The Terror of the Blank Page

As I mentioned in my New Year's post, I want to get back to drawing and working on long dormant projects. To say the least this year has been year of changes for me as my family and I moved from sunny Los Angeles (Glendale, CA, actually) to cold, snowy Rochester, New York (we love the change of seasons, so it feels great to be here). But any move is very destructive to creative flow. It takes a while to get settled. I'm still not there yet, but working on it.

But to help thing along I picked it Scott McCloud's "Making Comic" book. It's a fun read and especially for me as a way to get back to basics of drawing for fun, again. Comic art was my first creative love and I miss not doing it. So, I brought a new drawing table and was shocked to realize it's the first I've had in over ten years. I done a lot of storyboard work on company art desks, or just leaning a drawing board on a desk at home (a computer desk, of course).

But what really, as I finished setting the new table the last image of the McCloud book struck me, as being all most cosmic.


In comparison, here my art desk.


Now, all that left is to start. That blank page can be terrorizing. I know a lot of artists go through this (creative dry patchs). For me, it's like having a fear of holding a pencil, again. I know I can draw, I have old drawing to prove it. In, fairness, my creative energies were channeled to my flip books stuff. But, now, I feel it's time to get back to drawing and take it to the next level. I definitely want to explore the digital medium. But, first things, first. The blank paper and a pencil.

Wish me luck,I'll keep you posted.

Happy New Year & New Resolutions

First, I hope everyone had a great holiday season, and here's wishing you a very Happy New Year. It's time for New Year resolutions, again.

I, for one, like to make New York resolutions, if done in a positive way. I see it as just setting new, or revised, goals for yourself after some self reflection. Just, don't beat yourself up if you fall short of your goals. There's always next year. One of the easiest way to gauge yourself is to look at last year's New Year's resolution.

My two resolutions were to revise my blog, and pick up the guitar again. I'm happy to say, I did both pretty well. I've been posting more to this Dragonfly Views blog than my other web sites and really enjoying it. I thank all the people viewing this blog from all over the world. As for the guitar playing, I'm still at it. I play, at least, 10 minutes a day and more when time allows. I've started working on a music project, Warped Sky - Stray Cloud, a combination of songs from old tapes and new renditions of original tunes. Mostly it's for my friends, Richard and Rodney, the old Warped Sky band. But I think I'll post it online at some point.

So, what are this New Year's resolutions? Lets see:

To get back to drawing, for fun, and profit. Generally, put down some of my original ideas in more concrete forms like storyboards, animatics, model sheets, etc. Also, make better use of my website and blog to get the Dragonfly Flipz off the ground. To that end, I'll be offering a download version of some of my Dragonfy Flipz books soon.

I thinks that enough for this year.

Please check in often and I'll keep you posted.

Radio Shack Flip Book Spot

When we saw this new Radio Shack commercial, wife said she thought they got the idea from my Dragonfly Flipz movies. I, of course had nothing to do with the spot. I think it's possible. I've been posting flip book movies for the past year on several sites, so, some agency director may have come across them. But, really I'll never know and that's fine. I like the spot. It's sort of fun that with the camera in phone he didn't just point it at his own face and record the thanks. But, hey, the old school flip book animation made for a better commercial.



What do you think, did I inspire them?

New Yorker Cartoon - RingTales -Dragonfly Web Flipz Book

Here's Dragonfly Web Flipz book inspired by the very funny RingTakes animated versiosn of New Yorker Cartoons I post on youtube. I came across the animated shorts last year and immediately thought they would be great as flip books. It would be like taking the original spot cartoons back to their roots, the printed page, but with a twist. Some of the New Yorker cartoons are very funny in a classic sick, twisted sense of humor.

The youtube movie hasn't gotten many views but, as luck would have, one of the CEOs of RingTales emailed that he like it, so I sent him a copy. I'll keep everyone post on any further developments.

Superman Toon Flipz Book Preview Movie

Back in July, I did a Superman Toon Flipz Limited Edition Book. (You can read the old post for details) I donated a copy for auction at the San Diego Comic Con for the Comic Book Legal Defense group, and a copy was auctioned on Ebay. Well, I decide to expand the book and publish it for sell. I'm planning for a spring release date or maybe for the San Diego Comic Con, at the most. I'll be sure to post more info soon.

This planned revised version will get a new cover (better title type), the group pages in the beginning of the book, four pages on a page, will be enlarged and places on
their own page.





Here's a movie of the Limited Edition version. Please forgive the total butchering of the great sound track and the bad flipping.



I think this has got be the ultimate Superman flip book you'll find anywhere.
Enjoy.

Dragonlance Animated Movie DVD coming Jan.'08

I just came across the listing on Amazon.com for the direct to DVD project I work on last year, Dragonlance: Dragons Of The Autumn Twilight. It's based on the extremely popular Dragonlance series of books and role-playing games by produced by Wizards of the Coast. I was starting to wonder when this was coming out. I storyboarded several sections for director Will Meugniot (his last name is pronounced "Mineo", but you wouldn't know it by the spelling). Will is a great guy and a well rounded, talented, artist/producer/director and a friend. He never stops drawing,..really!! He must thousands of charcter sketches floating around. (He really puts yours truly to shame in that regard) You can check out his ton of credits at his web site storyboardpro.com.

I own a lot to Will, he offered me my first LA animation job on the animated series ExoSquad (come on Universal, release a DVD set of this series, already!), while I was still living in New York City. My first position was as the show's oversea animation supervisor in Seoul, South Korea, than I was tapped to be co-producer for the second season. That position allowed me to move from New York City and the rest,as they say, is history, well...maybe boring personal history.

In any case, look for the DVD and check out Will's site when you get a chance.

Metropolis Cinema Flipz Book

Here's a Dragonfly Cinema Flipz book of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the classic 1927 silent movie. It one of my favorite movies, for the great iconic images in it. You can definitely see the inspiration for Star War's C3PO in the "Maria" Robot.


I did this a several years back using images from a funky, low quality, budget VHS tape. Since then, a really great digital re-mastered, restored authorized edition was released by Kino Video on DVD in 2002. I did a second mini-book Cinema Flipz of scenes from the DVD. (See the book below) I'll have to make a movie of it soon and share it with everyone.


I hope to interest Kino Video in letting me do Dragonfly Cinema Flipz book of their great video releases, especially their silent movie catalog. I think it would be a nice way to introduce these films to a new young movie lovers. I'll keep you posted.

Enjoy.