Locke Final Sketches

I reworked the first two sketches a bit and created the last one.

More Locke

Cleaned Designs Slideshow

John Locke

What Killed Saturday Morning Cartoons?

I found this interesting.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/677347/what_killed_saturday_morning_cartoons.html

By Lee Andrew Henderson, published Mar 30, 2008

When I was just a boy I hated school. Teachers, school work, kids other than me. All of these things were annoying. I always had one thing to look forward too though. Saturday Morning cartoons. Unfortunately the days of Saturday Morning cartoons are now dead. Every once in a while I'll hear people wonder, "Whatever happened to Saturday morning cartoons?" Well I am here to answer that question. These are the eight reasons that Saturday morning cartoons are a thing of the past.

Saturday Morning Cartoons are Dead Because Kids Grow Up Faster
In the year 2007 kids grow up faster than they did in 1987. Not grow up faster physically, most kids I know are twerps. But the kids now face things in the real world at a much younger age. They grow up so fast that it is no longer cool to watch cartoons once you're 10 years old.

Saturday Morning Cartoons are Dead Because Cartoons are For Adults
If you think about a lot of the cartoons beings made, most of them are being made for adults. Shows like the Simpsons, Family Guy and Futurama are not for young kids.

Saturday Morning Cartoons are Dead Because of Home Video Popularity
If you think back to when you were a kid, assuming you weren't a kid like five years ago then home videos were probably not as huge as they are today. Sure you probably had a video or two that you liked but now kids are practically raised on videos rather than Saturday morning cartoons.

Saturday Morning Cartoons are Dead Because of Cartoon Network, Disney and Nickelodeon
Thanks to Disney, Nickelodeon and especially Cartoon Network, there are cartoons on every hour of the day, every day of the week. Saturday morning is no longer the only time of the week that cartoons are available.

Saturday Morning Cartoons are Dead Because of the Internet
The internet offers some great things and so bad things. One of the good things about the internet is if you want cartoons you can find them somewhere at any time. Try going to YouTube and search for your favorite cartoon. Chances are you'll find a couple of episodes or at the very least a few clips.

Saturday Morning Cartoons are Dead Because of the Federal Communications Commission:
The Federal Communications Commission requires that every broadcast station in the United State show at least three hours of educational and informative television every week. Networks aren't going to show these programs during the day while kids aren't at home and they aren't going to air them at night instead of their prime time shows. So they put them on Saturday mornings instead of cartoons.

Saturday Morning Cartoons are Dead Because of Japanese Anime:
Networks are getting lazy. Once they saw that Japanese Anime was popular they decided to just steal a bunch of Japanese Animes instead of making their own cartoons. Unfortunately most animes aren't kids shows so they don'ot come on Saturday mornings.

Saturday Moring Cartoons are Dead Because of Video Games:
When I was 7 years old Saturday morning consisted of Transformers and G. I. Joe on the television. By the time I was 10 years old Saturday morning was spent with the Super Nintendo and Genesis. The video game industry increases more and more every year and kids are replacing Scooby Doo and Fred Flinstone with Mario and Zelda.

More Locke

My Lost blog that I created with a group of on-line friends.

http://lostroom23.blogspot.com/

More of John Locke

Freelance Job

Someone from my church is paying me to create an ad for his company that creates License plate holders that can be affixed to the front of a car. He likes the lower image better, so Im going to clean it up and insert text.

Lost: Locke Roughs

One of my favorate shows is Lost. My current portfolio project is creating a character out of John Locke on Lost. I visit the talkbacks at Ain't It Cool from time to time to discuss Lost.

http://www.aintitcool.com/talkback_display/36074#comment_1969919

Locke in Action

Transformer in Color

I spent this week cleaning up and coloring one of my Transformer drawings in Adobe Illustrator.

