending mutiny) and even coloring the bird, but I'm moving onto other things. Anyways, aside from some weird compression issues and slight animation hiccups--it's done, well enjoy or go walk that plank!

Came upon this Andrew Stanton interview. Thought others might enjoy it too.

Mr. Distraction

I was brainstorming on film related stuff just now when this feathered clown distracted me. Lone water bottle caps and his own tail feathers are some of his favorite toys. Just need to give him a mini ink bottle and he'd be the regular artist! Packs of painting pacaderms to the infamous "Pigcasso" are popping up on the art scene---why not birds? But why stop there! There's one outlet that is unclaimed territory, but perfect for Kiwi's debut: the blog-o-sphere. haha

Red, White, and DRAW

Had a fantastic Fourth of July. Spent the morning at a local parade with my parents and once we picked a good spot located in the middle of the action we started the game, "Spot the most Patriotic Person." Here are some sketchbook highlights:


A Tie-Dye Santa and his Mrs. Clause were across the street from us. That blanket could have been made from reindeer from what I could tell. Christmas in July?

Variations on Red, White and Blue outfits. I was reminded of Where's Waldo when this guy strolled by.

He's completed unrelated to the other striped individual. I should have drawn that hat MUCH bigger and better. It was 90% hat and about 10% human. Very cute.

This boy caught my eye--check THAT shirt out! Go little Incredible.

And finally---Our "Most Patriotic Person" of the day, spotted in the same vicinity as us:

I was starting to lose faith in the publics' patriotic wardrobe choices when she arrived. Black-fanny pack, crazy-cool pants, red glasses and all---my stars, you just couldn't miss her!