Tom's Art Adventures

I came across these video clips on a back up drive and they don’t really have a place to live on my website, so I thought I’d share them here. I had a hand in each of them as an animator and/or artist. They each have their own “rarity” as stand-alones.

This clip represents the ‘tag’ of a series of commercials in the late 1990s, just a few seconds of animation strarring Manny, Moe and Jack of the “Pep Boys” fame. Colleague and friend Ricardo Barahona animated Manny and I animated Moe and Jack.

Here’s one of the funny commercials the animation was used in:

Now this is a piece that was an experiment using Lightwave 3D 7.0 back in 2001. Again Ricardo helped on this, creating the art and cycling cow animation. I then took his art and created displacements to give it a 2 1/2 D look, animated the camera and animated the assets. Today, After Effects could have been the appropriate software to use. Another friend and colleague Michael Baker designed the audio track. And yes, I used a simple title from imovie at the end.

This next clip represents a title sequence for the feature film “Valley of the Hearts Delight” directed by Tim Boxell. I worked with Alligator Planet, Inc. and designed the backgrounds. They were digitally painted by Siri Margerine, Scott Adams and myself, giving them the fruit crate art stylization. When the film was screened for a focus group, the audience thought they were going to see an animated feature. It was then decided to go without the art in the final release of the film.

Well, this was fun. I’ll post another installment of clips from the archive soon.

-Tom

Earlier this year, I got the opportunity to work with the folks at Alligator Planet on another project. Their client was Blekko, the newest in web search engines. The task was to create a series of “Bazooka Joe” style comics. The idea was to promote in simple terms the usefulness and functionality of the Blekko search engine using Slash Tags with these fun, retro-style comics.

My 3 entries were co-written by friend and colleague Michael baker, and here they are:

Not too much, myself. I did this one recently as I revisited “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” on streaming Netflix. Yeah, I am a nerd. It isn’t pushing the caricature aspect at all, but I did discover that I was able to get a better likeness through this process.

And because it’s been nearly a whole two months since my last post, thought I’d share this one that I’ve been working off and on for a bit now.

What a fantastic turn out! The crowd was wall to wall and the pockets were deep! There were some exciting live auction battles that went on to cap off the night. We really appreciate all who donated and participated. I was so proud to be part of yet another successful effort.

As said on the Maverix Studios Blog:

“…All together as ONE , we raised $30,605, well over our initial goal for the cause.
Considering we only had a few weeks to prepare, it is an amazing success!”

Here are some shots of  before and during the auction at Super Frog Gallery space:

One_Art_Auction

All the best,

Tom

Here’s my contribution to the Japan Relief Art Auction. Follow the Maverix News Blog for updates on the show and see the lovely art as it comes in.

…Are in need of much assistance. It’s a staggering disaster that has occurred there and we in the Bay Area know all too well that it can and will likely happen here. So we can lend a hand and express a solidarity, “ONE”, if you will to those in need. We’re going to do just that. Maverix Studios  is holding an Art Auction Benefit to help raise funds for relief efforts in Japan. If you are in San Francisco on April 2nd please do stop by and make a purchase for the cause! There’s going to be a lot of great artist’s donating, so read the list below and get a preview of the names and who they represent in the industry and come join us at the great Super Frog Gallery location.

Here’s a link to New People and the Super Frog Gallery:

http://www.newpeopleworld.com/2011/03/30/hitotsu-as-in-one/

I’ll be posting my donation here soon.

All the best,

Tom

Another lovely young lady has made her appearance and just in time for the big cold snap we had in the Bay Area recently. This memory exercise never looses its charm or challenge for me. This year she made her appearance in a cafe, and you’d think well, just do a cafe sketch – from life, right? Could have been the way to go, especially since that method might have gotten her attention while I scrutinized her for the session, peak her curiosity to walk over and have a look at the drawing. A chance to meet a good-looking girl, right? Right? No, not this dumb guy, I’m never that prepared — hence the “drawing from memory” thing.

So, she was in this cafe in San Francisco on a cold afternoon last week. She found a place near the fireplace. Lucky her, a prime spot. Lucky me that I happened to be facing the right way while eating lunch with a friend. She was quite distracted, looking out the window across the cafe to see if her friend was going to show up. When her friend (a slightly older woman) did show up, they both just chatted away and sipped their lattes. Here then, is the glorious memory of Winter Girl in the San Francisco cafe.

There’s an inspiring group of organizers The Picture Book Project Foundation and The Hopkins Foundation that have launched this worthy effort to build a Children’s Home in Ghana. With contributions from the Animation and Illustration industries, there is no doubt that they will accomplish the goal. I urge you to visit the blog site to get info on how you can help and view all the fabulous art that’s being produced for the cause:

Art Blocks for Ghana

Because I’ve been a part of so many other worthy charity benefits at Maverix Studios, I know how good it feels when a successful event is achieved, and I couldn’t pass on the chance to be involved. I really appreciate being a part of it and I am excited to share an image of my contribution.

Acrylic on 8"x8" wood block

I wish the all best for this wonderful charity effort and thanks for peeking in on this post folks!

Tom

A month or so ago I had watched a film from the early 90s, “Single White Female” and got the urge to do a drawing of one of the actresses. I wasn’t inspired by the film itself (pretty formulaic as films of that particular genre can be), but more by the youthful beauty therein. I looked for images of both Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh online and came across a striking photo of Bridget and opted to draw her. I wanted an opportunity to use some custom Photoshop brushes offered on Chris Wahl’s blog. Here she is:

Sketchbook Pro & Photoshop CS3

Another young performer recently caught my attention on the TV show “Mad Men”. Caity Lotz is a singer, dancer, actress and…stunt woman! I was surprised to find that out about her as I sought out images of her online. The inspiration to draw her was when I found a particular photograph that I thought would interpret well in pencil. So, I got my pencils out and rendered this:

HB mechanical pencil on acid free sketch pad

And last, but not least is Laura Vandervoort,”Supergirl” on the SmallVille TV show and also star on the Sci-Fi show “V”. This was done in Photoshop, again using Chris Wahl brushes. I joined in on a Drawingboard.org thread where a variety of artists are contributing their versions of the blonde beauty. Here’s my contribution:

Photoshop CS3

And there you have it. Another set of female celebrities that frankly, offer decent challenges in practicing likeness in a portrait and feeds the craving for viewing more lovelies of the opposite sex.