Armadillo Sketches Illustrated in Pastel

Armadillo Sketches Illustrated in Pastel

Book Illustration Inspiration: N. C. Wyeth

I love N. C. Wyeth. After my son Ben & I finished reading Wizard of Oz & Beezus & Ramona I choose Treasure Island to read to him. While looking for the book we found the regular one that we are reading out of with ok illustrations, but I also noticed on for younger kids with N. C. Wyeth's awsome Treasure Island illustrations. So of course I had to get it also! I love his use of Color and composition. He really inspires me.

Book Illustration Inspiration: W. W. Denslow

I have recently finished reading The Wizard to my five year old Ben. I really love the original illustrations by W. W. Denslow. Its such a quaint and fun style of illustration. I have a few other projects that I want to get to, but once those are finished I plan on doing some designs of two or three of the characters from Wicked adapting W. W. Denslows style.

New Computer Monitor Cleaning Program

Cut & paste the adress into the adress box.

http://cache.valleywag.com/assets/resources/screenclean.swf

Star Wars according to a 3 year old.

Transfomation

Vehicle Mode

Transformation

Pass 20


Pass 21

Thoughts on The Spiderwick Chronicles movie

I enjoyed this movie. What makes it so great is that like Narnia, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, it uses real life events and emotion to ground itself in reality. The heart of the story revolves around a recently divorced Mother with a teenage girl Mallory and twin boys Jarod & Simon. The story mostly focuses on Jarod who is having a really hard time adjusting to the divorcé. I won't spoil it but there’s a nice resolution to his feelings in the final battle.

But this is a Fantasy movie after all so let’s talk about that aspect. Jarod finds a book in a secret room in the house that they moved into that belongs to an ancestor Arthur Spiderwick. There of course is a warning that says don't read the book and of course he does. Arthur Spiderwick found out about a secret world of Goblins, Fairies and other creatures that can only be seen if the creature wants you to see them or if you use a special stone with a hole in it.

I thought that the creatures were well animated and the characters fun. The camera angles, shot and lighting where well thought out. There were a few things that I was disappointed about. I thought that while everything was understandable it was a little rushed and was looking near the end for a set up for the next book in the series. But when I looked on Wikipedia I found out that they had condensed all five books into one movie. But it was well done I thought. I kind of wish they would have made it a series, but I guess with how badly some other fantasy movies have been I guess that they didn't have faith in it.

I was also disappointed with how the main boss was killed; I thought that it was a little improbable. But all in all I enjoyed the movie and was left wanting more, which in this case was a good thing.

Crouching

Pass 19

Action Poses

Lots of Transformers

Pass 13 -16 It takes a lot of different drawings for a designer to figure out wht the character will look like.

Labyrinth

Recently I recieved a copy for Christmas of Labyrinth at an after Thanksgiving sale at Best Buy for $4. It brings back a lot of memories. Its a total 80's movie with the Synthetic keyboard music, the dated but still really cool effects, Jennifer Conolly at 14 years old and of course David Bowie and his music. I remember as a kid being amazed at the scene where The Gobin King (David Bowie) makes the crystal ball move around his fingers with out falling to the ground. Watching the Behind the scenes feature I found out that a juggler stood behind him and that was actually the fugglers arm that we see doing the cool trick. I also loved the Esler scene at the end with the stairways and how the Gobin Kings is upside down and then flips up to a different level. Mostly I like all of the awsome Jim Henson puppets. Such artistry, The design actually reminds me of an artist named James Christianson and his style. The poster at top is great also.

Refinement Process

Pass 11

Pass 12

More thoughts on Wicked

I didn't mention some of the great supporting roles and other odds and ends that I loved. Joanne Worley played Madame Morrible in our showing and gave an excelent performance. Very sneaky, seems nice at first and then as she rises in power her real stripes apear, very Wicked. Another great character, though very briefly was Dr. Dillamund, very good about propelling the story forward. Lastly I just loved Fiyero, It was really fun watching him interact with Galinda as an airhead. But then as the play progressed he became more thoughtful and grew to love Elphaba.